I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women.
I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible.
Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things.
Fact: as a result, women are uncomfortable working as software engineers. We know this because many blog posts state this discomfort explicitly. Your niece, unfortunately, may experience this if she decides to work as a software engineer.
Fact: we see similar grants for college attendance; these grants attempt to fight various socioeconomic factors ("old boys networks," among other things) that may prevent underrepresented groups from attending prestigious colleges.
Would you feel comfortable offering such a sexist grant to men only?
Obviously not. Why? Because, as the above facts illustrate, this grant attempts to address the sexism women face in our industry.
The Hacker School team can't drive around and hit every sexist idiot with a bit of reality, but they can try to provide an antidote to this sexism by (a) alleviating financial concerns for aspiring women engineers, and (b) providing a guaranteed non-sexist zone for them to practice their craft.
I can see how one might argue that this grant selects on behalf of gender, thus giving it an "affirmative action" flavor. That person, however, might want to present an argument slightly more nuanced than "THIS GRANT IS SEXIST ZOMGGGGGG," like you've done. You may want to try again.
(Also, a fact for those finding this via Twitter: Jerry does not represent the entirety of HN. (I'm waiting for Danilo Campos to join in, he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech.))
(Also also, while I believe with all of my being that you're wrong about this, I didn't downvote you, because your comment fosters some good discussion (in a roundabout, totally unintentional way).)
There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.
That I do not agree with any form of sexism makes me egalitarian, not misogynistic. You are way out of line, bub.
And while I do not know Danilo Campos or whether he/she is eager to grasp the role you assign, the notion there is some person whose role it is to police the discussions at Hacker News to whack people with sticks that disagree with him is well, downright creepy.
Not a way to run a discussion forum if one is interested in dialogue, and conversation.
There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.
That's a very uncharitable reading of my comment. I made no statement about you aside from the lack of nuance in your argument (the whole zomg part). I think you took issue with this:
he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech
which was simply a comment on how Danilo provides people with a reality check re: the prevalence of misogyny in tech.
I raised that point b/c people on Twitter were characterizing your remarks as representative of HN as a whole, when in practice I've found that we debate this issue carefully (again, as opposed to your blanket statement calling them sexist).
I went out of my way to avoid characterizing you as misogynistic. I apologize if my comment may have implied you're misogynistic (I don't know you, though, so why would I throw that claim around?) and would appreciate it if you instead responded to my actual claims (HSchool's scholarship is an attempt to combat the presence of sexism in our industry).
I raised that point b/c people on Twitter were characterizing your remarks as representative of HN as a whole, when in practice I've found that we debate this issue carefully (again, as opposed to your blanket statement calling them sexist).
I suggest you address twitter issues on twitter. HN issues on HN. I don't see how replying on HN to me with a shoutout to twitter, helps any conversation on twitter.
And any conversation on twitter that represents HN as monolithic in thought, or unable to debate issues thoroughly is prima facie not-serious, (that is, until you tell me of some person you believe whose self-assigned role it is to go around enforcing thought at HN with a whack and a stick.)
I can't begin to tell you how creeped out I am that there are twitter stalkers commenting about this article or my response on twitter, drawing conclusions, saying who knows what based on zero knowledge and yet afraid to discuss the issues here.
I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible.
Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things.
Fact: as a result, women are uncomfortable working as software engineers. We know this because many blog posts state this discomfort explicitly. Your niece, unfortunately, may experience this if she decides to work as a software engineer.
Fact: we see similar grants for college attendance; these grants attempt to fight various socioeconomic factors ("old boys networks," among other things) that may prevent underrepresented groups from attending prestigious colleges.
Would you feel comfortable offering such a sexist grant to men only?
Obviously not. Why? Because, as the above facts illustrate, this grant attempts to address the sexism women face in our industry.
The Hacker School team can't drive around and hit every sexist idiot with a bit of reality, but they can try to provide an antidote to this sexism by (a) alleviating financial concerns for aspiring women engineers, and (b) providing a guaranteed non-sexist zone for them to practice their craft.
I can see how one might argue that this grant selects on behalf of gender, thus giving it an "affirmative action" flavor. That person, however, might want to present an argument slightly more nuanced than "THIS GRANT IS SEXIST ZOMGGGGGG," like you've done. You may want to try again.
(Also, a fact for those finding this via Twitter: Jerry does not represent the entirety of HN. (I'm waiting for Danilo Campos to join in, he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech.))
(Also also, while I believe with all of my being that you're wrong about this, I didn't downvote you, because your comment fosters some good discussion (in a roundabout, totally unintentional way).)