...wherein the narrator believes he has brought a woman to life, Frankenstein-style, and is teaching her about the world, but at the end it turns out that he was a fantasist and Bella is only odd to him because she is a modern independent woman (a suffragette, etc), and he is mired in the past.
Hahahah! You're one lucky guy! I have always known teaching someone programming is pretty simple (I managed to teach simple C++ to my 9-yr-old sister and also to my 74-yr-old Granny). But it was easier to teach them because my sister was too young to have the "I'll never understand that" barrier and my granny just loved the attention i was giving her so she put all her effort into learning what i was teaching her.
So can I teach it to my girlfriend? Probably not. Partially because she's technologically challenged (she's cute that way) and as a medical student she already has tons on her plate.
But I must say I share your dreams of having a girl with whom I could discuss tech stuff the same way i discuss it with my friends
Exactly, being "technologically challenged" isn't a bad thing, it just means you spent a lot of time in completely different areas. Technology isn't something special, it's just "yet another thing" that can be learned.
I apologize if that came of as rude. By no way do i think of her as Dumb. (heck she's becoming a doctor! She studies like 5 times as hard as me!) I just meant she isn't that tech-savy (she's too cute to use the words "tag" and "compress" :P) But that doesn't mean she CAN'T learn. Heck she's a VERY fast learner when she WANTS to learn something. And i was just stating my own case not a general rule :) I have taughts tons of people programming too on an academic basis and they turned out to be great developers later on
Why not discuss medical stuff with your girlfriend? If you don't know enough about medicine to hold a discussion with her, you can ask her to teach you.
Oh we do have medical discussions =) i find it very fascinating. In fact whenever she is studying for some big test, i usually help her with that by listening to her explaining everything to me.
It's not that all he wants to talk about is programming, but he's passionate about it, and isn't it entirely common for people to want mates who share their passions?
This is kind of like the ways I have helped my boyfriend learn programming except for how it is hopelessly mired in the idea that programmers are guys who have cutely technologically impaired girlfriends.
EDIT: Fine, if you read into the preface where he talks about his programmer friends I guess they are all male. That's hardly hopelessly mired, it's more like an unfortunate choice of description. I bet the author would assume women programmers feel the exact same way about their partners as well.
It's heavily implied in the language of the article. Chances are you're right, and if we asked the author of the article, he might say that: yeah, it works both ways, and this is just his experience.
The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is still the norm, and it would be great if we could be recognised as equals, and not for us to be expected to assume it in the face of exclusion.
Language is important, because it affects how we perceive one another. So jacalata's comment serves as a polite critisism. Women are people too, and you all know that, but sometimes some folks need to be reminded to reflect that in their language.
So you state that from your POV his language reflected that women are not people too ??? That is really great, that you had to make a throw away account to put that out there, it reflects a lot about you trying to raise issue with something you create a strawman for on the first line of your comment. "If we asked the author..." and than you present an imaginary author giving an 'apology'. That is abysmally poor and you had to protect your regular account because of it.
In no way does he ever objectify his girlfriend and you just project to no end. Where does he exclude "the idea of female programmers completely". Maybe in the same way that he excludes the idea of "dead rhinos", because it isn't the point. The point his, he is excited about his girlfriend wanting him to teach her about programming and wrote about it. Go rain on someone elses parade.
To your other point, there is nothing polite about insulting others with sexist labels. The 'polite criticism reminds people woman are people too' tirade... ending with the "and you all know that"/"some folks", is just priceless and telling passive aggressive form after preaching against the bad male sexist programmer that should watch his language.
Well, this happened to be my first comment; not a throwaway account.
I was attempting to be fair to the author, assuming his best intentions. A strawman on my part would have been to assume the worst intentions of the author.
Nowhere did I claim the author was objectifying his girlfriend. Who is projecting here, exactly?
Sexist labels? Tirade? I wasn't upset in my comment at all, nor did I label anyone. You seem to be offended, but you have failed to describe why, or to ask for explanation on my part. You have accused and judged me without quantifying your arguments in the slightest. I hope you didn't see my comment as an attack on yourself, or an attack on men, as feminist arguments are often mistaken to be). I'm sorry if I offended you, but I think I deserve a more fair and constructive dialogue than the one you've provided.
