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It doesn't. At all. The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their int

by lurr 9y ago

It doesn't. At all. The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their interest the men might be higher. That doesn't mean no women are interested in tech, or that those who are interested are less competent. I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?

omegaworks 9y ago
>The issue is that it doesn't matter. It does matter. As technology becomes more deeply embedded into our society the assumptions made by the people that designed that technology get amplified and hardened. Have you not heard the story about the soap-dispenser that wouldn't recognize black skin? It's a minor annoyance now, but it won't be when the technology is responsible for more critical stuff. https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-dispenser-doesn-t-work-on-black-skin#.lXeni5f8X https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-... >For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? Becoming a doctor requires an immense amount of capital and free time. There are structural barriers that prevent women from accessing this capital and free time as easily as men can.
- lurr 9y ago
  > There are structural barriers that prevent women... There is also a long history of "men are doctors, women are nurses".
Zanni 9y ago
That's shifting rapidly. Women are very close to 50% of medical school graduates as of 2015. [1] [1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-graduates-by-gender/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-gra...
- nilkn 9y ago
  Not only this, but women still dominate nursing and many other healthcare professions, and women are increasingly preferred for certain specialist roles (e.g., OB-GYNs). Nursing is one of the best all-around careers in the US when you take all factors into account (barriers to entry, pay, potential advancement, availability of jobs in both urban and rural areas, lack of ageism, long-term stability, etc.). Certain specialist nurses like CRNAs can make $150k+. Nurse practitioners also have a higher median salary than software developers in the US according to the BLS.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Women reached parity in law school graduation about two decades ago, but still lag in practicing law, becoming partners and becoming judges today so it may not be changing all that rapidly just based on that single statistic.
  - Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
    I don't have experience in law, but maybe those stats just need time to change. People that graduated from post-parity need time to reach the level of seniority needed.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? It's not that shallow. Using your example, the interesting things become visible when you dig down into different types of work done in the medical profession. Scott Alexander has a very convincing piece on the whole topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... The issue of interest is tackled in section IV of the post. If you scroll down to the end of the section, there are interesting charts there, showing gender distribution of doctors among medical specialties. The distribution happens to align nicely with the theory of differences in interests, explored in that section.

by lurr 9y ago

omegaworks 9y ago

>The issue is that it doesn't matter. It does matter. As technology becomes more deeply embedded into our society the assumptions made by the people that designed that technology get amplified and hardened. Have you not heard the story about the soap-dispenser that wouldn't recognize black skin? It's a minor annoyance now, but it won't be when the technology is responsible for more critical stuff. https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-dispenser-doesn-t-work-on-black-skin#.lXeni5f8X https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-... >For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? Becoming a doctor requires an immense amount of capital and free time. There are structural barriers that prevent women from accessing this capital and free time as easily as men can.

lurr 9y ago
> There are structural barriers that prevent women... There is also a long history of "men are doctors, women are nurses".

Zanni 9y ago

That's shifting rapidly. Women are very close to 50% of medical school graduates as of 2015. [1] [1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-graduates-by-gender/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-gra...

nilkn 9y ago
Not only this, but women still dominate nursing and many other healthcare professions, and women are increasingly preferred for certain specialist roles (e.g., OB-GYNs). Nursing is one of the best all-around careers in the US when you take all factors into account (barriers to entry, pay, potential advancement, availability of jobs in both urban and rural areas, lack of ageism, long-term stability, etc.). Certain specialist nurses like CRNAs can make $150k+. Nurse practitioners also have a higher median salary than software developers in the US according to the BLS.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Women reached parity in law school graduation about two decades ago, but still lag in practicing law, becoming partners and becoming judges today so it may not be changing all that rapidly just based on that single statistic.
- Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
  I don't have experience in law, but maybe those stats just need time to change. People that graduated from post-parity need time to reach the level of seniority needed.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? It's not that shallow. Using your example, the interesting things become visible when you dig down into different types of work done in the medical profession. Scott Alexander has a very convincing piece on the whole topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... The issue of interest is tackled in section IV of the post. If you scroll down to the end of the section, there are interesting charts there, showing gender distribution of doctors among medical specialties. The distribution happens to align nicely with the theory of differences in interests, explored in that section.