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That part doesn't make much sense either because gender representation isn't a legitimate concept. Individuals have different strengths which may help them succ

That part doesn't make much sense either because gender representation isn't a legitimate concept. Individuals have different strengths which may help them succeed if their pursuits use those strengths. This results in uneven gender distributions within industries and there's nothing wrong with that. Unless you think there is some sort of overt discrimination happening that's stopping females becoming senior engineers, in which case you'll need to define it.

geofft 9y ago
Can you provide evidence for the specific claim that women, in particular, are statistically-significantly less strong at the software engineering industry, in particular? (I buy the argument that there are statistically-significant differences in some strengths that apply in some industries, yes. I'm curious to see how this applies to software engineering in particular.)
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  I don't recall the exact source but I believe that overall, women score lower in tests for mathematical and logical aptitude, and higher in tests for verbal and social aptitude. This correlates with the low numbers of women that choose to enter the industry, despite increasing incentives. It also correlates with female domination of fields such as nursing.
  - geofft 9y ago
    OK. I'd argue that software engineering and especially senior software engineering (architecture, designing APIs and interfaces, reading and writing documentation, team management) is better correlated with verbal and social aptitude than with mathematical and logical aptitude. Being able to get a tricky sorting algorithm right is the sort of thing a junior engineer is more likely to do than a senior engineer; when the senior engineer does it, they also tend to need to explain to others why the algorithm is right. Of course this is just my belief, as a member of the industry, and not a scientifically-researched conclusion. So, again, I'm curious to see evidence of why women's aptitude is poorly correlated with the specific industry of software engineering. (I would even buy, based on your argument, that women's aptitude is poorly correlated with academic computer science, but that's a very different field.)
    - hyperdunc 9y ago
      It's true communication skills are more important once the senior level is reached. Perhaps the work involved in moving through the junior ranks is not appealing. It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's not clear why but there does appear to be a biological component. It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. That's my observation anyway. I haven't studied the issue in great detail.
      - BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
        > It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's also clear that girls on the whole are not driven toward STEM by their adult mentors, and outside the bubble are actively discouraged from it. > It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. Certain, are you? Based on what?
        hyperdunc 9y ago
        No one should be driven toward any field they aren't interested in, nor should they be actively discouraged from anything they are interested in. Today, different families and schools push varying expectations onto children. This cultural aspect is layered on top of biological differences in body and intelligence. If we remove cultural impediments and allow biology to express itself more fully, the uneven distribution of gender in different fields increases. In other words, the relative evenness of the distribution we currently have is socially constructed. So I'm not convinced by the argument that women (and indeed many men) are dissuaded because they hold negative stereotypes of people and working culture in STEM fields. However, I'm willing to keep an open mind on this, so if this is true then more effort should be made to welcome in talented outsiders.
      - geofft 9y ago
        > It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's not clear why but there does appear to be a biological component. It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. I don't think I believe any of these three claims. For these I don't think asking for supporting evidence would help - these aren't claims where you can easily point to a research paper, but these are interpretations of a large amount of data (some rigorous, some anecdotal). But it's interesting that we have such different interpretations, worldviews if you will, of the data we've seen. I think women are drawn just fine to STEM as a whole (if by "drawn" you mean "innate interest"), I think they're somewhat structurally discouraged by socially-constructed barriers to STEM as whole and, importantly, quite a bit more discouraged to software engineering in particular. And I don't think there's anything biological about it (unless you count the fact that many people with wombs plan to bear children and nobody without wombs does, and long parental leave is a serious career hit, but I'd still argue that 90% of that is a socially-constructed barrier and not a biological one).
