LJ Idol Presents:

Frist!

From:

ellakite.livejournal.com

You

Are

*DEAD*

To

Me!

have a cookie.

From:

Happy 1st! AW

From:

ellakite.livejournal.com

... 'cause I have just three words for you:

Admiral Grace Hopper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper).

PS: ~~FRIST!~~ DAGNABBIT!

Edited Date: 2014-10-24 06:30 am (UTC)

From:

ryl.livejournal.com

I'll see your Admiral Hopper and raise you an Ada Lovelace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace).

From:

alycewilson.livejournal.com

About the issue of being "doxxed," I think that we're rapidly entering a world where it's going to be next to impossible to keep everything out of the public eye that we want to. I guess the real question is: what strategies should people follow in order to cope with such situations when they do happen?

From:

Ellakite was too fast for me-- by the time I read the article and got back here, he'd hit me with the deadness! And the cookie, which kind of makes up for it.

I'm used to being someone who doesn't fit the typical model for women. Apparently, I don't fit the typical model for atypical women either. Or something.

I date from the era before PCs, but I liked math and science a lot, and wound up in computer science as my second career.

There still weren't and aren't a lot of women in the field. But when I started out, one of my coworkers had been a psychology major much as I'd been a music major. People sometimes drift where they find an affinity.

And for the women in my Computer Science masters' program, when the professor asked if we'd been encouraged in math and science... the answer for every one of us except the exchange student from Taiwan was "No." "So, why are you here?" he asked. "We didn't listen!"

From:

I was a kid in the PC era. Computer science is my second(ish) career, although I've been working as a programmer since I was 28 or 29, so it wasn't a change I made super late in life. I am used to working with all guys. My current group has another female programmer in it. This is the first time in my 12 (!!!) years as a programmer when I have worked in the same group as another female programmer. And she's fucking amazing.

I was a psych major and went as far as working on an inpatient psych unit for about 2 years. I was going to go back and get a graduate degree (since you need one to do anything with a psych degree), but in the interim I decided I was not in the right field. The world is probably a better place without me as a therapist.

A lot of my formative years were during the whole "We girls can do anything" Barbie commercials and my mom, for all her faults, went back to school and became a lawyer while I was growing. Doesn't make her a better person, but I assumed as a female I could do whatever I pleased. Coming from a privileged background probably did not hurt in that respect.

From:

I have a psych degree, and yep. Lots of people don't realize there's not a lot you can do without further degrees. One of my friends basically asked why I didn't just go be a psychologist, and I told her I needed a few more years of schooling and another shiny piece of paper for that! ;)

From:

waltzmatildah.livejournal.com

Nine years and two post graduate degrees later... I'm a doctor of clinical psychology. They did NOT tell me at the start it was gonna take that long!! (Admittedly, the second post grad degree wasn't ~totally necessary! But even without it, it would have been seven years and then another of supervised practice for clinical endorsement). NUTS, I SAY!!!

From:

I can't imagine e sitting in school that long....and having those bills...you're brave! AW

From:

waltzmatildah.livejournal.com

I'm in Australia. THEY paid ME to do my post grad degrees. I only had to pay student union fees, which were about $75 per semester. I had to pay for undergrad. (first 4 of those 9 years) but it's NOTHING like elsewhere/the USA (so I believe).

But the sitting in class part I totally did all by myself :)

From:

OMGGG, that's pretty intense!!

From:

My mother was herself a doctor and had to fight hard to get there, so I had a great example at home.

What was funny was my nephew trying to tell me about how his engineering classmates assumed he was some skater-slacker, and were surprised to find out he was actually smart.

Dude. WOMAN in the sciences--thirty years ago (my math minor when I was a music undergrad).

Just, really?

From:

Hahaaha... seriously. Poor kid, we know how hard it is for you in a world of people who can't see you clearly because of your stupid hair and your predilection for hacky-sacks (do those even exist anymore?).

Says the chick with purple hair, but I did that knowing people would make assumptions.

