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Recently my daughter Fatima asked me for 250 rupees as she wished to buy a short story book from her school, it was a “let oneself in for” competition program where students were invited to buy a story book out of various presented options, read and understand it and then compete for a reading/writing sort of test.At least that’s what I thought when my daughter informed me. She’s in 4th grade.I said “Okay… why not!”. I do encourage her to take part in such activities anyway. So next day she came home from school and told me a few book’s names and asked my opinion for what book she should choose. I have never read a book so I had no idea, I told her to choose whatever she likes and read it.I gave her 250 rupees.And next day she was home with a book called “Monkey Business”. A short story for children.Couple of days later, while I was watching a movie, my daughter came to me with that book and told me to read it for her as she couldn't understand it for the most part because of difficult English words. I cringed a little for having to pause my movie but she needed help, So I did read the story out loud and translated all of that sentence by sentence to help her understand what was going on. Which by the way for a stupid story, no disrespect to author.“Okay thanks papa, now write a review in English for this book, don’t forget to include what did we like about the story and what we hated and how this story could have been told better”. She said.“Wait.. what? Why should I do that? I’m not the student here, you are!”“Papa, the teacher explicitly advised us to ask our parents to write the review. I cannot write that even if I wanted to, You’ll have to do it for me and I’ll memorize it for the competition”.“But I do not understand honey. I think it is for you to read and enjoy, and do whatever there is to do regarding the competition”.“Because that is what the teacher said, parents will write the review in English and we’ll just read it”. She said.“So let me get this straight, I paid for this book, I read it to you and now I will also have to write the review. Only one problem with that… How does all of that jargon help you in any way, shape or form? What’s the purpose?”“I don’t know, write the review or I’ll be dropped out tomorrow”. She handed me the book and left.I mean… what the hell.I had been keeping this good movie paused for half an hour to help her read the damn thing and now this? What is the point of this useless exercise? Anyway… I read the book again and wrote a short review about nature and wildlife and how our expansion is hurting that yadda yadda. Finished it in a few, gave it to her and got back to the movie.Few days passed and I for the first time got a call from the school’s vice principal, she told me that she liked the review “I” wrote better than other parents and that she expects this one to be the winner for the upcoming competition. She also advised me to tell Fatima to memorize it properly.“Yes, ma’am. But I wanted to ask you that…”“Okay, thanks Mr Ashraf. G’day!”The conversation was over before I could get a word in edgewise.I know, Fatima will win and get some prize or trophy. It’ll make me happy to see my daughter’s giggles of joy. I’d do anything for her, sure thing. Yet between you and me, I’d be happier if this had never happened. My money and time was wasted for nothing and more importantly this did not help my child. She learned nothing productive out of this.But I’m gonna let this one slide.With a promise to self, this won’t happen again, no way.

Thank you to both Mike Xie and Ankush Saxena for asking me to answer this question, and thank you to Quora for asking it in the first place.I have been studying the dynamics of social networking on-and-off for about four years. However, since I have only been on Quora for a couple of months, my experience here is limited compared to that of other women. I will rely on their input, combined with a few Quora site statistics, to construct my answer.According to a survey done in 2012, the gender distribution on Quora is about 54/46 male to female, as opposed to a 49/51 distribution for social networks in general . However, of the 2.8 billion internet users in the world, 54% are male,so while males are more likely to join Quora than females, the user base is nearly representative of the current online population.However, the number of users on a website is a very simplistic way to measure gender dynamics. For instance, many women here have mentioned harassment from male users in private messages, in comments, even in questions and answers. If we had access to a Quora API that provided information on the prevalence of reported content from/for male and female users, we would have a better understanding of how common this occurrence is. Information on PM initiation rates would also be helpful in examining this trend.There is also the matter of male/female visibility. What is the gender distribution of the questions asked? Do men or women provide more answers? What is the distribution of upvotes? Which topics are skewed heavily in favor of one gender? I think an in-depth analysis of Quora's gender dynamics would help us get a better picture of this site's gender problems. *As for solutions, the proposal that BNBR be extended past answers to incorporate questions and profiles, as Anita Sanz , Erica Friedman, and others suggested, is an excellent one. I would take that one step further and suggest that a) all user-generated content be included in the BNBR policy, and b) individual reports be included in a structure attached to the profile of a user, with sufficient distinct, legitimate reports culminating in a Content Review of the profile.Caroline Zelonka also mentioned that she was unaware of the "Report" feature in the message system until recently. Including a brief walkthrough tutorial for new users when they sign up for the site would help prevent this from happening in the future. It looks like we already have some good sources on the topic, too: How would I create Facebook's walkthrough tour effect on my own website?Speaking of things that people may be unaware of, I did not know that