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75% of Bachelors degrees in Psychology are awarded to women, and almost 70% of active working Psychologists are female. Does it follow that Psychology is sexis

75% of Bachelors degrees in Psychology are awarded to women, and almost 70% of active working Psychologists are female. Does it follow that Psychology is sexist against men? Is is possible that two things are true? That (1) there is sexism in tech that must be addressed, and (2) even if women felt welcome in tech, the composition of tech could be <50% women?

tptacek 9y ago
You're just waiting for someone to roll out this trope. The answer is: yes, it's problematic that there are so few male psychologists, just as it is extremely problematic that there are so few male nurses.
- haberman 9y ago
  Why is it problematic? Why does every field of endeavor have to be exactly 50/50? I'm honestly asking, because I don't believe that at all.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    In the case of nursing, which is the most popular incarnation of the trope, what it also means is that our first line of health care in the United States are doctors, who are expensive and scarce. "Nurses", who really ought to be called "Associate Doctors" or something similar, do a far better job at handling that job. But the (gendered!) lower status of "nursing" both keeps us from expanding the corps of Nurses-Practitioners as far as we could, and also retards acceptance of NP's as an alternative to full MDs for routine care.
    - haberman 9y ago
      Your labeling of my argument as a "trope" is unnecessary and dismissive. If we are talking tropes, pretty much nothing is more trope-y right now than the cycle of outrage and virtue signaling that is sure to follow any push-back against the current orthodoxy of social justice. It's so predictable you can set your watch to it (witness: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/06/a-google-engineer-wrote-that-women-may-be-genetically-unsuited-for-tech-jobs-women-wrote-back/?utm_term=.04e480da9ccf https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/06...). So please, spare me the attitude. I can believe that a switch to NP's as the go-to for routine care might be a good idea. But even if that is the case, you're making a very different argument here. I wonder if you notice the difference. You're arguing that more men in nursing might be beneficial for customers, not that men are being kept out of nursing by sexism. I believe the same is probably true of tech (that more women in tech is better for customers), if for no other reason than something like half of customers are women. But these two arguments are very different in their moral implications. When you argue that sexism is keeping women out of tech, this is fuel for the outrage machine of moral indignation, like the Washington Post article above. It is evidence that he industry is wronging its female employees and potential female employees. It is cause to criticize the industry as sick and oppressive (which it certainly is in some cases, most notably Uber). So I think that this criticism is well warranted in many cases. The question is: where are the goalposts? Is the industry sick and oppressive towards women until it hits 50% representation? I don't think that's a fair expectation.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        You asked a question. I answered it directly and civilly. You responded with a bunch of slurs. If you're wondering why the discussion stopped here, now you know.
        haberman 9y ago
        That's not accurate at all. You took a dismissive tone with me right off the bat, and labeled my good-faith argument as a "trope", twice. Also, my "slurs" were directed at a Washington Post article, not at you. Exit the discussion if you like, but I don't think you get to plead the moral high ground on this.
      - nowo 9y ago
        > The question is: where are the goalposts? Is the industry sick and oppressive towards women until it hits 50% representation? I don't think that's a fair expectation. It's hard to find a benign reason why the percentage of women CS majors would halve in the last 30 years while the profession as such has become more attractive. 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-...
        dionidium 9y ago
        One possible benign reason: as society has gotten more free and open to women's choices, their preferences have been revealed. (Note that this also may explain why there are more female computer programmers in Iran than in, say, Finland. Women are more free to do what they want to do in Finland.) Now, look, this explanation may be wrong, but, no, it's not hard to imagine alternate explanations. Nice and neat conclusions in the social sciences are hard to come by. Anybody in this thread claiming that they know exactly which explanations are the right ones is full of shit.
        nowo 9y ago
        I don't agree that this is a benign reason in itself. Regardless if you say that women don't want to be programmers now or that women never wanted to be programmers, you have to find a good reason why they don't want to. Because women have no problem sitting in front of computers in economics, so why do they in software? I don't think it is hard to find a good reason why someone wouldn't go into nursing (even if this wouldn't disprove sexism in nursing). It has barriers to entry by requiring formal education, which can be competitive. The working conditions are somewhat difficult having to work irregular hours and be exposed to emotional stress as in seeing people dying. At the same time it still relatively low status, not necessarily well paid and has limited career prospects. Of course you can argue that this shouldn't be the case. That the profession should help people dealing with stress and have good working conditions etc. Still it much harder to imagine these sort of "hard" reasons, negative things that are inherent to the profession, when it comes to programming.

