6 ms·

Some people are completely lost on the idea of intent vs the result. If we're not 50/50 on gender balance apparently we're all super racist.

jordigh 10y ago
It's pointless to argue about whom to blame as it is to defend oneself against accusations of blame. Fix the problem, not the blame. If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. You didn't do it, I didn't do it, but it still needs to be fixed.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  >If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. This seems to be an extraordinary claim made in the complete absence of evidence. Is it a problem that there are more women going into early childhood education or biology, but more men going into petroleum engineering? Why? Why aren't men and women allowed to express their preferences without it being pathologized?
  - busterarm 10y ago
    Right. And I'm all for encouraging more people to get interested in this industry, but I don't do it by pointing my figure at all of the people already working in this industry.
  - kajecounterhack 10y ago
    It wouldn't be a problem if inequality wasn't influenced strongly by negative factors for women. The tech industry is rife with evidence of hostility toward women; IT Barbie and gendered toy marketing are other examples of how women are not on equal footing with regards to entering this industry. And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job. To paint a picture that says the current landscape is "normal" is to overlook a lot of broken things.
    - redthrowaway 10y ago
      >And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job. How many times does the "wage gap" need to be debunked before people stop spreading it? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-do... http://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/ http://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga... http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_pay_gap_the_familiar_line_that_women_make_77_cents_to_every_man_s.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende... http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-into-the-gender-pay-gap-myth/#5562f8604766 http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...
      - nucleardog 10y ago
        I find it's a really convenient indicator that it's time to excuse yourself from a conversation.
      - smrtinsert 10y ago
        Three articles by the same person from the American Enterprise Institute and then some obvious opinion pieces with restricted sampling sizes. Imo, the smoking gun should include a gun and it should probably be smoking.
    - PeterisP 10y ago
      There definitely are many problems and things that could be improved, however, the point is that even if all of those problems would be fixed, there would be a gender disparity in choice of occupations. The GP statement "If there is no gender parity, there is a problem" is strictly false, even in an ideal world managed by fairies where all these problems are totally fixed, we would not observe gender parity - it would for most professions be much closer to 50/50 than nowadays, that's true, but it would not be at 50/50.
      - kajecounterhack 10y ago
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > Why aren't men and women allowed to express their preferences without it being pathologized? Because those preferences are mostly the result of sexism. In 1970, there was no law against women being doctors or lawyers in 1970, yet less than 15% of graduates in those professions were women. Many people said the exact same thing you're saying now: oh, these are just natural preferences and aptitudes. Yet today, women make up 50% of graduates in those professions? Did something change in their genetics? Or did those professions just become less sexist? What the heck explains 50% of accounting graduates being women, but less than 20% of CS graduates? Some weirdly specific gene?
    - redthrowaway 10y ago
