5 ms·

> the kind of differences in performance and achievement that would be explained by psychological and physiological differences between men and women That's a

> the kind of differences in performance and achievement that would be explained by psychological and physiological differences between men and women That's a bit of circular reasoning though. - Look how men and women behave differently! - But why do they behave differently? - Because they're different. - How do you know that? - Because they behave differently. It's not logically consistent and doesn't answer anything.

calibas 7y ago
Are observable differences not the basis of empirical science?
- bluGill 7y ago
  Which differences. There is the genitalia that nobody argues with. Likewise testosterone differences. Pretty much everything else isn't as clear cut. We know that more men than women go into STEM - but we don't know if it is because men fundamentally like those jobs better, or if it is because our culture makes it less acceptable for women to go into STEM. Often culture things are subtle and people will say things that do not match their actions.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    That's not true. We know from history that a much larger percentage of programmers in the US were women before it became a lucrative career. > Between 30 and 50 percent of programmers were women in the 1950s, and it was seen as a natural career for them, as evidenced by a 1967 Cosmopolitan feature about “Computer Girls.” [1] [1] https://timeline.com/women-pioneered-computer-programming-then-men-took-their-industry-over-c2959b822523 https://timeline.com/women-pioneered-computer-programming-th...
    - bluGill 7y ago
      In the 1950s male culture saw computer as a boring career worth of only women. Note literally computer, sitting down with a piece of paper and calculating some figure by hand - a human spreadsheet if it were. Computer morphed into computer programmer with the advent of electronic computers, and soon afterwards men got involved. Feminists made big advances at the same time and so it is hard to separate which factor (or something I can't think of) is important and which an irrelevant coincidence.
      - catalogia 7y ago
        AFAICT men started to get involved when men started to notice that you could hit the jackpot and become a billionaire, or at least have a decent shot at becoming a millionaire.
        zarkov99 7y ago
        What bullshit. Virtually all successful programmers fell in love with the machine when they were young and would program for free. And surely you noticed this.
        catalogia 7y ago
        That's not been my experience at all. That's so far outside of my experience that I sincerely wonder if you're having me on. I assume you're not, but I apologize for the subsequent wall of text if you were just joking. I won't be so uncivil as to suggest that your perspective is "bullshit". I suppose the 'successful' qualification is sufficiently ill-defined to give a lot of wiggle room, but if I take that to mean financially successful, a minority of the programmers I know would describe themselves as lifelong machine lovers. Certainly some do, but I'd say more are the sort to get cross with you if you try to "talk shop" outside of work; they have interests and hobbies unrelated to computers and use work with computers to fund those interests and hobbies. And those that do have programming as a hobby rarely work on hobby projects that resemble the work they're paid for. As an aside, if the industry really were filled with technophiles as you suggest, I think I'd enjoy it a lot more. As it stands, relatively few around me seem to share my interests. I've found the best way to find people who share my technophile inclinations is to look for groups and clubs that form around technical hobbies. And what I've found in doing so is that many lifelong technophiles don't work in tech at all, and of those that do work in tech, most don't get paid to work on the sort of tech they're actually passionate about.
  - junolucina 7y ago
    Motherhood.
  - calibas 7y ago
    I was suggesting the correlation is deeper than just "circular reasoning", and I assume you agree since you mention two potential causations.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      I tend to believe it is so. However I'm honest enough to admit it is a belief that might be wrong. I'm also honest enough to admit in most cases the difference (whatever it is) isn't significant to the situation at hand.
- throwaway8548 7y ago
  Nobody is denying the statistics.
bluGill 7y ago
The opposite claim - that men and women are equal has the same problem. As far as I can tell we don't know how men and women are different other than a few physical factors related to breeding or hormones. Worse it is a controversial subject that you probably shouldn't study because when your results are other than what someone wants to believe true they will make your life difficult. Either you find a difference or you don't - either way you confirm the bias of one group and contradict the bias of the other. I think there are real differences, other than the two I mentioned, but there is probably a lot of overlaps where you can find plenty of exceptions.
- throwaway8548 7y ago
  I would probably believe that if we weren't talking about software. But software is, what, less than a century old? What possible evolutionary differences could have risen in that time frame? I mean, the number zero is very unintuitive and the ancient Romans/greeks/chinese/whatever didn't discover it, despite the fact all evidence shows they were very smart in many things. Yet you want me to believe that men understand that arrays are zero based better than women. Apply that to any software principle.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    > But software is, what, less than a century old? What possible evolutionary differences could have risen in that time frame? But guns are, what, less than a millennia old? What possible evolutionary differences could have arisen in that time frame? No way that women and men would perform differently in competitive shooting [0], right? And as it turns out, men shoot faster, women shoot more accurately. There's all sorts of things that have only existed for a century or two where men and women perform differently. Adaptation for one task often has effects on similar tasks, after all. This doesn't mean men are better than women at CS! But "this field didn't exist a century ago" isn't sufficient reason to assert no differences can exist. 0: http://www.realbiathlon.com/2011/11/who-shoots-better-men-or-women.html http://www.realbiathlon.com/2011/11/who-shoots-better-men-or...
