4 ms·

>So your dichotomy about "meritocracy" is short-sighted. There is nothing "meritocratic" about indulging male culture to keep a field male-dominated. Indeed, th

>So your dichotomy about "meritocracy" is short-sighted. There is nothing "meritocratic" about indulging male culture to keep a field male-dominated. Indeed, that's anti-meritocratic I don't see how a blind meritocracy is indulging male culture. Isn't the whole point of a meritocracy the idea that the only thing it cares about is performance?

d0mine 14y ago
You are ignoring initial conditions. I understand rayiner's comment as: 1. high male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining male culture 2. affirmative action as a temporary kludge to shift male/female ratio 3. lower male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining new equilibrium That is after affirmative action stops; it is not necessary that the system returns to old high male/female state.
- LockeWatts 14y ago
  > 1. high male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining male culture Based on what, the assumption that women are self-selecting against wanting to be programmers due to it being a male dominated profession? In that case, the action should be taken to promote CS education and inclusion at the preparatory level. Creating a bias away from the meritocracy at the hiring stage is still discriminatory and results in an overall lower skill level. My personal problem with this is that you're looking at it on a generational scale. You're basically telling multiple generations of men that it's okay for them to be discriminated against for their entire life due to something that their fathers or grandfathers did. That's not 'equality' for them.
  - klibertp 14y ago
    "Creating a bias [...] results in an overall lower skill level" Yes, but again, that is meant a only a temporary solution; as something that will correct the abnormal situation we have now and then will go away. "You're basically telling multiple generations of men that it's okay for them to be discriminated against for their entire life due to something that their fathers or grandfathers did" Isn't that ok? Every single time I think about this issue I feel guilty as hell just for being male. Every time I see a cultural norm that discriminates women I feel a bit responsible for it - and these bits accumulate quickly. I'm ready to be discriminated against to some extent if it's going to help; it's not because I want someone to make effort in my place but because I know that my effort alone is not sufficient. Also, multiple generations is not that long a time. Twenty, maybe thirty years and it would be over - society evolves quite fast nowadays, we don't need to wait for centuries - like women had to.
    - LockeWatts 14y ago
      >Isn't that ok? No, why in the hell would that be okay? What makes one act of discrimination better than the other? >Every single time I think about this issue I feel guilty as hell just for being male. Every time I see a cultural norm that discriminates women I feel a bit responsible for it - and these bits accumulate quickly. I'm ready to be discriminated against to some extent if it's going to help; it's not because I want someone to make effort in my place but because I know that my effort alone is not sufficient. Congratulations, your internalization of guilt and willingness to be discriminated against does not extend to me, and you have no right to tell me that it should. I'm not responsible for the crap that happened in the past, and I'm not okay with being told that I should bear the consequences of poor decisions made before my time. >Also, multiple generations is not that long a time. Twenty, maybe thirty years and it would be over - society evolves quite fast nowadays, we don't need to wait for centuries - like women had to. Twenty or thirty years is the prime working window of my life. It's difficult enough, thanks.
      - klibertp 14y ago
        > What makes one act of discrimination better than the other? Discrimination is bad for some and good for others, always. It's better if it's good for those oppressed and worse if it's making that oppression grow. It's still bad, though, and so it should be only temporary. > Congratulations, your internalization of guilt and willingness to be discriminated against does not extend to me, and you have no right to tell me that it should. Hey, relax! I'm not telling you that you should feel in any particular way, am I? I was saying how I feel personally, nothing more. > I'm not responsible for the crap that happened in the past, and I'm not okay with being told that I should bear the consequences of poor decisions made before my time. Um, the problem here is that - if you are a white male - you are still benefiting from those decisions. You may say that you have never actively did anything against any woman or against an idea of equality - and I believe you - but you still got a job because of inequalities created in the past. I'm not telling you that you're abilities alone weren't sufficient! But they might have been insufficient if you just happened to be a woman... > Twenty or thirty years is the prime working window of my life. It's difficult enough, thanks. I understand what you feel and I'm too scared that it will hit me. I'm not happy about it in the least. But then I think that, hey, there are women out there that are doing really well, despite all the problems they have. I also believe that I'm in every way as capable as these women and so I believe that I would still be alright. I might not, of course, that's a risk, but there are many risky things in life and I think that probability of me or you being personally hit by some pro-equality solutions is much lower than us being hit by global recession... or by a meteorite tomorrow. And if the risk is higher and you don't like it - we can negotiate. We can think of a way of reducing this risk for you while still doing some good. But the risk will be there, I can't deny this, and I have no other answer for this other that that I believe it needs to be done. Something needs to be done.
- mich41 14y ago
  So what's meritocratic in abandoning (even temporarily) meritocracy to move from a meritocratic equilibrium to a meritocratic equilibrium?
  - arcwhite 14y ago
