9 ms·

> It is no less sexist to form a women's only club, but nobody sees fit to criticize it. It is not -ist if a disadvantaged group does something to counteract i

by jordigh 10y ago

> It is no less sexist to form a women's only club, but nobody sees fit to criticize it. It is not -ist if a disadvantaged group does something to counteract its disadvantage without considering the privileged group. If women are disadvantaged, it is reasonable to do something to fix their disadvantage without having to interject "but what about men!?" So, for example, Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Women groups are not sexist and we don't need an Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Men group because... well, because that's just what normal Ubuntu/Debian/Arch is, mostly men. The situation for men and women in tech is not symmetrical, so the approaches to handle the problems need not be symmetrical either.

Snargorf 10y ago
>If women are disadvantaged Except they're not. In fact, in tech, they're advantaged. Female names on resumes get more callback than male names. This has been studied. The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested.
- mordocai 10y ago
  > The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested. Which is at least somewhat due to societal pressures though.
  - rarec 10y ago
    Could it not also be said that societal pressures push men towards tech and other high stress/paying work?
    - nucleardog 10y ago
      If you look at any list of "most dangerous jobs", it's invariably a list of male-dominated professions. Are men going into these roles because they all have a death wish, or is it maybe some sort of cultural push to be "manly" and a "provider"?
  - jazzyk 10y ago
    At my daughter's high-school, there was a lot of societal pressure for girls to be interested in tech/science. Most of them remained uninterested in math/computers, though quite a few went into life-sciences.
- FungalRaincloud 10y ago
  I would like to see the studies you're referencing. However, taking what you're saying as truth (a thing I am reluctant to do), I still find it a big leap to claim that the reason that there are fewer women in tech is that fewer women are interested in tech, and I would still be inclined to believe that women in tech are at a disadvantage. Proving lack of interest seems difficult, at best - for instance, is it that women are inherently just not interested, or is it that women are left to feel like being interested is not "womanly" or that they should feel ashamed for being interested? There's a lot of confounding factors, and many of them reveal potential disenfranchisement of women before they even enter the tech world. Here's why I believe that women are disadvantaged in tech: Women in tech are part of an out-group, just by being in the minority. This necessarily puts them at a disadvantage. We know that women make less than men in most environments. Acquiring a job more easily is one thing - sure, if I assume you're telling the truth, women get more callbacks. But consider the prospects after initial employment. It is not as simple as "women are more employable in the tech industry" - it needs to also be the case that women are making equal pay, given equal opportunity to advance their careers, and are expected to do equal work. I guess what I mean to say is that it feels like you're doing exactly what we should not do with complex social issues: oversimplifying.
  - belorn 10y ago
    > Women in tech are part of an out-group, just by being in the minority. A key insight I also saw in a study about gender equality in the teaching profession (done by the Swedish institute for higher education). If you are a male student entering a profession with 80% women, you are naturally going to doubt and question that decision. If you pass that first wave of doubt, you get hit by a second wave as soon the first road bump hits (like a failed exam). Male students (studying to be a teacher) are much more likely to ask: "Should I be doing this?" compared to female students in the same class. Then third wave hits when the person is entering the working profession and has to work in a culture that has integrated gender identity. The big question should be how we can fix this problem in a general way. Based on Swedish statistics, only about 10% of women and men work in a profession with equal gender distribution, and about similar number for people who work in a profession with a dominated gender of opposite gender. About 80% of the work force, both women and men, work in a profession where their gender is the dominating gender. The trend from the last 30 years has been steadily in the wrong direction, with more gender separation in the work force.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- onetwotree 10y ago