It's out of place that you try to insinuate others are angry after using so much passive aggressive vitriol. It is laughable that you try 'appeal' to constructive dialogue after moving the goal posts so much. I will provide proof of what I state with just one instance of what you typed because I already am wasting way too much time with this.
When you said "Nowhere did I claim the author was objectifying his girlfriend." to deny my remark that you did it. Well, you should read your own posts. The one where you write "and he's doing it at the expense of his girlfriend"... there, you can backtrack all you want. I am sure you will try. Sorry if it burns but those are your own words, next time just avoid going back and forth in writing. If yours isn't a throw away account you will probably not do well around here but I am sure it is. Stay well and goodbye.
Outside of that paragraph there is basically no insinuation that women cannot program. The line about rubber-ducking problems with your partner? Not gender-specific unless you've already decided he's sexist.
It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and learns quite a bit about programming in six months. I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims the woman in question was quite capable even though she was not in the field. He explicitly mentions that she's a political science student; that's the only reason he had for thinking she'd be unable to do it.
"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program" where he uses himself and his girlfriend as the "everyprogrammer" and every(wo)man. If you are going to decide he is sexist and then interpret his use of himself as the programmer to implicitly or explicitly mean only men know how to program, well, that seems to unfairly make assumptions about the intent of the author.
God forbid we claim a political science student might not be able to learn programming if she happens to be a woman.
"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program"
^
That is exactly what I'm talking about. It may be obvious to you, but from my perspective it's exclusionary. It says this article is not meant for me. Which would be fine if not for the fact that it could absolutely be meant for me, if not for the fact that I'm a woman. Do you see what I mean? It's so hard to hard to convey this shit...
Okay, imagine there's an article called "How to teach your boyfriend to use proper hygiene". And it's written in the same way as this article, with a girl describing her own experience with her non-hygienic boyfriend, and it's written in the same instructional manner, using language that implies (however indirectly) that boyfriends in general are un-hygienic.
Wouldn't you be at least a little annoyed by the assumption? Now, what if you saw shit like that in the vast majority of content you read, online and out in the world? That's what it's like for us; especially those of us women in typically male-dominated professions. It's harder for men to see, because it doesn't affect men, and it's still very socially normative. And when we point it out, men often see it as an attack on all men. And it's not personal. Most folks have the best intentions. But I feel I need to call this shit out when I see it, because awareness invokes change. I try my best not to offend people, but I'm sick of being excluded because of my gender, when my gender make up half the damn population.
Other than a poor choice of title I literally cannot understand what is objectionable. But somehow it is as objectionable as claiming all men have poor hygiene?
I also hate that women are excluded from what they want to do because of sexist bullshit. Please if this is actually sexist, point me to the exact parts or wordings that indirectly imply girlfriends in general are incapable of programming, so that I can never write a similar thing.
It starts with the title. "How to teach your girlfriend programming" immediately tells women that this article isn't for her; it's for her boyfriend, so he can teach her.
The rest of the article regularly enforces this exclusion. He's talking to men.
Almost every time he refers to his girlfriend, he says "my girl", which, in the context of a professional article, is belittling. He says "my girlfriend" twice. Never does he say "my partner", which would have made the article much more inclusive.
"Every one of them told me they don’t want a programmer girl, they said they would go crazy. But I call that bullshit. It was just their fear talking."
There is so much wrong with these sentences. Why say "programmer girl"? They are women who don't want to be programmers. Saying it was their fear talking, and calling it bullshit, invalidates these women's legitimate concern for how the people in their lives will view them if they go into this field. Their fear isn't bullshit, the expectations of our society are bullshit (for the record, a lot of expectations made of men are bullshit too).
"What’s really everyone thinking is that it is impossible to find a girl who would be good looking, intelligent, interested in programming, and above all else, interested in you, the socially awkward geek. What are the odds of getting all of that?"
This whole paragraph reinforces the fact that the author is speaking only to men. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is totally relevant to women as well, with partners of any sex. It's not difficult to tell your own experience, a perspective of your own gender, and relate it to everyone.
"But let me tell you a secret brother, she doesn’t need to know all of this stuff. Everything in life can be learned."
Here again. How can you not see this?