    - 7y ago
oerpli 7y ago
And how would you argue the other side? - Women and men are equal! - But they behave differently - Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because they behave differently. What now?
- throwaway8548 7y ago
  - Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because women told us!!
  - bluGill 7y ago
    That too doesn't make it so. It might be so, and in some cases it is. However I've also observed people claim discrimination when there wasn't.
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    > Because women told us!! The frustrating thing is most of the analysis completely leaves this part out. I would be interested to hear from women about ways they have been discriminated against, and how the industry can improve to make that less likely to happen. But most analysis I see on line is just "Most programmers are men! That is sexist!" With no analysis going beyond that.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Women have unrealistic expectations sometimes. Elsewhere in this comment section someone (you?) mentioned that men are "unaccommodating" to women. But men _are_ in fact more accommodating to women nowadays than to _other men_. How do we know this? _Because men told us_! You're asking for special treatment and you don't even realize it.
    - throwaway8548 7y ago
      > But men _are_ in fact more accommodating to women nowadays than to _other men_ This is not about generic workplace disagreements. Yes, those happen all the time. > How do we know this? _Because men told us_! I know that's tongue in cheek and only half serious but I'll reply anyway. Even if 99% of men are more accommodating, that 1% would still make employment unbearable. After 10 years you probably met a few dozen assholes and just want to quit the industry because it's not worth it.
kaitai 7y ago
Throwaway commenter, despite being downvoted, you're absolutely right! I'm a woman. I AM A WOMAN IN STEM. You know what makes my blood pressure rise? People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not suited to it, that I like people more than things. Go away! Shut the f(*& up! I want to sit here and deal with my code and not have people tell me that I either don't know what I like or I'm not a real, normal woman. Maybe we won't get to 50-50 in some STEM fields. Who cares. People telling me for forty years that I'm a weirdo for existing with this brain in this body is not equality. And you know what? I've got family in STEM in Scandinavia, and the horrifying discrimination stories I've heard directly about their working conditions (down to classic, "You shouldn't be here because when you get pregnant you'll stop doing science" conversations with superiors) dwarf anything I personally have experienced in STEM in the US. The homophobic comments in the sauna are direct and cruel. Scandinavian STEM is not the egalitarian paradise that Americans think it is.
- kaitai 7y ago
  For humor's sake, I hope that the above comment clearly conveys how misanthropic people make me... haha.... pun not entirely unintended....
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > You know what makes my blood pressure rise? People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not suited to it, that I like people more than things. Well... most men aren't suited for STEM, either. I think that there may be some validity in saying that women, on average, have a temperament difference or focus difference or whatever that makes them want STEM less. But there is NO validity in saying to any particular individual "therefore you are not suited". No, you judge the individual by the individual, not by the group.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  Hey, thanks for your input! What I'm trying to better understand, is whether women who are not applying for programming jobs at the same rate as men, are due to lack of interest, or are they somehow being actively discouraged from the field? I've worked with many women programmers, some of them better than me, so I know it's not the case women are inherently worse at programming than men. But I don't know the reason there are fewer women in the field. Obviously you can't speak for all women, but maybe you have some insights as a woman that I don't as a man?
manfredo 7y ago
> That's a bit of circular reasoning though. > - Look how men and women behave differently! > - But why do they behave differently? > - Because they're different. > - How do you know that? > - Because differences are observed at birth, are relatively consistent across countries with vastly different cultures, and the differences in behavior are observed even when raising children in a controlled environment free of gendered roles. Fixed that for you.
- throwaway8548 7y ago
  > Because differences are observed at birth, are relatively consistent across countries with vastly different cultures, I mean the article literally says different countries/cultures see vastly different results.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    This is in reference to gender differences like extraversion, and make newborns dedicating more attention to things and female newborns dedicating more attention to people. As far as this post's article, the rates are not vastly different results, most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30%. If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology. That is not the case, all countries have majority male tech workforces, and they're mostly in the 15-35% range with some outliers on both ends. Furthermore, what differences that are observed contradict the idea that rigid gender roles cause lower rates of women in tech. Countries with some of the strictest gender roles like south Korea and Algeria see the highest rates of women in tech.
    - throwaway8548 7y ago
      > most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30% That's huge > If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology That's assuming social pressures are randomly distributed. But we don't observe 50/50 split between patriarchy and matriarchy. > Furthermore, what differences that are observed contradict the idea that rigid gender roles cause lower rates of women in tech Maybe because it depends which gender roles are applied and not their rigidity? The nerd/geek being an awkward boy with glasses troppe is specifically a western concept for example. Women in Eastern Europe worked in factories side by side with men for generations. Gender roles does not equal your concept of gender roles like women not liking/belonging/choosing not to be in tech.

