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> There are legitimate physical[1] and psychological[2] differences between the sexes which lead to differences in career preferences What physical and psychol

> There are legitimate physical[1] and psychological[2] differences between the sexes which lead to differences in career preferences What physical and psychological differences cause more men than women to go into tech? Do you really think that it's something like that rather than pervasive social problems in the industry that make it hostile to women as described in the article and many others? This isn't a hypothetical question I'd love to hear your response :) Women are perfectly innately physically and psychologically capable of doing the work in tech I and my male coworkers do. The reason for lack of parity is elsewhere and is definitely not benign.

deleted 9y ago
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drakenot 9y ago
What about the lack of diversity of men in elementary teacher positions? Nursing? Where is the big push to bring men into these fields?
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- jrkatz 9y ago
  There is. https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage Presumably equality there isn't as exciting to people because teacher pay is garbage for everybody, whereas in tech it looks like women are being locked out of one of our most lucrative industries.
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  - drakenot 9y ago
    I've been hearing about the lack of diversity my whole career and I'm sick of it. Women aren't being kept out. They keep themselves out. There is a social stigma in the United States against going into technical fields in the first place amongst women. India, for example, has no stigma of women working in tech. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of woman I have worked with have all been from other countries. They earn good salaries and are strong contributors on the teams I've been on. There were exactly 2 females in my Computer Science program in college. Eventually there was just one who graduated with us. No amount of blog posts or news articles about diversity at companies will fix that. The problem is WAY earlier than that. You aren't going to be able to magically find a plethora of adult female engineers if they simply aren't enrolling in the programs in the first place.
    - urahara 9y ago
      That's not correct. Facts are the opposite, women are kept out on many levels because of how they are often seen by society and what treatment do they regularly get along their career paths in the industry. Many research has been done on that, on many levels. What you describe as 'they simply aren't enrolling' is largely the result of keeping them out.
      - drakenot 9y ago
        The statement of "Facts are the opposite" isn't a compelling argument. I wrote that there is a social stigma against women, in the United States, against going into technical fields. If you want to view that as "society keeping them out", then fine. But women aren't being kept out in any overt way. Women would have been accepted just as anyone else in my Computer Science university program. These would be women who hadn't even gotten started on the career paths. If they are being kept-out, then why are the foreign women that I work with, who don't share the same sense of social stigma, able to have such productive careers? Are they immune from the bad treatment?
    - rayiner 9y ago
      You say "women aren't being kept out," but then admit there is a "social stigma against women going into tech." Which is it?
      - drakenot 9y ago
        There is a social stigma, but, as far as I can tell, it seems to largely be a stigma between women themselves. Even if there is some wider social stigma, I don't think that it constitutes "being kept out." There is a similar social stigma against men being nurses, but I wouldn't claim that men are being "kept out of nursing." It is just looked at slightly oddly by some and this leads to less male nurses. Why is there not more noise about this imbalance? The whole problem is that all of the discussion around the issue of women in tech seems to focus on the problem way too late in the "pipeline". It is trying to address the symptoms after the damage is already done. Trying to focus on hiring more women, as a goal unto itself, seems wrong to me. The problem isn't hiring more women. That leads to people hiring under-qualified women simply because they are women. The problem is that the supply is crazy low because <20% of Computer Science graduates are women in the United States. So, if you want to fix this imbalance then fix the stigma. Perhaps have a marketing campaign that makes it seem less socially damning to be a girl hacker while they are an adolescent.
- randomdata 9y ago
  The tech industry is pushing women (and children!) into the tech field because it increases the supply of labour. An increase in the supply of labour, without a corresponding increase in demand for labour, of course, leads to lower prices. In other words, it's an attempt to push down labour costs. Costs that are currently among some of the highest labour costs around. Teaching and nursing are already low paying, or unionized, and so there is no significant benefit to increasing the labour supply. At least not commensurable with the cost of pushing that message.
SamUK96 9y ago
You shifted the burden of proof, although probably not intentionally here. You are making the claim of whether the physical and psychological differences should have much of an effect, so the burden of proof is on you.
png_hero 9y ago
It’s called “choice” And as much as you may personally love the tech industry, it’s perfectly reasonable that some women don’t. Arguably it’s a smarter choice to go into dentistry than tech.
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programmarchy 9y ago
Have you heard of the Norweigen gender equality paradox? In countries like Norway where gender equality is high, you see men and women taking on more stereotypical jobs (e.g. women as nurses, men as firefighters) I think this is because when social freedom is maximized, biological differences are more able to fully express themselves. Conversely, in countries that are less free, men and women may be compelled to take on jobs they don't really want in order to survive. Men and women have obvious biological differences that have evolved over millions of years. Women as mothers have evolved compassion and emotional bonding to maximize the survival of their infants, which explains the stereotypical nursing, administrative, and care taking roles. Men have evolved as hunters and warriors, where emotion is secondary to rationality, and at worse a hindrance in the brutality of war. Since technical roles are largely divorced from emotion, masculine rather than feminine traits are better suited at a biological and psychological level. I think we should absolutely strive for gender equality in a legal and social sense, but then we shouldn't be surprised if women aren't rabid about sitting at computers all day.
- rayiner 9y ago
  This sort of handwaving doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For example, what is the "feminine, emotional" dimension of accounting that leads to the majority of accountants being women? For that matter, what is different between accounting and programming via-a-vid cold hard rationality that makes the gender ratio so different? What biological changes explain the dramatic decrease in women getting computer science degrees since 1980? It's not even internally consistent. Why is programming more like "hunting" than "gathering?" Hunting is all about intense bouts of focus for short durations. Good programmers, in contrast, need to be able to focus on details for sustained periods of time. And isn't a big part of programming focused on communicating and working in groups, something women are supposedly better suited to doing?
  - tptacek 9y ago
    And, of course, the reminder: CS and physics are unique among science STEM fields in how poor their gender parity is. Every other science field (including mathematics) is significantly better. Some fields, like molecular biology, have essentially full parity.
tzs 9y ago
> What physical and psychological differences cause more men than women to go into tech? The question is too narrow. Since the number of men and the number of women is about the same, an imbalance of them in any particular field implies that there must be an imbalance the other way somewhere else. Almost all inquiries into the male/female ratio on tech just look at tech. They need to look at where the women DO go, not just where they do not go. One possibility from the items on the list of psychological differences given was empathy. That list said women tend to have more empathy than men. I'd expect that to, at least to some extent, make fields that require high empathy to have more women than men. In addition, higher empathy may make women more likely to choose fields in which they can help people, even if the job itself doesn't have any particular empathy requirement. Another possibility is that girls mature faster than boys, both cognitively and emotionally. The brain undergoes some major reorganization between childhood and adulthood, and that starts in girls up to several years before it starts in boys. The slower emotional maturing in boys may mean that boys spend more time in that wonderful stage where your brain is developed enough to start really getting STEM subjects, but is still largely a child's brain that is still focused on what is fun now and doesn't care about preparing to be an adult. It's that stage that produces your classic STEM nerd.