"You can explain pointers, manual memory management, stack & heap allocation, garbage collection and much more in just a couple of hours if you chose the right metaphors."
So women can't understand these concepts without metaphors? Come on, man. And yes, he is talking about women, because it is expressed over and over that this article is for men, and it's about their girlfriends.
"But what if you had knives and wanted to teach your girl how to sort them (obviously by size)? You might have to do it two or three times for her to really believe you that it works, but the algorithm itself is stupidly simple."
What the fuck, dude. Sorting knives? The kitchen is aREALLY bad choice of setting for your first example of what a girl might want to program. Oh and don't forget that it might take two or three times for her to believe that you've done it. Sexist.
"It will be easy for her to understand once you find the right metaphor."
Sexist.
"The biggest obstacle here I would say is breaking the I would never understand that fear."
Invalidating, demeaning.
"to make some animations on her personal website that I made."
There is no reason to tell us that he made the website for her. It's a small thing, but it reinforces everything else. Mentioning it in this article is just unprofessional, and makes his girlfriend seem like a bimbo who couldn't do it herself if she tried.
"Basically I’m able to take what I know, extract the important things, throw away the 99.5% of wasted time on figuring out what is important and just teach her what she needs to know."
Her, she. More reinforcement. At this point in the article the author seems like he's trying to impress, and he's doing it at the expense of his girlfriend. He could easily have changed his language to reflect a more sincere and inclusive article. I will illustrate this by editing that paragraph.
"Basically, you want to convey the important information, and avoid the time that would be wasted for someone figuring this ou...
Having read the article, I think it would be good for you to quote something out of it that is blatantly sexist. So that your comment doesn't equal a mixed insult to the writer based on a general feeling you had at times.
Why is it "teach your girlfriend"? Why does he presume that his audience has a girlfriend who needs to be taught, rather than a boyfriend? You can't say "well he has a girlfriend so he wrote it like that" because he's not talking about him in the title, he's talking about you - he's presuming you have a girlfriend who needs to be taught, and that's sexist. I don't think it's the crime of the century, but I do think less of the guy.
Mostly because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft. I don't see anywhere in there, where it is stated that a girlfriend needs to be taught. Would it be ok if it was "teach your boyfriend" ? Where are you going with this ? You think that title is sexist because he says he has a girfriend that he will be teaching ?
There's a difference between girlfriends and black friends. (Hint: are you having a close, sexual relationship with all your black friends?) Therefore it's appropriate to distinguish between your girlfriend versus regular friends. It is not appropriate to distinguish between black friends and your regular friends. If he had written about teaching your female friends to program I would see that as full-on sexist. As it stands you are seeking to be offended and you found something offensive which is unsurprising.
Added in response to : 'It wouldn't be sexist if he wrote "how I taught my girlfriend to program". Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends?Why only girlfriends?'
-----
Sorry, trying to mix race in this just to raise issues is simply not going to fly with me.
He has a girlfriend and wants the world to know they both are geeks that want to do something together. There is no plural in that title unlike the way you distorted it, it is a common way to use the infinitive, what is your problem with that, can't you just read it for what it is. Don't you see there simply isn't traction for a sexist cavalcade on some guy that is over the moon because he found someone that will put up with his 'teaching'. How can you miss something so simple to the point you are trying to project discrimination on some couple doing something together.
Let's not let facts get in the way of political correctness, shall we? /sarcasm
Audience = programmers. Programmers = at least 90% male. I don't know what proportion have girlfriends, but we can always hope the number is pretty good.
Don't even try to teach anybody anything unless he/she actually wants you to do that. Teaching is completely different from giving somebody idea what you're doing.
Especially try to be aware how many things you "know" as a "professional" are fully irrelevant details about the technologies or methods that are going to be obsolete in very, very short time. Most of the "knowledge" that make you money today is irrelevant even in just a few years. Or I have a lot of lectures about Clipper 5 and CP/M to teach you.
To those saying this post is partly sexist, I think it says more about the prism through which you choose to view the world than anything about the author. This is just a guy and girl that have found themselves in a relationship where one is interested to learn the skills of the other. He's happy and excited to teach her, which is totally understandable. I see no evidence to suggest he feels like he's paternalistically teaching her about the world, rather he's glad he's found a partner he can share his enthusiasm with.
