I disagree and there are many issues with this take, some of which include the #Patriarchy in #STEM

When I started coding it was ENTIRELY out of necessity and very painful at first: it knocked down my self-esteem.

I am now a computational astronomer...

1/9
@AcademicChatter https://twitter.com/Prathkum/status/1311333984262029313

What does the patriarchy have to do with that?

Well, see, playing with computers as a hobby has been targeted to boys and men since the mid-80s.

Although women were pioneers of computer science, because they were the original computers...

2/9 https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding

They got slowly pushed out of the field as personal computers entered homes and were made available to boys (over girls) in great disproportion.

Now move forward to the 90s and 00s and we have women like me who self-identified as "not good with computers" for no reason...

3/9

And, as you'll have guessed, I didn't learn to code as a hobby as a teenager. That never crossed my mind and it never cross anybody's mind to introduce me to that stuff....

MY MOM WORKED IN FINANCE INFORMATICS AND I NEVER LEARNT TO CODE BEFORE UNI.

4/9

To this day, my mom still asks my brother, AN ACCOUNTANT, to help her with her computer, rather than me, who codes and works difficult computational problems for a living.

And that's on unconscious bias.

Anyways, with all this context, here is my point:

5/9

With the mindset of "you can only learn to code as a hobby" I would not be where I am today.

I started to code as a NECESSITY.

That is what got me to push past all of the self-deprecating thoughts that came with each new error message.

"I'm just not good with computers'

6/9

The boys who were brought up to believe they were good with computers also got error messages, but they never thought it was because they were not enough.

That makes it a HELL of a lot easier to enjoy coding then, doesn't it.

Over time though, it got better for me..

7/9

I learnt to internalise that coding is problem solving and making mistakes is part of the process

I am now able to ENJOY programming, for myself and for others, and teach students a few tricks here and there

I still struggle at times, paralysed by the thought I just *can't*
8/

But regardless, I've made it. I've made it so much further I thought.i could.

So don't ever let your internal monologue and the echoes of society's expectations stop you from learning something new, even if it's terrifying.

You might just stumble on a beautiful career.

9/9

CC: @emilydoesastro @ramencult @astro_jje