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> But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't

> But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't follow. What's your evidence for this? Debrah Soh, the author supposedly has a PhD in sexual neuroscience so one would think she is qualified to make comments about this. And although I can't confirm this myself, the article does say that societies with greater gender equity also have greater gender gaps due to the differences in what each gender values.

zzalpha 9y ago
Well, if we're going to just appeal to authority, I guess I'll do the same: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... The article points out that for most of the biases cited in the memo, the differences are on the order of a few percentage points, which cannot account for the real-world outcomes we see. To quote: Still, I think it's important to keep in mind that most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway (see here). To be honest, I'm not sure how Ms. Soh can seriously argue the merits of the memo, here. Yes, technically the memo is not itself inaccurate, in that there are gender biases that result in practical population-level effects. But how one can seriously use those facts to conclude that the 70/30 population split in the valley is a product of those differences, I really don't know, unless confirmation bias is at play. It just doesn't make any sense. Heck, just looking historically it doesn't follow... it's not like the biases we see are inevitable. Our industry used to have a different composition. And other STEM fields have seen gender disparities even out. So neither facts nor history support the conclusion.
- depressedpanda 9y ago
  I'm not sure anybody who has read studies about biological preferences claims that they explain the 70/30 population split. That would be ludicrous. What nobody seems to consider is that an initial small biological difference may very well be amplified into a large cultural preference over time, due to network effects. A self fulfilling prophesy, if you will. I'm just speculating here, but it seems plausible to me, at least.
coryfklein 9y ago
Debrah Soh's explanation leaves a bit to be desired. She claims: > Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields tend to be dominated[1] by men. Using this source [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 But the published article makes no claim about any causation between STEM preference and actual employment in a field. We can only speculate on causation. I know in my job as a programmer there is certainly a great deal of "Social" interaction. Agile programming certainly benefits from "Conventional" thinking that women prefer. A graphic designer on my team is highly "Artistic" and we pull him into design decisions for engineering choices all the time.
manicdee 9y ago
It is interesting to me that this major claim is the one that has no citations supporting it. The other references detailing multivariate distinctions in gender morphology all go to pains to point out that most univariate measures have huge amounts of overlap, and pull the distinctions out of groupings of variables. So why did Debrah Soh neglect to provide supporting citations for the claim that societies with greater gender equity have greater gender career gaps, given that it's the one most central to supporting the Anti-Diversity Manifesto? Is Debrah going to dispute the claim that Engineers — having to deal with people — need "soft" skills? Is she going to claim that all STEM work is necessarily playing with wheeled toys? How does Debrah explain that "Gender equality closes the math gap[1]"? "For science literacy, while the USA showed the largest gender difference across all OECD nations, d = .14, gender differences across OECD nations were non-significant, and a small female advantage was found in non-OECD nations, d=-.09."[2] It's one thing to be "good at mathematics", quite another to be "a good engineer." Nobody who participates in quota systems or diversity hiring believes that what they are doing is sustainable in the long term. The point of attempting to hire more people from under-represented portions of the populace is to counter-balance institutionalised sexism. Debrah Soh does raise one important point: sexism doesn't come from knowledge of a subject, but what we do with that knowledge. 1: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gender-equality-closes-math-gap https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gender-equality-closes-m... 2: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0039904 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
zimpenfish 9y ago
> Debrah Soh, the author supposedly has a PhD in sexual neuroscience That's "sexual" in the sense of "sexology", not "gender", though. She studies sexual paraphilia ("why people are into what they’re into sexually"), not gender differences as they pertain to society.
riyadparvez 9y ago
> And although I can't confirm this myself, the article does say that societies with greater gender equity also have greater gender gaps due to the differences in what each gender values. I can only provide my own anecdote. I come from third-world country, where women's right is a laughable word. Women are mostly controlled by the males in the family. Even with almost no women's rights, women presence in my undergrad STEM school was around 20%. OTOH, when I came to Canada for my grad school, I've never seen any class where presence of women in STEM classes was more than 10%. Even then, most of them women are immigrants from China or South Asia.