  Fewer women are interested because they don't want to work, go to school, and socialize in sexist environments. While I'm sure that not all "tech environments" are sexist, enough of them are to convince women not to pursue careers in this field. That's a disadvantage, especially because tech careers are luxury careers these days.
  - prodigal_erik 10y ago
    I spent a lot of my teenage years hunched over a Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide. The "environment" was me and a computer that didn't care about my sex. Certainly nobody encouraged me, least of all my friends and family. Where were the teenage girls who shared my obsession? For that matter, where are the women who hack for fun and ignore the shit the industry is up to?
    - onetwotree 10y ago
      I want you to help me understand something. Why do you feel the need to rationalize away the fact that getting involved in tech is something that was easier for you because you're a dude? It seems like there's this sense in which people like you believe that by admitting to being privileged will somehow diminish your accomplishments. I've got news for ya: it won't. You seem to feel as though there's a zero sum game, where raising the accessibility of what we've achieved to people who aren't like us will somehow harm you. Again, it won't. Where does this fear come from? Why not love? I too spent a lot of time learning to code alone with my Macintosh Classic. However, nobody ever told me this was something boys didn't do. I had a bunch of (male) nerd friends who thought it was pretty cool. Rather importantly I didn't have a bunch of ugly, creepy girls slobbering over "that cuyuute nerd boy". When I took a (worthless) programming class in high school, everyone in the room was the same gender as me. When I took CS classes in college, almost everyone in the room was the same gender as me. It was a perfectly normal thing for a dude like me to be into. In the workplace, nobody remarks on my gender. I'm not a "diversity hire". I don't have anything to prove. But my reaction to realizing this is that I fucking love my career, I love hacking, and I want to share what I love with everyone, to make it as easily available as it was to me. Why would anyone not want this?
- wicker 10y ago
  I'd like a source for that, since my understanding was the opposite.[1] Quoting from the abstract: "In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. ... Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent." [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
  - zo1 10y ago
    I would argue that it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was great and necessary when women really were disadvantaged. But now that they are generally "equal", it's detrimental to them. I.e. It's entirely plausible that society is self-correcting against the unfairly-claimed bias by...being biased. One can "factually" be certain that men are not "favoured", therefore they can treat men exactly as they see it. They take their degrees, their experience, their work at face-value. However, they can not honestly do so with women because they know that there is a claimed bias against them. Therefore all work, degrees, experience, etc, of women is suspect as there is no way to know which items were "embellished" to promote the "equality" of women.
    - disgruntledphd2 10y ago
      I dunno. I work for a pretty liberal company, that definitely tries to avoid -isms and what not. I've also seen the same ideas from men vs women given far more credibility when presented by a male speaker. I find it somewhat disturbing. That allied with a lot of the scientific evidence of bias (look at the IAT studies, all 12mn of them) leads me to believe that this is still a problem.
      - mpweiher 10y ago
        I have also seen the same ideas from some men given far more credibility when presented by other men. In fact, it happens all the time. I have seen men ignored even when presenting solid evidence, because a higher-up had made up their mind. This happens. All. The. Time. I find the IAT somewhat ridiculous. For example, it asked whether I associate black with "sports". Well, I do, but there is nothing "implicit" or "biased" about it. It is my lived experience as a high-school sprinter. In addition, stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. It's not "wrong". What would be wrong is not adjusting for the individual once you get to know them, but AFAIK that same research also shows that most people drop the stereotypes quickly once they actually get to know an individual. And yes, there are people who don't. In other news, stupid people exist and earth still round.
belorn 10y ago
The Black Panther Party are often regarded as a -ist group, and their goal was to counteract an disadvantage in society. The methods used however had a lot to be criticized, and I would hope that society could learn by such movement and see what approaches work and which didn't. Segregation in the name of diversity has historically a bad reputation, so I would consider criticism regarding "women only" groups to carry enough history to be worth addressing.

