> The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas

> The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas in the tech case, it is more complex. Perhaps there are some biological differences making males more attracted to tech jobs. But there is also a huge cultural/environmental component: teenage girls are not attracted to tech at the same rates as teenage boys partly because of role models and societal norms. That sounds right to me. Biological differences will mean that even if in general men and women are close, in extreme cases (ex: prisons), there will be a very large difference between men and women. I also think that "tech" in general is less extreme than prisons, and thus should have a lower difference in ratio than prisons. That assumption may be false though. But outside of tech, that reasoning would also explain for me why men are at top positions in society. It's not discimination or society, it's just that we're biologically different, and men show up at the extremes (prisons and the top). > So there are two points at which the proportions change. At stage (2) we call this a "pipeline effect". At stage (3) we call this "discrimination". > So it looks like we have a terminology disagreement. Could I ask you to consider whether it might make more sense to make a verbal distinction between the pipeline effect (societal pressure) and discrimination? That's a fair distinction. If I understood correctly, your point is that if we only focus on discrimination without changing the culture, we can still have a pipeline problem? I think one of the thing causing confusion is that I was using "discrimination" in the neutral sense, whereas you were using it in the negative sense. For example, wikipedia has "Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between human beings based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they are perceived to belong.", which would be what I call "neutral discrimination". Google has "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability.", which would be what I call "negative discrimination". I agree that making a distinction between neutral discrimination (societal pressure, pipeline effect) and negative discrimination is useful here. So to restate my position, I think focusing on removing pipeline effect and negative discrimination is more important than focusing on having a 50:50 ratio at the end. But I think at this point we agree?