It does say something that he doesn't realize his ideas could also apply to relationships where the tech/non-tech roles are reversed; the possibility just didn't occur to him.
Imagine an article about teaching other people how to, I don't know, paint with watercolors, and the author kept assuming his audience was women, teaching their hopefully attractive, fit boyfriends how to do it, even though it might seem like an impossible task.
I see where you are going with that. But he does write from his own perspective and doesn't set out to approach your specific concerns. In his case I hope his girlfriend doesn't teach him about medicine at all so he doesn't get any ideas. Except for the real basic parts, because who knows, that could be useful at some point. But not because he is a man, of course.
Hey I am a programmer and dating a med student. And the information flow is usually from her to me. I am intensely inept at Medical Science and so I am always eager to learn from from her. I find it fascinating :) and your case with your bf is pretty cool! (And I am sorry but i AM a programmer with a cute technologically-impaired girlfriend :P cant help it)
Then why does he say "teach your girlfriend" rather than teach your partner, or teach your friend, or teach someone? If the fact that it is his girlfriend is just his situation, why suggest that I teach my girlfriend in the title?
But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.
On twitter, he says that he thinks gender neutral language is boring. You seem to have the same opinion. I'm sorry that including me as part of a potential audience is boring to you, and yes I find that sexist.
I didn't agree with anything anyone said on Twitter. Sorry, but you are mistaken on that opinion you believe I share. Don't know why you would go about imagining that I am aligned in any way to anything that I did not read.
Also, there is nothing wrong with gender neutral language, it just doesn't apply to something that is told in the first person. If you find that to be not inclusive enough for you ande a standard to judge what you read, that is your own inner workings. It will just make you loose out on a lot of great books. Either way, others don't have to externalize the same things or put up with your labeling, that would be very odd.
I didn't say you specifically agreed with what he said on Twitter. I categorised your suggestion that using gender neutral language would be 'daft' together with his idea that it would be 'boring'. If you want to, go ahead and explain why these are such different ideas that I should not have done so.
The article wasn't written in the first person, it was written as instructional and in the second person (I vs you). Writing in the second person is generally an attempt to connect with an audience. Language choices such as using gender neutral pronouns and references can be made to connect more or less with different audiences, and this author rejected them because it wasn't worth it to him. I do not like his decision not to bother including me as his targeted audience. If you don't like that I don't like that, well that is your own inner workings, why does it bother you so much when I want to be included?
Why do you feel so excluded? I feel quite capable of empathising and responding to written content whatever the distribution of genders. One of the joys of consuming human culture is letting yourself be put in the position of others, whether or not (or maybe especially if) they don't match your gender. The fact that the guy was teaching his girlfriend was an important data point to him, its part of the piece, but no need to feel excluded.
I said it was daft in the context of his recount. You seem to miss important parts and move the goal posts a lot there and the passive agressive reuse of others language and the cherry picking stuff ain't my thing at all, so I will leave you going at it alone. I do not wish to engage at that level at all.
You are purposely finding sexism in that. When people on HN use female pronouns as gender-neutral "... CEO ... she ..." I don't immediately assume only women are capable of that position. And when they write "he" I don't assume that women are incapable.
You are part of the potential audience, the girlfriend in the article is meant to represent every non-programmer (male and female) and he is meant to represent every programmer (male and female), and you full well know that. You are being ridiculous by asserting that everyone who doesn't write in the style you prefer is sexist.
I think it was a stupid article, but the only part remotely close to sexism was where he only described male programmer friends.
I make no claims that the post is a good one, or that its title is particularly apt. In fact I think its a bit vacuous, a better title could have been "I'm young and in love and I'm amazed to have found someone I can share my geekiness with and I want to tell everyone about it". Unless you know the guy personally there's not much point to reading it, but I'd say there's also not much justification for inferring sexism.
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[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 73.2 ms ] thread...wherein the narrator believes he has brought a woman to life, Frankenstein-style, and is teaching her about the world, but at the end it turns out that he was a fantasist and Bella is only odd to him because she is a modern independent woman (a suffragette, etc), and he is mired in the past.
