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> She and her colleagues found that in the 1970s, women accounted for 59 percent of acknowledged programmers, but just 7 percent of actual authors. That decade
by moosey 8y ago
> She and her colleagues found that in the 1970s, women accounted for 59 percent of acknowledged programmers, but just 7 percent of actual authors. That decade was a pivotal time for the field of population genetics, when the foundations of much modern research were laid. “Based on authorship at the time, it seems that this research was conducted by a relatively small number of independent individual scientists, nearly all of whom were men,” the team writes. But that wasn’t the case.
Nice way of glossing over that section.
At some point you just have to reject the argument that it was "best intentions" or "that's just evolutionary psychology". It was only 45 years ago that the "Equal Credit Opportunity Act" was passed. There are still tons of weird attitudes about women and their contributions to society. One that I see often is that "Women select lower paying jobs", but I rarely see the obvious counter argument "why in the hell doesn't our economy reward women for raising the next generation of workers?", as they do 80% of the house work. Women are often ignored in history books, Texas even made an attempt to have Hillary Clinton completely removed.
This discussion is just one such example. There are mounds of evidence of the sexism in our society. There might be scientific reasons that it exists, but there is no scientific or ethical defense of it's continued existence. Whether in the workplace or at home, women have been supplying half of economic output for the entirety of our history, and it's time to stop pretending that it isn't the case, or that historically those in power were powerless against some natural economic state.
- quannah 8y agoI'm not glossing over it, it's a different point. They are implying a causal link between the 7% and the 59% when they haven't demonstrated that. They show that individual authors got a lot of help that wasn't awarded with authorship. You can point out that nowadays this work would be worthy of authorship, and that women were somewhat overrepresented in the acknowledgements without authorship. That doesn't demonstrate the big claims of sexism they're stating/implying. If they showed men getting authorship for only the programming help, and women not getting authorship in comparable situations, that would be a different matter. I didn't say sexism didn't (or doesn't) exist, there's plenty of other evidence that it did/does. I'm just saying it doesn't follow. And if I say something can be explained by evolutionary psychology that doesn't mean that therefore it's fine, or that it couldn't be changed given the right system of incentives.
- moosey 8y agoYou made the suggestion that as programming work became a higher paying field that men suddenly looked for jobs there, due to "evolutionary psychology", without a lick of proof that it wasn't the other way around. Perhaps programming work is really well paid now because Nintendo of America decided to advertise to boys, and then those boys grew up to become men who were interested in programming, and because men pay other men more than they offer women. Or perhaps because, as the SV folks like to say "They aren't a good culture fit" when interviewing female candidates. > We used wage data and productivity data from the whole of New Zealand to look at the reasons for the gender wage gap. We found that sexism (where employers prefer to hire men rather than women, are more likely to reject equally qualified women, or offer women less) is likely to be the most important driver of the gender wage gap. This is opposed to women working in low-paying industries or firms, being less productive, or being less successful at bargaining. [1] Of course it follows. It is undeniable that many centuries of sexism are going to take a lot of work to undo, and it isn't exactly easy when most religions followed the world over, by huge swaths of humanity, also belittle their contributions to society, and actually devalue them to be below men. These beliefs and stories have a major impact on what we do. So I'm going to stick with sexism because it is most likely the correct answer. [1] - http://theconversation.com/women-paid-less-for-same-contribution-to-work-and-sexism-is-to-blame-study-83052 http://theconversation.com/women-paid-less-for-same-contribu...
- belorn 8y agoWith the suggestion that "evolutionary psychology" isn't involved in men seeking higher income jobs, why is there an extreme correlation between income for men and having children, but not for women? Why is it that society reward rich men with larger social network, while women has on average larger social network than men that is not associated with income? perhaps, as people say, "Poor men aren't as attractive"... > So I'm going to stick with sexism because it is most likely the correct answer. Personally I am sticking to the incentive model. A woman who prioritize other aspect in their work and personal life over income does not have fewer children, has the same social network size as other women, and get similar respect in society at old age. For men the opposite is true, where a man who make the same choices would end up (statistically) at the bottom of society, alone, childless, with no respect in old age. As a result low income men also has a lower life expectancy. Pretty strong incentives if you ask me.
- dominotw 8y ago> they do 80% of the house work. I have a question. ppl often say housework is "unpaid work" but how can that be since each spouse gets 50% of wealth accumulated by the family. For example spouse would get 50% of the family fortune in case of a divorce, if anything housework is overpaid not underpaid. Ofcourse your future earning potential takes a hit the longer you just do "housework" prbly not very different than ppl doing menial jobs.
- jordigh 8y agoSo why don't men just deposit their salary into their wives' bank accounts? It's all the same, isn't it? Legally 50%, no matter whose bank account it's in? That's what I do. My salary goes into my wife's bank for her to dispose of as she sees fit. I figure I wouldn't be able to do my job without her help and she does take on most of the housework, so I figure she's entitled to the primary decisions on how money should be spent.
- jki275 8y agoI have a significant portion of our disposable income direct deposited in my wife's account. I pay all the bills from mine. Legally, your premise is correct in most states. Practically it tends to play out differently in a divorce situation.
- dominotw 8y agocurious, why do you guys have separate accounts vs a joint account?
- jki275 8y agoAll of our accounts are actually joint. But she has the accounts she's primary on and uses, and I have the ones I pay the bills out of. Trying to manage finances while multiple people spend money out of one account and there are auto-pays for bills from the same account is simply too taxing for me to deal with.
- 8y ago
- chongli 8y ago"why in the hell doesn't our economy reward women for raising the next generation of workers?" I thought the obvious answer to this is that the benefits women provide through parenthood are externalized. This is the case with education as well. Elon Musk's 9th grade science teacher doesn't get any shares in Space X. And from what I can see, women overwhelmingly dominate careers that have a lot of positive externalities: teaching, (prenatal/neonatal) medicine, social work, philanthropy, environmentalism. On the other hand, you don't see a whole lot of women hedge fund managers, oil and gas explorers, mechanical engineers, etc. I've seen it argued endlessly that fields began paying less when women entered a field. Why isn't anyone asking if it's men exiting a field because it started paying less?
- Consultant32452 8y agoWhat kinds of rewards would you like to see women get? I see some. For example, women constitute some 85% of consumer spending. So they're getting some kind of financial reward, presumably from men who appreciate all that house work they're doing.