3 ms·

The data is what it is, and I think you'd be hard pressed to dismiss the biological differences between males and females. Would be interested in hearing your i

The data is what it is, and I think you'd be hard pressed to dismiss the biological differences between males and females. Would be interested in hearing your interpretation, though. First, I am not saying men cannot have feminine traits and women cannot have masculine traits on the individual level. Of course there will be exceptions, and those individuals deserve respect. But on average, I think biology is the dominating factor determining those traits due to mammalian evolution. To address your points, I see accounting as administrative, akin to housekeeping, a supportive role of keeping the house in order. Programming is more about problem solving, entering unknown territories, and has more risk involved. And it doesn't sound like you've ever been hunting. It's a slog, where you're out in the woods for hours or days at a time, constantly paying attention to minute details to track animals. Finally there's an aha moment where you go in for the kill. Seems similar to programming to me. Running up to the 80s, computers were a huge fad with promises of making big money. As such many were attracted, until some people realized it wasn't satisfying for them. My mother got a CS degree and quit IBM after realizing she hated being inside all day writing networking code. She's an extremely intelligent woman and I'm proud of that, but also grateful that she stayed home to raise me and my siblings. And I never made any claims about women being better at communicating or working in groups. My claim is jobs that have similarities to mothering are more likely to attract women.

rayiner 9y ago
> The data is what it is, and I think you'd be hard pressed to dismiss the biological differences between males and females. I'm not dismissing biological differences between men and women. I'm wondering how you're getting from "there are biological differences between men and women" to "biological differences explain explain why fewer women pursue engineering." There's a smoking crater where your causation argument should be. > To address your points, I see accounting as administrative, akin to housekeeping, a supportive role of keeping the house in order. Programming is more about problem solving, entering unknown territories, and has more risk involved. This is a superficial characterization (and also demonstrates an ignorance of what accountants do). In reality, the two jobs use basically the same skills: attention to detail, mathematical reasoning, and creativity within the very narrow frameworks of rules. Consider something like debugging code versus following money through a series of transactions. It's basically the same thing: keeping track of a lot of state in your head while going through various steps, each of which changes the set based on well-defined rules.
- programmarchy 9y ago
  The biological differences produce different aptitudes and interests in men and women, which causes men and women to select different careers. Anyway, I agree there's overlap in what accountants and programmers do like you described in your debugging example. However, the main differentiating factors I pointed out were (1) more unknown territory (e.g. building things that don't exist yet) and (2) more risk involved in attempting the types of challenges programmers face (e.g. 50% of software projects fail). In contrast, accounting is a highly regulated field, more deterministic, and provides more job security. I'd say that puts it more in the middle of the spectrum between stereotypically female careers like nursing and stereotypically male careers like engineering.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > The biological differences produce different aptitudes and interests in men and women, which causes men and women to select different careers. [Citation needed]. > However, the main differentiating factors I pointed out were (1) more unknown territory (e.g. building things that don't exist yet) and (2) more risk involved in attempting the types of challenges programmers face (e.g. 50% of software projects fail). In contrast, accounting is a highly regulated field, more deterministic, and provides more job security. I'd say that puts it more in the middle of the spectrum between stereotypically female careers like nursing and stereotypically male careers like engineering. This is again just handwaving. Most engineering, even computer science, is just keeping things running or making incremental improvements. I was an aerospace major, where the vast majority of jobs are in making 1-2% per decade incremental improvements in fuel efficiency. Very stable, great job security, not a lot of women! Likewise, most programming is CRUD apps or boring websites. (Sure you can point to SpaceX, but you can also point to accountants who work on teams that make billion dollar deals happen, or do forensic analysis of billion dollar disasters; both represent a tiny minority of their respective professions).
    - programmarchy 9y ago
      Citation: > The relatively small numbers of women in math-intensive careers result from many factors, one of which seems primary and should be accorded the greatest weight. Sex differences in mathematical and spatial ability, although substantial, appear unable to explain most of the shortage. Nor can the shortage be attributed to current discrimination, although historic discrepancies may be explained in such terms. The primary factor in women's underrepresentation is choices both freely made and constrained by biology and society. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997703/#!po=37.5000 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997703/#!po=37...

rayiner 9y ago

> The data is what it is, and I think you'd be hard pressed to dismiss the biological differences between males and females. I'm not dismissing biological differences between men and women. I'm wondering how you're getting from "there are biological differences between men and women" to "biological differences explain explain why fewer women pursue engineering." There's a smoking crater where your causation argument should be. > To address your points, I see accounting as administrative, akin to housekeeping, a supportive role of keeping the house in order. Programming is more about problem solving, entering unknown territories, and has more risk involved. This is a superficial characterization (and also demonstrates an ignorance of what accountants do). In reality, the two jobs use basically the same skills: attention to detail, mathematical reasoning, and creativity within the very narrow frameworks of rules. Consider something like debugging code versus following money through a series of transactions. It's basically the same thing: keeping track of a lot of state in your head while going through various steps, each of which changes the set based on well-defined rules.

programmarchy 9y ago
The biological differences produce different aptitudes and interests in men and women, which causes men and women to select different careers. Anyway, I agree there's overlap in what accountants and programmers do like you described in your debugging example. However, the main differentiating factors I pointed out were (1) more unknown territory (e.g. building things that don't exist yet) and (2) more risk involved in attempting the types of challenges programmers face (e.g. 50% of software projects fail). In contrast, accounting is a highly regulated field, more deterministic, and provides more job security. I'd say that puts it more in the middle of the spectrum between stereotypically female careers like nursing and stereotypically male careers like engineering.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > The biological differences produce different aptitudes and interests in men and women, which causes men and women to select different careers. [Citation needed]. > However, the main differentiating factors I pointed out were (1) more unknown territory (e.g. building things that don't exist yet) and (2) more risk involved in attempting the types of challenges programmers face (e.g. 50% of software projects fail). In contrast, accounting is a highly regulated field, more deterministic, and provides more job security. I'd say that puts it more in the middle of the spectrum between stereotypically female careers like nursing and stereotypically male careers like engineering. This is again just handwaving. Most engineering, even computer science, is just keeping things running or making incremental improvements. I was an aerospace major, where the vast majority of jobs are in making 1-2% per decade incremental improvements in fuel efficiency. Very stable, great job security, not a lot of women! Likewise, most programming is CRUD apps or boring websites. (Sure you can point to SpaceX, but you can also point to accountants who work on teams that make billion dollar deals happen, or do forensic analysis of billion dollar disasters; both represent a tiny minority of their respective professions).
  - programmarchy 9y ago
    Citation: > The relatively small numbers of women in math-intensive careers result from many factors, one of which seems primary and should be accorded the greatest weight. Sex differences in mathematical and spatial ability, although substantial, appear unable to explain most of the shortage. Nor can the shortage be attributed to current discrimination, although historic discrepancies may be explained in such terms. The primary factor in women's underrepresentation is choices both freely made and constrained by biology and society. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997703/#!po=37.5000 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997703/#!po=37...