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I don't understand why modern society doesn't understand/want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things

I don't understand why modern society doesn't understand/want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it's not all because of society.

yibg 7y ago
Animals have behavioral differences between males and females, I also don't understand why it's so hard to believe that humans will have differences between the genders as well.
smadurange 7y ago
There's a whole lot of people who have studied fields that are irrelevant to today's industry needs and have ended up with no real marketable skill. Various forms of activist movements have money in it. Modern developed societies have solved most of the serious, basic problems making it easier for a group of people to capitalise on solving more lofty problems. I have seen someone who did a degree in communication studies or something like that going after video games for sexism and raise millions for the cause. This trend will probably continue until we have more serious things to worry about. This is very eloquently described in "Fate of empires" by Sir John Glubbs.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  You can just say Anita Sarkeesian, no need to beat around the bush.
  - smadurange 7y ago
    Wasn't beating about the bush. I just forgot her name. Either way, her name wasn't important enough for me to look it up. The point was, someone who has no credentials about gender equality, video games or psychology were raising millions to fix a "problem" outside her expertise.
tarsinge 7y ago
What I don’t understand is the obsession to draw conclusions as soon as possible. We just don’t have the data yet. From my experience developers are still seen as black magicians by other roles. Being initiated is having been a weird unpopular boy which used computer since he was young. It’s slowly starting to change, and maybe real trends will emerge in 20 years, but why the hurry? Our only responsibility is that we provide welcoming environment and equality of opportunity. But I may be missing some US context on the obsession here.
liziwizi 7y ago
i hate this argument so much! it has been thrown in my face soooooooo many times... it's the go-to excuse managers and sales people use to tell a woman in IT that she's weird for doing what she does. even in teams with 90% men, it was almost never the men in the team that were the problem, but almost always those looking in on the team: managers, sales people, marketeers, project managers, journalists, ... please, stop telling women they are weird for wanting to work in IT or for enjoying their IT job.
- funcDropShadow 7y ago
  Does the fact that you "hate that argument" invalidate it in any way?
- mapleshamrock 7y ago
  Woah there, the person you're replying to didn't once use the word "weird" or any synonyms thereof. They said that men and women tend to have different broad interests. But that doesn't preclude women from having an interest in tech. He's making a statement on statistics, not making a value judgement about anybody.
- garrettdc 7y ago
  I don't think that the comment above was speaking in hard and fast rules. They were more making the point that men and women may generally have different interests and that those interests will impact career choices. There wasn't any value judgement about women getting into IT being weird, but more a statement that a 50/50 split may not be feasible if the incoming pipeline is 70/30 due to the interests of those respective individuals. If you have people telling you that you're weird for your interests, then they're likely either self-conscious or an ass. That goes for most generalizations that evaluate skill or ideas based on the attributes of the person vs. the merit of the idea itself... but that is a different discussion :)
- manfredo 7y ago
  Saying that the disparate representation between genders in technology industries is due to innate differences is not telling women they're weird for working in tech. It is not a statement about those women who go into tech, it's a statement about the aggregate choices of women in society as a whole. I don't know what your intent was in writing this comment, but trying to frame any attribution of career choices to gender as a personal attack is a common tactic to try and shut down discussion on the topic. 80/20% isn't even very unusual gender split: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce...
fg6hr 7y ago
I think it's the people in power are applying the usual divide and conquer technique: they add more women to tech, alienate men and women and keep them busy fighting each other. How to alienate them? By giving special preferences to only one group. This is a textbook technique.

yibg 7y ago

Animals have behavioral differences between males and females, I also don't understand why it's so hard to believe that humans will have differences between the genders as well.

smadurange 7y ago

There's a whole lot of people who have studied fields that are irrelevant to today's industry needs and have ended up with no real marketable skill. Various forms of activist movements have money in it. Modern developed societies have solved most of the serious, basic problems making it easier for a group of people to capitalise on solving more lofty problems. I have seen someone who did a degree in communication studies or something like that going after video games for sexism and raise millions for the cause. This trend will probably continue until we have more serious things to worry about. This is very eloquently described in "Fate of empires" by Sir John Glubbs.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
You can just say Anita Sarkeesian, no need to beat around the bush.
- smadurange 7y ago
  Wasn't beating about the bush. I just forgot her name. Either way, her name wasn't important enough for me to look it up. The point was, someone who has no credentials about gender equality, video games or psychology were raising millions to fix a "problem" outside her expertise.

tarsinge 7y ago

What I don’t understand is the obsession to draw conclusions as soon as possible. We just don’t have the data yet. From my experience developers are still seen as black magicians by other roles. Being initiated is having been a weird unpopular boy which used computer since he was young. It’s slowly starting to change, and maybe real trends will emerge in 20 years, but why the hurry? Our only responsibility is that we provide welcoming environment and equality of opportunity. But I may be missing some US context on the obsession here.

liziwizi 7y ago

i hate this argument so much! it has been thrown in my face soooooooo many times... it's the go-to excuse managers and sales people use to tell a woman in IT that she's weird for doing what she does. even in teams with 90% men, it was almost never the men in the team that were the problem, but almost always those looking in on the team: managers, sales people, marketeers, project managers, journalists, ... please, stop telling women they are weird for wanting to work in IT or for enjoying their IT job.

funcDropShadow 7y ago
Does the fact that you "hate that argument" invalidate it in any way?
mapleshamrock 7y ago
Woah there, the person you're replying to didn't once use the word "weird" or any synonyms thereof. They said that men and women tend to have different broad interests. But that doesn't preclude women from having an interest in tech. He's making a statement on statistics, not making a value judgement about anybody.
garrettdc 7y ago
I don't think that the comment above was speaking in hard and fast rules. They were more making the point that men and women may generally have different interests and that those interests will impact career choices. There wasn't any value judgement about women getting into IT being weird, but more a statement that a 50/50 split may not be feasible if the incoming pipeline is 70/30 due to the interests of those respective individuals. If you have people telling you that you're weird for your interests, then they're likely either self-conscious or an ass. That goes for most generalizations that evaluate skill or ideas based on the attributes of the person vs. the merit of the idea itself... but that is a different discussion :)
manfredo 7y ago
Saying that the disparate representation between genders in technology industries is due to innate differences is not telling women they're weird for working in tech. It is not a statement about those women who go into tech, it's a statement about the aggregate choices of women in society as a whole. I don't know what your intent was in writing this comment, but trying to frame any attribution of career choices to gender as a personal attack is a common tactic to try and shut down discussion on the topic. 80/20% isn't even very unusual gender split: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce...

fg6hr 7y ago

I think it's the people in power are applying the usual divide and conquer technique: they add more women to tech, alienate men and women and keep them busy fighting each other. How to alienate them? By giving special preferences to only one group. This is a textbook technique.