From:

Yeah-- he's a sweet kid, but this is textbook male privilege. People are mean to you based on a style of dress you've chosen... as opposed to traits you cannot change, like skin color or gender. *eyeroll*

From:

Awesome story! AW

From:

favoritebean.livejournal.com

So I don't think we had a PC in the house until I was a teenager, and the idea of going into computer science wasn't encouraged for women at all then, but schools were reaching out with the idea of recruiting engineers.With that in mind though, our math and (some) science teachers were very much chauvinists in the classroom, and it caused many of us to write off the idea of even going into the maths and sciences for a career. I couldn't imagine what it was like in that school even a decade before.

I ended up pursuing a career in the performing arts, but there are plenty of computer scientists in the family, one is even a professor.

I haven't asked them their thoughts about gamer gate at all, but I have asked the engineer spouse about it a little. It's really a colossal problem though, especially given that universities have been heavily trying to recruit women into the world of computer science. So I guess I'm looking at it from the developer side.

I think it's personally shitty how women are being singled out for speaking up about gamer gate. Doxxing shows poor sportsmanship and doxxing women for speaking out against the blatant sexism in the gaming industry shows that we have a long way to go to make things right in the world of gaming.

/long response.

From:

jexia

I have an Honours degree in Computer Science (though I've been out of the workforce for four years. YAY twins). I was one of two females in the Honours program, along with 40 guys.

I have SO many stories about assumptions and biases.

But I also have a stinking headache, so maybe another time.

From:

Funny thing, there. I went back to school for Computer Science (night school) while already working in the field. My peers assumed I knew what I was doing once they knew I already worked as a programmer. I am Teacher Kryptonite for some reason and teachers pretty much are always nice to me. I worked with nothing but guys for almost a decade and seriously kind of believed the gender bias did not exist, because I never saw any evidence of it in my life.

And then I had a child. Oh my fucking god.

From:

tonithegreat.livejournal.com

Yes. This. Same in law. If you're single you can be one of the boys. Once you've bred people start making unfair assumptions about your priorities.

From:

It was a pretty earthshaking realization for me. I didn't breed until I was 34. I was in management in a male-dominated field. It was... you know, on top of learning to be a mom and hormones and juggling all of that with work, to figure out you have been wrong about most of what you believed about the way the world worked? Yeah.

On a First-World Problem Trauma Scale of 1 to 10, I rate it about an 11.

From:

whipchick.livejournal.com

Lots of us writing fairy tale/fairy tale inspired work -

https://roseredreview.submittable.com/submit

submissions open up again in a bit, so maybe think about something to send them!

From:

xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com

Ooh, thanks for the heads up!

From:

clauderainsrm.livejournal.com

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm

Edited Date: 2014-10-24 01:26 pm (UTC)

From:

I'm looking at that article as a difference in education then and now....teaching people who probably have zero or very little prior knowledge versus assuming "You people should know this by now!" Not if you're from a background of lesser opportunity or have special needs. I hate that assumption and wanted to smack that prof in the teeth. Even in college, you are there to learn. You pay big money to learn. Intro means "intro"!
Ok. Little rant is over.......

AW

From:

So my mother texted me with her outfit choice for the Renaissance Festival tomorrow - she found an old fashioned blue jean dress that is 10 times too big for her for $4 at Salvation Army, and she is going to wear it over her clothes until it gets too hot.

She also offered to bring an old clown costume that I used freshman year of high school in drama for me to wear.

From:

o_O

Your mother doesn't quite get the concept of the Renaissance, does she?

Even denim is not really period (and yes, it is ungodly hot-- color AND fabric), but a clown costume?

Or maybe she's just yanking your chain. ;)

From:

Our festival is a very open one and they aren't sticklers for accuracy. It's Halloween weekend and they expressly say all costumes are welcome. They also have a Time Travel weekend where they encourage people to cosplay as anything they want, from steampunk to Star Trek.

So it's not a huge faux pas like it would be at stricter festivals.

And no, my mother does not understand the Renaissance. She just knows that when she went last year she saw people "dressed up all crazy-like", and she wanted to participate.

