5 ms·

A cursory look at the graph indicates that the only place women suffered was on their own code. Resume, phone skills, interpersonal skills, all great.

by diolpah 15y ago

diolpah 15y ago
The downvotes are appreciated. Where am I wrong?
- cjzhang 15y ago
  Why didn't you just say "women can't code?" Also, the sample size is crap and the deviation is crap relative to the sample size, so you can't make very many truly meaningful observations from it.
  - gsmaverick 15y ago
    That's what you wanted him to say so you could attack him. He was merely stating an observation of the given data in an unbiased manner.
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      diolpah, my grandparent here is why you were downvoted. Nowadays, the atmosphere around anything related to gender is super-charged, and people are hyper-super-extra-sensitive to anything that could even slightly be construed as debasing towards women, so even something as simple as observing measured data sounds to them like overt sexism.
- known 15y ago
  "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar Wilde
- groby_b 15y ago
  You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject. Gender issues are always tinged with "discrimination" overtones. And, just to be clear, there is _plenty_ of discrimination and bias against women. But that shouldn't detract from the fact that you're pointing out a major outlier in their data. Unfortunately, without knowing the test, it's hard to even guess what happened there. Is it focusing on syntactic vs. semantical correctness? Does it require deep specialist knowledge, or broad generalist knowledge? How is it graded? Or is it simply a function of the tiny sample size? Without pointing out what you conclude from that data, people will infer what you concluded. And since it's a loaded subject, they will often arrive at "what a misogynist jerk" without ever knowing what you were trying to say. Corollary: When pointing out data on a loaded subject, it might be beneficial to point out what you conclude, and why. At least that way, only one of the two factions can flame you ;) (Disclaimer: I am a woman, so I obviously disagree with the "women can't code theory". I'd still love to find out _why_ women are filtered out by that test so disproportionately, simply because it might hold clues as to why women are not interested in CS)
- robryan 15y ago
  I think more than anything you point out that the sample size is to small to really take anything meaningful from it.
ovi256 15y ago
You're getting downvoted, no doubt because the thing you remarked is a thing-you-can't-say. I completely missed it myself, but it's very telling: code screen eliminates women in a 28:5 (5.6) ratio, compared to men's 26:10 (2.6). A classic rebuttal is that the test could be biased. Reducing complex phenomena to one factor so that they can be digested on a 30-second news segment or put into soundbites by any politician is an unwelcome consequence of modern media. I have no doubt many factors cause demographic changes such as the one discussed. Testing for the weight of each factor needs scientific work and controlled experiments which are pretty much impossible to carry out, unfortunately. Until then, things will be talked and written about, but remember, it's all fluff. Someday, some historian will even write the definitive history of women in early computer science, and I have no doubt his conclusions will be as disputed as the fall of the Roman empire is today. But these discussions will still serve as vehicles for political agendas, most of which will be of the variety "more people should be like me".
- gaius 15y ago
  How on Earth can you gender-bias a coding test!? The compiler doesn't know if you're a boy or a girl!
  - Joeboy 15y ago
    I doubt the compiler is responsible for assessing the test. I also doubt that gender-bias on the part of the assessor is the reason for the disparity though (assuming the disparity in this small sample is representative anyway).
  - jameshart 15y ago
    Easy - choose a domain where pre-knowledge is gender-biased: "Design a web application to manage a fantasy football league", "Implement a D&D character generator", "Implement an optimal queueing strategy to solve the urinal-allocation problem (http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerabilit... ). Not suggesting that's what fogcreek do, of course, but just to demonstrate that a coding test could easily have a gender bias - or a cultural one, for that matter.
sequoia 15y ago
diolpah is referring to this graph, btw: http://blog.fogcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Gender-Numbers1.png http://blog.fogcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Gender-N... @diolpah it is a very small sample, it probably carries no scientific relevance. It is, however, the author's fault for using it, not yours. Your analysis looks correct as far as the tiny dataset presented is concerned. EDIT: "Because we can’t ask applicants their gender, we guessed based on first names." Nevermind. The author is a jackass for even including these data in the first place, it's as good as meaningless, even within that small cohort. Alex, Ashley, Sam, Pat, Lindsey, Jessie, any hippy name (see: my name), Quinn, Casey, Rowan... crap pseudoscience is crap.
olliesaunders 15y ago
Anyone would be down-voted for saying this. Thank you for doing us the service of saying it.