calibas 7y ago

Are observable differences not the basis of empirical science?

bluGill 7y ago
Which differences. There is the genitalia that nobody argues with. Likewise testosterone differences. Pretty much everything else isn't as clear cut. We know that more men than women go into STEM - but we don't know if it is because men fundamentally like those jobs better, or if it is because our culture makes it less acceptable for women to go into STEM. Often culture things are subtle and people will say things that do not match their actions.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  That's not true. We know from history that a much larger percentage of programmers in the US were women before it became a lucrative career. > Between 30 and 50 percent of programmers were women in the 1950s, and it was seen as a natural career for them, as evidenced by a 1967 Cosmopolitan feature about “Computer Girls.” [1] [1] https://timeline.com/women-pioneered-computer-programming-then-men-took-their-industry-over-c2959b822523 https://timeline.com/women-pioneered-computer-programming-th...
  - bluGill 7y ago
    In the 1950s male culture saw computer as a boring career worth of only women. Note literally computer, sitting down with a piece of paper and calculating some figure by hand - a human spreadsheet if it were. Computer morphed into computer programmer with the advent of electronic computers, and soon afterwards men got involved. Feminists made big advances at the same time and so it is hard to separate which factor (or something I can't think of) is important and which an irrelevant coincidence.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      AFAICT men started to get involved when men started to notice that you could hit the jackpot and become a billionaire, or at least have a decent shot at becoming a millionaire.
      - zarkov99 7y ago
        What bullshit. Virtually all successful programmers fell in love with the machine when they were young and would program for free. And surely you noticed this.
        catalogia 7y ago
        That's not been my experience at all. That's so far outside of my experience that I sincerely wonder if you're having me on. I assume you're not, but I apologize for the subsequent wall of text if you were just joking. I won't be so uncivil as to suggest that your perspective is "bullshit". I suppose the 'successful' qualification is sufficiently ill-defined to give a lot of wiggle room, but if I take that to mean financially successful, a minority of the programmers I know would describe themselves as lifelong machine lovers. Certainly some do, but I'd say more are the sort to get cross with you if you try to "talk shop" outside of work; they have interests and hobbies unrelated to computers and use work with computers to fund those interests and hobbies. And those that do have programming as a hobby rarely work on hobby projects that resemble the work they're paid for. As an aside, if the industry really were filled with technophiles as you suggest, I think I'd enjoy it a lot more. As it stands, relatively few around me seem to share my interests. I've found the best way to find people who share my technophile inclinations is to look for groups and clubs that form around technical hobbies. And what I've found in doing so is that many lifelong technophiles don't work in tech at all, and of those that do work in tech, most don't get paid to work on the sort of tech they're actually passionate about.
- junolucina 7y ago
  Motherhood.
- calibas 7y ago
  I was suggesting the correlation is deeper than just "circular reasoning", and I assume you agree since you mention two potential causations.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    I tend to believe it is so. However I'm honest enough to admit it is a belief that might be wrong. I'm also honest enough to admit in most cases the difference (whatever it is) isn't significant to the situation at hand.
throwaway8548 7y ago
Nobody is denying the statistics.

bluGill 7y ago

The opposite claim - that men and women are equal has the same problem. As far as I can tell we don't know how men and women are different other than a few physical factors related to breeding or hormones. Worse it is a controversial subject that you probably shouldn't study because when your results are other than what someone wants to believe true they will make your life difficult. Either you find a difference or you don't - either way you confirm the bias of one group and contradict the bias of the other. I think there are real differences, other than the two I mentioned, but there is probably a lot of overlaps where you can find plenty of exceptions.

throwaway8548 7y ago
I would probably believe that if we weren't talking about software. But software is, what, less than a century old? What possible evolutionary differences could have risen in that time frame? I mean, the number zero is very unintuitive and the ancient Romans/greeks/chinese/whatever didn't discover it, despite the fact all evidence shows they were very smart in many things. Yet you want me to believe that men understand that arrays are zero based better than women. Apply that to any software principle.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > But software is, what, less than a century old? What possible evolutionary differences could have risen in that time frame? But guns are, what, less than a millennia old? What possible evolutionary differences could have arisen in that time frame? No way that women and men would perform differently in competitive shooting [0], right? And as it turns out, men shoot faster, women shoot more accurately. There's all sorts of things that have only existed for a century or two where men and women perform differently. Adaptation for one task often has effects on similar tasks, after all. This doesn't mean men are better than women at CS! But "this field didn't exist a century ago" isn't sufficient reason to assert no differences can exist. 0: http://www.realbiathlon.com/2011/11/who-shoots-better-men-or-women.html http://www.realbiathlon.com/2011/11/who-shoots-better-men-or...
  - 7y ago

oerpli 7y ago

And how would you argue the other side? - Women and men are equal! - But they behave differently - Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because they behave differently. What now?