zzalpha 9y ago

Well, if we're going to just appeal to authority, I guess I'll do the same: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... The article points out that for most of the biases cited in the memo, the differences are on the order of a few percentage points, which cannot account for the real-world outcomes we see. To quote: Still, I think it's important to keep in mind that most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway (see here). To be honest, I'm not sure how Ms. Soh can seriously argue the merits of the memo, here. Yes, technically the memo is not itself inaccurate, in that there are gender biases that result in practical population-level effects. But how one can seriously use those facts to conclude that the 70/30 population split in the valley is a product of those differences, I really don't know, unless confirmation bias is at play. It just doesn't make any sense. Heck, just looking historically it doesn't follow... it's not like the biases we see are inevitable. Our industry used to have a different composition. And other STEM fields have seen gender disparities even out. So neither facts nor history support the conclusion.

depressedpanda 9y ago
I'm not sure anybody who has read studies about biological preferences claims that they explain the 70/30 population split. That would be ludicrous. What nobody seems to consider is that an initial small biological difference may very well be amplified into a large cultural preference over time, due to network effects. A self fulfilling prophesy, if you will. I'm just speculating here, but it seems plausible to me, at least.

coryfklein 9y ago

Debrah Soh's explanation leaves a bit to be desired. She claims: > Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields tend to be dominated[1] by men. Using this source [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 But the published article makes no claim about any causation between STEM preference and actual employment in a field. We can only speculate on causation. I know in my job as a programmer there is certainly a great deal of "Social" interaction. Agile programming certainly benefits from "Conventional" thinking that women prefer. A graphic designer on my team is highly "Artistic" and we pull him into design decisions for engineering choices all the time.

manicdee 9y ago

It is interesting to me that this major claim is the one that has no citations supporting it. The other references detailing multivariate distinctions in gender morphology all go to pains to point out that most univariate measures have huge amounts of overlap, and pull the distinctions out of groupings of variables. So why did Debrah Soh neglect to provide supporting citations for the claim that societies with greater gender equity have greater gender career gaps, given that it's the one most central to supporting the Anti-Diversity Manifesto? Is Debrah going to dispute the claim that Engineers — having to deal with people — need "soft" skills? Is she going to claim that all STEM work is necessarily playing with wheeled toys? How does Debrah explain that "Gender equality closes the math gap[1]"? "For science literacy, while the USA showed the largest gender difference across all OECD nations, d = .14, gender differences across OECD nations were non-significant, and a small female advantage was found in non-OECD nations, d=-.09."[2] It's one thing to be "good at mathematics", quite another to be "a good engineer." Nobody who participates in quota systems or diversity hiring believes that what they are doing is sustainable in the long term. The point of attempting to hire more people from under-represented portions of the populace is to counter-balance institutionalised sexism. Debrah Soh does raise one important point: sexism doesn't come from knowledge of a subject, but what we do with that knowledge. 1: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gender-equality-closes-math-gap https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gender-equality-closes-m... 2: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0039904 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

zimpenfish 9y ago

> Debrah Soh, the author supposedly has a PhD in sexual neuroscience That's "sexual" in the sense of "sexology", not "gender", though. She studies sexual paraphilia ("why people are into what they’re into sexually"), not gender differences as they pertain to society.

riyadparvez 9y ago

> And although I can't confirm this myself, the article does say that societies with greater gender equity also have greater gender gaps due to the differences in what each gender values. I can only provide my own anecdote. I come from third-world country, where women's right is a laughable word. Women are mostly controlled by the males in the family. Even with almost no women's rights, women presence in my undergrad STEM school was around 20%. OTOH, when I came to Canada for my grad school, I've never seen any class where presence of women in STEM classes was more than 10%. Even then, most of them women are immigrants from China or South Asia.