She is my mother, after all. ;)

Edited Date: 2014-10-25 12:47 am (UTC)

From:

Wowwwww... do you ever wonder if you were secretly adopted?

From:

When I was in the hospital with the ulcer, she dropped by my office to talk to my coworkers without informing me of her plans to do that.

The coworker who told me about it later was gasping for air she was laughing so hard. She said that everyone was wondering if I was adopted.

But nope, I wasn't. I've seen pictures of her pregnant with me.

From:

My mom is downright awful, but I doubt anyone would question we're related because we have far too much in common. Yours is just... yeah. I'm sorry. <3

From:

reckless-blues.livejournal.com

Ah, yes, misogyny. Do I get to go on an only-slightly-related rant?

Good!

I think doctors and nurses need to be instructed politically when they learn beside manner. By that I don't mean no one should get a job unless they're a Communist Party member, but they need to know how all of society's -isms are getting in the way of effective care, because it's really starting to piss me off.

Women get the worst of it (as usual). I hear all these stories about breast cancer - young women get told they won't recommend a lifesaving mastectomy until they get married (as if they don't already get the message that their worth as a human being is directly proportional to how nice they look in a tight sweater, and as if they can't make decisions about their bodies themselves) - and in some cases doctors will bring the patient's husband or son in and tell *them* about her surgical options. (One anecdote I heard involved a teenage boy who was just thrilled to be appointed authority over his mother's breasts.)

This is terrible care! First of all, if a patient needs a mastectomy ... well, I know next to nothing about oncology and whether this should be done as soon as possible, but BRCA mutation carriers will even get mastectomies as preventative care, and I'm willing to bet that at least once a single woman's life has been put in danger because medical professionals thought Save the Boobies was an actual priority in the face of human suffering. Second of all, medicine already makes patients feel uncomfortable and dehumanized and it might be nice if you worked to mitigate that. I even hear about doctors saying outrageous things, and so casually, one woman straight-up got told that after a mastectomy "no one will want you." Yes, please don't give the patient deep emotional scars, thank you.

My friend wanted her tubes tied and the doctor told her that some day she'll meet a man and her life will be centered around having babies ... she tore him a new asshole. Bless her.

(*edits comment to fix raeg grammar*)

Edited Date: 2014-10-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

From:

OMG, fuck the whole "save the tatas" thing, too. SAVE THE PERSON.

From:

Seriously!

From:

lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com

I honestly think that things are getting better - we're more aware than ever of these problems, the cultural shift has happened so that we actually think they are problems, and a lot of different people are working to help fix things (grants for women and minorities who want to attend hacker school, stuff like that).

I see GamerGate as the death throes of an insular group terrified of criticism (like the kind from actual critics, like Anita Sarkeesian) or having to change their definition of "good" so that they can be better and different than what they are now. It'll pass. But damn, it's hard being in the middle of change. Which is sort of tricky, since the world is change on a continuum without a specific end state, really.

From:

reckless-blues.livejournal.com

I think one of these days a woman is actually going to get killed and then this "movement" will either come to its senses and peter out or it'll get galvanized. Though everything about that is frightening.

From:

veronica-rich.livejournal.com

It's hard to say just why people would feel compelled to tell Felicia Day that particularly, in response to the content of what actually happened to her. I'm guessing there were some, especially women, who used that particular thing in an attempt to cheer her up or make her feel better, in case she read it. No, most of what we post online will never, ever been seen by the celebrity it's about/aimed toward ... but I suppose there's always that one chance.

(And what the hell IS "doxxed?" I'm guessing by context it's short for "documented" as in "we've put your personal documents/info/etc. online?")

From:

Yep, that's what doxxing is. Finding out people's addresses and stuff like that and publishing them.

From:

Uhm... has anyone been following the school shooting in Washington State...

It's starting to tie in with our topic... and it's really bothering me that it is...

seems he may have had an argument with another boy over a girl. The fifteen year old shooter killed himself, a female student is dead and there are four more injured.

