4 ms·

I think those are interesting data points, but it's hard to take that data and clearly conclude there is a non-problem. For one, 50 years ago in America, women

by dv_dt 7y ago

I think those are interesting data points, but it's hard to take that data and clearly conclude there is a non-problem. For one, 50 years ago in America, women were unintentionally at the frontline of computers perhaps because high numbers of women were the "computers" before machine computers were introduced. And when the machine computers were introduced, the departments of women "computers" got exposure to them perhaps because of a high overlap in the departmental "compute" functions. Similarly if you look at high level women in computing from 50 years ago, they often got chances to apply their extraordinary skills because they happened across extraordinary opportunities - in some part because no-one else was above them for unique job, nor was there a formal role to hire for and choose between a woman or man. Another contributing factor might be the nature of war as well as the newness of the tech that created a temporary gender-blind vacuum.

jariel 7y ago
Those are all fine points, but it doesn't entirely address this gender paradox issues of Engineers in developed countries. Moreover, it doesn't address the underlying assumption that 'equality' actually has to imply 50/50 in every labour category. I personally believe that anyone should be able to do anything, but that gender is so deeply ingrained into culture and society, that there'll never be 50/50 in most professions not matter what we do - and that we should consider accepting 'different strokes for different folks' - and that ironically 'diversity' means people will do different things. There can still be equality in the world even if people do different things, we might just have to look at things a little differently and make sure 'fairness' is applied from another angle. In the 1920's, Lenin tried to abolish that utterly bourgeois institution of the 'family'. He banned 'weekends' and made Russia work on a 5 day work day. Everyone got one day off - but different days off were assigned to different workers. Husbands and wives would often be assigned different days off specifically so they'd never see each other, i.e. to wear down the coherence of the family. This is not some Netflix Dystopia - this was a reality for 10's of millions of people in a 20th century country. It failed miserably because I think the hyper intellectual social egalitarian attitudes were at odds with the social reality of humanity. I believe much of our gender wars boil down to this as well: we have gender, it's never going away, and trying to kill it is absurd. It's ok, we can have real equality without having to wipe out gender - we just have to think a little bit about it.
manfredo 7y ago
> For one, 50 years ago in America, women were unintentionally at the frontline of computers perhaps because high numbers of women were the "computers" before machine computers were introduced. And when the machine computers were introduced, the departments of women "computers" got exposure to them perhaps because of a high overlap in the departmental "compute" functions. The correlation between lower gender equality and higher rates of women in STEM is not just a pattern in US history. It also holds across different countries in the modern day [1]. The idea that this is just a coincidence that electronic computing happened to come into existence around the time that women started gaining more rights does not hold up. > Similarly if you look at high level women in computing from 50 years ago, they often got chances to apply their extraordinary skills because they happened across extraordinary opportunities - in some part because no-one else was above them for unique job, nor was there a formal role to hire for and choose between a woman or man. Another contributing factor might be the nature of war as well as the newness of the tech that created a temporary gender-blind vacuum. This, too, does not hold up to scrutiny. Women's share of computing jobs did not drop after the war was over. It continued to rise until the late 1970s or early 1980s depending on which estimate is used. Since the share of women in computing continued to increase several decades after WWII, the idea of a temporary gender-bind vacuum is not promising. 1. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/14/investigating-the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-in-fairer-societies-fewer-women-enter-science/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/14/investigating-the-stem-...
- dv_dt 7y ago
  > The idea that this is just a coincidence that electronic computing happened to come into existence around the time that women started gaining more rights does not hold up This is a misstatement of my idea, which is that which is that greater numbers of women were higher in stem at the beginning because of a historical circumstance. The data you show in [1] is a snapshot of the modern day, and really says nothing about the historical circumstances. > Since the share of women in computing continued to increase several decades after WWII, the idea of a temporary gender-bind vacuum is not promising. You act as if there are no momemtum effects of the initial higher rate of women in computing technology. A baseline rate of women in the culture at the time would encourage more women to be in the industry, perhaps until other effects became stronger. That the numbers continued to rise, in my opinion, say nothing about my second proposition one way or other.

by dv_dt 7y ago

jariel 7y ago

Those are all fine points, but it doesn't entirely address this gender paradox issues of Engineers in developed countries. Moreover, it doesn't address the underlying assumption that 'equality' actually has to imply 50/50 in every labour category. I personally believe that anyone should be able to do anything, but that gender is so deeply ingrained into culture and society, that there'll never be 50/50 in most professions not matter what we do - and that we should consider accepting 'different strokes for different folks' - and that ironically 'diversity' means people will do different things. There can still be equality in the world even if people do different things, we might just have to look at things a little differently and make sure 'fairness' is applied from another angle. In the 1920's, Lenin tried to abolish that utterly bourgeois institution of the 'family'. He banned 'weekends' and made Russia work on a 5 day work day. Everyone got one day off - but different days off were assigned to different workers. Husbands and wives would often be assigned different days off specifically so they'd never see each other, i.e. to wear down the coherence of the family. This is not some Netflix Dystopia - this was a reality for 10's of millions of people in a 20th century country. It failed miserably because I think the hyper intellectual social egalitarian attitudes were at odds with the social reality of humanity. I believe much of our gender wars boil down to this as well: we have gender, it's never going away, and trying to kill it is absurd. It's ok, we can have real equality without having to wipe out gender - we just have to think a little bit about it.

manfredo 7y ago

> For one, 50 years ago in America, women were unintentionally at the frontline of computers perhaps because high numbers of women were the "computers" before machine computers were introduced. And when the machine computers were introduced, the departments of women "computers" got exposure to them perhaps because of a high overlap in the departmental "compute" functions. The correlation between lower gender equality and higher rates of women in STEM is not just a pattern in US history. It also holds across different countries in the modern day [1]. The idea that this is just a coincidence that electronic computing happened to come into existence around the time that women started gaining more rights does not hold up. > Similarly if you look at high level women in computing from 50 years ago, they often got chances to apply their extraordinary skills because they happened across extraordinary opportunities - in some part because no-one else was above them for unique job, nor was there a formal role to hire for and choose between a woman or man. Another contributing factor might be the nature of war as well as the newness of the tech that created a temporary gender-blind vacuum. This, too, does not hold up to scrutiny. Women's share of computing jobs did not drop after the war was over. It continued to rise until the late 1970s or early 1980s depending on which estimate is used. Since the share of women in computing continued to increase several decades after WWII, the idea of a temporary gender-bind vacuum is not promising. 1. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/14/investigating-the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-in-fairer-societies-fewer-women-enter-science/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/14/investigating-the-stem-...

dv_dt 7y ago
> The idea that this is just a coincidence that electronic computing happened to come into existence around the time that women started gaining more rights does not hold up This is a misstatement of my idea, which is that which is that greater numbers of women were higher in stem at the beginning because of a historical circumstance. The data you show in [1] is a snapshot of the modern day, and really says nothing about the historical circumstances. > Since the share of women in computing continued to increase several decades after WWII, the idea of a temporary gender-bind vacuum is not promising. You act as if there are no momemtum effects of the initial higher rate of women in computing technology. A baseline rate of women in the culture at the time would encourage more women to be in the industry, perhaps until other effects became stronger. That the numbers continued to rise, in my opinion, say nothing about my second proposition one way or other.