      >Because those preferences are mostly the result of sexism Another extraordinary claim made in the complete absence of evidence. Are you claiming that men and women don't have different preferences? Are you claiming that Iran, where 70% of engineering students are women, is less sexist than the US? >Yet today, women make up 50% of graduates in those professions? Did something change in their genetics? Or did those professions just become less sexist? So medicine, law, education, biology, veterinary science, and chemistry got less sexist, but philosophy, physics, and engineering didn't. That's your claim. That you've made, again, without a shred of evidence.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        > So medicine, law, education, biology, veterinary science, and chemistry got less sexist, but philosophy, physics, and engineering didn't. That's your claim. That you've made, again, without a shred of evidence. Yes that's my claim, and yes there is evidence for it: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-.... From 1970 to 2005, the proportion of women medical and law graduates went from 50-10% to nearly 50%. The proportion of computer science graduates went from 15% to 35% in 1985 but dropped below 20% in the 2000s. There are only three possible explanations for that data. (1) certain industries got less sexist while computer science lagged behind; (2) society got less sexist about women going into certain industries; or (3) womens' biological preferences changed dramatically over just a few decades. (3) is ridiculous, so the answer must be (1) or (2), which are both the product of sexism.
  - undersuit 10y ago
    >Is it a problem that there are more women going into early childhood education or biology, but more men going into petroleum engineering? Don't the petroleum engineers make more money than the average biologist?
    - redthrowaway 10y ago
      Which might explain why men, who are far more motivated by money than women are, would seek to enter the field despite it being a much more difficult degree and arguably less rewarding career.
busterarm 10y ago
Sexist. ;) I do wish we made as much of an effort breaking racial and class barriers in this industry. Unfortunately I have sat in on hiring discussions trying to argue for why we should hire the strongest engineer and my colleagues in the room are trying to come up with reasons not to hire because the candidate was black and/or working-class.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  You had colleagues who didn't want to hire someone just because they were "working class"??? Seriously? Were these colleagues a bunch of fedora-wearing hipsters or something?
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I would actually argue that classism is far and away the worst problem in this industry. It just plays out in ways that you don't expect. Hiring mostly grads from top schools is exactly that. In my circle are a lot of junior and fresh out of school developers and one guy I know who killed it in his interview was ultimately not hired and told it was because he didn't "look like a developer". He dressed in normal business casual attire. Another friend of mine who is a significantly worse developer interviewed (and struggled through his interview) for the same job and ultimately was hired because he fit in with their hoodie-wearing, ping-pong-playing frat-bro, drink every day at 4pm culture. There's a fine line between "culture fit" and "cultural homogeny". Fortunately I know that hiring a diverse team is the best way to cultivate a strong team.
    - gadlfy 10y ago
      I don't know — ageism?
      - busterarm 10y ago
        Yeah, that too.
    - pmiller2 10y ago
ben_jones 10y ago
If you play Blizzard's latest title Overwatch you'll probably have complaints about balancing issues. If your post on their forums you'll likely get a response akin to "the statistics show a 49/51 spread, it's balanced!". Why don't people realize that 50/50 won't actually make them happy? Ever.
rayiner 10y ago
If sexism in society does not cause a non-50/50 gender balance, what does? It must be innate preferences or abilities. I.e. the explanation is either nurture or it is nature. Some people are willing to easily chalk up the differences to nature, without much in the way of concrete evidence. Others see dramatic changes in the representation of women in various professions over just a couple of generations,[1] and conclude that society must be driving the change, not genetics. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