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[deleted]

drakenot 9y ago

What about the lack of diversity of men in elementary teacher positions? Nursing? Where is the big push to bring men into these fields?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jrkatz 9y ago
There is. https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage Presumably equality there isn't as exciting to people because teacher pay is garbage for everybody, whereas in tech it looks like women are being locked out of one of our most lucrative industries.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- drakenot 9y ago
  I've been hearing about the lack of diversity my whole career and I'm sick of it. Women aren't being kept out. They keep themselves out. There is a social stigma in the United States against going into technical fields in the first place amongst women. India, for example, has no stigma of women working in tech. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of woman I have worked with have all been from other countries. They earn good salaries and are strong contributors on the teams I've been on. There were exactly 2 females in my Computer Science program in college. Eventually there was just one who graduated with us. No amount of blog posts or news articles about diversity at companies will fix that. The problem is WAY earlier than that. You aren't going to be able to magically find a plethora of adult female engineers if they simply aren't enrolling in the programs in the first place.
  - urahara 9y ago
    That's not correct. Facts are the opposite, women are kept out on many levels because of how they are often seen by society and what treatment do they regularly get along their career paths in the industry. Many research has been done on that, on many levels. What you describe as 'they simply aren't enrolling' is largely the result of keeping them out.
    - drakenot 9y ago
      The statement of "Facts are the opposite" isn't a compelling argument. I wrote that there is a social stigma against women, in the United States, against going into technical fields. If you want to view that as "society keeping them out", then fine. But women aren't being kept out in any overt way. Women would have been accepted just as anyone else in my Computer Science university program. These would be women who hadn't even gotten started on the career paths. If they are being kept-out, then why are the foreign women that I work with, who don't share the same sense of social stigma, able to have such productive careers? Are they immune from the bad treatment?
  - rayiner 9y ago
    You say "women aren't being kept out," but then admit there is a "social stigma against women going into tech." Which is it?
    - drakenot 9y ago
      There is a social stigma, but, as far as I can tell, it seems to largely be a stigma between women themselves. Even if there is some wider social stigma, I don't think that it constitutes "being kept out." There is a similar social stigma against men being nurses, but I wouldn't claim that men are being "kept out of nursing." It is just looked at slightly oddly by some and this leads to less male nurses. Why is there not more noise about this imbalance? The whole problem is that all of the discussion around the issue of women in tech seems to focus on the problem way too late in the "pipeline". It is trying to address the symptoms after the damage is already done. Trying to focus on hiring more women, as a goal unto itself, seems wrong to me. The problem isn't hiring more women. That leads to people hiring under-qualified women simply because they are women. The problem is that the supply is crazy low because <20% of Computer Science graduates are women in the United States. So, if you want to fix this imbalance then fix the stigma. Perhaps have a marketing campaign that makes it seem less socially damning to be a girl hacker while they are an adolescent.
randomdata 9y ago
The tech industry is pushing women (and children!) into the tech field because it increases the supply of labour. An increase in the supply of labour, without a corresponding increase in demand for labour, of course, leads to lower prices. In other words, it's an attempt to push down labour costs. Costs that are currently among some of the highest labour costs around. Teaching and nursing are already low paying, or unionized, and so there is no significant benefit to increasing the labour supply. At least not commensurable with the cost of pushing that message.