there was a "Mute" option for Topics until I read the comments under Phoebe Gavin's answer. Were the "Mute" option not available, the change I would consider most important would be her request that users be able to remove certain topics from their feed entirely. To put her request (that the "Rape" topic be removed from her feed) in a broader context, nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. report having been sexually assaulted. I am one of those women. That's 20% of your female user base that you were potentially alienating. The wider phenomenon being discussed here is that of a "trigger warning", or a high-level tag exclusion which prevents end users from seeing content that they wish to avoid, e.g. soldiers with PTSD may want to avoid posts from the War topic. For women in particular, we experience twice the depression rate as men, one in five women engage in self harm, and 65% of women between the ages of 25 and 45 in the U.S. have eating disorders, which lines up well with the age of your user base.Allowing for the removal of posts tagged with TW topics like self harm, anorexia, bulimia, etc... makes the site more accessible for many female users (and male users, too, though not to the same extent). Allowing for the removal of TW topics in general makes your site more accessible to everyone who has undergone a damaging experience. Allowing for the tailoring of feeds both by inclusion and exclusion of all topics results in a more personalized experience for every user on this site. I sincerely wish I knew about the "Mute topic" feature when I first joined Quora. Maybe creating a "Choose the topics you are not interested in" page after the "Choose the topics your are interested in" page would make this option more apparent. I think that this feature would behoove your site if it was better-publicized. People have resorted to making browser plugins to do exactly this for other social networks that haven't caught on yet. Having this option as part of your site is excellent, but it would be nice if it was more obvious.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------All in all, I'm rather new to Quora and haven't had many of the negative experiences that other women have mentioned, but I think that the suggestions others have made would not only make Quora more accessible to female users, but would also improve the content posted on Quora dramatically.* If you would like to provide me with some palatable data, I would be happy to run analysis on the questions asked above

★★★★★The Flatiron School Forever Changed My LifeEvery person’s life contains turning points and life-changing moments, some of which are more apparent than others. Deciding to attend The Flatiron School was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that forever changed my life.From Day 1, I knew my class was in for something special. I’ve literally never seen such a deep level of caring, anywhere. Everything we did at Flatiron was carefully crafted to ensure we got the most out of the program, and that we learned in the most optimal way possible. There was meticulously curated pre-work to prepare us before the semester even began, thorough (and fun!) labs to help us practice our newly acquired skills, in-semester tutoring by alumni, and even post-work to hone our skills after we graduated. I was particularly blown away by the selfless alumni who carved out time from their busy weekends to tutor us.My ClassmatesI’m also thrilled that I was able to meet 27 like-minded individuals. From the moment we first introduced ourselves on Piazza, it was clear that everyone had a fascinating story; it didn’t take long for all of us to become friends. Our class was so diverse and had so many different personalities! Over the course of the semester, we laughed together, we cried together, we learned from each other, we supported each other. Lifelong friendships were forged, undoubtedly we’ll cross paths with each other at future jobs, and I’m sure we’ll one day be starting companies together.Our InstructorsI’d also like to thank you for providing us with the greatest instructors we could have asked for. Our teachers imparted us with a great deal of knowledge, answered all of our questions, and were always available to assist and guide us. They understood that each of us had different methods and speeds of learning, and catered to the unique needs of each individual student.But they were more than just our teachers; they were our friends. We had lunch with them, hung out after class, and had discussions that ranged from questions from a lecture, to the most mundane of topics. In addition to programming, the non-programming lessons that we learned from them were just as valuable. Our teachers led by example and showed us that being a caring, empathetic person is just as important as knowing the nuances of ActiveRecord or how to iterate through Nested Data Structures. Our teachers empowered us to not only become better developers, but to become better people. Blake, Steven, and Ian- you guys rock.The Overall Stellar Flatiron StaffI’d like to thank Avi and Adam for creating such a wonderful program, Rebecca and Jackie for tirelessly championing employers on our behalf, Elana and Carley for putting together all the wonderful meetups and events, and the rest of the incredible Flatiron staff for being awesome.In Conclusion...Thanks to The Flatiron School, the trajectory of my life has been forever altered. I never thought that I’d be capable of doing this. I never dreamed that becoming a software developer was an option, since I was never a “math or science” kid. Besides falling in love with programming and the unparalleled education, this program changed the way I think, reinvented my life, and shaped my brain differently.I’d like to conclude with something we were told at our graduation ceremony:“Tell the story that you have a family here forever. You have people here that love you and are rooting for you.”Well, Flatiron School, the feeling is mutual. I’m proud to call myself a Flatiron alum, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the future.Thank you.(adapted from my Medium post "Thank You Flatiron School!")