7 ms·

Women aren't as mathematically inclined as men. They're also shorter. Anyone who tells you that we're all equal is trying to win votes.

by thras 17y ago

zackattack 17y ago
This is such a poignantly obnoxious post, because your sarcasm comes dangerously close to seriousness. The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men is strictly due to cultural differences. Women are more prone to experiencing stereotype threat in mathematics ("girls aren't as good at math as boys"), which makes them suffer in early mathematics performance, which makes them less likely to take increasingly more advanced math classes. I have yet to see a study that conclusively proves (or even suggests) that women have inferior innate capacity for doing mathematics. Women indeed may employ different strategies to solve certain classes of mathematical problems (e.g., those involving mental rotation) but that does not mean that they "aren't as mathematically inclined." I hope you are never put in a position of power over a female engineer in the workplace. Christ.
- natrius 17y ago
  "The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men is strictly due to cultural differences." Citation? Testosterone has been proven to enhance spatial ability[1]. Why wouldn't there be other differences in cognition between the sexes? You haven't seen a study that proves such a difference with math, but where's the study that disproves such a difference? Until there is one, you're more wrong than he is, and your condemnation is ridiculous. [1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1995.1269 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1995.1269
  - zackattack 17y ago
    If you carefully read my post, you'll note that females employ different strategies when it comes to spatial rotation. Here's an article that illuminates how stereotype threat may cause most differences: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-45K10P5-D&_user=5745&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000001358&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=5745&md5=3b0c82f2f267ace7cc84dd2117ead35a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... And, here's a fun fact, although I think IQ is a worthless measure beyond a few standard deviations, the person with the highest measured IQ is a woman. (Although, she famously misinterpreted the mechanics of the Monty Hall problem, but that's normal human statistical fallibility. See Steven Pinker et al for more on that.)
    - thras 17y ago
      Interesting that the article you cite seems to claim that women are far more likely to go to pieces under the pressure of "stereotype threat" than men are. What a sexist you are.
      - zackattack 17y ago
        You don't understand stereotype threat. A white person's working memory will be significantly less affected by a prototypical derogatory race-slur than a black person subjected to a prototypical derogatory slur against the black race. Social context is important.
        zackattack 17y ago
        Whoever downvoted me, would you please also do me the courtesy of responding to my post? Because I think I said something true and pertinent.
  - frossie 17y ago
    Citations are legion. The most obvious and direct proof is the huge variation in math scores by country. If there was no social bias against women in mathematics, you would expect girls to be equally worse than boys in every country (they way girls are shorter than boys in every country, for example). eg see: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11449804 http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1... and note the significant difference in the gender gap in math between, say, Turkey and Sweden. Arguing about mathematical skills is irrelevant to the debate anyway. I can tell you for certain that at least half the male programmers I deal with seem to possess no particular mathematical insight. The real question is not whether more women should be in computing. The question is whether there are women who would be enthusiastically in the field if they had been encouraged to be, and whether their absence is impoverishing the field. I have no data to answer to this question and I doubt you do either. PS. I am female, if that matters.
    - natrius 17y ago
      Good article. I agree with pretty much everything you said. What I was really trying to address is how anyone who suggests that there may be innate factors that affect outcomes for groups of people is immediately tarred and feathered. There's nothing wrong with such hypotheses. What's wrong is when people use characterizations of groups to prejudge individuals.
    - xiaoma 17y ago
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/sapienza_girls_boys_statistics/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/sapienza_girls_boys_...
- thras 17y ago
  Okay. What is your mechanism for all this equality? I assume you're some sort of young earth creationist, right? Sure, if God made men and women absolutely equal, then we're equal. The big guy can do anything. Probably right after he got done making fake dinosaur bones. Some of us here believe in evolution. And evolution doesn't bring about nice politically correct results. The best explanation for observed sexual behavioral dimorphism (for example, the 2009 math SATs by gender) is most parsimoniously explained by genetics.
  - wheels 17y ago
    There are certainly differences, as you point out. It'd be amazing if you averaged up all male specimens and all female specimens on the planet and the averages lined up on anything. The question isn't so much if there are differences, but if they reasonably correspond to the gender gap in programming. There are obviously social factors at work since fields like being a high school math teacher, which usually requires a degree in mathematics, is dominated by women, but being a computer programmer, which requires less mathematics, is not. If the gap was, say, you know, 10% I might say, "Yeah, there you go. Gender differences." But given that a lot of software shops are upwards of 95% male, I don't think you can claim that the remaining 5% of women that crossed the bar were the only ones smart enough to write PHP. And see, that's the thing. If all of the great programmers were men and the bad programmers were about 50/50, that'd support the gender gap thesis more. I mean, certainly most women that are in the top 10% of their class could be trained to be poor PHP programmers. It's not rocket surgery. But they're not there and there is a dearth of bad male PHP programmers (who may be otherwise intelligent). So it seems to be a little more complicated than "innate ability".
    - thras 17y ago
      Oh, the gap isn't anywhere near as big as 10%. Men and women differ by only a few points on average when you test for mathematical ability. The problem is that ability is distributed along a Gaussian. Small differences in the norm make for huge differences in the tails. So everybody can balance their check book about the same, but don't expect any women to win the Fields medal within the next millennium. Now, the female dislike of programming jobs goes beyond this tail effect. I think that as a big a problem is that programming is not a socially rewarding occupation, and women like socializing.
- pg 17y ago
  Please don't resort to personal attacks.
  - zackattack 17y ago
    thras, I'm sorry, and I wish I could retract the ad hominem. That being said, I revise my post to conclude: I wish these erroneous mindsets were less common because they further the cultural divide, which is inefficient for society.
Rod 17y ago
Unless you're working on computer graphics, there's no math in programming / IT...
- rglovejoy 17y ago
  Evidently, you have never taken a class in algorithms.
  - Rod 17y ago
    O(log(n)) and such stuff is not exactly algebraic or differential geometry, buddy...
    - rglovejoy 17y ago
      It's a different field of math. See http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-046JFall-2005/CourseHome/index.htm http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Compute... And I'm not your buddy, guy.
      - Rod 17y ago
        Dude, chill out, will ya?! Go to a math department and claim that algorithms & complexity is math and you will get lynched by some topologist. Most of EE & CS is quantitative, but it's not exactly math, in the sense that it's not formal. Physics is quantitative, for instance, but it's not math either.
        ninguem2 17y ago
        You are splitting hairs. The logical reasoning underpinning theoretical CS is the same as that of Mathematics. Whether or not this has any bearing on the gender imbalance problem, I don't know, but at the level of this discussion, CS is Math.
        Rod 17y ago
nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/
- nostrademons 17y ago
  Wait, shouldn't that be 1/3 x^3 + C?