    Young coined that term 'meritocracy' in satire; I feel it remains a ridiculous concept. Who judges what is meritorious? The entrenched majority? Won't they tend to think along similar lines and discount dissenting opinions as lacking merit? I suggest that there is no meritocracy in existence to begin with.
- MrScruff 14y ago
  Axiom 1 is very debatable. Other fields, for example veterinary science, have switched from male dominated to female dominated in a generation with no affirmative action involved. https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=6581 https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=6581
  - EliRivers 14y ago
    Whilst I'm no expert in the field, I think the culture of veterinary science is significantly different. So different that it's not a useful analogy. Here are my reasons: Vets need qualifications; there are very few vets who just kind of taught themselves by cutting up animals and experiementing with giving them different drugs. Whilst experience counts for a lot, I really don't see experienced vets looking at a new vets work and saying "Hur! Fuckin Noob!". Contrast this with the common perception amongst (some, by no means all) programmers that a degree really doesn't mean a lot when it comes to ability to actually solve problems, write good code, work well in a team etc etc. Vets (often) work in small groups. Small groups foster much less secure mob mentalities and all the other gang characteristics that we see in large groups. In some companies, a programmer pen can hold fifty or more programmers. (Many) vets work with people. They work ON animals, but the animal has an owner who is worried and needs to be dealt with as well. Vets have people skills and comport themselves as professionals. If my livelihood depended on the vet to properly examine my herd of cows, and the vet carried the attitude I see many programmers carry, I'd fire them on the spot and find someone else. Many programmers rarely have to actually work with customers, and that becomes more and more true the larger the programming team (which is exactly the kind of situation where unfortunate attitudes can take hold and/or immature behaviour run without being confronted). There are more reasons; essentially, I'm saying that I believe this analogy is flawed and that any other such analogies need to be similarly examined for applicability. Just because one profession got its act together without special measures needing to be taken doesn't mean they all can.
    - MrScruff 14y ago
      Vets need qualifications; there are very few vets who just kind of taught themselves by cutting up animals and experiementing with giving them different drugs. Whilst experience counts for a lot, I really don't see experienced vets looking at a new vets work and saying "Hur! Fuckin Noob!". Contrast this with the common perception amongst (some, by no means all) programmers that a degree really doesn't mean a lot when it comes to ability to actually solve problems, write good code, work well in a team etc etc. The male/female divide in CS is often identified as occurring before college, so I'm not sure I'd accept this argument. For it to be true, it would mean that women are abandoning CS after college which I haven't seen any evidence for. Vets (often) work in small groups. Small groups foster much less secure mob mentalities and all the other gang characteristics that we see in large groups. In some companies, a programmer pen can hold fifty or more programmers. In some companies, yes. None of the ones I've worked for though. Also, again I don't see how this would deter women from studying CS at college. (Many) vets work with people. They work ON animals, but the animal has an owner who is worried and needs to be dealt with as well. Vets have people skills and comport themselves as professionals. If my livelihood depended on the vet to properly examine my herd of cows, and the vet carried the attitude I see many programmers carry, I'd fire them on the spot and find someone else. Many programmers rarely have to actually work with customers, and that becomes more and more true the larger the programming team (which is exactly the kind of situation where unfortunate attitudes can take hold and/or immature behaviour run without being confronted). I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that a stereotypical software developer wouldn't make a good vet? If so, I wouldn't disagree though I don't see what that says about women not going into CS.
rayiner 14y ago
What you have in CS now isn't "blind meritocracy." If the male culture is turning away qualified women, you don't have a meritocracy.
- obstacle1 14y ago
  > If the male culture is turning away qualified women Is there any evidence that this is happening?
  - mich41 14y ago
    Dunno. But OTOH, I've sure seen unqualified women being hired "to counter gender inequality".
    - arcwhite 14y ago
      I have never once seen this happen at any place I've worked. I counter your anecdotal evidence with my own anecdotal evidence and we all have to go away and get some real data!
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I don't know any women in CS. But analogizing from my experience in the legal profession, I think it's a huge practical concern for women. When my female friends were looking at what firms to take jobs at, they very heavily weighed statistics like the percentage of female partners. My wife accepted at her firm partly because one of the departments she was interested in was female-dominated--had a large number of female associates and a "critical mass" of female partners that brought in their own business and had pull within the firm. Being a minority sucks, and ambitious people realize that in any organization getting to the top is as much about social ability and politick-ing as it is about ability. Working as a woman in a male-dominated culture may have zero impact on your work, but it's sure as hell going to have an impact on how easy it is for someone to form work relationships and leverage them to get ahead in the organization.
    - obstacle1 14y ago

d0mine 14y ago

You are ignoring initial conditions. I understand rayiner's comment as: 1. high male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining male culture 2. affirmative action as a temporary kludge to shift male/female ratio 3. lower male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining new equilibrium That is after affirmative action stops; it is not necessary that the system returns to old high male/female state.