SamUK96 9y ago

You shifted the burden of proof, although probably not intentionally here. You are making the claim of whether the physical and psychological differences should have much of an effect, so the burden of proof is on you.

png_hero 9y ago

It’s called “choice” And as much as you may personally love the tech industry, it’s perfectly reasonable that some women don’t. Arguably it’s a smarter choice to go into dentistry than tech.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

programmarchy 9y ago

Have you heard of the Norweigen gender equality paradox? In countries like Norway where gender equality is high, you see men and women taking on more stereotypical jobs (e.g. women as nurses, men as firefighters) I think this is because when social freedom is maximized, biological differences are more able to fully express themselves. Conversely, in countries that are less free, men and women may be compelled to take on jobs they don't really want in order to survive. Men and women have obvious biological differences that have evolved over millions of years. Women as mothers have evolved compassion and emotional bonding to maximize the survival of their infants, which explains the stereotypical nursing, administrative, and care taking roles. Men have evolved as hunters and warriors, where emotion is secondary to rationality, and at worse a hindrance in the brutality of war. Since technical roles are largely divorced from emotion, masculine rather than feminine traits are better suited at a biological and psychological level. I think we should absolutely strive for gender equality in a legal and social sense, but then we shouldn't be surprised if women aren't rabid about sitting at computers all day.

rayiner 9y ago
This sort of handwaving doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For example, what is the "feminine, emotional" dimension of accounting that leads to the majority of accountants being women? For that matter, what is different between accounting and programming via-a-vid cold hard rationality that makes the gender ratio so different? What biological changes explain the dramatic decrease in women getting computer science degrees since 1980? It's not even internally consistent. Why is programming more like "hunting" than "gathering?" Hunting is all about intense bouts of focus for short durations. Good programmers, in contrast, need to be able to focus on details for sustained periods of time. And isn't a big part of programming focused on communicating and working in groups, something women are supposedly better suited to doing?
- tptacek 9y ago
  And, of course, the reminder: CS and physics are unique among science STEM fields in how poor their gender parity is. Every other science field (including mathematics) is significantly better. Some fields, like molecular biology, have essentially full parity.

tzs 9y ago

> What physical and psychological differences cause more men than women to go into tech? The question is too narrow. Since the number of men and the number of women is about the same, an imbalance of them in any particular field implies that there must be an imbalance the other way somewhere else. Almost all inquiries into the male/female ratio on tech just look at tech. They need to look at where the women DO go, not just where they do not go. One possibility from the items on the list of psychological differences given was empathy. That list said women tend to have more empathy than men. I'd expect that to, at least to some extent, make fields that require high empathy to have more women than men. In addition, higher empathy may make women more likely to choose fields in which they can help people, even if the job itself doesn't have any particular empathy requirement. Another possibility is that girls mature faster than boys, both cognitively and emotionally. The brain undergoes some major reorganization between childhood and adulthood, and that starts in girls up to several years before it starts in boys. The slower emotional maturing in boys may mean that boys spend more time in that wonderful stage where your brain is developed enough to start really getting STEM subjects, but is still largely a child's brain that is still focused on what is fun now and doesn't care about preparing to be an adult. It's that stage that produces your classic STEM nerd.