4 ms·

so is not having women in STEM. Pick your poison.

by svs 10y ago

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
Given the fact that nearly every major corporation enacts some sort of affirmative action hiring system, women have every incentive to go into STEM in the US, yet are choosing other careers, which should be their right. Equal opportunity should be our goal, not forced diversity quotas. As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is?
- sqeaky 10y ago
  Maybe because plumbing and HVAC aren't growing at the same exponential rate as IT. Few fields are. Maybe because by pure statistics[1] or by anecdote men tend to have greater upper body strength than women. This matters when replacing 50x 10kg condenser coils or carrying 10 meter long segments of steel pipe up stairs. But it doesn't matter at all when solving problems in front of a keyboard and a compiler. [1] one example in hand grip strength - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    Why should exponential growth be a prerequisite for equality?
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      In the long run it shouldn't be. In the short term, it means firing experienced people of one class to hire inexperienced people of another. Fast growth means that equality can be reached faster with just equal training and hiring.
      - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I see what you're saying and it makes sense. I disagree with the underlying assumption that differences between men and women are purely cultural and that all nonphysical jobs should be evenly distributed among the sexes, but if you disagree, then what you are saying would be a great way to create a more even distribution between the sexes.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is? It's because you're not paying attention. All of those have been mentioned on HN before, and each of them have programmes to increase the diversity of the workforce. Here's a post from a year ago that mentions forestry, and plumbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    Of course there will be some people pushing for that, but it isn't pushed for nearly as much as in tech.
  - nananonymous 10y ago
    I expected that to be a post to an actual discussion, not a link to one of your own posts which nobody actually responded to. It also sidesteps the point that there's an orders of magnitude difference in how much effort goes towards getting women into safe and high-paying male-dominated jobs compared to dangerous low-paying male-dominated jobs.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      But that's the point - OP wasn't trying to have a discussion, OP was making the same tedious point that has been refuted countless times on HN, let alone elsewhere. Every single time this discussion happens someone will make the same stupid point - "What about women in X?" or "What about men in Y?" And every single time someone has already posted a link to a programme to increase the numbers of women in X or the numbers of men in Y. It's dumb and it's lazy, especially so because this information is trivially easy to find. > there's an orders of magnitude difference in how much effort goes towards getting women into safe and high-paying male-dominated jobs compared to dangerous low-paying male-dominated jobs. CITATION NEEDED.
      - nananonymous 10y ago
        Grandparent comment was saying "X is bigger than Y", saying "Y is not zero" misses the point. sqeaky's comment offers an explanation. I don't fully agree with it but it's a productive step forward in a discussion. When you use words like ignorant, tedious, stupid, dumb and lazy while failing to refute the argument it doesn't make you or your side look any better. I look at sqeaky's comment and have to admit I can see where they're coming from, meanwhile I look at your comments and wonder why you think you've just knocked this one out of the park. > CITATION NEEDED. Do you really need proof that more effort is going towards getting women into jobs from Column A than Column B? You had to resort to linking one of your own comments from a middle-popularity post on a fairly small website from a year ago. I could easily find videos of world leaders saying "This is important" But you can just clear your cookies, go to google and see how "women in ____" auto-completes, then see how many results each phrase gets. You may not see an "orders of magnitude" of difference but you won't be able to act like there's equal attention going in each direction either.
ra1n85 10y ago
Do you have data that indicates the number of females in STEM fields is due to discrimination?
- erispoe 10y ago
  What is the alternative hypothesis?
  - drkstr 10y ago
    Peer pressure, mostly in the form of Big Media.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
      Everyone suffers from peer pressure. That is not a gender based thing.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - analognoise 10y ago
    Women are too goddamn smart to put up with the bullshit in tech so they go elsewhere if they have a chance, is my working hypothesis.
  - ra1n85 10y ago
    I don't think that logic applies, or results in too shallow an observation. If you reverse it, say for men and the profession of dental hygienists, could you say the field has fewer men because of discrimination? There are likely many reasons as to why there are fewer women in STEM fields than men. Culture and socio-economics are two very big factors being completely dismissed here. Chalking everything up to discrimination is intellectually lazy (unless there's good data presented and indicating that to be fact), and does nothing to help the situation. If you don't fully understand the root cause, how can you resolve the problem?
  - btilly 10y ago

so is not having women in STEM. Pick your poison.

by svs 10y ago

so is not having women in STEM. Pick your poison.

