4 ms·

> Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible

by gfodor 9y ago

> Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible. I agree that a 50/50 split in men and female software engineers seems like a desirable thing. If it existed today I would not consider it surprising, and I would consider it to be a great thing. That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers, who are basically 100% male? What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? How do you decide which jobs that have gender skew warrant specific attention towards a balanced gender ratio? All of them? The ones that don't involve physical labor? In sports we accept men on average have higher physical strength and endurance than women, hence league separation, so perhaps gender skew is expected here and uncontroversial for the same reasons? What about the jobs that are particularly high paying or high status? Should it be the case that everyone should get an equal share of the pie of value for these desirable fields, but less desirable fields do not matter because of their high supply? Perhaps its just the jobs that just don't seem to make any sense as to why gender would skew them that are the ones we should worry about? I think answering this question concretely and consistently is a pre-requisite to having a constructive debate about this subject. There is nothing to me particularly special or interesting about software engineering in particular that makes it stand out among other fields that are heavily gender skewed that do not seem to cause nearly as much debate, other than that it seems counter-intuitive that there should be any such imbalance, given the nature of the work. Perhaps that is enough, a "gut check" if a field should be gender dominated. If the "gut check" says "that doesn't make sense", we should strive for equality. But here we are, back at a facet of the original memo's thesis: when those gut checks pass they are probably based upon internalized models we have for gender preferences. If you are being uncharitable, stereotypes. If you are being nice, statistically significant correlations of preferences tied to gender, backed by evidence.

mLuby 9y ago
Unless specific sexual organs are required for a job (eg surrogate mother, wet nurse), there should be no appreciable skew in any industry.
- gfodor 9y ago
  Well there is. So are you suggesting equal efforts should be expended to equalizing the representation of men in nursing and women in bricklaying, as we do other fields? They are skewed worse than most, so perhaps more effort should be put there? Are the skews in those fields equally unacceptable or somehow more acceptable? And if they are more acceptable, why? Based upon the public discourse, the commonly accepted answer seems to be they are actually more acceptable, since it's rare to hear about efforts for increasing men in nursing or women in construction work relative to other fields like medicine, law, or STEM. So the question reduces onto "why are some fields with gender skew more acceptable than others?" and answering that question is basically the key to everything.
  - mLuby 9y ago
    I'm simply making an ethical claim. Any` skew sounds unacceptable to me. If we agree that any` skew is unacceptable, I'd suggest we take advantage of leverage and seek the greatest skew correction per resources allocated. That might well turn out to be in construction workers… `statistically significant
    - gfodor 9y ago
      I guess there is also an inductive problem with not accepting any skew whatsoever. For example, the field of medicine has minimal skew, but if you drill into specialties, there is massive skew. At what level of granularity does skew stop mattering? It has to become noisy at some point, but good luck deciding on a concrete and consistent metric for determining where that is.
matt4077 9y ago
> is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers...? No, it is not–and I tried to make that argument: you want female CEOs and politicians and software engineers not (just) for the sake of each of these CEOs and engineers. You want it because these roles come with power over other people, either directly, because they make the law or they design the software we all use. And also, quite generically, they are well-paid, and money is also power. There are, obviously, no absolutes in this: I wouldn't for a second doubt that I, as a white male can be adequately represented by a black congresswoman. But I can easily see that, for example, more women at the CXO level could lead to better company-financed childcare. I think what's important to mention is that this isn't a zero-sum game where any advances by women create equal and opposite losses for men: when women fail to advance to the level that their skills would usually warrant (not just because they didn't get that top job, but also because they got the impression that they should rather go into nursing than medicine etc.), then we are, as a society, letting these skills go to waste. To see this mechanism, just consider what would happen if we prohibited everyone born in the summer months to work: would that make it easier for the other 3/4 to find a job? Of course not: their loss of income would result in a loss of demand, and therefore jobs, of equal proportions. This effect, together with the idea that higher diversity seems to also result in better performance of companies, should more than compensate any first-order losses that better representation may initially bring. And, specifically to your question about bricklayers etc.: of course nobody complains about not having access to something that they don't want. But women being underrepresented in some of these labor jobs doesn't mean they're getting a better deal than men: the female overrepresentation in nursing alone probably makes up for it, considering how many nurses there are. And I'd even say us men have at some point collectively decided that housework is rather unattractive, and women do the vast majority of that.
- gfodor 9y ago
  By your separation of "direct vs indirect" power it seems hard to know where the line is. Arguably, my barista has more power over me than any software engineer, because my barista can poison me if they so choose. It seems like any argument can be made that if someone is in a field that can influence other human beings they have power, so it seems hard to pin down. (though i agree some roles are clearly power oriented, like executives and political roles.) > "And I'd even say us men have at some point collectively decided that housework is rather unattractive, and women do the vast majority of that." This to me is a pretty huge reach (and seems vaguely sexist) but if you accept this then I don't see how you can not just apply what you said here to other fields. Do you think women seek out housework?
DanBC 9y ago
> That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers, who are basically 100% male? What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? There are projects to fix the gender imbalances in each of those industries.
- gfodor 9y ago
  No doubt, but do they get comparable attention? Are they similarily controversial? I think compared to tech, hell no. Degrees matter and my point is understanding why those different levels of acceptability exist.
yahna 9y ago
> What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? maybe Nursing is female dominated because historically women essentially weren't allowed to be doctors?