- wyattjoh 9y ago
  I doubt that hyperdunc was directly referring to the idea that: > women, in particular, are statistically-significantly less strong at the software engineering industry I think that what was they indicated was that because individual strengths may vary, because there likely isn't a strong balance of genders in the workplace. It would be obvious that due to different strengths of individuals that there would could be an apparent bias.
- m1el 9y ago
  Let's assume for a moment, that engineering requires intelligence, and to be a top engineer you need to be in the top X% percentile of the population. As it turns out the distribution of IQ in men and women is different[0][1][2][3], with men having more variation (more extremely dumb men and more extremely smart men), and an ever so slightly higher median (men have slightly higher IQ on average). These small differences lead to huge difference in representation of exceptionally smart people, because of how normal distribution works. These differences manifest themselves in tasks requiring high intelligence, such as chess, go, engineering and software development. I say this as a scientific statement, with zero sexism implied. I believe that people should not be afraid to state scientific truths, no matter how controversial they may seem. [0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001115 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606... [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911002212 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606000250 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606... [3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289604000492 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289604...
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    That's a pretty solid argument that a lot of people aren't going to like.
  - wf 9y ago
    As it turns out women have barely had any time at all being afforded the same privileges as men[0], and that's just the United States, there remain cultures that are extremely oppressive to women. It also turns out we still tell women from a young age that "they can't".[1] It also turns out there are a ton of biases pushing women out of STEM[2][3][4][5]. So when you cite evidence that says men are smarter than women conducted by men standing on the shoulders of a society built for men, you can't be shocked when people question it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_United... [1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389 [2] http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopardy-report.pdf http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopa... [3] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403.full [4] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
> Unless you think there is some sort of overt discrimination happening that's stopping females becoming senior engineers, in which case you'll need to define it. I think it's pretty likely that the environmental conditions that hinder women from ever becoming engineers in the first place don't all suddenly go away for the ones who manage to do it anyway. Or are we talking about first principles here? Because I also think that a lot of maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination hinders young girls from having early lifestyles that lead to becoming women engineers. I don't really see how one could reasonably argue otherwise. And if discrimination prevents LARGE_% of A, and B requires A, then discrimination has almost certainly also prevented SOME_% of B. That's just basic middle school math.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  "maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination" is so vague it can be immediately dismissed. If you're talking about culture or traditional gender roles, then I put forward that these are not primarily a result of discrimination but mostly evolved over quite a long time based on biological differences. If we are going to deconstruct aspects of culture because we consider them unjust, we'd better be honest about why things are and what we might lose if we try to force certain outcomes. A recent examination of a Scandinavian country purported to be globally the least discriminatory (Denmark or Norway - I don't recall which) of gender distributions in different fields showed increased unevenness. In other words, given the agency by their culture, women tend to avoid STEM fields. I think it's fair to say that everyone should be given the opportunities and challenges they can rise to, but no one should be coerced into any role for the sake of an asinine idea like "gender representation".