Women aren't as mathematically inclined as men. They're also shorter. Anyone who tells you that we're all equal is trying to win votes.

by thras 17y ago

Women aren't as mathematically inclined as men. They're also shorter. Anyone who tells you that we're all equal is trying to win votes.

zackattack 17y ago

This is such a poignantly obnoxious post, because your sarcasm comes dangerously close to seriousness. The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men is strictly due to cultural differences. Women are more prone to experiencing stereotype threat in mathematics ("girls aren't as good at math as boys"), which makes them suffer in early mathematics performance, which makes them less likely to take increasingly more advanced math classes. I have yet to see a study that conclusively proves (or even suggests) that women have inferior innate capacity for doing mathematics. Women indeed may employ different strategies to solve certain classes of mathematical problems (e.g., those involving mental rotation) but that does not mean that they "aren't as mathematically inclined." I hope you are never put in a position of power over a female engineer in the workplace. Christ.

natrius 17y ago
"The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men is strictly due to cultural differences." Citation? Testosterone has been proven to enhance spatial ability[1]. Why wouldn't there be other differences in cognition between the sexes? You haven't seen a study that proves such a difference with math, but where's the study that disproves such a difference? Until there is one, you're more wrong than he is, and your condemnation is ridiculous. [1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1995.1269 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1995.1269
- zackattack 17y ago
  If you carefully read my post, you'll note that females employ different strategies when it comes to spatial rotation. Here's an article that illuminates how stereotype threat may cause most differences: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-45K10P5-D&_user=5745&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000001358&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=5745&md5=3b0c82f2f267ace7cc84dd2117ead35a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... And, here's a fun fact, although I think IQ is a worthless measure beyond a few standard deviations, the person with the highest measured IQ is a woman. (Although, she famously misinterpreted the mechanics of the Monty Hall problem, but that's normal human statistical fallibility. See Steven Pinker et al for more on that.)
  - thras 17y ago
    Interesting that the article you cite seems to claim that women are far more likely to go to pieces under the pressure of "stereotype threat" than men are. What a sexist you are.
    - zackattack 17y ago
      You don't understand stereotype threat. A white person's working memory will be significantly less affected by a prototypical derogatory race-slur than a black person subjected to a prototypical derogatory slur against the black race. Social context is important.
      - zackattack 17y ago
        Whoever downvoted me, would you please also do me the courtesy of responding to my post? Because I think I said something true and pertinent.
- frossie 17y ago
  Citations are legion. The most obvious and direct proof is the huge variation in math scores by country. If there was no social bias against women in mathematics, you would expect girls to be equally worse than boys in every country (they way girls are shorter than boys in every country, for example). eg see: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11449804 http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1... and note the significant difference in the gender gap in math between, say, Turkey and Sweden. Arguing about mathematical skills is irrelevant to the debate anyway. I can tell you for certain that at least half the male programmers I deal with seem to possess no particular mathematical insight. The real question is not whether more women should be in computing. The question is whether there are women who would be enthusiastically in the field if they had been encouraged to be, and whether their absence is impoverishing the field. I have no data to answer to this question and I doubt you do either. PS. I am female, if that matters.
  - natrius 17y ago