by jordigh 10y ago

Snargorf 10y ago

>If women are disadvantaged Except they're not. In fact, in tech, they're advantaged. Female names on resumes get more callback than male names. This has been studied. The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested.

mordocai 10y ago
> The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested. Which is at least somewhat due to societal pressures though.
- rarec 10y ago
  Could it not also be said that societal pressures push men towards tech and other high stress/paying work?
  - nucleardog 10y ago
    If you look at any list of "most dangerous jobs", it's invariably a list of male-dominated professions. Are men going into these roles because they all have a death wish, or is it maybe some sort of cultural push to be "manly" and a "provider"?
- jazzyk 10y ago
  At my daughter's high-school, there was a lot of societal pressure for girls to be interested in tech/science. Most of them remained uninterested in math/computers, though quite a few went into life-sciences.
FungalRaincloud 10y ago
I would like to see the studies you're referencing. However, taking what you're saying as truth (a thing I am reluctant to do), I still find it a big leap to claim that the reason that there are fewer women in tech is that fewer women are interested in tech, and I would still be inclined to believe that women in tech are at a disadvantage. Proving lack of interest seems difficult, at best - for instance, is it that women are inherently just not interested, or is it that women are left to feel like being interested is not "womanly" or that they should feel ashamed for being interested? There's a lot of confounding factors, and many of them reveal potential disenfranchisement of women before they even enter the tech world. Here's why I believe that women are disadvantaged in tech: Women in tech are part of an out-group, just by being in the minority. This necessarily puts them at a disadvantage. We know that women make less than men in most environments. Acquiring a job more easily is one thing - sure, if I assume you're telling the truth, women get more callbacks. But consider the prospects after initial employment. It is not as simple as "women are more employable in the tech industry" - it needs to also be the case that women are making equal pay, given equal opportunity to advance their careers, and are expected to do equal work. I guess what I mean to say is that it feels like you're doing exactly what we should not do with complex social issues: oversimplifying.
- belorn 10y ago
  > Women in tech are part of an out-group, just by being in the minority. A key insight I also saw in a study about gender equality in the teaching profession (done by the Swedish institute for higher education). If you are a male student entering a profession with 80% women, you are naturally going to doubt and question that decision. If you pass that first wave of doubt, you get hit by a second wave as soon the first road bump hits (like a failed exam). Male students (studying to be a teacher) are much more likely to ask: "Should I be doing this?" compared to female students in the same class. Then third wave hits when the person is entering the working profession and has to work in a culture that has integrated gender identity. The big question should be how we can fix this problem in a general way. Based on Swedish statistics, only about 10% of women and men work in a profession with equal gender distribution, and about similar number for people who work in a profession with a dominated gender of opposite gender. About 80% of the work force, both women and men, work in a profession where their gender is the dominating gender. The trend from the last 30 years has been steadily in the wrong direction, with more gender separation in the work force.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
onetwotree 10y ago
Fewer women are interested because they don't want to work, go to school, and socialize in sexist environments. While I'm sure that not all "tech environments" are sexist, enough of them are to convince women not to pursue careers in this field. That's a disadvantage, especially because tech careers are luxury careers these days.
- prodigal_erik 10y ago
  I spent a lot of my teenage years hunched over a Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide. The "environment" was me and a computer that didn't care about my sex. Certainly nobody encouraged me, least of all my friends and family. Where were the teenage girls who shared my obsession? For that matter, where are the women who hack for fun and ignore the shit the industry is up to?
  - onetwotree 10y ago
    I want you to help me understand something. Why do you feel the need to rationalize away the fact that getting involved in tech is something that was easier for you because you're a dude? It seems like there's this sense in which people like you believe that by admitting to being privileged will somehow diminish your accomplishments. I've got news for ya: it won't. You seem to feel as though there's a zero sum game, where raising the accessibility of what we've achieved to people who aren't like us will somehow harm you. Again, it won't. Where does this fear come from? Why not love? I too spent a lot of time learning to code alone with my Macintosh Classic. However, nobody ever told me this was something boys didn't do. I had a bunch of (male) nerd friends who thought it was pretty cool. Rather importantly I didn't have a bunch of ugly, creepy girls slobbering over "that cuyuute nerd boy". When I took a (worthless) programming class in high school, everyone in the room was the same gender as me. When I took CS classes in college, almost everyone in the room was the same gender as me. It was a perfectly normal thing for a dude like me to be into. In the workplace, nobody remarks on my gender. I'm not a "diversity hire". I don't have anything to prove. But my reaction to realizing this is that I fucking love my career, I love hacking, and I want to share what I love with everyone, to make it as easily available as it was to me. Why would anyone not want this?
wicker 10y ago
I'd like a source for that, since my understanding was the opposite.[1] Quoting from the abstract: "In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. ... Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent." [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
- zo1 10y ago
  I would argue that it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was great and necessary when women really were disadvantaged. But now that they are generally "equal", it's detrimental to them. I.e. It's entirely plausible that society is self-correcting against the unfairly-claimed bias by...being biased. One can "factually" be certain that men are not "favoured", therefore they can treat men exactly as they see it. They take their degrees, their experience, their work at face-value. However, they can not honestly do so with women because they know that there is a claimed bias against them. Therefore all work, degrees, experience, etc, of women is suspect as there is no way to know which items were "embellished" to promote the "equality" of women.
  - disgruntledphd2 10y ago
    I dunno. I work for a pretty liberal company, that definitely tries to avoid -isms and what not. I've also seen the same ideas from men vs women given far more credibility when presented by a male speaker. I find it somewhat disturbing. That allied with a lot of the scientific evidence of bias (look at the IAT studies, all 12mn of them) leads me to believe that this is still a problem.
    - mpweiher 10y ago
      I have also seen the same ideas from some men given far more credibility when presented by other men. In fact, it happens all the time. I have seen men ignored even when presenting solid evidence, because a higher-up had made up their mind. This happens. All. The. Time. I find the IAT somewhat ridiculous. For example, it asked whether I associate black with "sports". Well, I do, but there is nothing "implicit" or "biased" about it. It is my lived experience as a high-school sprinter. In addition, stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. It's not "wrong". What would be wrong is not adjusting for the individual once you get to know them, but AFAIK that same research also shows that most people drop the stereotypes quickly once they actually get to know an individual. And yes, there are people who don't. In other news, stupid people exist and earth still round.

belorn 10y ago

The Black Panther Party are often regarded as a -ist group, and their goal was to counteract an disadvantage in society. The methods used however had a lot to be criticized, and I would hope that society could learn by such movement and see what approaches work and which didn't. Segregation in the name of diversity has historically a bad reputation, so I would consider criticism regarding "women only" groups to carry enough history to be worth addressing.