4 ms·

You're absolutely correct, I'm am. And you're presupposing that those differences are biologically hardcoded, I get that. I just don't agree with you.

by Udo 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago
I'm suggesting a possibility; you're presupposing a dogma.
- Udo 15y ago
  Traditionally, dominant groups have often invoked (fake) claims of a naturally fixed order to protect, justify and market the status quo. For example, this line of reasoning has historically been used to assert that black people are a subhuman race incapable of higher intellectual thought and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote on the grounds that they are immature and hysterical by nature. Another reason why I believe most of the omnipresent assumptions about a natural order are essentially bullshit is that I know quite a few men and women who violate these supposedly biological gender roles. They are not sick, they are not mutants, they are not troubled individuals with identity problems and they're not trying to be rebels. It's just that they don't care about their socially prescribed attributes. Lastly, there have been quite a lot of experiments in psychology to successfully illustrate that expectations actually shape your capabilities. Not just the conscious idea of identity itself but indeed capabilities that were always thought to be innate are now found to be subject to variations stemming from motivation and expectation. Recently I read about a study where participants were asked to do cognitive tasks that traditionally have a strong gender bias, for example spatial orientation. The results were as expected. However, the researchers then did a second run with a second group, explaining beforehand which tasks usually favor women and which tasks were better performed by men. The catch was: the experimenters lied, they actually switched the descriptions around. When this second group then took the tests, they performed according to the (now inverted) "expectations". So I do have a few pointers that helped me arrive at this "dogmatic" position. So what's your position? What's the actual background of your suggested possibility?
  - philwelch 15y ago
    For one, there are observed gender disparities in certain things (you mentioned spacial reasoning) which there is no apparent or plausible political agenda in artificially creating. In fact, the predominant political agenda is largely the idea that there are no differences between men and women. For another, disparities are often observed in infants. What mechanism do you propose communicates subtle social norms to infants? You also have proposed no plausible explanation as to where these expectations came from in the first place. Further, you are misunderstanding the idea I'm proposing. I'm sure there are individual men who have, for instance, very poor spacial reasoning and individual women who have very good spacial reasoning. One does not reason about individuals the same way they reason about populations. As a population, men, on average, might be better at spacial reasoning. As an individual man or woman, a test of spacial reasoning will yield orders of magnitude more data about their spacial reasoning abilities than simply observing their sex. I have many personality traits that are more common in the opposite sex--I'm sure most people do. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of averages that leads one to take this as evidence for your viewpoint, however. Ultimately, measures of a population only explain populations. They may explain why, as a population, most programmers are men. They do not explain why your sister is or isn't a programmer.
    - Udo 15y ago
      I understand your belief, I just don't share it. But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Without even trying, we already give up. It actually makes me uncomfortable that women are so extremely underrepresented in a field that I care about.
      - philwelch 15y ago
        But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? Again, I'm not making a contention, just suggesting a possibility. Furthermore, I admit that some factors are social--for instance, if software development weren't a low-status profession in the US, there would probably be more women developers. I'm just not convinced that it all comes down to social factors. If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.

You're absolutely correct, I'm am. And you're presupposing that those differences are biologically hardcoded, I get that. I just don't agree with you.

by Udo 15y ago

You're absolutely correct, I'm am. And you're presupposing that those differences are biologically hardcoded, I get that. I just don't agree with you.

philwelch 15y ago

I'm suggesting a possibility; you're presupposing a dogma.

Udo 15y ago
Traditionally, dominant groups have often invoked (fake) claims of a naturally fixed order to protect, justify and market the status quo. For example, this line of reasoning has historically been used to assert that black people are a subhuman race incapable of higher intellectual thought and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote on the grounds that they are immature and hysterical by nature. Another reason why I believe most of the omnipresent assumptions about a natural order are essentially bullshit is that I know quite a few men and women who violate these supposedly biological gender roles. They are not sick, they are not mutants, they are not troubled individuals with identity problems and they're not trying to be rebels. It's just that they don't care about their socially prescribed attributes. Lastly, there have been quite a lot of experiments in psychology to successfully illustrate that expectations actually shape your capabilities. Not just the conscious idea of identity itself but indeed capabilities that were always thought to be innate are now found to be subject to variations stemming from motivation and expectation. Recently I read about a study where participants were asked to do cognitive tasks that traditionally have a strong gender bias, for example spatial orientation. The results were as expected. However, the researchers then did a second run with a second group, explaining beforehand which tasks usually favor women and which tasks were better performed by men. The catch was: the experimenters lied, they actually switched the descriptions around. When this second group then took the tests, they performed according to the (now inverted) "expectations". So I do have a few pointers that helped me arrive at this "dogmatic" position. So what's your position? What's the actual background of your suggested possibility?
- philwelch 15y ago
  For one, there are observed gender disparities in certain things (you mentioned spacial reasoning) which there is no apparent or plausible political agenda in artificially creating. In fact, the predominant political agenda is largely the idea that there are no differences between men and women. For another, disparities are often observed in infants. What mechanism do you propose communicates subtle social norms to infants? You also have proposed no plausible explanation as to where these expectations came from in the first place. Further, you are misunderstanding the idea I'm proposing. I'm sure there are individual men who have, for instance, very poor spacial reasoning and individual women who have very good spacial reasoning. One does not reason about individuals the same way they reason about populations. As a population, men, on average, might be better at spacial reasoning. As an individual man or woman, a test of spacial reasoning will yield orders of magnitude more data about their spacial reasoning abilities than simply observing their sex. I have many personality traits that are more common in the opposite sex--I'm sure most people do. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of averages that leads one to take this as evidence for your viewpoint, however. Ultimately, measures of a population only explain populations. They may explain why, as a population, most programmers are men. They do not explain why your sister is or isn't a programmer.
  - Udo 15y ago
    I understand your belief, I just don't share it. But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Without even trying, we already give up. It actually makes me uncomfortable that women are so extremely underrepresented in a field that I care about.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? Again, I'm not making a contention, just suggesting a possibility. Furthermore, I admit that some factors are social--for instance, if software development weren't a low-status profession in the US, there would probably be more women developers. I'm just not convinced that it all comes down to social factors. If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.