geofft 9y ago

Can you provide evidence for the specific claim that women, in particular, are statistically-significantly less strong at the software engineering industry, in particular? (I buy the argument that there are statistically-significant differences in some strengths that apply in some industries, yes. I'm curious to see how this applies to software engineering in particular.)

hyperdunc 9y ago
I don't recall the exact source but I believe that overall, women score lower in tests for mathematical and logical aptitude, and higher in tests for verbal and social aptitude. This correlates with the low numbers of women that choose to enter the industry, despite increasing incentives. It also correlates with female domination of fields such as nursing.
- geofft 9y ago
  OK. I'd argue that software engineering and especially senior software engineering (architecture, designing APIs and interfaces, reading and writing documentation, team management) is better correlated with verbal and social aptitude than with mathematical and logical aptitude. Being able to get a tricky sorting algorithm right is the sort of thing a junior engineer is more likely to do than a senior engineer; when the senior engineer does it, they also tend to need to explain to others why the algorithm is right. Of course this is just my belief, as a member of the industry, and not a scientifically-researched conclusion. So, again, I'm curious to see evidence of why women's aptitude is poorly correlated with the specific industry of software engineering. (I would even buy, based on your argument, that women's aptitude is poorly correlated with academic computer science, but that's a very different field.)
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    It's true communication skills are more important once the senior level is reached. Perhaps the work involved in moving through the junior ranks is not appealing. It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's not clear why but there does appear to be a biological component. It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. That's my observation anyway. I haven't studied the issue in great detail.
    - BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
      > It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's also clear that girls on the whole are not driven toward STEM by their adult mentors, and outside the bubble are actively discouraged from it. > It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. Certain, are you? Based on what?
      - hyperdunc 9y ago
        No one should be driven toward any field they aren't interested in, nor should they be actively discouraged from anything they are interested in. Today, different families and schools push varying expectations onto children. This cultural aspect is layered on top of biological differences in body and intelligence. If we remove cultural impediments and allow biology to express itself more fully, the uneven distribution of gender in different fields increases. In other words, the relative evenness of the distribution we currently have is socially constructed. So I'm not convinced by the argument that women (and indeed many men) are dissuaded because they hold negative stereotypes of people and working culture in STEM fields. However, I'm willing to keep an open mind on this, so if this is true then more effort should be made to welcome in talented outsiders.
    - geofft 9y ago
      > It's clear women on the whole are not drawn to STEM. It's not clear why but there does appear to be a biological component. It's certainly not primarily socially constructed. I don't think I believe any of these three claims. For these I don't think asking for supporting evidence would help - these aren't claims where you can easily point to a research paper, but these are interpretations of a large amount of data (some rigorous, some anecdotal). But it's interesting that we have such different interpretations, worldviews if you will, of the data we've seen. I think women are drawn just fine to STEM as a whole (if by "drawn" you mean "innate interest"), I think they're somewhat structurally discouraged by socially-constructed barriers to STEM as whole and, importantly, quite a bit more discouraged to software engineering in particular. And I don't think there's anything biological about it (unless you count the fact that many people with wombs plan to bear children and nobody without wombs does, and long parental leave is a serious career hit, but I'd still argue that 90% of that is a socially-constructed barrier and not a biological one).
wyattjoh 9y ago
I doubt that hyperdunc was directly referring to the idea that: > women, in particular, are statistically-significantly less strong at the software engineering industry I think that what was they indicated was that because individual strengths may vary, because there likely isn't a strong balance of genders in the workplace. It would be obvious that due to different strengths of individuals that there would could be an apparent bias.
m1el 9y ago
Let's assume for a moment, that engineering requires intelligence, and to be a top engineer you need to be in the top X% percentile of the population. As it turns out the distribution of IQ in men and women is different[0][1][2][3], with men having more variation (more extremely dumb men and more extremely smart men), and an ever so slightly higher median (men have slightly higher IQ on average). These small differences lead to huge difference in representation of exceptionally smart people, because of how normal distribution works. These differences manifest themselves in tasks requiring high intelligence, such as chess, go, engineering and software development. I say this as a scientific statement, with zero sexism implied. I believe that people should not be afraid to state scientific truths, no matter how controversial they may seem. [0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001115 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606... [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911002212 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606000250 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606... [3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289604000492 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289604...
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  That's a pretty solid argument that a lot of people aren't going to like.
- wf 9y ago
  As it turns out women have barely had any time at all being afforded the same privileges as men[0], and that's just the United States, there remain cultures that are extremely oppressive to women. It also turns out we still tell women from a young age that "they can't".[1] It also turns out there are a ton of biases pushing women out of STEM[2][3][4][5]. So when you cite evidence that says men are smarter than women conducted by men standing on the shoulders of a society built for men, you can't be shocked when people question it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_United... [1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389 [2] http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopardy-report.pdf http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopa... [3] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403.full [4] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full

BugsJustFindMe 9y ago

> Unless you think there is some sort of overt discrimination happening that's stopping females becoming senior engineers, in which case you'll need to define it. I think it's pretty likely that the environmental conditions that hinder women from ever becoming engineers in the first place don't all suddenly go away for the ones who manage to do it anyway. Or are we talking about first principles here? Because I also think that a lot of maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination hinders young girls from having early lifestyles that lead to becoming women engineers. I don't really see how one could reasonably argue otherwise. And if discrimination prevents LARGE_% of A, and B requires A, then discrimination has almost certainly also prevented SOME_% of B. That's just basic middle school math.

hyperdunc 9y ago
"maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination" is so vague it can be immediately dismissed. If you're talking about culture or traditional gender roles, then I put forward that these are not primarily a result of discrimination but mostly evolved over quite a long time based on biological differences. If we are going to deconstruct aspects of culture because we consider them unjust, we'd better be honest about why things are and what we might lose if we try to force certain outcomes. A recent examination of a Scandinavian country purported to be globally the least discriminatory (Denmark or Norway - I don't recall which) of gender distributions in different fields showed increased unevenness. In other words, given the agency by their culture, women tend to avoid STEM fields. I think it's fair to say that everyone should be given the opportunities and challenges they can rise to, but no one should be coerced into any role for the sake of an asinine idea like "gender representation".