jordigh 10y ago

It's pointless to argue about whom to blame as it is to defend oneself against accusations of blame. Fix the problem, not the blame. If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. You didn't do it, I didn't do it, but it still needs to be fixed.

redthrowaway 10y ago
>If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. This seems to be an extraordinary claim made in the complete absence of evidence. Is it a problem that there are more women going into early childhood education or biology, but more men going into petroleum engineering? Why? Why aren't men and women allowed to express their preferences without it being pathologized?
- busterarm 10y ago
  Right. And I'm all for encouraging more people to get interested in this industry, but I don't do it by pointing my figure at all of the people already working in this industry.
- kajecounterhack 10y ago
  It wouldn't be a problem if inequality wasn't influenced strongly by negative factors for women. The tech industry is rife with evidence of hostility toward women; IT Barbie and gendered toy marketing are other examples of how women are not on equal footing with regards to entering this industry. And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job. To paint a picture that says the current landscape is "normal" is to overlook a lot of broken things.
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    >And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job. How many times does the "wage gap" need to be debunked before people stop spreading it? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-do... http://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/ http://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga... http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_pay_gap_the_familiar_line_that_women_make_77_cents_to_every_man_s.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende... http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-into-the-gender-pay-gap-myth/#5562f8604766 http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...
    - nucleardog 10y ago
      I find it's a really convenient indicator that it's time to excuse yourself from a conversation.
    - smrtinsert 10y ago
      Three articles by the same person from the American Enterprise Institute and then some obvious opinion pieces with restricted sampling sizes. Imo, the smoking gun should include a gun and it should probably be smoking.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    There definitely are many problems and things that could be improved, however, the point is that even if all of those problems would be fixed, there would be a gender disparity in choice of occupations. The GP statement "If there is no gender parity, there is a problem" is strictly false, even in an ideal world managed by fairies where all these problems are totally fixed, we would not observe gender parity - it would for most professions be much closer to 50/50 than nowadays, that's true, but it would not be at 50/50.
    - kajecounterhack 10y ago
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Why aren't men and women allowed to express their preferences without it being pathologized? Because those preferences are mostly the result of sexism. In 1970, there was no law against women being doctors or lawyers in 1970, yet less than 15% of graduates in those professions were women. Many people said the exact same thing you're saying now: oh, these are just natural preferences and aptitudes. Yet today, women make up 50% of graduates in those professions? Did something change in their genetics? Or did those professions just become less sexist? What the heck explains 50% of accounting graduates being women, but less than 20% of CS graduates? Some weirdly specific gene?
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    >Because those preferences are mostly the result of sexism Another extraordinary claim made in the complete absence of evidence. Are you claiming that men and women don't have different preferences? Are you claiming that Iran, where 70% of engineering students are women, is less sexist than the US? >Yet today, women make up 50% of graduates in those professions? Did something change in their genetics? Or did those professions just become less sexist? So medicine, law, education, biology, veterinary science, and chemistry got less sexist, but philosophy, physics, and engineering didn't. That's your claim. That you've made, again, without a shred of evidence.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      > So medicine, law, education, biology, veterinary science, and chemistry got less sexist, but philosophy, physics, and engineering didn't. That's your claim. That you've made, again, without a shred of evidence. Yes that's my claim, and yes there is evidence for it: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-.... From 1970 to 2005, the proportion of women medical and law graduates went from 50-10% to nearly 50%. The proportion of computer science graduates went from 15% to 35% in 1985 but dropped below 20% in the 2000s. There are only three possible explanations for that data. (1) certain industries got less sexist while computer science lagged behind; (2) society got less sexist about women going into certain industries; or (3) womens' biological preferences changed dramatically over just a few decades. (3) is ridiculous, so the answer must be (1) or (2), which are both the product of sexism.
- undersuit 10y ago
  >Is it a problem that there are more women going into early childhood education or biology, but more men going into petroleum engineering? Don't the petroleum engineers make more money than the average biologist?
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    Which might explain why men, who are far more motivated by money than women are, would seek to enter the field despite it being a much more difficult degree and arguably less rewarding career.

busterarm 10y ago

Sexist. ;) I do wish we made as much of an effort breaking racial and class barriers in this industry. Unfortunately I have sat in on hiring discussions trying to argue for why we should hire the strongest engineer and my colleagues in the room are trying to come up with reasons not to hire because the candidate was black and/or working-class.

Grishnakh 10y ago
You had colleagues who didn't want to hire someone just because they were "working class"??? Seriously? Were these colleagues a bunch of fedora-wearing hipsters or something?
- busterarm 10y ago
  I would actually argue that classism is far and away the worst problem in this industry. It just plays out in ways that you don't expect. Hiring mostly grads from top schools is exactly that. In my circle are a lot of junior and fresh out of school developers and one guy I know who killed it in his interview was ultimately not hired and told it was because he didn't "look like a developer". He dressed in normal business casual attire. Another friend of mine who is a significantly worse developer interviewed (and struggled through his interview) for the same job and ultimately was hired because he fit in with their hoodie-wearing, ping-pong-playing frat-bro, drink every day at 4pm culture. There's a fine line between "culture fit" and "cultural homogeny". Fortunately I know that hiring a diverse team is the best way to cultivate a strong team.
  - gadlfy 10y ago
    I don't know — ageism?
    - busterarm 10y ago
      Yeah, that too.
  - pmiller2 10y ago

ben_jones 10y ago

If you play Blizzard's latest title Overwatch you'll probably have complaints about balancing issues. If your post on their forums you'll likely get a response akin to "the statistics show a 49/51 spread, it's balanced!". Why don't people realize that 50/50 won't actually make them happy? Ever.

rayiner 10y ago

If sexism in society does not cause a non-50/50 gender balance, what does? It must be innate preferences or abilities. I.e. the explanation is either nurture or it is nature. Some people are willing to easily chalk up the differences to nature, without much in the way of concrete evidence. Others see dramatic changes in the representation of women in various professions over just a couple of generations,[1] and conclude that society must be driving the change, not genetics. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...