From:

It's heartbreaking...

From:

favoritebean.livejournal.com

Oh geez. This is the first I've heard about it. I wish these shootings weren't becoming common occurrences. As a mother, I fear the repercussions we face if we continue to ignore the growing problem.

From:

I feel the same way. We as a nation are becoming desensitized to the violence, particularly the gun violence, children are perpetrating. This is the seventy fifth school shooting since Sandy Hook I think and America hasn't done a damn thing except SELL more guns! Grrrrr.

From:

That was about an hour north of me. 0_o

From:

emo-snal.livejournal.com

I am opposed to cryptic status updates and even worse, longer posts that assume the reader knows information that is obscure and not present in the entry. For example. What the flying monkey devil does "doxxed" mean? You even yourself note you didn't know what it meant before "just know" so why should I, who lives under a rock, know what it is? Lacking that information the rest of this post makes no sense whatsoever. I can't even sort it out from context. As such, this is the face I am making: >:(

From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

From:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=doxxed

;-)

From:

By the way, i'm not against guns, I believe in hunting, but not for sport and eating what you kill. I fed my kids many venison burgers and meatballs and such that kept us going a few winters. I don't want guns taken away either, I'd just like background checks and enforcement of the rules we do have, well and the repeal of open carry, because it just invites violence.

From:

Yeah, um. I own a gun (locked in a safe with the bullets not in it but also in the safe) and while I don't hunt, I'm fine with it in theory as long as you're not just killing animals for a head on your wall or whatever. I know how to fire the gun and have practiced with it but would probably never use it unless there was a zombie apocalypse or something.

I am fine with background checks, enforcement, and getting rid of open carry. My guess is that none of those things would have helped in this particular situation (Marysville) but I have yet to hear a good reason we need open carry.

What I don't get is the psychology behind it. Why didn't this happen when I was a kid? People owned guns; there weren't a ton of gun control laws as far as I'm aware (I grew up in the South and you have been able to open carry here all my life, not that I have ever seen many people do it). What the hell is happening?

From:

Maybe there IS an actual link between violence today and violence portrayed onscreen and in video games.

All I know is that we can't keep throwing more guns at the problem... but of course the first step is to get people in this apathetic, lazy-ass country, to admit there is one.

I have no problems with responsible gun owners and users. I'm tired of the irresponsibility that allows such a powerful tool/weapon to be so easily placed in the hands of our children and mentally ill.

Those who pervert their proper use for protection and the feeding of family, for power-tripping destruction and hate are the ones who piss me off the most.

Not you sweetie. :)

From:

If I came off as defensive or anything, I'm really sorry! I knew you didn't mean me. Most people I've talked to who are calling for gun control just want tighter enforcement, not criminalization of all gun ownership.

But I mean, wanting to ban private gun ownership is a valid opinion to have, too--even if the Second Amendment was really meant to entitle private citizens to own guns (I know some people believe it was not meant that way), it doesn't mean that over 200 years later, with a country this size, it's still a good idea. I'm not really one of those "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" gun owners. Although I live in the South, so I know some. XD

I think it's definitely worth considering how we can prevent guns from falling into the hands of, well, teenagers, for one. How and why are kids getting these guns and then managing to smuggle them into school? I mean, one pretty decent argument for complete banning of private gun ownership (which I know is not what you advocated above) is that it might make it harder for minors to obtain guns. Well, some minors in some areas. Maybe?

The mental illness thing is such a hard issue. I mean, how do you judge whether someone is mentally ill? I'm about six flavors of nuts, but I'm not likely to get violent with anyone. You could go by documented history of violent behavior, but does that end up being perverted the way the sex offender laws have?

I'm totally rambling, sorry. I just think there are so many layers because the fact of these shootings means there is something really broken in this country and I have no idea how to fix it. It almost feels like a really extreme change like outlawing private gun ownership is the only thing that would do much, unless we can find and fix the underlying causes.

From:

Agreed... there are many layers to this onion.

huggz... am having router troubles if I don't ramble back!

From: