8 ms·

Sure there are. Just not a blatantly sexist culture -they don't fit into-. There are plenty of male dominated companies, with male dominated recruiting teams, t

Sure there are. Just not a blatantly sexist culture -they don't fit into-. There are plenty of male dominated companies, with male dominated recruiting teams, that still hire mostly males. To be clear, I'm not saying it's okay either way, I'm just disagreeing with the idea 'most men' won't participate in such a culture; most men (oftentimes unwittingly) do.

gatvol 4y ago
True, though the study addresses that point too, and that demonstrably does not happen, in Sweden at least.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  > that demonstrably does not happen what exactly doesn't happen?
toolz 4y ago
Can you name any of these male dominated companies that hire men disproportionately to the gender demographics of their applicants/interviewees? The issue isn't the distribution of employees, it's whether there is sexism present or not and the first thing you'd probably want for evidence of sexism is disproportionate hiring of a demographic compared to their applicant/interviewee demographic. Just because something is more represented by a demographic does not make it sexist. e.g. Nordic countries seem to be generally celebrated as being socially progressive and ridding themselves of sexism, yet female representation in STEM fields is incredibly low.
- SamReidHughes 4y ago
  - spzb 4y ago
    > intelligence distribution skews more male at the higher end Really? You think there are inherently more intelligent men than women?
    - rajin444 4y ago
      You think it's equal? That seems so statistically unlikely I could only describe it as a miracle.
      - spzb 4y ago
        Exactly equal down to the single individual, yes that would be unlikely. Broadly the same, seems perfectly logical to me.
        rajin444 4y ago
        Men and women share fundamentally different genetic configurations which makes it seem illogical to me. What makes it seem logical to you?
        spzb 4y ago
        Intelligence is not purely genetic.
        rajin444 4y ago
        Don't our genes dictate how we interact with the environment? I'm not sure how it could be anything but. That being said, yes, we can change our environment and see changes in measured intelligence. A person with a head is smarter than one without. To tie it back to your original point, you're saying the male/female differences in intelligence are purely environmental? As in, if two people with different genetic make ups were brought up in the same environment they'd have the same outcomes? If we're seeing equality it's likely the result of changing our environment to force this.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    I was willing to listen to your point (that perhaps some companies favor women and so women disproportionately percolate to those companies… at least in theory seems like a possible argument, even if I’m skeptical) until you got here: >> Also, because the intelligence distribution skews more male at the higher end, a company will be disproportionately male simply by being more technical and having a more difficult hiring bar. Okay, buddy. Women used to be dominant in computing. Literally were the computers. And when artificial computers came to the fore, many transitioned to writing programs for them. Until it became a more prestigious field and men came to dominate. And once the personal computer became widespread with computer game culture arising and a culture of harassing women until they leave became common enough to be an issue, why wouldn’t one expect that those who developed an interest in computer programming (ie from contact with computer games, etc) to be predominantly men? (And I love computer games, but there is an insane amount of harassment. Everyone who plays knows this.) It has nothing to do with intelligence curves.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      > It has nothing to do with intelligence curves. Agreed. A vast majority of supposedly "high tech" jobs are solidly average intelligence, including coding, so if anything women should be rewarded in such positions because males' wider variance in I.Q. cuts both ways. It's only pure delusional thinking that keeps up the "muh I.Q. is one of the highest" attitude among "tech" bros.
      - AdrianB1 4y ago
        Average intelligence (around 100 points) does not get you hired in any high tech job. It is called "high tech" for a reason, it's not "average work" by any measure.
      - SamReidHughes 4y ago
        Programmers are not solidly average intelligence at all. Everybody writing software is at the upper end, even if defined very loosely to mean something like top 10% of Americans. Note that among SAT scorers, the top 11% of males score >700 on the math section and top 7% of females score >700. This isn't some super-elite group, and you're already looking at 1.6x as many men. But you're arguing somehow that we should specifically discriminate in an attempt to hire dumber people, so... well, that seems like a bad idea to me.
  - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
  - nullc 4y ago
    Most tech jobs don't actually require significantly greater than average intelligence. If you crunch the numbers it takes a pretty high bar to skew the gender of the posterior distribution much. It's not inconceivable and shouldn't be discarded out of hand, but there are plenty of other factors (including non-discrimination ones) worth keeping in mind. As an aside-- when you make the variance argument it's useful to point out that men are vastly more over-represented in convictions or some other negative characteristic... otherwise it's just too easy for people to read as a suggestion that men are better rather than simply being a population which as a whole tends to have more diversity in its performance. Communication is a two way street, and there are enough assholes out there who do think that men are inherently superior that it's in everyones interest to put in some more effort to make it clear that it isn't what you're saying.
    - SamReidHughes 4y ago
      I don't think it is useful here (on HN) to point out the low end. That just gets tedious and I think comes across as tedious. The pertinent fact is that m:f ratio increases at the top, and variance is just the most irrefutable factor that breaks apart any presumption that the distributions should be identical. Also, I'm not trying to pretend that's the only difference between men and women. Men sleep 20 minutes less than women. Is that "inherent superiority"? No, but it's an advantage. Or maybe men undersleep and it's a disadvantage.
      - nullc 4y ago
        Maybe it comes across as tedious. But -- we write because we hope to communicate, and if you're mistaken as a flaming misogynist then the communication will fail and you won't reach the people who could benefit the most from your perspective. I think it can be worth it to put on a bit of a dance to make it clear that you're not just looking for reasons to be dismissive towards women, even if in some cosmic fairness sense you shouldn't have to prove you're not a witch. In my mind a reasonable way to do that is to point out that variance differences often make men worse. Particularly so since someone one extra sd more intelligent on the top end probably has little benefit to their life, while someone being one extra sd more violent on the bottom end makes them much more likely to live a life thats miserable for them and those around them.
- oslsla 4y ago
  This really isn't a problem anyone wants to solve. STEM especially has unique issues where if you take extended absences things such as your skills or research will be invalided over the short periods you may be gone. Tackle that with a lack of a childcare and you have a system set to ensure the failure of women. Retention is close to impossible as the cost of childcare is impossibly high.
  - SamReidHughes 4y ago
    I'd say this is more industry-specific than STEM. In software I can jump back onto a project I left behind years ago and get productive immediately. This is something I've done with multiple projects. But there is a difference between some of those and other kinds of projects where the deadlines are tied into hardware cycles, like, automotive engineering. And generally in engineering, childcare is affordable because your salaries are high.