tptacek 9y ago

You're just waiting for someone to roll out this trope. The answer is: yes, it's problematic that there are so few male psychologists, just as it is extremely problematic that there are so few male nurses.

haberman 9y ago
Why is it problematic? Why does every field of endeavor have to be exactly 50/50? I'm honestly asking, because I don't believe that at all.
- tptacek 9y ago
  In the case of nursing, which is the most popular incarnation of the trope, what it also means is that our first line of health care in the United States are doctors, who are expensive and scarce. "Nurses", who really ought to be called "Associate Doctors" or something similar, do a far better job at handling that job. But the (gendered!) lower status of "nursing" both keeps us from expanding the corps of Nurses-Practitioners as far as we could, and also retards acceptance of NP's as an alternative to full MDs for routine care.
  - haberman 9y ago
    Your labeling of my argument as a "trope" is unnecessary and dismissive. If we are talking tropes, pretty much nothing is more trope-y right now than the cycle of outrage and virtue signaling that is sure to follow any push-back against the current orthodoxy of social justice. It's so predictable you can set your watch to it (witness: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/06/a-google-engineer-wrote-that-women-may-be-genetically-unsuited-for-tech-jobs-women-wrote-back/?utm_term=.04e480da9ccf https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/06...). So please, spare me the attitude. I can believe that a switch to NP's as the go-to for routine care might be a good idea. But even if that is the case, you're making a very different argument here. I wonder if you notice the difference. You're arguing that more men in nursing might be beneficial for customers, not that men are being kept out of nursing by sexism. I believe the same is probably true of tech (that more women in tech is better for customers), if for no other reason than something like half of customers are women. But these two arguments are very different in their moral implications. When you argue that sexism is keeping women out of tech, this is fuel for the outrage machine of moral indignation, like the Washington Post article above. It is evidence that he industry is wronging its female employees and potential female employees. It is cause to criticize the industry as sick and oppressive (which it certainly is in some cases, most notably Uber). So I think that this criticism is well warranted in many cases. The question is: where are the goalposts? Is the industry sick and oppressive towards women until it hits 50% representation? I don't think that's a fair expectation.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      You asked a question. I answered it directly and civilly. You responded with a bunch of slurs. If you're wondering why the discussion stopped here, now you know.
      - haberman 9y ago
        That's not accurate at all. You took a dismissive tone with me right off the bat, and labeled my good-faith argument as a "trope", twice. Also, my "slurs" were directed at a Washington Post article, not at you. Exit the discussion if you like, but I don't think you get to plead the moral high ground on this.
    - nowo 9y ago
      > The question is: where are the goalposts? Is the industry sick and oppressive towards women until it hits 50% representation? I don't think that's a fair expectation. It's hard to find a benign reason why the percentage of women CS majors would halve in the last 30 years while the profession as such has become more attractive. 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-...
      - dionidium 9y ago
        One possible benign reason: as society has gotten more free and open to women's choices, their preferences have been revealed. (Note that this also may explain why there are more female computer programmers in Iran than in, say, Finland. Women are more free to do what they want to do in Finland.) Now, look, this explanation may be wrong, but, no, it's not hard to imagine alternate explanations. Nice and neat conclusions in the social sciences are hard to come by. Anybody in this thread claiming that they know exactly which explanations are the right ones is full of shit.
        nowo 9y ago
        I don't agree that this is a benign reason in itself. Regardless if you say that women don't want to be programmers now or that women never wanted to be programmers, you have to find a good reason why they don't want to. Because women have no problem sitting in front of computers in economics, so why do they in software? I don't think it is hard to find a good reason why someone wouldn't go into nursing (even if this wouldn't disprove sexism in nursing). It has barriers to entry by requiring formal education, which can be competitive. The working conditions are somewhat difficult having to work irregular hours and be exposed to emotional stress as in seeing people dying. At the same time it still relatively low status, not necessarily well paid and has limited career prospects. Of course you can argue that this shouldn't be the case. That the profession should help people dealing with stress and have good working conditions etc. Still it much harder to imagine these sort of "hard" reasons, negative things that are inherent to the profession, when it comes to programming.