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> The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed on a biological level between 1984 and today. This article has

by imron 9y ago

> The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed on a biological level between 1984 and today. This article has an alternative explanation as for why: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... Without implying there was any biological change at all - rather that other fields that were shut off to women (medicine, law etc) become more open. It's a long read, but provides some interesting food for thought.

fzeroracer 9y ago
It's a somewhat interesting read, but one that I cannot agree with the conclusions as the author seems to have not bothered to read up on the data with regards to gender ratio in other careers. For example the following claim made by the author: >Women are less likely to be interested in programming than men. But if you ban the smart women from every other occupation – well, they’ll take it. Once you unban them, they’ll go to other things they like more, like being veterinarians (80% women) and forensic scientists (74% women). My guess is in 1980, neither of those careers had many women in them. Where did all those super-smart women who now dominate the fields come from? Probably places like schoolteaching and programming! Can have doubt immediately cast on it by examining the percentage of women graduates by all degree types [1]. If we presume this to be true, then in the 80s we should see a large tick up in other degrees followed by a large tick down in computer science. And well, the data doesn't exactly support that. In fact, Computer Science is one of the few that bucks the trend of the other degrees. His entire argument essentially boils down to 'women are interested in these degrees, and men are interested in these degrees' which is a soft-argument saying that genetic or gender-related differences is why we see such large disparities between various careers. He handwaves away the statistic relating to the drop in the 80s, which makes me have trouble taking him seriously. [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

by imron 9y ago

fzeroracer 9y ago

It's a somewhat interesting read, but one that I cannot agree with the conclusions as the author seems to have not bothered to read up on the data with regards to gender ratio in other careers. For example the following claim made by the author: >Women are less likely to be interested in programming than men. But if you ban the smart women from every other occupation – well, they’ll take it. Once you unban them, they’ll go to other things they like more, like being veterinarians (80% women) and forensic scientists (74% women). My guess is in 1980, neither of those careers had many women in them. Where did all those super-smart women who now dominate the fields come from? Probably places like schoolteaching and programming! Can have doubt immediately cast on it by examining the percentage of women graduates by all degree types [1]. If we presume this to be true, then in the 80s we should see a large tick up in other degrees followed by a large tick down in computer science. And well, the data doesn't exactly support that. In fact, Computer Science is one of the few that bucks the trend of the other degrees. His entire argument essentially boils down to 'women are interested in these degrees, and men are interested in these degrees' which is a soft-argument saying that genetic or gender-related differences is why we see such large disparities between various careers. He handwaves away the statistic relating to the drop in the 80s, which makes me have trouble taking him seriously. [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...