gatvol 4y ago

True, though the study addresses that point too, and that demonstrably does not happen, in Sweden at least.

forum_ghost 4y ago
> that demonstrably does not happen what exactly doesn't happen?

toolz 4y ago

Can you name any of these male dominated companies that hire men disproportionately to the gender demographics of their applicants/interviewees? The issue isn't the distribution of employees, it's whether there is sexism present or not and the first thing you'd probably want for evidence of sexism is disproportionate hiring of a demographic compared to their applicant/interviewee demographic. Just because something is more represented by a demographic does not make it sexist. e.g. Nordic countries seem to be generally celebrated as being socially progressive and ridding themselves of sexism, yet female representation in STEM fields is incredibly low.

SamReidHughes 4y ago
- spzb 4y ago
  > intelligence distribution skews more male at the higher end Really? You think there are inherently more intelligent men than women?
  - rajin444 4y ago
    You think it's equal? That seems so statistically unlikely I could only describe it as a miracle.
    - spzb 4y ago
      Exactly equal down to the single individual, yes that would be unlikely. Broadly the same, seems perfectly logical to me.
      - rajin444 4y ago
        Men and women share fundamentally different genetic configurations which makes it seem illogical to me. What makes it seem logical to you?
        spzb 4y ago
        Intelligence is not purely genetic.
        rajin444 4y ago
        Don't our genes dictate how we interact with the environment? I'm not sure how it could be anything but. That being said, yes, we can change our environment and see changes in measured intelligence. A person with a head is smarter than one without. To tie it back to your original point, you're saying the male/female differences in intelligence are purely environmental? As in, if two people with different genetic make ups were brought up in the same environment they'd have the same outcomes? If we're seeing equality it's likely the result of changing our environment to force this.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  I was willing to listen to your point (that perhaps some companies favor women and so women disproportionately percolate to those companies… at least in theory seems like a possible argument, even if I’m skeptical) until you got here: >> Also, because the intelligence distribution skews more male at the higher end, a company will be disproportionately male simply by being more technical and having a more difficult hiring bar. Okay, buddy. Women used to be dominant in computing. Literally were the computers. And when artificial computers came to the fore, many transitioned to writing programs for them. Until it became a more prestigious field and men came to dominate. And once the personal computer became widespread with computer game culture arising and a culture of harassing women until they leave became common enough to be an issue, why wouldn’t one expect that those who developed an interest in computer programming (ie from contact with computer games, etc) to be predominantly men? (And I love computer games, but there is an insane amount of harassment. Everyone who plays knows this.) It has nothing to do with intelligence curves.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > It has nothing to do with intelligence curves. Agreed. A vast majority of supposedly "high tech" jobs are solidly average intelligence, including coding, so if anything women should be rewarded in such positions because males' wider variance in I.Q. cuts both ways. It's only pure delusional thinking that keeps up the "muh I.Q. is one of the highest" attitude among "tech" bros.
    - AdrianB1 4y ago
      Average intelligence (around 100 points) does not get you hired in any high tech job. It is called "high tech" for a reason, it's not "average work" by any measure.
    - SamReidHughes 4y ago
      Programmers are not solidly average intelligence at all. Everybody writing software is at the upper end, even if defined very loosely to mean something like top 10% of Americans. Note that among SAT scorers, the top 11% of males score >700 on the math section and top 7% of females score >700. This isn't some super-elite group, and you're already looking at 1.6x as many men. But you're arguing somehow that we should specifically discriminate in an attempt to hire dumber people, so... well, that seems like a bad idea to me.
- cto_of_antifa 4y ago
- nullc 4y ago
  Most tech jobs don't actually require significantly greater than average intelligence. If you crunch the numbers it takes a pretty high bar to skew the gender of the posterior distribution much. It's not inconceivable and shouldn't be discarded out of hand, but there are plenty of other factors (including non-discrimination ones) worth keeping in mind. As an aside-- when you make the variance argument it's useful to point out that men are vastly more over-represented in convictions or some other negative characteristic... otherwise it's just too easy for people to read as a suggestion that men are better rather than simply being a population which as a whole tends to have more diversity in its performance. Communication is a two way street, and there are enough assholes out there who do think that men are inherently superior that it's in everyones interest to put in some more effort to make it clear that it isn't what you're saying.
  - SamReidHughes 4y ago
    I don't think it is useful here (on HN) to point out the low end. That just gets tedious and I think comes across as tedious. The pertinent fact is that m:f ratio increases at the top, and variance is just the most irrefutable factor that breaks apart any presumption that the distributions should be identical. Also, I'm not trying to pretend that's the only difference between men and women. Men sleep 20 minutes less than women. Is that "inherent superiority"? No, but it's an advantage. Or maybe men undersleep and it's a disadvantage.
    - nullc 4y ago
      Maybe it comes across as tedious. But -- we write because we hope to communicate, and if you're mistaken as a flaming misogynist then the communication will fail and you won't reach the people who could benefit the most from your perspective. I think it can be worth it to put on a bit of a dance to make it clear that you're not just looking for reasons to be dismissive towards women, even if in some cosmic fairness sense you shouldn't have to prove you're not a witch. In my mind a reasonable way to do that is to point out that variance differences often make men worse. Particularly so since someone one extra sd more intelligent on the top end probably has little benefit to their life, while someone being one extra sd more violent on the bottom end makes them much more likely to live a life thats miserable for them and those around them.
oslsla 4y ago
This really isn't a problem anyone wants to solve. STEM especially has unique issues where if you take extended absences things such as your skills or research will be invalided over the short periods you may be gone. Tackle that with a lack of a childcare and you have a system set to ensure the failure of women. Retention is close to impossible as the cost of childcare is impossibly high.
- SamReidHughes 4y ago
  I'd say this is more industry-specific than STEM. In software I can jump back onto a project I left behind years ago and get productive immediately. This is something I've done with multiple projects. But there is a difference between some of those and other kinds of projects where the deadlines are tied into hardware cycles, like, automotive engineering. And generally in engineering, childcare is affordable because your salaries are high.