A cursory look at the graph indicates that the only place women suffered was on their own code. Resume, phone skills, interpersonal skills, all great.

by diolpah 15y ago

A cursory look at the graph indicates that the only place women suffered was on their own code. Resume, phone skills, interpersonal skills, all great.

diolpah 15y ago

The downvotes are appreciated. Where am I wrong?

cjzhang 15y ago
Why didn't you just say "women can't code?" Also, the sample size is crap and the deviation is crap relative to the sample size, so you can't make very many truly meaningful observations from it.
- gsmaverick 15y ago
  That's what you wanted him to say so you could attack him. He was merely stating an observation of the given data in an unbiased manner.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    diolpah, my grandparent here is why you were downvoted. Nowadays, the atmosphere around anything related to gender is super-charged, and people are hyper-super-extra-sensitive to anything that could even slightly be construed as debasing towards women, so even something as simple as observing measured data sounds to them like overt sexism.
known 15y ago
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar Wilde
groby_b 15y ago
You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject. Gender issues are always tinged with "discrimination" overtones. And, just to be clear, there is _plenty_ of discrimination and bias against women. But that shouldn't detract from the fact that you're pointing out a major outlier in their data. Unfortunately, without knowing the test, it's hard to even guess what happened there. Is it focusing on syntactic vs. semantical correctness? Does it require deep specialist knowledge, or broad generalist knowledge? How is it graded? Or is it simply a function of the tiny sample size? Without pointing out what you conclude from that data, people will infer what you concluded. And since it's a loaded subject, they will often arrive at "what a misogynist jerk" without ever knowing what you were trying to say. Corollary: When pointing out data on a loaded subject, it might be beneficial to point out what you conclude, and why. At least that way, only one of the two factions can flame you ;) (Disclaimer: I am a woman, so I obviously disagree with the "women can't code theory". I'd still love to find out _why_ women are filtered out by that test so disproportionately, simply because it might hold clues as to why women are not interested in CS)
robryan 15y ago
I think more than anything you point out that the sample size is to small to really take anything meaningful from it.

ovi256 15y ago

You're getting downvoted, no doubt because the thing you remarked is a thing-you-can't-say. I completely missed it myself, but it's very telling: code screen eliminates women in a 28:5 (5.6) ratio, compared to men's 26:10 (2.6). A classic rebuttal is that the test could be biased. Reducing complex phenomena to one factor so that they can be digested on a 30-second news segment or put into soundbites by any politician is an unwelcome consequence of modern media. I have no doubt many factors cause demographic changes such as the one discussed. Testing for the weight of each factor needs scientific work and controlled experiments which are pretty much impossible to carry out, unfortunately. Until then, things will be talked and written about, but remember, it's all fluff. Someday, some historian will even write the definitive history of women in early computer science, and I have no doubt his conclusions will be as disputed as the fall of the Roman empire is today. But these discussions will still serve as vehicles for political agendas, most of which will be of the variety "more people should be like me".

gaius 15y ago
How on Earth can you gender-bias a coding test!? The compiler doesn't know if you're a boy or a girl!
- Joeboy 15y ago
  I doubt the compiler is responsible for assessing the test. I also doubt that gender-bias on the part of the assessor is the reason for the disparity though (assuming the disparity in this small sample is representative anyway).
- jameshart 15y ago
  Easy - choose a domain where pre-knowledge is gender-biased: "Design a web application to manage a fantasy football league", "Implement a D&D character generator", "Implement an optimal queueing strategy to solve the urinal-allocation problem (http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerabilit... ). Not suggesting that's what fogcreek do, of course, but just to demonstrate that a coding test could easily have a gender bias - or a cultural one, for that matter.

sequoia 15y ago

diolpah is referring to this graph, btw: http://blog.fogcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Gender-Numbers1.png http://blog.fogcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Gender-N... @diolpah it is a very small sample, it probably carries no scientific relevance. It is, however, the author's fault for using it, not yours. Your analysis looks correct as far as the tiny dataset presented is concerned. EDIT: "Because we can’t ask applicants their gender, we guessed based on first names." Nevermind. The author is a jackass for even including these data in the first place, it's as good as meaningless, even within that small cohort. Alex, Ashley, Sam, Pat, Lindsey, Jessie, any hippy name (see: my name), Quinn, Casey, Rowan... crap pseudoscience is crap.

olliesaunders 15y ago

Anyone would be down-voted for saying this. Thank you for doing us the service of saying it.