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It's based on things I've listened to women say about working in male-dominated fields, and on the many other studies that contradict the one in that article. E

It's based on things I've listened to women say about working in male-dominated fields, and on the many other studies that contradict the one in that article. Even the author of that study doesn't go as far as you, she admits the results do not mean there is no discrimination. "Radically overcorrecting" seems a couple of steps beyond that. I guess we'll just both be astonished. Sometimes two people look at the exact same world and see different things.

rjf72 7y ago
Please do share these studies. I'm reasonably well read on this topic and have found all contemporary studies to be of a similar result. The thing you may be misunderstanding, as it's often made less than clear, is that there is an inequality of result - not of opportunity. Women who choose to pursue STEM are embraced with open arms. BUT very few choose to pursue it in the first place and, of those that do, many end up swapping pursuits later in life. And so studies focus on this as if it's a problem, because it surely cannot be the case that genders may be intrinsically attracted to different pursuits in life. This inequality of result, and the inability to attribute such to intrinsic factors, is the great "gender bias." I did not say women do not face discrimination. They do. And, to varying degrees, everybody does. This is true even in the most homogeneous of societies. The region of birth based discrimination in China is far more vigorous than any form of discrimination we've had in many decades. What matters of course are the consequences of such discrimination. Cultures, interests, and aptitudes vary among any selection of individuals. Even what seem to be completely 'agnostic' selection criterion such as height will yield extreme differences in distributions [1]. So the presumption of equal opportunity leading to equal results is nonsensical. "Bias" is a loaded word, and not completely equal is not the same thing as biased, or at least the connotation of such. I think there are two salient issues here: 1. There is a severe publication bias both against negative results and results that are not 'meaningful.' Negative results are results that indicate a hypothesis is not true. This sounds reasonable but it isn't in practice as it leads to the scenario we are currently in where finding evidence of discrimination is generally publication worthy. Yet, and this study notwithstanding, finding a lack of discrimination is generally not publication worthy. I expect the replication crisis, which is hitting the social sciences particularly hard, is in part driven by this. People need to publish something, and it generally needs to be shocking. That leads to... 2. Many people's careers and livelihoods depend upon the presence of discrimination. At one time astrology was a science at least as reputable and scholarly as psychology is today. And it's quite likely that a good number people who studied the field for decades had some inclining, perhaps buried deep in the back of their mind, that it was a bunch of crap. But of course they would quickly snuff such wrongthink out simply because such a possibility was unacceptable. After all, what are you to do when you've dedicated your life to something and you come to no longer see it as relevant? You go from a well regarded expert, to a master of nothing perhaps past thee point of being able to reboot your direction in life. No, such possibilities cannot be accepted. This is not to say discrimination is no more real than astrology. It certainly is. But rather I emphasize only that when people's livelihood depends upon finding evidence of discrimination, they will find it - whether or not it exists. "Science advances one funeral at a time." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence
- themarkn 7y ago
  > This inequality of result, and the inability to attribute such to intrinsic factors, is the great "gender bias." Ok I don't have the energy to keep this conversation going, the distance between us is too great.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    Sure thing. Do shoot me the links to those studies you referenced though. I'm unaware of any such thing, but of course I am always be willing to consider the possibility that my preconceptions are inaccurate - something everybody ought be willing to do.
    - themarkn 7y ago
      Three were linked in the same Washington Post article you referenced.
      - rjf72 7y ago
        I do see two. I'm not sure the third you're referencing: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10107 http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10107 - This is the exact sort of study I was referencing. It only shows that there is a different in result, not opportunity. It further shows that as the baseline competency standard increases (up to labs being operated by Nobel Laureates) - so does the "bias". It proposes explanations for this being either self selection by women, or bias by men. It ignores the most likely explanation which is that though the pool is split about 50/50 by gender, competencies are not. ---- http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf - I was familiar with this study, and it's a good example of the ongoing issues with social psychology toy study. For reference the replication rate in social psychology is now at around 25%. Put another way, if a social psychology study tells you something - you'd generally be vastly more well informed if you assumed the opposite, or at least assumed what was stated, was not true! This study offers a demonstration in a number of ways this has occurred. One major issue is that there was no effort to manage a response bias, other than in broad characteristics (race/gender) of applicants. Corinne Moss-Raucin [1] personally mailed a number of faculty asking them to respond and rate a variety of potential students. One glance at her faculty page will tell you what she's actually doing. So who voluntarily opts into this? In total just around 30% of contacted faculty chose to. I think there is a 0% chance that this is not a biased sample. The questions were also framed in a context that seems to imply a potential personal "affinity" for an individual. One important nuance here is that the students offered up for consideration were all low quality. The questions to demonstrate bias included: - "How likely would you be to encourage the applicant to continue to focus on research if he/she was considering switching focus to teaching?" - "Would you characterize the applicant as someone you want to get to know better?" Do you think you'd try to keep low performing Jennifer in your office, even if she was looking into teaching instead? Would you like to get to know her better? I mean come on this is just absurd, and a reason that the social sciences and especially social psychology is imploding in on itself. It's like if the "biases" went in the opposite direction our researcher was ready to write up an article about unhealthy professional attitudes towards females and female independence. [1] - https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/moss-racusin.php https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/moss-racusin.php