LockeWatts 14y ago
> 1. high male/female ratio + blind meritocracy => self-sustaining male culture Based on what, the assumption that women are self-selecting against wanting to be programmers due to it being a male dominated profession? In that case, the action should be taken to promote CS education and inclusion at the preparatory level. Creating a bias away from the meritocracy at the hiring stage is still discriminatory and results in an overall lower skill level. My personal problem with this is that you're looking at it on a generational scale. You're basically telling multiple generations of men that it's okay for them to be discriminated against for their entire life due to something that their fathers or grandfathers did. That's not 'equality' for them.
- klibertp 14y ago
  "Creating a bias [...] results in an overall lower skill level" Yes, but again, that is meant a only a temporary solution; as something that will correct the abnormal situation we have now and then will go away. "You're basically telling multiple generations of men that it's okay for them to be discriminated against for their entire life due to something that their fathers or grandfathers did" Isn't that ok? Every single time I think about this issue I feel guilty as hell just for being male. Every time I see a cultural norm that discriminates women I feel a bit responsible for it - and these bits accumulate quickly. I'm ready to be discriminated against to some extent if it's going to help; it's not because I want someone to make effort in my place but because I know that my effort alone is not sufficient. Also, multiple generations is not that long a time. Twenty, maybe thirty years and it would be over - society evolves quite fast nowadays, we don't need to wait for centuries - like women had to.
  - LockeWatts 14y ago
    >Isn't that ok? No, why in the hell would that be okay? What makes one act of discrimination better than the other? >Every single time I think about this issue I feel guilty as hell just for being male. Every time I see a cultural norm that discriminates women I feel a bit responsible for it - and these bits accumulate quickly. I'm ready to be discriminated against to some extent if it's going to help; it's not because I want someone to make effort in my place but because I know that my effort alone is not sufficient. Congratulations, your internalization of guilt and willingness to be discriminated against does not extend to me, and you have no right to tell me that it should. I'm not responsible for the crap that happened in the past, and I'm not okay with being told that I should bear the consequences of poor decisions made before my time. >Also, multiple generations is not that long a time. Twenty, maybe thirty years and it would be over - society evolves quite fast nowadays, we don't need to wait for centuries - like women had to. Twenty or thirty years is the prime working window of my life. It's difficult enough, thanks.
    - klibertp 14y ago
      > What makes one act of discrimination better than the other? Discrimination is bad for some and good for others, always. It's better if it's good for those oppressed and worse if it's making that oppression grow. It's still bad, though, and so it should be only temporary. > Congratulations, your internalization of guilt and willingness to be discriminated against does not extend to me, and you have no right to tell me that it should. Hey, relax! I'm not telling you that you should feel in any particular way, am I? I was saying how I feel personally, nothing more. > I'm not responsible for the crap that happened in the past, and I'm not okay with being told that I should bear the consequences of poor decisions made before my time. Um, the problem here is that - if you are a white male - you are still benefiting from those decisions. You may say that you have never actively did anything against any woman or against an idea of equality - and I believe you - but you still got a job because of inequalities created in the past. I'm not telling you that you're abilities alone weren't sufficient! But they might have been insufficient if you just happened to be a woman... > Twenty or thirty years is the prime working window of my life. It's difficult enough, thanks. I understand what you feel and I'm too scared that it will hit me. I'm not happy about it in the least. But then I think that, hey, there are women out there that are doing really well, despite all the problems they have. I also believe that I'm in every way as capable as these women and so I believe that I would still be alright. I might not, of course, that's a risk, but there are many risky things in life and I think that probability of me or you being personally hit by some pro-equality solutions is much lower than us being hit by global recession... or by a meteorite tomorrow. And if the risk is higher and you don't like it - we can negotiate. We can think of a way of reducing this risk for you while still doing some good. But the risk will be there, I can't deny this, and I have no other answer for this other that that I believe it needs to be done. Something needs to be done.
mich41 14y ago
So what's meritocratic in abandoning (even temporarily) meritocracy to move from a meritocratic equilibrium to a meritocratic equilibrium?
- arcwhite 14y ago
  Young coined that term 'meritocracy' in satire; I feel it remains a ridiculous concept. Who judges what is meritorious? The entrenched majority? Won't they tend to think along similar lines and discount dissenting opinions as lacking merit? I suggest that there is no meritocracy in existence to begin with.
MrScruff 14y ago
