4 ms·

> “hey this isn’t equal and maybe women just aren’t as good at tech,” ... "women are predisposed biologically to not be good at things" No one has said that. P

by belorn 8y ago

> “hey this isn’t equal and maybe women just aren’t as good at tech,” ... "women are predisposed biologically to not be good at things" No one has said that. Please assume some good faith that when people say they don't want speakers to be selected based on gender, it means they don't want speakers to be selected based on gender. There is not a single comment under this article that has said or implied that there are difference in the ability of men and women to perform skillfully with technology tasks. > On the topic of bring more gender parity to nursing and teaching, please do. Sure, lets bring in a universal affirmative action law that dictate that any industry that has more than 60% women or men must apply affirmative action for any new hire. I would enjoy to see that experiment. For reference, the top 3 most gender segregated professions (99.4% or higher) in Sweden a few years ago was midwife, dentist nurse, and stone layer. Engineers didn't even breach top 50, and is pretty average in gender segregation.

roguecoder 8y ago
Why would you expect her to assume good faith of men arguing against her inclusion? Especially when we know that men from white nationalist groups have purposefully infiltrated technical spaces in order to fight the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial minorities? (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuc...) These men are making a political argument, not an intellectual one. They are arguing that nothing should be done in the face of obvious injustice. If they cared to read it, there is significant peer-reviewed work that says they are wrong, but because they are making a political argument not an intellectual one evidence does not matter. Expertise does not matter. Has any one of these guys offered a shred of evidence for their beliefs? Have any of them offered the credentials that qualify them to opine on this topic? Someone who comes in and says "you shouldn't use C because it is slow as shit" wouldn't be taken seriously or treated as though they were arguing in good faith. Neither should these obviously-wrong dudes. Just like with Holocaust deniers, engaging with these people only legitimizes them and their politically-motivated beliefs. (See for https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre... effective strategies to engage with people who are arguing for political reasons.) To do otherwise demands that women participate in their own marginalization, which explains why most of them don't bother and just quit, creating an echo chamber where men can keep reassuring themselves that these political beliefs are more important than facts. Frankly, it is a disgrace that Hacker's News is willing to host this tired bullshit, and YC should seriously consider the impact doing so has on their brand.
- belorn 8y ago
  When it comes to gender segregation we are all marginalized in one place or an other. That is what 88.6% gender segregation for women and 88.4% gender segregation for men means in raw Swedish data. There is no data to support that affirmative action is an effective strategy in dealing with this problem. There is also no support to the idea that a failure with inclusions is the reason why 88.6% women and 88.4% of men work in gender segregated professions here in Sweden. The very little of real scientific data, in the several research studies I have read, is ones that simply say that people feel more confident being around people who share the same trait as themselves. Multiply that effect with every challenge a person goes through from selecting a professions to being a student to graduation to seeking a job to staying in a professions for several years and what we get is a significant increase risk for members of the minority group to not select the profession or quit. A solution need to fit the problem. 88.5% of the population has ended up gender segregated in Sweden. Is the method that the article suggest an effective strategy for that goal, and if so where is that evidence? Someone suggested that gender difference in preference is the cause but similar the data I have read on preference differences are not significant enough to explain such extreme segregation that exist here. The parent posts here suggest misogyny, which then would imply misandry to explain why an equal amount of men do not end up in professions dominated by women, but that seems poorly supported by peer-reviewed work that looks to explain gender segregation in general. But as I suggested above, I would not mind seeing a experiment where people tried applying affirmative action as a general solution to fix gender segregation. Similar ideas has been tested before in smaller scales, like Sweden when it tried to do it in higher education. They had to scrap it because a court deemed it discrimination to give benefits to individuals based on gender, even if they were a minority. Norway is currently testing a different version, which will be interesting to see develop. I do expect it to run foul of the same issue as here in Sweden but they do have different laws and their relation with EU laws is complicated.
  - meghan-maternie 8y ago
    Some data for you: 100 years ago, I couldn't vote in the United States. 50 years ago, my best shot at not living in poverty would've been marrying well. 25 years ago, starting and running a company would've been preposterous. 100 years ago, could you vote? 50 years ago, could you pursue a career and succeed on your own merits versus seeking a spouse? 25 years ago, were men starting companies? Do you think perhaps that history contributes to the "failure with inclusions"? Do you think women ended up dominating careers like midwifery and nursing because they all just happened to realllllllly like that? Or because that was available to them to have some agency over their lives?
meghan-maternie 8y ago
In a perfect world people would succeed based on merits and not identity, their parents, how much money they have growing up, etc. We do not live in that world. We have clear structural challenges to having women succeed at the highest levels of business in the United States, and the tech industry is particularly disappointing because it grew up as women supposedly had equal access to the idea that they could have a career, as opposed to being their spouse's property. If you think the answer to that is just continuing as is to maintain unimpeachable fairness for you...I disagree.
meghan-maternie 8y ago
p.s. I'm glad we agree about that experiment

