Five reasons why women should code

Amanda Aitken wants women to stop worrying and learn to love code
Photo by Nikki Jumper
James Brown once sang, “This is a man’s world.” When it comes to coding, truer words have never been spoken. But one Montreal woman is looking to change all that with the Girls Guide to Web Design, an online video training program geared toward teaching women to learn to love code and make beautiful websites in the process. Here are her Top Five reasons why women shouldn’t fear a little HTML.

—Tracey Lindeman

1. It’s way easier than you think it is. For some reason, women have been conditioned to have an aversion to math — I should know, I’m one of them. There’s this false perception that learning to code is “math-y,” but it’s totally not. It’s logical, yes, but doesn’t require you to crunch any numbers. In fact, learning to code is much less like math and more like learning a new language for which you already know most of the vocabulary.

2. It’s empowering. Learning to code is one of those things that many people assume is totally outside the realm of possibility for them. It seems very mysterious and techy — like you could only do it if you’ve completed a four-year degree in computer science. When you finally realize it’s relatively easy to pick coding up, and you see the amazing things you can do with your web presence once you’ve got some basics under your belt, it’s an incredibly empowering feeling.

3. It’s a real money-saver. If you’ve already got a blog or a website, you know how annoying it is to have to deal with a designer or developer when you need to make changes or updates. Even if your web guy (or girl) is a perfectly lovely person, you need to wait until he or she has time to tackle your request, and then you usually have to fork over an hourly rate for a tweak that may actually only take a few minutes to complete. When you know how to make these changes yourself, you can do them on the spot for free.

4. It’s the cure for website compromise. Without knowing how to code, you’re limited in what you can create online, so even if you figure out how to set up your own WordPress site and install a theme you more or less like the looks of, you’re never going to be able to get it looking exactly the way you envision it in your mind. You’ll have to compromise on lots of things (think colour, layout and that font that drives you crazy), and it won’t end up being the site or blog you can picture so clearly when you close your eyes. It will be a second-rate approximation that you don’t feel 100 per cent proud of.

5. It’s the quickest route to making your dreams come true and changing the world for the better. I firmly believe learning to code is the ultimate thing that a woman with any kind of vision for the future (for herself, for her community or for this planet of ours) can do for herself. Think about it — if you wanted to get the word out about something on a massive scale, for minimum cost, what would you do? You’d create a website, of course! And while you could hire a designer and/or developer to do it for you, you’d just have to do that all over again when your next big idea hits. Trust me on this when I say that once you get going with this web and coding stuff, it’s only a matter of time before you won’t be able to shut off the flow of big ideas. ■