    Good article. I agree with pretty much everything you said. What I was really trying to address is how anyone who suggests that there may be innate factors that affect outcomes for groups of people is immediately tarred and feathered. There's nothing wrong with such hypotheses. What's wrong is when people use characterizations of groups to prejudge individuals.
  - xiaoma 17y ago
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/sapienza_girls_boys_statistics/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/sapienza_girls_boys_...
thras 17y ago
Okay. What is your mechanism for all this equality? I assume you're some sort of young earth creationist, right? Sure, if God made men and women absolutely equal, then we're equal. The big guy can do anything. Probably right after he got done making fake dinosaur bones. Some of us here believe in evolution. And evolution doesn't bring about nice politically correct results. The best explanation for observed sexual behavioral dimorphism (for example, the 2009 math SATs by gender) is most parsimoniously explained by genetics.
- wheels 17y ago
  There are certainly differences, as you point out. It'd be amazing if you averaged up all male specimens and all female specimens on the planet and the averages lined up on anything. The question isn't so much if there are differences, but if they reasonably correspond to the gender gap in programming. There are obviously social factors at work since fields like being a high school math teacher, which usually requires a degree in mathematics, is dominated by women, but being a computer programmer, which requires less mathematics, is not. If the gap was, say, you know, 10% I might say, "Yeah, there you go. Gender differences." But given that a lot of software shops are upwards of 95% male, I don't think you can claim that the remaining 5% of women that crossed the bar were the only ones smart enough to write PHP. And see, that's the thing. If all of the great programmers were men and the bad programmers were about 50/50, that'd support the gender gap thesis more. I mean, certainly most women that are in the top 10% of their class could be trained to be poor PHP programmers. It's not rocket surgery. But they're not there and there is a dearth of bad male PHP programmers (who may be otherwise intelligent). So it seems to be a little more complicated than "innate ability".
  - thras 17y ago
    Oh, the gap isn't anywhere near as big as 10%. Men and women differ by only a few points on average when you test for mathematical ability. The problem is that ability is distributed along a Gaussian. Small differences in the norm make for huge differences in the tails. So everybody can balance their check book about the same, but don't expect any women to win the Fields medal within the next millennium. Now, the female dislike of programming jobs goes beyond this tail effect. I think that as a big a problem is that programming is not a socially rewarding occupation, and women like socializing.
pg 17y ago
Please don't resort to personal attacks.
- zackattack 17y ago
  thras, I'm sorry, and I wish I could retract the ad hominem. That being said, I revise my post to conclude: I wish these erroneous mindsets were less common because they further the cultural divide, which is inefficient for society.

Rod 17y ago

Unless you're working on computer graphics, there's no math in programming / IT...

rglovejoy 17y ago
Evidently, you have never taken a class in algorithms.
- Rod 17y ago
  O(log(n)) and such stuff is not exactly algebraic or differential geometry, buddy...
  - rglovejoy 17y ago
    It's a different field of math. See http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-046JFall-2005/CourseHome/index.htm http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Compute... And I'm not your buddy, guy.
    - Rod 17y ago
      Dude, chill out, will ya?! Go to a math department and claim that algorithms & complexity is math and you will get lynched by some topologist. Most of EE & CS is quantitative, but it's not exactly math, in the sense that it's not formal. Physics is quantitative, for instance, but it's not math either.
      - ninguem2 17y ago
        You are splitting hairs. The logical reasoning underpinning theoretical CS is the same as that of Mathematics. Whether or not this has any bearing on the gender imbalance problem, I don't know, but at the level of this discussion, CS is Math.
        Rod 17y ago

nuclear_eclipse 17y ago

http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/

nostrademons 17y ago
Wait, shouldn't that be 1/3 x^3 + C?