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> You claimed that my statement about greater female participation in what turns out to be most of the rest of the stem fields was "so broad as to be meaningles

> You claimed that my statement about greater female participation in what turns out to be most of the rest of the stem fields was "so broad as to be meaningless". I responded in greater detail. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you thought naming a handful of other STEM fields along with a rough participation ratio made your premise any more meaningful. You seem to think that, from the fact that women participate in other STEM fields at a greater rate than CS, you can infer the reason they aren't well-represented in software development. To you, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them." And others who share your view have defined "the field" so broadly as to include boys in jr. high school computer clubs. Well, to me at least, it's "obvious" that your logic there is faulty.

tptacek 9y ago
I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields".
- rhapsodic 9y ago
  > I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields". Even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.
    - rhapsodic 9y ago
      > Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have. Well, I think its noteworthy that you distinguished statistics from mathematics, but apparently felt automotive engineering (which I specifically asked about) to fall under ME, and you didn't comment on mining engineering, which does not fall under EE/ME. But for some reason, you seem to think it's meaningful, so I'll acknowledge that for the purposes of this discussion, you have indeed effectively provided that accounting. And I stand by my earlier response, to wit, that even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        Thank you. Now, to avoid what would otherwise be a special-pleading argument on behalf of CS, you'd have to explain what innate preference would lead women to avoid CS despite: * The fact that the other STEM fields are usually more intellectually rigorous than CS. * The fact that some of those STEM fields are in fact the intellectual foundation for CS (Daniel Bernstein has an old quote about how mathematics is fundamentally the "easiest" of the STEM fields, and has as a result advanced much further into the frontiers of human knowledge than the other field, which creates the impression that it is more forbidding than it actually is). * The fact that almost all of these fields are dominated by computers; in fact, I know professors in bio fields who do more hardcore programming than the typical CS grad does (to wit: they're sometimes forced to write things in C, even in 2017). * The fact that many of the STEM fields that feature significant female participation are more "things"-oriented than CS, which, as it is practiced in the industry, is largely abstractions wrapped around human social interactions. * The fact that the rest of STEM, in which women excel, feature large amounts of long-term solo investigative work, while CS as practiced in the industry is universally a team pursuit which has been recognized at least since Fred Brooks as being overwhelmingly about communications and coordination skills. If you'd like to broaden the analysis outside of STEM --- for instance, to observe how much other professions impinge on personal lives, make demands of home life, have poorer work-life balance, have utterly inflexible hours and workplace location requirements, and require short-notice travel, and still have nearly 50/50 participation of men and women, we can do that too. It seems plainly obvious to me that there's not much of an argument for an innate female aversion to computer science that wouldn't contradict these observations. When you have to gerrymander an argument around inconvenient facts like that, we call the result "special pleading". Can you make a clear argument that won't be that thing?
        rhapsodic 9y ago
        Tptacek, you're the one that seems hung up on the whole STEM aspect. Let's leave aside the fact that STEM is just an arbitrary grouping of fields that happens to include both doing research to find cures for cancers and hooking up database rows to HTML forms. Your logic seems to be: 1. Women are well-represented in many STEM fields other than CS or software development. 2. These other fields often involve use of computers and software development. 3. Therefore, it logically follows that they SHOULD also be well-represented in CS and software development. 4. Since they're not, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them." I think that's ridiculous. Women, as a group, can, and do, pursue just about any career of their choosing in the US. For years, efforts have been made to lure them into STEM fields, including CS/dev, in greater numbers. For all of the pontificating from feminists, I have yet to encounter a single documented example of a qualified woman who is banging on a closed door demanding to be let into the profession, that is being denied entry. That woman, like Santa Clause, is mythical. She doesn't exist. Of course, I can't prove she doesn't exist any more than I can prove that Santa Clause doesn't exit. But neither of them exists. Her existence can be proven by a single example. But for all of the years of male-blaming in regard to this issue, no one has yet provided such an example.

tptacek 9y ago

I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields".

rhapsodic 9y ago
> I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields". Even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.
  - rhapsodic 9y ago
    > Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have. Well, I think its noteworthy that you distinguished statistics from mathematics, but apparently felt automotive engineering (which I specifically asked about) to fall under ME, and you didn't comment on mining engineering, which does not fall under EE/ME. But for some reason, you seem to think it's meaningful, so I'll acknowledge that for the purposes of this discussion, you have indeed effectively provided that accounting. And I stand by my earlier response, to wit, that even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      Thank you. Now, to avoid what would otherwise be a special-pleading argument on behalf of CS, you'd have to explain what innate preference would lead women to avoid CS despite: * The fact that the other STEM fields are usually more intellectually rigorous than CS. * The fact that some of those STEM fields are in fact the intellectual foundation for CS (Daniel Bernstein has an old quote about how mathematics is fundamentally the "easiest" of the STEM fields, and has as a result advanced much further into the frontiers of human knowledge than the other field, which creates the impression that it is more forbidding than it actually is). * The fact that almost all of these fields are dominated by computers; in fact, I know professors in bio fields who do more hardcore programming than the typical CS grad does (to wit: they're sometimes forced to write things in C, even in 2017). * The fact that many of the STEM fields that feature significant female participation are more "things"-oriented than CS, which, as it is practiced in the industry, is largely abstractions wrapped around human social interactions. * The fact that the rest of STEM, in which women excel, feature large amounts of long-term solo investigative work, while CS as practiced in the industry is universally a team pursuit which has been recognized at least since Fred Brooks as being overwhelmingly about communications and coordination skills. If you'd like to broaden the analysis outside of STEM --- for instance, to observe how much other professions impinge on personal lives, make demands of home life, have poorer work-life balance, have utterly inflexible hours and workplace location requirements, and require short-notice travel, and still have nearly 50/50 participation of men and women, we can do that too. It seems plainly obvious to me that there's not much of an argument for an innate female aversion to computer science that wouldn't contradict these observations. When you have to gerrymander an argument around inconvenient facts like that, we call the result "special pleading". Can you make a clear argument that won't be that thing?
      - rhapsodic 9y ago
        Tptacek, you're the one that seems hung up on the whole STEM aspect. Let's leave aside the fact that STEM is just an arbitrary grouping of fields that happens to include both doing research to find cures for cancers and hooking up database rows to HTML forms. Your logic seems to be: 1. Women are well-represented in many STEM fields other than CS or software development. 2. These other fields often involve use of computers and software development. 3. Therefore, it logically follows that they SHOULD also be well-represented in CS and software development. 4. Since they're not, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them." I think that's ridiculous. Women, as a group, can, and do, pursue just about any career of their choosing in the US. For years, efforts have been made to lure them into STEM fields, including CS/dev, in greater numbers. For all of the pontificating from feminists, I have yet to encounter a single documented example of a qualified woman who is banging on a closed door demanding to be let into the profession, that is being denied entry. That woman, like Santa Clause, is mythical. She doesn't exist. Of course, I can't prove she doesn't exist any more than I can prove that Santa Clause doesn't exit. But neither of them exists. Her existence can be proven by a single example. But for all of the years of male-blaming in regard to this issue, no one has yet provided such an example.