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> Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley Broadly speaking, closer gender representation in S

> Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley Broadly speaking, closer gender representation in STEM is positively correlated with sexist discrimination counterintuitive though it may seem: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

yesenadam 4y ago
Thanks. TLDR: "women in countries with higher gender inequality are simply seeking the clearest possible path to financial freedom. And typically, that path leads through STEM professions."
- petilon 4y ago
  So the reason there are fewer women in CS in the US is because women enjoy gender equality here? That's so twisted!
  - cld8483 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    It is/was easier to become financially independent in the states without a STEM degree, although I think it is becoming harder as inflation demands $300k/year FAANG salaries.
  - roguecoder 4y ago
    Software Development is competing with all the other possible fields out there for talented people. When we fail to address or mitigate sexism, our profession loses out to the professions that do.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      And our evidence that software has more sexism than other fields is...? People tend to simply point to the lower than average female representation, but I don't find that convincing. 80/20 gender split is actually about average. Furthermore, studies measuring callbacks and recruiter interest show preference for women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484
      - KyeRussell 4y ago
        Honestly…I’m happy to operate under the assumption that tech has a sexism issue purely based on my personal experience with coworkers, superiors, peers online and at conferences, etc. I’ve never even worked in Big Tech! The stories I hear from friends that do, sound ridiculous. I’ve seldom seen a study that meets the standards of objective-ish academic rigour that I feel could even remotely capture all the nuanced ways in which women are (in my experience) screwed by our shitty culture.
        Manuel_D 4y ago
        If I applied the same line of thinking, I'd be operating on under the assumption that tech has a sexism issue against men based on my experience of being explicitly directed to discriminate against men, and being given gender quotas vastly different from industry representation - often demanding as much as 2x the representation of women. Most of my co-workers, men and women both, have similar stories . That's a lot more concrete to than a hand-wavy "it's nuanced" explanation. But rather than listening to anecdotes, I'll listen to evidence, which also indicates that tech at best does not discriminate against women and likely discriminates in favor of them.
      - roguecoder 4y ago
        74% of women in software development have experienced gender discrimination, as opposed to 50% of women in all STEM professions: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-a...
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    Yes. It is a well researched topic with lots of data. This one chart nicely summarizes the negative correlation between gender equality and women in stem: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/genderstem-1.png https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/genderstem-1....
    - petilon 4y ago
      I know plenty of American women who would be outraged at the suggestions that the reason there's fewer women in high paying tech jobs is because they enjoy better gender equality! That's some twisted logic there.
      - RestlessMind 4y ago
        I mean, the hard data is out there. Applicable not just to the US but also to other advanced countries like Scandinavian ones. I know that correlation is not causation and maybe there is some other common cause. But it is undeniable that better gender equality is correlated with fewer women in STEM. > That's some twisted logic there. I prefer the term "counterintuitive". And the world works in ways, many of which are counterintuitive. Another famous example - poverty trap, where people are incentivized to stay poor when you offer them means tested welfare. While each of the pillars of such programs (means testing, helping poor etc) sound good in isolation, they have a devastating impact in practice. Moynihan (a liberal, fwiw) was skewered when he suggested as such.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Is it really? Plenty of women in computer science during it's early days weren't in it because it was their first choice. Other fields, like law and medicine overtly discriminated against women. Many med schools capped their female student representation at 10%. This displaced women into other fields, like CS. When those sexist policies were removed, those women got the chance to pick the field of their choice. The women that would have been in CS had these sexist policies still been in place aren't taking jobs at a corners store: they're entering other high-status fields. Many fields that were once dominated by men are now either at parity, or even majority women. The fact that freedom from sexism stopped displacing women into CS doesn't seem like much of a bad thing.
roguecoder 4y ago
It's harder to discriminate against people with good options: they just leave when it's tried.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  And our evidence for this discrimination is, what exactly? As I pointed out in the other reply, the evidence shows that tech companies are if anything discriminating in favor of women. If we measure by job satisfaction, computer science and engineering are among the lowest disparity: https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/women-and-economics https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/wome...
  - roguecoder 4y ago
    74% of women in software development have experienced gender discrimination, compared to 50% of women in all STEM professions: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-a...
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      As I pointed out in my other reply [1], this is a poll asking women if they think they have been discriminated against - it's measuring perceptions of discrimination. It's not measuring discrimination. If I poll orchestra members and a lot more men say the face discrimination in hiring, but when I conduct blind auditions men do even worse what does that tell me? Or tells me that their perceptions of discrimination are out of line with the reality of discrimination. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34912299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34912299

yesenadam 4y ago

Thanks. TLDR: "women in countries with higher gender inequality are simply seeking the clearest possible path to financial freedom. And typically, that path leads through STEM professions."

petilon 4y ago
So the reason there are fewer women in CS in the US is because women enjoy gender equality here? That's so twisted!
- cld8483 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  It is/was easier to become financially independent in the states without a STEM degree, although I think it is becoming harder as inflation demands $300k/year FAANG salaries.
- roguecoder 4y ago
  Software Development is competing with all the other possible fields out there for talented people. When we fail to address or mitigate sexism, our profession loses out to the professions that do.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    And our evidence that software has more sexism than other fields is...? People tend to simply point to the lower than average female representation, but I don't find that convincing. 80/20 gender split is actually about average. Furthermore, studies measuring callbacks and recruiter interest show preference for women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484
    - KyeRussell 4y ago
      Honestly…I’m happy to operate under the assumption that tech has a sexism issue purely based on my personal experience with coworkers, superiors, peers online and at conferences, etc. I’ve never even worked in Big Tech! The stories I hear from friends that do, sound ridiculous. I’ve seldom seen a study that meets the standards of objective-ish academic rigour that I feel could even remotely capture all the nuanced ways in which women are (in my experience) screwed by our shitty culture.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        If I applied the same line of thinking, I'd be operating on under the assumption that tech has a sexism issue against men based on my experience of being explicitly directed to discriminate against men, and being given gender quotas vastly different from industry representation - often demanding as much as 2x the representation of women. Most of my co-workers, men and women both, have similar stories . That's a lot more concrete to than a hand-wavy "it's nuanced" explanation. But rather than listening to anecdotes, I'll listen to evidence, which also indicates that tech at best does not discriminate against women and likely discriminates in favor of them.
    - roguecoder 4y ago
      74% of women in software development have experienced gender discrimination, as opposed to 50% of women in all STEM professions: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-a...
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  Yes. It is a well researched topic with lots of data. This one chart nicely summarizes the negative correlation between gender equality and women in stem: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/genderstem-1.png https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/genderstem-1....
  - petilon 4y ago
    I know plenty of American women who would be outraged at the suggestions that the reason there's fewer women in high paying tech jobs is because they enjoy better gender equality! That's some twisted logic there.
    - RestlessMind 4y ago
      I mean, the hard data is out there. Applicable not just to the US but also to other advanced countries like Scandinavian ones. I know that correlation is not causation and maybe there is some other common cause. But it is undeniable that better gender equality is correlated with fewer women in STEM. > That's some twisted logic there. I prefer the term "counterintuitive". And the world works in ways, many of which are counterintuitive. Another famous example - poverty trap, where people are incentivized to stay poor when you offer them means tested welfare. While each of the pillars of such programs (means testing, helping poor etc) sound good in isolation, they have a devastating impact in practice. Moynihan (a liberal, fwiw) was skewered when he suggested as such.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Is it really? Plenty of women in computer science during it's early days weren't in it because it was their first choice. Other fields, like law and medicine overtly discriminated against women. Many med schools capped their female student representation at 10%. This displaced women into other fields, like CS. When those sexist policies were removed, those women got the chance to pick the field of their choice. The women that would have been in CS had these sexist policies still been in place aren't taking jobs at a corners store: they're entering other high-status fields. Many fields that were once dominated by men are now either at parity, or even majority women. The fact that freedom from sexism stopped displacing women into CS doesn't seem like much of a bad thing.

roguecoder 4y ago

It's harder to discriminate against people with good options: they just leave when it's tried.

Manuel_D 4y ago
And our evidence for this discrimination is, what exactly? As I pointed out in the other reply, the evidence shows that tech companies are if anything discriminating in favor of women. If we measure by job satisfaction, computer science and engineering are among the lowest disparity: https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/women-and-economics https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/wome...
- roguecoder 4y ago
  74% of women in software development have experienced gender discrimination, compared to 50% of women in all STEM professions: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-a...
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    As I pointed out in my other reply [1], this is a poll asking women if they think they have been discriminated against - it's measuring perceptions of discrimination. It's not measuring discrimination. If I poll orchestra members and a lot more men say the face discrimination in hiring, but when I conduct blind auditions men do even worse what does that tell me? Or tells me that their perceptions of discrimination are out of line with the reality of discrimination. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34912299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34912299