throwaway8548 7y ago
- Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because women told us!!
- bluGill 7y ago
  That too doesn't make it so. It might be so, and in some cases it is. However I've also observed people claim discrimination when there wasn't.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  > Because women told us!! The frustrating thing is most of the analysis completely leaves this part out. I would be interested to hear from women about ways they have been discriminated against, and how the industry can improve to make that less likely to happen. But most analysis I see on line is just "Most programmers are men! That is sexist!" With no analysis going beyond that.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Women have unrealistic expectations sometimes. Elsewhere in this comment section someone (you?) mentioned that men are "unaccommodating" to women. But men _are_ in fact more accommodating to women nowadays than to _other men_. How do we know this? _Because men told us_! You're asking for special treatment and you don't even realize it.
  - throwaway8548 7y ago
    > But men _are_ in fact more accommodating to women nowadays than to _other men_ This is not about generic workplace disagreements. Yes, those happen all the time. > How do we know this? _Because men told us_! I know that's tongue in cheek and only half serious but I'll reply anyway. Even if 99% of men are more accommodating, that 1% would still make employment unbearable. After 10 years you probably met a few dozen assholes and just want to quit the industry because it's not worth it.

kaitai 7y ago

Throwaway commenter, despite being downvoted, you're absolutely right! I'm a woman. I AM A WOMAN IN STEM. You know what makes my blood pressure rise? People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not suited to it, that I like people more than things. Go away! Shut the f(*& up! I want to sit here and deal with my code and not have people tell me that I either don't know what I like or I'm not a real, normal woman. Maybe we won't get to 50-50 in some STEM fields. Who cares. People telling me for forty years that I'm a weirdo for existing with this brain in this body is not equality. And you know what? I've got family in STEM in Scandinavia, and the horrifying discrimination stories I've heard directly about their working conditions (down to classic, "You shouldn't be here because when you get pregnant you'll stop doing science" conversations with superiors) dwarf anything I personally have experienced in STEM in the US. The homophobic comments in the sauna are direct and cruel. Scandinavian STEM is not the egalitarian paradise that Americans think it is.

kaitai 7y ago
For humor's sake, I hope that the above comment clearly conveys how misanthropic people make me... haha.... pun not entirely unintended....
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> You know what makes my blood pressure rise? People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not suited to it, that I like people more than things. Well... most men aren't suited for STEM, either. I think that there may be some validity in saying that women, on average, have a temperament difference or focus difference or whatever that makes them want STEM less. But there is NO validity in saying to any particular individual "therefore you are not suited". No, you judge the individual by the individual, not by the group.
jimbokun 7y ago
Hey, thanks for your input! What I'm trying to better understand, is whether women who are not applying for programming jobs at the same rate as men, are due to lack of interest, or are they somehow being actively discouraged from the field? I've worked with many women programmers, some of them better than me, so I know it's not the case women are inherently worse at programming than men. But I don't know the reason there are fewer women in the field. Obviously you can't speak for all women, but maybe you have some insights as a woman that I don't as a man?

manfredo 7y ago

> That's a bit of circular reasoning though. > - Look how men and women behave differently! > - But why do they behave differently? > - Because they're different. > - How do you know that? > - Because differences are observed at birth, are relatively consistent across countries with vastly different cultures, and the differences in behavior are observed even when raising children in a controlled environment free of gendered roles. Fixed that for you.

throwaway8548 7y ago
> Because differences are observed at birth, are relatively consistent across countries with vastly different cultures, I mean the article literally says different countries/cultures see vastly different results.
- manfredo 7y ago
  This is in reference to gender differences like extraversion, and make newborns dedicating more attention to things and female newborns dedicating more attention to people. As far as this post's article, the rates are not vastly different results, most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30%. If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology. That is not the case, all countries have majority male tech workforces, and they're mostly in the 15-35% range with some outliers on both ends. Furthermore, what differences that are observed contradict the idea that rigid gender roles cause lower rates of women in tech. Countries with some of the strictest gender roles like south Korea and Algeria see the highest rates of women in tech.
  - throwaway8548 7y ago
    > most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30% That's huge > If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology That's assuming social pressures are randomly distributed. But we don't observe 50/50 split between patriarchy and matriarchy. > Furthermore, what differences that are observed contradict the idea that rigid gender roles cause lower rates of women in tech Maybe because it depends which gender roles are applied and not their rigidity? The nerd/geek being an awkward boy with glasses troppe is specifically a western concept for example. Women in Eastern Europe worked in factories side by side with men for generations. Gender roles does not equal your concept of gender roles like women not liking/belonging/choosing not to be in tech.