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Well, the higher female acceptance rate may be because only good female students do CS. If you have a hostile environment, only the most motivated will succeed.
by arjie 13y ago
Well, the higher female acceptance rate may be because only good female students do CS. If you have a hostile environment, only the most motivated will succeed. It's like a sieve. You are applying selective pressure against a certain group of people succeeding. Expect to get only the most motivated.
Not saying this is the case in reality, but I think the conclusion that they're indiscriminately accepting women is facile.
- codexon 13y agoCitation needed. It is much more plausible that these engineering colleges have laxer requirements for females in order to get a 50/50 gender balance rather than public school discrimination.
- arthulia 13y agoCitation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.
- codexon 13y agoIt doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation. How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years? If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.
- arthulia 13y ago> If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it. If you can't tell then what difference does it make?
- codexon 13y agoIt makes a difference to the male applicants that would've been accepted if there wasn't a bias.
- davorak 13y agoA program erasing the current cultural bias/momentum against females will make a difference to all the females who will not have to face said momentum/bias.
- codexon 13y agoBut how do you know that a 50/50 balance is even natural in engineering fields like CS? Why isn't there a 50/50 balance and other similar initiatives for males for female dominated subjects like nursing and education?
- davorak 13y agoIs there solid evidence of an IQ difference between the genders or a general subject, with a biological understanding of why such a difference exists? I currently have not come across any such solid evidence and biological understanding. Seems unproductive to operate under an understanding far from 50/50 when I do not have solid evidence that I should be.
- codexon 13y agoI never brought up the argument that males are smarter than females. Why wouldn't you consider the possibility that most females don't want to sit in front of a screen all day with minimal social interaction often working 70 hour weeks? Is it because you feel that the field of CS is so superior that no one could dislike it?
- davorak 13y ago> I never brought up the argument that males are smarter than females. I was not implying you did. IQ is one well know metric but others such as "a general subject", as I asked for before, are welcome as well. I asked for solid evidence that operating away form 50/50 is more productive. If you have some I am willing to look it over.
- davorak 13y agoThe 48 percent statistic is for the junior year, the third year. It seems like your argument would require Mudd to grade females more lightly for the at least the first three years. This seems unlikely since it would require some form of collusion between all/most CS professors(maybe TAs too).
- codexon 13y agoI don't follow this argument. You are suggesting that the rate of females leaving the major/school is exactly proportional to the grade they get. I don't believe anyone would quit a school/major because they scored a little bit lower average. This might be possible if they all happened to be near the threshold for failing but I doubt Mudd is this strict. Also everyone is well aware of affirmative action, so even if their grades were worse they would not think they would not be able to compete for the same jobs/academic positions.
- davorak 13y ago> I don't follow this argument. You are suggesting that the rate of females leaving the major/school is exactly proportional to the grade they get. The percentage of females normal drops year by year in the CS programs I am familiar with. This does not seem to be happening at Mudd to the degree it does elsewhere. I have not see you put forward how initial acceptance has changed this trend, or that the trend exists at Mudd and they simply start the first year with a high female ratio say 40%-60% male-female. > I don't believe anyone would quit a school/major because they scored a little bit lower average. This might be possible if they all happened to be near the threshold for failing but I doubt Mudd is this strict. People do switch majors when they are below average, not always but I would be surprised if this reason is rare. Your argument now requires that the females are below average compared to the males but not so below average that they want to switch majors. I would count this as a minor complexity penalty to your argument. > Also everyone is well aware of affirmative action, so even if their grades were worse they would not think they would not be able to compete for the same jobs/academic positions. This by it self does not work at most universities. So what makes Mudd different that this argument works there?
- coryrc 13y agoPlease use "women" instead of "girls", unless you are talking about children under ~11.
- Tichy 13y agoHow would the students know that they had laxer requirements?
- RyanZAG 13y agoClose to triple through natural occurrence? Come now, you're the one being facile.
- joe_the_user 13y agoThe point is the acceptance rate by itself is too murky a statistic to prove the gp's point.
- cousin_it 13y agoNote that if acceptance rate is a murky statistic, then using underrepresentation to prove discrimination might be even murkier, because underrepresentation is a function of the acceptance rate and the number of applicants.
- davorak 13y ago> Note that if acceptance rate is a murky statistic, then using underrepresentation to prove discrimination might be even murkier, If it was an isolated incident then yes. The gender difference in engineering/science and in this case CS is fairly broad and it seems unlikely that it does not point to something significant, cultural momentum and bias being a popular choice.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joe_the_user 13y agoSo what? Under-representation is not used primary to prove discrimination, Under-representation is simply an undesirable state of affairs to many people. Some of the remedies for this involve correcting apparent discrimination, some involve encouraging girls to get involved with CS and some involve making CS more appealing to everyone (with the hope this will include a lot of girls). The focus or, uh, fixation of a certain breed of poster on "this doesn't prove discrimination, you can't prove I'm a sexist, no way..." seems telling to me but of course what seems clear to an Internet poster isn't evidence sufficient for policy.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]