4 ms·

Sure, and that's not an argument I'd make. But, as Damore suggested in his memo, mightn't these innate differences mean that women are less likely, on average,

Sure, and that's not an argument I'd make. But, as Damore suggested in his memo, mightn't these innate differences mean that women are less likely, on average, to prefer careers in software engineering? And mightn't these innate differences also explain why women are strongly over-represented in certain other professions like nursing (91%), elementary and middle school teaching (81%) and social work (80%)?

foldr 6y ago
Any difference between two things might turn out to be responsible for some other difference between the two things. Perhaps men are better at software engineering because they're taller. Perhaps women don't enjoy programming because they have breasts. It is pointless -- and in this context, often harmful -- to speculate.
- spangry 6y ago
  So, because the cause is uncertain, we should not discuss female under-representation in software development at all?
  - foldr 6y ago
    I don't think that the cause is uncertain. Broadly speaking, the cause is sexism. What I'm saying is that there is no evidence whatever for a biological cause, and it is harmful to speculate wildly on biological causes in the absence of evidence.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      There is far more evidence for biological causes than there is for sexism.
      - foldr 6y ago
        If you look closely, there is very little evidence for biological causes. There are many alleged biological differences which are alleged to be relevant, but rarely, if ever, evidence for a causal link.
    - fastball 6y ago
      This seems like a strange argument, given the start to this entire subthread ("women used to be the majority"). Let me get this straight: 1. Most women were programmers. 2. Women aren't sexist, so they let men in. 3. Men overwhelmed the women. 4. Men are sexist, so they stopped letting women in. 5. Now we need to deliberately reverse the results of stage (4). Is that the sequence of events as you see it?
      - foldr 6y ago
        You have 1 the wrong way round. Women would not have been in charge of hiring, so no to 2. (The programming jobs men were hired for would likely not have been considered the same kind of job.) Not sure what you mean by 3. Roughly yes to 4, although the issue is systematic sexism, not the personal prejudices of men and women. Society in general, including many women, disapproved of women becoming programmers once it began to be seen as a high-status high-skill profession. Yes to 5, with the preceding caveats.
        fastball 6y ago
        If it's society in general that is sexist, why have many industries that are "high-status high-skill" seen a serious increase in the number of women in the profession, while engineering has not? These arguments seem to go in circles a lot. First it matters that "the majority of programmers were women". But then it doesn't actually matter, because the people in charge of hiring weren't women. Ok. Then it's society in general that is sexist, but actually it's only certain professions where this "general sexism" manifests itself, for no apparent reason. Ok. Then you have the most egalitarian countries in the world seeing more disparate outcomes than other western countries. But this is apparently because sexism and cultural norms are so nebulous and hard to pin down that there must still be some sexism going on there too, we just can't see it. Ok. There are a lot of claims being made with no evidence whatsoever. While I personally don't put much stock in psychology, at least Damore's points had actual studies behind them. And though it has been thrown around in this thread that "some of the authors disagreed with Damore's interpretation!", I have actually read the studies and found nothing factually inaccurate with the interpretation. That's what is so difficult about a lot of psychology – the hard facts are few and far between, so effectively every result is subject to interpretation. An author of a paper can disagree, but that doesn't make Damore wrong.
pydry 6y ago
>Damore suggested in his memo, mightn't these innate differences mean that women are less likely, on average, to prefer careers in software engineering? As far as I understood it, this wasn't the bit of the memo that people were attacking.

foldr 6y ago

Any difference between two things might turn out to be responsible for some other difference between the two things. Perhaps men are better at software engineering because they're taller. Perhaps women don't enjoy programming because they have breasts. It is pointless -- and in this context, often harmful -- to speculate.

spangry 6y ago
So, because the cause is uncertain, we should not discuss female under-representation in software development at all?
- foldr 6y ago
  I don't think that the cause is uncertain. Broadly speaking, the cause is sexism. What I'm saying is that there is no evidence whatever for a biological cause, and it is harmful to speculate wildly on biological causes in the absence of evidence.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    There is far more evidence for biological causes than there is for sexism.
    - foldr 6y ago
      If you look closely, there is very little evidence for biological causes. There are many alleged biological differences which are alleged to be relevant, but rarely, if ever, evidence for a causal link.
  - fastball 6y ago
    This seems like a strange argument, given the start to this entire subthread ("women used to be the majority"). Let me get this straight: 1. Most women were programmers. 2. Women aren't sexist, so they let men in. 3. Men overwhelmed the women. 4. Men are sexist, so they stopped letting women in. 5. Now we need to deliberately reverse the results of stage (4). Is that the sequence of events as you see it?
    - foldr 6y ago
      You have 1 the wrong way round. Women would not have been in charge of hiring, so no to 2. (The programming jobs men were hired for would likely not have been considered the same kind of job.) Not sure what you mean by 3. Roughly yes to 4, although the issue is systematic sexism, not the personal prejudices of men and women. Society in general, including many women, disapproved of women becoming programmers once it began to be seen as a high-status high-skill profession. Yes to 5, with the preceding caveats.
      - fastball 6y ago
        If it's society in general that is sexist, why have many industries that are "high-status high-skill" seen a serious increase in the number of women in the profession, while engineering has not? These arguments seem to go in circles a lot. First it matters that "the majority of programmers were women". But then it doesn't actually matter, because the people in charge of hiring weren't women. Ok. Then it's society in general that is sexist, but actually it's only certain professions where this "general sexism" manifests itself, for no apparent reason. Ok. Then you have the most egalitarian countries in the world seeing more disparate outcomes than other western countries. But this is apparently because sexism and cultural norms are so nebulous and hard to pin down that there must still be some sexism going on there too, we just can't see it. Ok. There are a lot of claims being made with no evidence whatsoever. While I personally don't put much stock in psychology, at least Damore's points had actual studies behind them. And though it has been thrown around in this thread that "some of the authors disagreed with Damore's interpretation!", I have actually read the studies and found nothing factually inaccurate with the interpretation. That's what is so difficult about a lot of psychology – the hard facts are few and far between, so effectively every result is subject to interpretation. An author of a paper can disagree, but that doesn't make Damore wrong.

pydry 6y ago

>Damore suggested in his memo, mightn't these innate differences mean that women are less likely, on average, to prefer careers in software engineering? As far as I understood it, this wasn't the bit of the memo that people were attacking.