Introducing: The Hacker School For Women

If you're a hacker, computer programmer or coder, chances are pretty high that you're a dude. Don't worry, we're not about to gripe about gender inequality in the workplace. This isn't a case of the computer programming world being hostile to women, it's just that women don't as often aim to start careers in this particular sector of the tech industry. Less than 1 in 5 software developers are women--and we think that's a shame. .

Etsy wants to help change that statistic by offering twenty women a $5,000 grant to go to Hacker School, a three-month-long program held this Summer at Etsy's office in New York.

Hacker School was founded by two men and a woman--but of their twenty current students, only one is female. The statistics at Etsy are equally male-dominated. According to GOOD, Etsy's vice president of engineering, Marc Hedlund, says that during his seventeen years in web-based business he's hired hundreds of men and only about twenty women. "Just 11 of Etsy's 96 current employees in Engineering and Operations are female."

Hacker School describes itself like "a writer's retreat for hackers." The three-month immersion program focuses on coding and open-source software as opposed to the more typical how-to-build-a-startup approach. They also strive to create a classroom environment that’s "free from the negative conversational habits that all nerds sometimes fall into. They establish rules such as (no feigning surprise) ‘You don’t know who RICHARD STALLMAN is!?’” The curriculum itself is mild on structure. There are no grades or professors. Instead, it teaches through project-based assignments. Read more about the school and if you're a lady, apply for a grant and spend your Summer showing those boys who's boss.

-- Perrin Drumm