by belorn 8y ago

roguecoder 8y ago

Why would you expect her to assume good faith of men arguing against her inclusion? Especially when we know that men from white nationalist groups have purposefully infiltrated technical spaces in order to fight the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial minorities? (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuc...) These men are making a political argument, not an intellectual one. They are arguing that nothing should be done in the face of obvious injustice. If they cared to read it, there is significant peer-reviewed work that says they are wrong, but because they are making a political argument not an intellectual one evidence does not matter. Expertise does not matter. Has any one of these guys offered a shred of evidence for their beliefs? Have any of them offered the credentials that qualify them to opine on this topic? Someone who comes in and says "you shouldn't use C because it is slow as shit" wouldn't be taken seriously or treated as though they were arguing in good faith. Neither should these obviously-wrong dudes. Just like with Holocaust deniers, engaging with these people only legitimizes them and their politically-motivated beliefs. (See for https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre... effective strategies to engage with people who are arguing for political reasons.) To do otherwise demands that women participate in their own marginalization, which explains why most of them don't bother and just quit, creating an echo chamber where men can keep reassuring themselves that these political beliefs are more important than facts. Frankly, it is a disgrace that Hacker's News is willing to host this tired bullshit, and YC should seriously consider the impact doing so has on their brand.

belorn 8y ago
When it comes to gender segregation we are all marginalized in one place or an other. That is what 88.6% gender segregation for women and 88.4% gender segregation for men means in raw Swedish data. There is no data to support that affirmative action is an effective strategy in dealing with this problem. There is also no support to the idea that a failure with inclusions is the reason why 88.6% women and 88.4% of men work in gender segregated professions here in Sweden. The very little of real scientific data, in the several research studies I have read, is ones that simply say that people feel more confident being around people who share the same trait as themselves. Multiply that effect with every challenge a person goes through from selecting a professions to being a student to graduation to seeking a job to staying in a professions for several years and what we get is a significant increase risk for members of the minority group to not select the profession or quit. A solution need to fit the problem. 88.5% of the population has ended up gender segregated in Sweden. Is the method that the article suggest an effective strategy for that goal, and if so where is that evidence? Someone suggested that gender difference in preference is the cause but similar the data I have read on preference differences are not significant enough to explain such extreme segregation that exist here. The parent posts here suggest misogyny, which then would imply misandry to explain why an equal amount of men do not end up in professions dominated by women, but that seems poorly supported by peer-reviewed work that looks to explain gender segregation in general. But as I suggested above, I would not mind seeing a experiment where people tried applying affirmative action as a general solution to fix gender segregation. Similar ideas has been tested before in smaller scales, like Sweden when it tried to do it in higher education. They had to scrap it because a court deemed it discrimination to give benefits to individuals based on gender, even if they were a minority. Norway is currently testing a different version, which will be interesting to see develop. I do expect it to run foul of the same issue as here in Sweden but they do have different laws and their relation with EU laws is complicated.
- meghan-maternie 8y ago
  Some data for you: 100 years ago, I couldn't vote in the United States. 50 years ago, my best shot at not living in poverty would've been marrying well. 25 years ago, starting and running a company would've been preposterous. 100 years ago, could you vote? 50 years ago, could you pursue a career and succeed on your own merits versus seeking a spouse? 25 years ago, were men starting companies? Do you think perhaps that history contributes to the "failure with inclusions"? Do you think women ended up dominating careers like midwifery and nursing because they all just happened to realllllllly like that? Or because that was available to them to have some agency over their lives?

meghan-maternie 8y ago

In a perfect world people would succeed based on merits and not identity, their parents, how much money they have growing up, etc. We do not live in that world. We have clear structural challenges to having women succeed at the highest levels of business in the United States, and the tech industry is particularly disappointing because it grew up as women supposedly had equal access to the idea that they could have a career, as opposed to being their spouse's property. If you think the answer to that is just continuing as is to maintain unimpeachable fairness for you...I disagree.

meghan-maternie 8y ago

p.s. I'm glad we agree about that experiment