by gfodor 9y ago

mLuby 9y ago

Unless specific sexual organs are required for a job (eg surrogate mother, wet nurse), there should be no appreciable skew in any industry.

gfodor 9y ago
Well there is. So are you suggesting equal efforts should be expended to equalizing the representation of men in nursing and women in bricklaying, as we do other fields? They are skewed worse than most, so perhaps more effort should be put there? Are the skews in those fields equally unacceptable or somehow more acceptable? And if they are more acceptable, why? Based upon the public discourse, the commonly accepted answer seems to be they are actually more acceptable, since it's rare to hear about efforts for increasing men in nursing or women in construction work relative to other fields like medicine, law, or STEM. So the question reduces onto "why are some fields with gender skew more acceptable than others?" and answering that question is basically the key to everything.
- mLuby 9y ago
  I'm simply making an ethical claim. Any` skew sounds unacceptable to me. If we agree that any` skew is unacceptable, I'd suggest we take advantage of leverage and seek the greatest skew correction per resources allocated. That might well turn out to be in construction workers… `statistically significant
  - gfodor 9y ago
    I guess there is also an inductive problem with not accepting any skew whatsoever. For example, the field of medicine has minimal skew, but if you drill into specialties, there is massive skew. At what level of granularity does skew stop mattering? It has to become noisy at some point, but good luck deciding on a concrete and consistent metric for determining where that is.

matt4077 9y ago

> is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers...? No, it is not–and I tried to make that argument: you want female CEOs and politicians and software engineers not (just) for the sake of each of these CEOs and engineers. You want it because these roles come with power over other people, either directly, because they make the law or they design the software we all use. And also, quite generically, they are well-paid, and money is also power. There are, obviously, no absolutes in this: I wouldn't for a second doubt that I, as a white male can be adequately represented by a black congresswoman. But I can easily see that, for example, more women at the CXO level could lead to better company-financed childcare. I think what's important to mention is that this isn't a zero-sum game where any advances by women create equal and opposite losses for men: when women fail to advance to the level that their skills would usually warrant (not just because they didn't get that top job, but also because they got the impression that they should rather go into nursing than medicine etc.), then we are, as a society, letting these skills go to waste. To see this mechanism, just consider what would happen if we prohibited everyone born in the summer months to work: would that make it easier for the other 3/4 to find a job? Of course not: their loss of income would result in a loss of demand, and therefore jobs, of equal proportions. This effect, together with the idea that higher diversity seems to also result in better performance of companies, should more than compensate any first-order losses that better representation may initially bring. And, specifically to your question about bricklayers etc.: of course nobody complains about not having access to something that they don't want. But women being underrepresented in some of these labor jobs doesn't mean they're getting a better deal than men: the female overrepresentation in nursing alone probably makes up for it, considering how many nurses there are. And I'd even say us men have at some point collectively decided that housework is rather unattractive, and women do the vast majority of that.

gfodor 9y ago
By your separation of "direct vs indirect" power it seems hard to know where the line is. Arguably, my barista has more power over me than any software engineer, because my barista can poison me if they so choose. It seems like any argument can be made that if someone is in a field that can influence other human beings they have power, so it seems hard to pin down. (though i agree some roles are clearly power oriented, like executives and political roles.) > "And I'd even say us men have at some point collectively decided that housework is rather unattractive, and women do the vast majority of that." This to me is a pretty huge reach (and seems vaguely sexist) but if you accept this then I don't see how you can not just apply what you said here to other fields. Do you think women seek out housework?

DanBC 9y ago

> That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers, who are basically 100% male? What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? There are projects to fix the gender imbalances in each of those industries.

gfodor 9y ago
No doubt, but do they get comparable attention? Are they similarily controversial? I think compared to tech, hell no. Degrees matter and my point is understanding why those different levels of acceptability exist.

yahna 9y ago

> What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? maybe Nursing is female dominated because historically women essentially weren't allowed to be doctors?