So can I teach it to my girlfriend? Probably not. Partially because she's technologically challenged (she's cute that way) and as a medical student she already has tons on her plate.
But I must say I share your dreams of having a girl with whom I could discuss tech stuff the same way i discuss it with my friends
... okay so how do I "compress" this file
... i used that "tag thingie" but its not working
but they still learn it and are able to build websites sometimes even faster then the "technologically exposed".
In general technologically challenged doesn't mean stupid. Its just a lack of exposure to the technologies and in time they get the hang of it.
EDIT: Fine, if you read into the preface where he talks about his programmer friends I guess they are all male. That's hardly hopelessly mired, it's more like an unfortunate choice of description. I bet the author would assume women programmers feel the exact same way about their partners as well.
The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is still the norm, and it would be great if we could be recognised as equals, and not for us to be expected to assume it in the face of exclusion.
Language is important, because it affects how we perceive one another. So jacalata's comment serves as a polite critisism. Women are people too, and you all know that, but sometimes some folks need to be reminded to reflect that in their language.
In no way does he ever objectify his girlfriend and you just project to no end. Where does he exclude "the idea of female programmers completely". Maybe in the same way that he excludes the idea of "dead rhinos", because it isn't the point. The point his, he is excited about his girlfriend wanting him to teach her about programming and wrote about it. Go rain on someone elses parade.
To your other point, there is nothing polite about insulting others with sexist labels. The 'polite criticism reminds people woman are people too' tirade... ending with the "and you all know that"/"some folks", is just priceless and telling passive aggressive form after preaching against the bad male sexist programmer that should watch his language.
I was attempting to be fair to the author, assuming his best intentions. A strawman on my part would have been to assume the worst intentions of the author.
Nowhere did I claim the author was objectifying his girlfriend. Who is projecting here, exactly?
Sexist labels? Tirade? I wasn't upset in my comment at all, nor did I label anyone. You seem to be offended, but you have failed to describe why, or to ask for explanation on my part. You have accused and judged me without quantifying your arguments in the slightest. I hope you didn't see my comment as an attack on yourself, or an attack on men, as feminist arguments are often mistaken to be). I'm sorry if I offended you, but I think I deserve a more fair and constructive dialogue than the one you've provided.
It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and learns quite a bit about programming in six months. I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims the woman in question was quite capable even though she was not in the field. He explicitly mentions that she's a political science student; that's the only reason he had for thinking she'd be unable to do it.
"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program" where he uses himself and his girlfriend as the "everyprogrammer" and every(wo)man. If you are going to decide he is sexist and then interpret his use of himself as the programmer to implicitly or explicitly mean only men know how to program, well, that seems to unfairly make assumptions about the intent of the author.
God forbid we claim a political science student might not be able to learn programming if she happens to be a woman.
^ That is exactly what I'm talking about. It may be obvious to you, but from my perspective it's exclusionary. It says this article is not meant for me. Which would be fine if not for the fact that it could absolutely be meant for me, if not for the fact that I'm a woman. Do you see what I mean? It's so hard to hard to convey this shit...
Okay, imagine there's an article called "How to teach your boyfriend to use proper hygiene". And it's written in the same way as this article, with a girl describing her own experience with her non-hygienic boyfriend, and it's written in the same instructional manner, using language that implies (however indirectly) that boyfriends in general are un-hygienic.
Wouldn't you be at least a little annoyed by the assumption? Now, what if you saw shit like that in the vast majority of content you read, online and out in the world? That's what it's like for us; especially those of us women in typically male-dominated professions. It's harder for men to see, because it doesn't affect men, and it's still very socially normative. And when we point it out, men often see it as an attack on all men. And it's not personal. Most folks have the best intentions. But I feel I need to call this shit out when I see it, because awareness invokes change. I try my best not to offend people, but I'm sick of being excluded because of my gender, when my gender make up half the damn population.
Ugh.
I also hate that women are excluded from what they want to do because of sexist bullshit. Please if this is actually sexist, point me to the exact parts or wordings that indirectly imply girlfriends in general are incapable of programming, so that I can never write a similar thing.
It starts with the title. "How to teach your girlfriend programming" immediately tells women that this article isn't for her; it's for her boyfriend, so he can teach her.