Given the fact that nearly every major corporation enacts some sort of affirmative action hiring system, women have every incentive to go into STEM in the US, yet are choosing other careers, which should be their right. Equal opportunity should be our goal, not forced diversity quotas. As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is?

sqeaky 10y ago
Maybe because plumbing and HVAC aren't growing at the same exponential rate as IT. Few fields are. Maybe because by pure statistics[1] or by anecdote men tend to have greater upper body strength than women. This matters when replacing 50x 10kg condenser coils or carrying 10 meter long segments of steel pipe up stairs. But it doesn't matter at all when solving problems in front of a keyboard and a compiler. [1] one example in hand grip strength - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  Why should exponential growth be a prerequisite for equality?
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    In the long run it shouldn't be. In the short term, it means firing experienced people of one class to hire inexperienced people of another. Fast growth means that equality can be reached faster with just equal training and hiring.
    - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
      I see what you're saying and it makes sense. I disagree with the underlying assumption that differences between men and women are purely cultural and that all nonphysical jobs should be evenly distributed among the sexes, but if you disagree, then what you are saying would be a great way to create a more even distribution between the sexes.
DanBC 10y ago
> As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is? It's because you're not paying attention. All of those have been mentioned on HN before, and each of them have programmes to increase the diversity of the workforce. Here's a post from a year ago that mentions forestry, and plumbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  Of course there will be some people pushing for that, but it isn't pushed for nearly as much as in tech.
- nananonymous 10y ago
  I expected that to be a post to an actual discussion, not a link to one of your own posts which nobody actually responded to. It also sidesteps the point that there's an orders of magnitude difference in how much effort goes towards getting women into safe and high-paying male-dominated jobs compared to dangerous low-paying male-dominated jobs.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    But that's the point - OP wasn't trying to have a discussion, OP was making the same tedious point that has been refuted countless times on HN, let alone elsewhere. Every single time this discussion happens someone will make the same stupid point - "What about women in X?" or "What about men in Y?" And every single time someone has already posted a link to a programme to increase the numbers of women in X or the numbers of men in Y. It's dumb and it's lazy, especially so because this information is trivially easy to find. > there's an orders of magnitude difference in how much effort goes towards getting women into safe and high-paying male-dominated jobs compared to dangerous low-paying male-dominated jobs. CITATION NEEDED.
    - nananonymous 10y ago
      Grandparent comment was saying "X is bigger than Y", saying "Y is not zero" misses the point. sqeaky's comment offers an explanation. I don't fully agree with it but it's a productive step forward in a discussion. When you use words like ignorant, tedious, stupid, dumb and lazy while failing to refute the argument it doesn't make you or your side look any better. I look at sqeaky's comment and have to admit I can see where they're coming from, meanwhile I look at your comments and wonder why you think you've just knocked this one out of the park. > CITATION NEEDED. Do you really need proof that more effort is going towards getting women into jobs from Column A than Column B? You had to resort to linking one of your own comments from a middle-popularity post on a fairly small website from a year ago. I could easily find videos of world leaders saying "This is important" But you can just clear your cookies, go to google and see how "women in ____" auto-completes, then see how many results each phrase gets. You may not see an "orders of magnitude" of difference but you won't be able to act like there's equal attention going in each direction either.

ra1n85 10y ago

Do you have data that indicates the number of females in STEM fields is due to discrimination?

erispoe 10y ago
What is the alternative hypothesis?
- drkstr 10y ago
  Peer pressure, mostly in the form of Big Media.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
    Everyone suffers from peer pressure. That is not a gender based thing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- analognoise 10y ago
  Women are too goddamn smart to put up with the bullshit in tech so they go elsewhere if they have a chance, is my working hypothesis.
- ra1n85 10y ago
  I don't think that logic applies, or results in too shallow an observation. If you reverse it, say for men and the profession of dental hygienists, could you say the field has fewer men because of discrimination? There are likely many reasons as to why there are fewer women in STEM fields than men. Culture and socio-economics are two very big factors being completely dismissed here. Chalking everything up to discrimination is intellectually lazy (unless there's good data presented and indicating that to be fact), and does nothing to help the situation. If you don't fully understand the root cause, how can you resolve the problem?
- btilly 10y ago