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Victoria’s Secret model shuts down men who doubt her ability to code

Other women programmers are sharing their stories of sexism in science and tech.

Photo of Alex Dalbey

Alex Dalbey

Lyndsey Scott

Lyndsey Scott may be best known as a fashion model, particularly for Victoria’s Secret, but she is also an accomplished programmer. Her various successes have made her an inspiration for many girls and young women. So much so, the Instagram account Coding Engineer tried to harness that inspiration last weekend, posting a photo of Scott that listed her coding proficiencies. They captioned the picture, “CODING IS FOR ANYONE!”

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However, many of the commenters seemed to disagree. Some questioned the quality of her coding, others said she must only actually know how to use Hello World, a very beginner program. Others lamented that Scott’s beauty was being wasted by her working as a programmer, or made comments about how they would (or wouldn’t) want someone as sexy as her to be their coworker.

Scott, who works to make coding more accessible for women and minorities, did not let those comments go without a response. She listed some of her coding accomplishments, from being one of the top people on the coding question site Stack Overflow to her position as Lead iOS software engineer for rally bound. “Looking at these comments I wonder why 41% of women in technical careers drop out because of a hostile work environment,” Scott wrote.

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Others who have dealt with sexism in science and technology were inspired by Scott’s call-out, and shared their stories of sexism in the workplace and in school.

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https://twitter.com/CassAnnYel/status/1039220389732405249

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Some men in the replies pointed out the hypocrisy of male expectations, as well as the key signs of male fragility.

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Outside of exposing trolls and sexist attitudes, Scott advocates for women in tech in many other ways. She is a mentor for Girls Who Code, helping to teach teenage girls programming skills. She has also taught programming with Girl Scouts and made an application to help girls learn the basics of programming. With women like Scott around, it’s possible that today’s girls will have a much easier time when it’s their turn to enter the workplace.

H/T the Mary Sue

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