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I don't get this obsession with negating biology, rather than celebrating it. That men and women are biologically different is a 100% fact. Why do we have to tr

I don't get this obsession with negating biology, rather than celebrating it. That men and women are biologically different is a 100% fact. Why do we have to try and make them equal? The equality doctrines I learned growing up in India always came down to this: celebrate people as individuals. Give them freedom to do what they want and love. Am I wrong in holding this belief to still be true?

yahna 9y ago
> The equality doctrines I learned growing up in India Does India have equality? Caste systems and preference for male children.
luckydude 9y ago
If you are wrong then so am I because I feel the same way.
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
I love how you can talk about "celebrating individuals" while pointing to statistics that only talk about the population as a whole. Unfortunately for you, no company I can think of does their hiring by uniform random sampling. If you're seeing unevenness the success of self-selected populations you're probably not dealing with issues of biology (since, if that was true those individuals never would have gone into, and succeeded in, CS in the first place). Also, literally everything humans do is a celebration in negating biology. We fly, we go to space, we communicate at the speed of light through fibers buried deep under the ocean, we extend our lives through medicine and our cities through technology. If biology were "king" in human development we'd still be living in the jungle eating bugs.
dwild 9y ago
> That men and women are biologically different is a 100% fact. For anything that's biological, that's perfectly fine. You won't see anyone suggest men to go to a gynecologist either ;). > Why do we have to try and make them equal? Which inequality make sense to you? > celebrate people as individuals The goal is to help individuals be who they want to be and not be judged for the sex they were born with or their nationalities. You are from India right? Perfect example, because of outsourcing, many people believe that Indian people aren't as good in development. You are probably really good, I don't doubt that. However, there may be some people that see on your CV that you are from India and quickly decide that because you are from there, you are less qualified than someone else. Maybe the stats does prove it to be right in general, mostly because outsourcing was a great way to boost India economy, but as an individual for you, they are wrong. The thing is, changing theses bias are extremely hard and theses bias had a pretty negative repercussion over the years. We need to hire more of them to make sure that theses bias disappear and create an environment that won't make them fear it. We need to be careful though not to lower the hiring requirement though in the process. We need qualified people that won't create worst bias with time.
- ng12 9y ago
  > but as an individual for you, they are wrong This is why I firmly believe this is a case where actions speak louder than words. Pontificating about whether men are biologically predisposed to be software engineers is not a bad thing, marginalizing qualified female engineers because they are female is.

yahna 9y ago

> The equality doctrines I learned growing up in India Does India have equality? Caste systems and preference for male children.

luckydude 9y ago

If you are wrong then so am I because I feel the same way.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago

I love how you can talk about "celebrating individuals" while pointing to statistics that only talk about the population as a whole. Unfortunately for you, no company I can think of does their hiring by uniform random sampling. If you're seeing unevenness the success of self-selected populations you're probably not dealing with issues of biology (since, if that was true those individuals never would have gone into, and succeeded in, CS in the first place). Also, literally everything humans do is a celebration in negating biology. We fly, we go to space, we communicate at the speed of light through fibers buried deep under the ocean, we extend our lives through medicine and our cities through technology. If biology were "king" in human development we'd still be living in the jungle eating bugs.

dwild 9y ago

> That men and women are biologically different is a 100% fact. For anything that's biological, that's perfectly fine. You won't see anyone suggest men to go to a gynecologist either ;). > Why do we have to try and make them equal? Which inequality make sense to you? > celebrate people as individuals The goal is to help individuals be who they want to be and not be judged for the sex they were born with or their nationalities. You are from India right? Perfect example, because of outsourcing, many people believe that Indian people aren't as good in development. You are probably really good, I don't doubt that. However, there may be some people that see on your CV that you are from India and quickly decide that because you are from there, you are less qualified than someone else. Maybe the stats does prove it to be right in general, mostly because outsourcing was a great way to boost India economy, but as an individual for you, they are wrong. The thing is, changing theses bias are extremely hard and theses bias had a pretty negative repercussion over the years. We need to hire more of them to make sure that theses bias disappear and create an environment that won't make them fear it. We need to be careful though not to lower the hiring requirement though in the process. We need qualified people that won't create worst bias with time.

ng12 9y ago
> but as an individual for you, they are wrong This is why I firmly believe this is a case where actions speak louder than words. Pontificating about whether men are biologically predisposed to be software engineers is not a bad thing, marginalizing qualified female engineers because they are female is.