Axiom 1 is very debatable. Other fields, for example veterinary science, have switched from male dominated to female dominated in a generation with no affirmative action involved. https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=6581 https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=6581
- EliRivers 14y ago
  Whilst I'm no expert in the field, I think the culture of veterinary science is significantly different. So different that it's not a useful analogy. Here are my reasons: Vets need qualifications; there are very few vets who just kind of taught themselves by cutting up animals and experiementing with giving them different drugs. Whilst experience counts for a lot, I really don't see experienced vets looking at a new vets work and saying "Hur! Fuckin Noob!". Contrast this with the common perception amongst (some, by no means all) programmers that a degree really doesn't mean a lot when it comes to ability to actually solve problems, write good code, work well in a team etc etc. Vets (often) work in small groups. Small groups foster much less secure mob mentalities and all the other gang characteristics that we see in large groups. In some companies, a programmer pen can hold fifty or more programmers. (Many) vets work with people. They work ON animals, but the animal has an owner who is worried and needs to be dealt with as well. Vets have people skills and comport themselves as professionals. If my livelihood depended on the vet to properly examine my herd of cows, and the vet carried the attitude I see many programmers carry, I'd fire them on the spot and find someone else. Many programmers rarely have to actually work with customers, and that becomes more and more true the larger the programming team (which is exactly the kind of situation where unfortunate attitudes can take hold and/or immature behaviour run without being confronted). There are more reasons; essentially, I'm saying that I believe this analogy is flawed and that any other such analogies need to be similarly examined for applicability. Just because one profession got its act together without special measures needing to be taken doesn't mean they all can.
  - MrScruff 14y ago
    Vets need qualifications; there are very few vets who just kind of taught themselves by cutting up animals and experiementing with giving them different drugs. Whilst experience counts for a lot, I really don't see experienced vets looking at a new vets work and saying "Hur! Fuckin Noob!". Contrast this with the common perception amongst (some, by no means all) programmers that a degree really doesn't mean a lot when it comes to ability to actually solve problems, write good code, work well in a team etc etc. The male/female divide in CS is often identified as occurring before college, so I'm not sure I'd accept this argument. For it to be true, it would mean that women are abandoning CS after college which I haven't seen any evidence for. Vets (often) work in small groups. Small groups foster much less secure mob mentalities and all the other gang characteristics that we see in large groups. In some companies, a programmer pen can hold fifty or more programmers. In some companies, yes. None of the ones I've worked for though. Also, again I don't see how this would deter women from studying CS at college. (Many) vets work with people. They work ON animals, but the animal has an owner who is worried and needs to be dealt with as well. Vets have people skills and comport themselves as professionals. If my livelihood depended on the vet to properly examine my herd of cows, and the vet carried the attitude I see many programmers carry, I'd fire them on the spot and find someone else. Many programmers rarely have to actually work with customers, and that becomes more and more true the larger the programming team (which is exactly the kind of situation where unfortunate attitudes can take hold and/or immature behaviour run without being confronted). I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that a stereotypical software developer wouldn't make a good vet? If so, I wouldn't disagree though I don't see what that says about women not going into CS.

rayiner 14y ago

What you have in CS now isn't "blind meritocracy." If the male culture is turning away qualified women, you don't have a meritocracy.

obstacle1 14y ago
> If the male culture is turning away qualified women Is there any evidence that this is happening?
- mich41 14y ago
  Dunno. But OTOH, I've sure seen unqualified women being hired "to counter gender inequality".
  - arcwhite 14y ago
    I have never once seen this happen at any place I've worked. I counter your anecdotal evidence with my own anecdotal evidence and we all have to go away and get some real data!
- rayiner 14y ago
  I don't know any women in CS. But analogizing from my experience in the legal profession, I think it's a huge practical concern for women. When my female friends were looking at what firms to take jobs at, they very heavily weighed statistics like the percentage of female partners. My wife accepted at her firm partly because one of the departments she was interested in was female-dominated--had a large number of female associates and a "critical mass" of female partners that brought in their own business and had pull within the firm. Being a minority sucks, and ambitious people realize that in any organization getting to the top is as much about social ability and politick-ing as it is about ability. Working as a woman in a male-dominated culture may have zero impact on your work, but it's sure as hell going to have an impact on how easy it is for someone to form work relationships and leverage them to get ahead in the organization.
  - obstacle1 14y ago