rjf72 7y ago

Please do share these studies. I'm reasonably well read on this topic and have found all contemporary studies to be of a similar result. The thing you may be misunderstanding, as it's often made less than clear, is that there is an inequality of result - not of opportunity. Women who choose to pursue STEM are embraced with open arms. BUT very few choose to pursue it in the first place and, of those that do, many end up swapping pursuits later in life. And so studies focus on this as if it's a problem, because it surely cannot be the case that genders may be intrinsically attracted to different pursuits in life. This inequality of result, and the inability to attribute such to intrinsic factors, is the great "gender bias." I did not say women do not face discrimination. They do. And, to varying degrees, everybody does. This is true even in the most homogeneous of societies. The region of birth based discrimination in China is far more vigorous than any form of discrimination we've had in many decades. What matters of course are the consequences of such discrimination. Cultures, interests, and aptitudes vary among any selection of individuals. Even what seem to be completely 'agnostic' selection criterion such as height will yield extreme differences in distributions [1]. So the presumption of equal opportunity leading to equal results is nonsensical. "Bias" is a loaded word, and not completely equal is not the same thing as biased, or at least the connotation of such. I think there are two salient issues here: 1. There is a severe publication bias both against negative results and results that are not 'meaningful.' Negative results are results that indicate a hypothesis is not true. This sounds reasonable but it isn't in practice as it leads to the scenario we are currently in where finding evidence of discrimination is generally publication worthy. Yet, and this study notwithstanding, finding a lack of discrimination is generally not publication worthy. I expect the replication crisis, which is hitting the social sciences particularly hard, is in part driven by this. People need to publish something, and it generally needs to be shocking. That leads to... 2. Many people's careers and livelihoods depend upon the presence of discrimination. At one time astrology was a science at least as reputable and scholarly as psychology is today. And it's quite likely that a good number people who studied the field for decades had some inclining, perhaps buried deep in the back of their mind, that it was a bunch of crap. But of course they would quickly snuff such wrongthink out simply because such a possibility was unacceptable. After all, what are you to do when you've dedicated your life to something and you come to no longer see it as relevant? You go from a well regarded expert, to a master of nothing perhaps past thee point of being able to reboot your direction in life. No, such possibilities cannot be accepted. This is not to say discrimination is no more real than astrology. It certainly is. But rather I emphasize only that when people's livelihood depends upon finding evidence of discrimination, they will find it - whether or not it exists. "Science advances one funeral at a time." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence

themarkn 7y ago
> This inequality of result, and the inability to attribute such to intrinsic factors, is the great "gender bias." Ok I don't have the energy to keep this conversation going, the distance between us is too great.
- rjf72 7y ago
  Sure thing. Do shoot me the links to those studies you referenced though. I'm unaware of any such thing, but of course I am always be willing to consider the possibility that my preconceptions are inaccurate - something everybody ought be willing to do.
  - themarkn 7y ago
    Three were linked in the same Washington Post article you referenced.
    - rjf72 7y ago
      I do see two. I'm not sure the third you're referencing: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10107 http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10107 - This is the exact sort of study I was referencing. It only shows that there is a different in result, not opportunity. It further shows that as the baseline competency standard increases (up to labs being operated by Nobel Laureates) - so does the "bias". It proposes explanations for this being either self selection by women, or bias by men. It ignores the most likely explanation which is that though the pool is split about 50/50 by gender, competencies are not. ---- http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf - I was familiar with this study, and it's a good example of the ongoing issues with social psychology toy study. For reference the replication rate in social psychology is now at around 25%. Put another way, if a social psychology study tells you something - you'd generally be vastly more well informed if you assumed the opposite, or at least assumed what was stated, was not true! This study offers a demonstration in a number of ways this has occurred. One major issue is that there was no effort to manage a response bias, other than in broad characteristics (race/gender) of applicants. Corinne Moss-Raucin [1] personally mailed a number of faculty asking them to respond and rate a variety of potential students. One glance at her faculty page will tell you what she's actually doing. So who voluntarily opts into this? In total just around 30% of contacted faculty chose to. I think there is a 0% chance that this is not a biased sample. The questions were also framed in a context that seems to imply a potential personal "affinity" for an individual. One important nuance here is that the students offered up for consideration were all low quality. The questions to demonstrate bias included: - "How likely would you be to encourage the applicant to continue to focus on research if he/she was considering switching focus to teaching?" - "Would you characterize the applicant as someone you want to get to know better?" Do you think you'd try to keep low performing Jennifer in your office, even if she was looking into teaching instead? Would you like to get to know her better? I mean come on this is just absurd, and a reason that the social sciences and especially social psychology is imploding in on itself. It's like if the "biases" went in the opposite direction our researcher was ready to write up an article about unhealthy professional attitudes towards females and female independence. [1] - https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/moss-racusin.php https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/moss-racusin.php