How Should We Handle Sexism in Computer Science?

    A couple weeks ago, I was scrolling through my twitter feed and noticed an interesting post linked from Medium.com. To summarize the post from my point of view, it is a simple Medium article that is revealing some of the sexism that occurs in the the hacker community. It shows us this by displaying censored comments that were from a hacker community post on Facebook. These posts were insulting, as they focused on the female programmer's appearance, and not about the actual competition these women were taking part in. Most importantly, since these comments are being made, it makes it harder for female students to feel that they should want to be part of the Computer Science community. 

    The point of my post is not to directly solve the problem of sexism in Computer Science, but what should we do when these sort of comments appear? Or how should we handle these situations when they occur in an actual hacker event or competition? 

    In my opinion, I feel that these comments should not be censored. Since Facebook is a social network that allows people to post whatever they please, I do not see any reason on why they should be granted the privilege to hide behind the black lines that were placed above their names and photos. If these comments were made through email or SMS or some other private form of communication, then I feel it would be inappropriate to use their full names or photos. If these comments were uncensored, the message from the text of the article would not be any different. It would still be an unbiased point of view that is just trying to make sure everyone is aware these comments happen and that they are holding back both the hacker community and the Computer Science community as a whole. 

    With most careful situations like this one, it is important to stay away from creating any articles that are directly attacking the people who make these rude comments. It is not about attempting to get "even" with these people, it is simply to make sure they know they are in the wrong. Along with them being corrected, I think it is important that other female and male programmers see how they are not alone with being bothered by rude comments inside of the Computer Science community. 

    When these sort of comments happen in real life, I think the only reasonable way to deal with these comments is to ignore the people who make them and make sure they do not get any positive feedback for their actions. I would imagine most people already do this, but there will always be groups of people who will stick together and enjoy these sort of comments being made. Slowly yet surely, the more people who are moving away from being rude to other programmers, the closer we are to repairing this problem. 

     It may seem weird that I am claiming to give them attention online but ignore them in public, but I feel that is the best way to spread the message without giving them the attention they desire. Thanks to social media, we have a way of posting our thoughts on any subject we please and we can take our time to make sure they are true to our opinions and beliefs.