Why I Wrote “Code Like a Girl”
My new book, Code Like a Girl: Rad Tech Projects & Practical Tips, began at the Obama White House. What I recall: a snowy April morning at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, an entry through airport-style security onto those shiny black and white floors, direction-giving interns stationed at hallway corners and elevators, all jackets and skirts, asking “Are you here for the gender roles in toys and media meeting?”
I’d been asked there by the staff of Michelle Obama and under the auspices, it seemed, of the White House Council for Women and Girls. They were concerned about girls, stereotyping, technology and media. I had written The Daring Book for Girls, which is why I thought they’d invited me. It turned out they’d learned of my recent work with LEGO to create the storytelling for LEGO Friends, work I hadn’t advertised and didn’t realize anyone outside my team at LEGO’s headquarters knew about. Reps from Snapchat, Instagram, Netflix and several women’s political organizations gathered around the table. The day was introduced by Talk to Jess’s inimitably fearless girl-advocate and CEO, Jess Weiner.
I’m sure I talked some as the conversation moved around the table. I know I listened. The conversation started with media and toys, then veered quickly toward technology. Megan Smith, then-Chief Technology Officer of the United States, popped in for a short talk. I knew in general that tech was a problem spot for girls. Tech is overwhelmingly important as a maker of culture. Girls are disproportionately absent from coding and computer science classes at both high school and college. Women are an overwhelming minority in the tech industry.
Before those White House meetings, though, I didn’t feel the women-in-tech problem viscerally. The numbers hadn’t hit home, but here they are. One official count puts the tech industry at 30% women. However, it’s unclear where this statistic actually comes from and whether it’s accurate. It also includes all the women in tech company HR and marketing departments, and in project management, which are where most women in the tech industry work. Another statistic tossed about: 18% of developers are women. I’ve learned first-hand that insiders and male allies wrinkle their noses at this number, too. Developers and software engineers on the job say it’s more like 5% of women on actual engineering and developer teams. I can tell you I’ve attended mainstream tech events where there are 200 people in the room and I’m one of 3 women and all the speakers are men. Just being present in that imbalance can feel like performance art.
On the Amtrak home from Washington, D.C., the unseasonable snow having melted, I kept thinking there should be a good “intro-to-code-and-tech” book. I imagined it as warm and welcoming. I thought such a book could demystify the process of using code. It would be hands-on and project-based and visually appealing and teach me everything I needed to know. It would be useful and smart and different, since it was clear that whatever people were currently using to teach code wasn’t working so well for girls and tech-minorities. Different would be good. Two hours later the train passed Wilmington. I sketched out my chapters. Yes, this would be exactly the book to help many of us understand what it means to code.
By the time I stepped off the platform in Philadelphia, I had convinced myself that I was the perfect person to write this book. No one else had or was going to, and besides, I’d always wanted to learn how to code. My two daughters had attended a school that had figured out many pieces, but not all, of the puzzle of how to teach coding to girls, so I knew I’d have a good place to start. I whizzed together a proposal and sent it to my agent who, in time — I’ll spare us the book industry details — had me sitting down with the fearless Michele Frey, Executive Editor at Knopf Books for Young Children. “Yes,” Michelle seemed to say. “We think it’s a great idea that you, someone with little real coding experience wants to write this book. Let’s go!”
Thus began a three-years-and-counting journey of learning. I immersed in the Philly tech community, showing up at Girl Develop It workshops and Code for Philly hackathons. I studied Python, and got to know Trinket.io, a beautiful and functional platform for coding. I wired together a computer from a Raspberry Pi, attached a breadboard, made circuits. I played Minecraft late into the night, even hiring a local teenager to teach me next-level intricacies of the game, though sadly, this chapter detoured to the cutting-room floor. I l decided there were five basics of code, and that creativity matters, and I built music programs and games with Scratch — a language that codes in blocks, not writing. The process? Amazing at every turn. I learned about frustration, struggle and patience.
Tech journeys are highly emotional. There were times I thought I’d have to quit and times I thought I was insane to think I could do this. There were many moments where I thought, “My brain really doesn’t work this way”, “this way” being the step-by-step tread of computational thinking, where we break down big ideas into small ones, and translate them into orderly code.
These doubts would eventually be countered by moments of pure magic. The program would run. The motion sensor would receive the code and make the LED blink yellow, green and blue. That became the tone of the book: that learning to code is a story and a journey, and when it works it can feel like magic. My message: I’m not a tech genius superstar. If I can learn this stuff, nearly anyone can.
That’s why I wrote Code Like a Girl. As one of my coding teachers likes to say, write the code you wish you had. That’s what I did. I wrote the learn-to-code book I wish I’d had, and that I wish for everyont. I said it best in the introduction:
“Technology and code are about creativity and self-expression and telling your story…Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about coding or technology. We’ll start with basics. Push open the doors of a new and vibrant world, where you never know what’s coming down the pike. Many of the programmers I met while writing this book told me they taught themselves to code with books and online tutorials. They shared stories about that they learned first, what they gave up on and how they tried again. Some went to college, sure. Others apprenticed with a developer and learned on the job. Many learned with friends. There are endless ways in.“
P.S. Here it is in the book. Happy coding!
