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This ignores many of the larger historical trends in fields like computing: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-wor

This ignores many of the larger historical trends in fields like computing: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi... It can often be a surprising exercise to look at the history of fields that are supposed to play to "natural" gender strengths and examine how they've evolved over time. > As computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was "just like planning a dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it's ready when you need it... Women are 'naturals' at computer programming." James Adams, the director of education for the Association for Computing Machinery, agreed: "I don’t know of any other field, outside of teaching, where there's as much opportunity for a woman." Swap out some of the specifics, and the general tone of argument hasn't changed much since back then. It's just that we've now decided to substitute in other "obvious" conclusions about who is suited for which jobs.

TheFreim 5y ago
I don't have any specific criticisms but I do think it's relevant to point out that the nature of things like computing, and other subjects, changed over time. To say computing is the same today as it was back then would be an error (not trying to insinuate you say otherwise, just believe it's important to note).
- danShumway 5y ago
  I agree in general, but my understanding is that if anything the technical challenges that people point out today as attracting analytical male brains were even harder in the past. The earliest computer programs were written by hand without access to the computers themselves. I don't think programming was a field that used to be about people skills and slowly morphed into something analytic and technical today, programming today seems to me to be much more user-friendly and social.
snek_case 5y ago
> As computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was "just like planning a dinner. I have no doubt that Grace Hopper turned out to be a great programmer and made many great contributions to the field, but it turns out she was in the army, and she was ordered to go work on a computing effort, it wasn't her choice: "In 1944, Lt. Grace Hopper was ordered to report to Harvard University to work on the Mark I, the behemoth digital computer that had been conceived by Harvard's Howard" The idea that there may be some natural differences in preferences (things that interest you the most) between men and women is controversial for some reason, but this idea shouldn't be seen as sexist. If it turns out that men really are more drawn to engineering (on average, this is obviously not true for everyone) because of some underlying biological development factors, shouldn't we try to understand why? Being more drawn to engineering doesn't mean you're automatically better at it. It just means you're probably more likely to go into the field and more likely to spend long hours studying it. Right now the politically correct thing to do is to just reject that hypothesis and insist that all of these differences have to be nurture. I mean, why spend precious capital studying these things when we've already decided what is the correct answer, right?
- rrose 5y ago
  I think the problem is that there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. I would actually invert your last paragraph: there are so many plausible extrinsic reasons that men are more likely to go into STEM than women that it doesn't make sense to try to explain away these gender gaps as being due to some intrinsic difference. I think it's fair to say that you can believe that the difference is biological without it being sexist. But it is also true that many people who hold this belief are sexist (in fact most misogynists probably do believe this), so people being hesitant to give a platform to people taking this angle is understandable.
  - snek_case 5y ago
    > there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. That's completely false. There's lots of published research on this subject. The existence of said evidence is routinely being denied, but there have been numerous studies. One of the most famous studies established that female infants tend to be more interested in looking at human faces than boy infants, and boys generally more interested in looking at things. This is generally referred to as a "things vs people" preference. With women generally being more people oriented, and men being more "thing" oriented. Again, there is no relationship to performance here. Nobody is claiming that either of these is better than the other. It's just a very consistent finding across many many studies, and the fact that this is still controversial boggles the mind. Politics are preventing us, as a species, from properly understanding ourselves. This is a meta-analysis of infant sex vs toy preference: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 If you think this preference for things vs people is due to culture, consider that this kind of toy preference exists in monkeys as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9xXyw2f7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9xXyw2f7g
  - isitdopamine 5y ago
    > there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. It’s a well established fact that, even in children as young as a few weeks old, males and females have different preferences.

TheFreim 5y ago

I don't have any specific criticisms but I do think it's relevant to point out that the nature of things like computing, and other subjects, changed over time. To say computing is the same today as it was back then would be an error (not trying to insinuate you say otherwise, just believe it's important to note).

danShumway 5y ago
I agree in general, but my understanding is that if anything the technical challenges that people point out today as attracting analytical male brains were even harder in the past. The earliest computer programs were written by hand without access to the computers themselves. I don't think programming was a field that used to be about people skills and slowly morphed into something analytic and technical today, programming today seems to me to be much more user-friendly and social.

snek_case 5y ago

> As computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was "just like planning a dinner. I have no doubt that Grace Hopper turned out to be a great programmer and made many great contributions to the field, but it turns out she was in the army, and she was ordered to go work on a computing effort, it wasn't her choice: "In 1944, Lt. Grace Hopper was ordered to report to Harvard University to work on the Mark I, the behemoth digital computer that had been conceived by Harvard's Howard" The idea that there may be some natural differences in preferences (things that interest you the most) between men and women is controversial for some reason, but this idea shouldn't be seen as sexist. If it turns out that men really are more drawn to engineering (on average, this is obviously not true for everyone) because of some underlying biological development factors, shouldn't we try to understand why? Being more drawn to engineering doesn't mean you're automatically better at it. It just means you're probably more likely to go into the field and more likely to spend long hours studying it. Right now the politically correct thing to do is to just reject that hypothesis and insist that all of these differences have to be nurture. I mean, why spend precious capital studying these things when we've already decided what is the correct answer, right?

rrose 5y ago
I think the problem is that there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. I would actually invert your last paragraph: there are so many plausible extrinsic reasons that men are more likely to go into STEM than women that it doesn't make sense to try to explain away these gender gaps as being due to some intrinsic difference. I think it's fair to say that you can believe that the difference is biological without it being sexist. But it is also true that many people who hold this belief are sexist (in fact most misogynists probably do believe this), so people being hesitant to give a platform to people taking this angle is understandable.
- snek_case 5y ago
  > there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. That's completely false. There's lots of published research on this subject. The existence of said evidence is routinely being denied, but there have been numerous studies. One of the most famous studies established that female infants tend to be more interested in looking at human faces than boy infants, and boys generally more interested in looking at things. This is generally referred to as a "things vs people" preference. With women generally being more people oriented, and men being more "thing" oriented. Again, there is no relationship to performance here. Nobody is claiming that either of these is better than the other. It's just a very consistent finding across many many studies, and the fact that this is still controversial boggles the mind. Politics are preventing us, as a species, from properly understanding ourselves. This is a meta-analysis of infant sex vs toy preference: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 If you think this preference for things vs people is due to culture, consider that this kind of toy preference exists in monkeys as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9xXyw2f7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9xXyw2f7g
- isitdopamine 5y ago
  > there isn't really any compelling evidence to suggest that men are more drawn to engineering because of biology. It’s a well established fact that, even in children as young as a few weeks old, males and females have different preferences.