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> On the other hand, he assumes those women didn’t deserve to be sent to JSConf. Why should he assume that? Utter crap. That’s clearly not what the critics are

by alanh 16y ago

> On the other hand, he assumes those women didn’t deserve to be sent to JSConf. Why should he assume that? Utter crap. That’s clearly not what the critics are concerned about. The women may indeed deserve to go — but no more than men who are not being offered the same grants. This is what is objectionable. This, and the implication that women need pushed into the field or artificially assisted, strike some as sexist. While she does make some good points towards the end, this whole piece is strewn with similar assumptions of male sexism, and is devoid of any realization that some perceived affirmative action as reverse discrimination.

natrius 16y ago
If women have the same potential both to succeed at computer science and to enjoy the work as men do, the underrepresentation of women in the field is a sign of problems that, if fixed, would result in more people leading more fulfilling lives. I think that is worth spending money on, and Google seems to agree. Moreover, if one's goal is to benefit the field of computer science rather than just help individuals choose careers they are better suited for, targeting highly capable women when applying such fixes would have the most return on investment. If these same grants were given out without regard to gender, they would result in less capability added to the field per dollar.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  > If women have the same potential both to succeed at computer science and to enjoy the work as men do, the underrepresentation of women in the field is a sign of problems that, if fixed, would result in more people leading more fulfilling lives. I think that is worth spending money on, and Google seems to agree. If some _individuals_ have a potential to succeed at computer science and are currently not doing so, then I agree, helping them to do so would lead to people living more fulfilled lives. But such individuals should be helped equally regardless of such factors as gender, race, nationality, sexuality, etc. If it happens to be the case that most such individuals are women, then any well-chosen but fair (i.e. genderblind) criteria will end up helping mostly women anyway.
  - natrius 16y ago
    If those assumptions about the underrepresentation of women in the field hold, then it's much easier to identify women for whom computer science would be a good fit but haven't chosen it than it is to identify similar men. Paying the costs for any qualified college student to attend JSConf would be less effective than paying the costs for qualified women. Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful? Discriminating less while achieving the same goal is an unalloyed good.
    - cabalamat 16y ago
      > Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful? Well, the original formulation was "potential to succeed at computer science". So we need to measure potential (P) and success (S). Then the people we are interested in satisfy (P and not S). S could be defined as being a professor of computer science (or related discipline), or as earning more than a certain amount in a computing-related field. P could be determined by getting someone to submit a computing-based project they've worked on; the submission might consist of a tarball containing documentation and source code, which would obviously have to be assessed according to subjective criteria (to avoid untoward discrimination at this stage, the submissions might be anonymised so reviewers wouldn't know the name of the submitter. Or P could be determined by some objectively-assessible criteria, for example asking people to write a program whose performance would be measured objectively (e.g. the Google AI Challenge -- http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/index.php http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/index.php ) But however you determine S and P, the set of people you're interested in falls naturally from that.
adamesque 16y ago
Except, they're _not_ just assumptions of sexism. You should at least skim the MIT study she refers to in her article (http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html). It was an eye-opening, empirical study showing that discrimination did exist – and that it didn't look like ordinary bigotry. I can't help but think that it's only possible to get worked up about reverse discrimination if you don't believe that the "forward" discrimination exists in the first place.
- alanh 16y ago
  You’re absolutely right about “the only way people would get worked up about reverse discrimination,” of course. What I object to is her assigning evil intentions to people she’s never met.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- Confusion 16y ago
  You can also get worked up about reverse discrimination if you fail to understand how it differs from regular discrimination. Using the same word for different things can throw off the mind in surprising ways.

by alanh 16y ago

natrius 16y ago

If women have the same potential both to succeed at computer science and to enjoy the work as men do, the underrepresentation of women in the field is a sign of problems that, if fixed, would result in more people leading more fulfilling lives. I think that is worth spending money on, and Google seems to agree. Moreover, if one's goal is to benefit the field of computer science rather than just help individuals choose careers they are better suited for, targeting highly capable women when applying such fixes would have the most return on investment. If these same grants were given out without regard to gender, they would result in less capability added to the field per dollar.

cabalamat 16y ago
> If women have the same potential both to succeed at computer science and to enjoy the work as men do, the underrepresentation of women in the field is a sign of problems that, if fixed, would result in more people leading more fulfilling lives. I think that is worth spending money on, and Google seems to agree. If some _individuals_ have a potential to succeed at computer science and are currently not doing so, then I agree, helping them to do so would lead to people living more fulfilled lives. But such individuals should be helped equally regardless of such factors as gender, race, nationality, sexuality, etc. If it happens to be the case that most such individuals are women, then any well-chosen but fair (i.e. genderblind) criteria will end up helping mostly women anyway.
- natrius 16y ago
  If those assumptions about the underrepresentation of women in the field hold, then it's much easier to identify women for whom computer science would be a good fit but haven't chosen it than it is to identify similar men. Paying the costs for any qualified college student to attend JSConf would be less effective than paying the costs for qualified women. Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful? Discriminating less while achieving the same goal is an unalloyed good.
  - cabalamat 16y ago
    > Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful? Well, the original formulation was "potential to succeed at computer science". So we need to measure potential (P) and success (S). Then the people we are interested in satisfy (P and not S). S could be defined as being a professor of computer science (or related discipline), or as earning more than a certain amount in a computing-related field. P could be determined by getting someone to submit a computing-based project they've worked on; the submission might consist of a tarball containing documentation and source code, which would obviously have to be assessed according to subjective criteria (to avoid untoward discrimination at this stage, the submissions might be anonymised so reviewers wouldn't know the name of the submitter. Or P could be determined by some objectively-assessible criteria, for example asking people to write a program whose performance would be measured objectively (e.g. the Google AI Challenge -- http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/index.php http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/index.php ) But however you determine S and P, the set of people you're interested in falls naturally from that.

adamesque 16y ago

Except, they're _not_ just assumptions of sexism. You should at least skim the MIT study she refers to in her article (http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html). It was an eye-opening, empirical study showing that discrimination did exist – and that it didn't look like ordinary bigotry. I can't help but think that it's only possible to get worked up about reverse discrimination if you don't believe that the "forward" discrimination exists in the first place.

alanh 16y ago
You’re absolutely right about “the only way people would get worked up about reverse discrimination,” of course. What I object to is her assigning evil intentions to people she’s never met.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Confusion 16y ago
You can also get worked up about reverse discrimination if you fail to understand how it differs from regular discrimination. Using the same word for different things can throw off the mind in surprising ways.