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Exactly. It's indisputable that there are biological differences between men and women. How those differences are relevant to the disparities in the gender ra

Exactly. It's indisputable that there are biological differences between men and women. How those differences are relevant to the disparities in the gender ratio in tech is pure speculation on the author's part. To quote the doc: "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)" That is accompanied with citations. OK, sure, let's take that at face value. Next, he says: "These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics" No citations, no nothing, just: X may lead to Y because it feels like it's true to me! And there are people actually taking the arguments presenting in this document seriously? Can we please take a step back and try to read critically what is presented in this doc? Because these arguments are just embarrassingly weak.

freetime2 9y ago
The quote you take issue with is kinda, sorta justified by the wikipedia article he cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#... A meta-analysis of scientific studies concluded that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people. When interests were classified by RIASEC type Holland Codes (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional), Men showed stronger Realistic and Investigative interests, and women showed stronger Artistic, Social, and Conventional interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering, science, and mathematics interests.[77] The wikipedia article in turn cites: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = -0.35), Social (d = -0.68), and Conventional (d = -0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. Not exactly the same point he made above but you can at least see how he is coming up with "women prefer jobs in social or artistic areas", "men prefer [coding]". I wish for his sake that he hadn't gotten into the differences between front end / back end code because it does sound particularly speculative and presumptuous - but if you can take a step back and take a broader look at his arguments there does seem to be some scientific evidence in support of his main thesis that "that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership". Note: I just wanted to point out that I am appreciative that you are attacking his memo on the merits of his arguments. I apologize if that comes across as a patronizing thing to say, but for me the big scandal here has really been the way that dissenters have warped, twisted, and outright dismissed his memo as wrong without even attempting to counter any of his points. To me it feels like the liberal left (of which I self identify, btw) are dismissing his argument not because it is wrong, but because it contradicts their beliefs or because they are afraid of where a serious exploration of the subject might lead us. I don't personally have any issues with affirmative action (although I can understand how it might upset some people) - but I do care greatly about protecting the free and open exchange of ideas. And the calls for the this guy to be fired feel like a disturbing form of censorship to me.

freetime2 9y ago

The quote you take issue with is kinda, sorta justified by the wikipedia article he cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#... A meta-analysis of scientific studies concluded that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people. When interests were classified by RIASEC type Holland Codes (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional), Men showed stronger Realistic and Investigative interests, and women showed stronger Artistic, Social, and Conventional interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering, science, and mathematics interests.[77] The wikipedia article in turn cites: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = -0.35), Social (d = -0.68), and Conventional (d = -0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. Not exactly the same point he made above but you can at least see how he is coming up with "women prefer jobs in social or artistic areas", "men prefer [coding]". I wish for his sake that he hadn't gotten into the differences between front end / back end code because it does sound particularly speculative and presumptuous - but if you can take a step back and take a broader look at his arguments there does seem to be some scientific evidence in support of his main thesis that "that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership". Note: I just wanted to point out that I am appreciative that you are attacking his memo on the merits of his arguments. I apologize if that comes across as a patronizing thing to say, but for me the big scandal here has really been the way that dissenters have warped, twisted, and outright dismissed his memo as wrong without even attempting to counter any of his points. To me it feels like the liberal left (of which I self identify, btw) are dismissing his argument not because it is wrong, but because it contradicts their beliefs or because they are afraid of where a serious exploration of the subject might lead us. I don't personally have any issues with affirmative action (although I can understand how it might upset some people) - but I do care greatly about protecting the free and open exchange of ideas. And the calls for the this guy to be fired feel like a disturbing form of censorship to me.