The rest of the article regularly enforces this exclusion. He's talking to men.
Almost every time he refers to his girlfriend, he says "my girl", which, in the context of a professional article, is belittling. He says "my girlfriend" twice. Never does he say "my partner", which would have made the article much more inclusive.
"Every one of them told me they don’t want a programmer girl, they said they would go crazy. But I call that bullshit. It was just their fear talking."
There is so much wrong with these sentences. Why say "programmer girl"? They are women who don't want to be programmers. Saying it was their fear talking, and calling it bullshit, invalidates these women's legitimate concern for how the people in their lives will view them if they go into this field. Their fear isn't bullshit, the expectations of our society are bullshit (for the record, a lot of expectations made of men are bullshit too).
"What’s really everyone thinking is that it is impossible to find a girl who would be good looking, intelligent, interested in programming, and above all else, interested in you, the socially awkward geek. What are the odds of getting all of that?"
This whole paragraph reinforces the fact that the author is speaking only to men. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is totally relevant to women as well, with partners of any sex. It's not difficult to tell your own experience, a perspective of your own gender, and relate it to everyone.
"But let me tell you a secret brother, she doesn’t need to know all of this stuff. Everything in life can be learned."
Here again. How can you not see this?
"You can explain pointers, manual memory management, stack & heap allocation, garbage collection and much more in just a couple of hours if you chose the right metaphors."
So women can't understand these concepts without metaphors? Come on, man. And yes, he is talking about women, because it is expressed over and over that this article is for men, and it's about their girlfriends.
"But what if you had knives and wanted to teach your girl how to sort them (obviously by size)? You might have to do it two or three times for her to really believe you that it works, but the algorithm itself is stupidly simple."
What the fuck, dude. Sorting knives? The kitchen is aREALLY bad choice of setting for your first example of what a girl might want to program. Oh and don't forget that it might take two or three times for her to believe that you've done it. Sexist.
"It will be easy for her to understand once you find the right metaphor."
Sexist.
"The biggest obstacle here I would say is breaking the I would never understand that fear."
Invalidating, demeaning.
"to make some animations on her personal website that I made."
There is no reason to tell us that he made the website for her. It's a small thing, but it reinforces everything else. Mentioning it in this article is just unprofessional, and makes his girlfriend seem like a bimbo who couldn't do it herself if she tried.
"Basically I’m able to take what I know, extract the important things, throw away the 99.5% of wasted time on figuring out what is important and just teach her what she needs to know."
Her, she. More reinforcement. At this point in the article the author seems like he's trying to impress, and he's doing it at the expense of his girlfriend. He could easily have changed his language to reflect a more sincere and inclusive article. I will illustrate this by editing that paragraph.
"Basically, you want to convey the important information, and avoid the time that would be wasted for someone figuring this ou...
Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends? Why only girlfriends?
Audience = programmers. Programmers = at least 90% male. I don't know what proportion have girlfriends, but we can always hope the number is pretty good.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/american...)
Especially try to be aware how many things you "know" as a "professional" are fully irrelevant details about the technologies or methods that are going to be obsolete in very, very short time. Most of the "knowledge" that make you money today is irrelevant even in just a few years. Or I have a lot of lectures about Clipper 5 and CP/M to teach you.
Imagine an article about teaching other people how to, I don't know, paint with watercolors, and the author kept assuming his audience was women, teaching their hopefully attractive, fit boyfriends how to do it, even though it might seem like an impossible task.
But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.
The article wasn't written in the first person, it was written as instructional and in the second person (I vs you). Writing in the second person is generally an attempt to connect with an audience. Language choices such as using gender neutral pronouns and references can be made to connect more or less with different audiences, and this author rejected them because it wasn't worth it to him. I do not like his decision not to bother including me as his targeted audience. If you don't like that I don't like that, well that is your own inner workings, why does it bother you so much when I want to be included?
You are part of the potential audience, the girlfriend in the article is meant to represent every non-programmer (male and female) and he is meant to represent every programmer (male and female), and you full well know that. You are being ridiculous by asserting that everyone who doesn't write in the style you prefer is sexist.
I think it was a stupid article, but the only part remotely close to sexism was where he only described male programmer friends.
Great lesson of love here.