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No one is doubting her ability because she's female. But you should be allowed to doubt their ability no matter their gender is.

by verroq 12y ago

mcv 12y ago
How can you say nobody is doubting her ability because she is female? RTFA! Yes, of course you can doubt people's ability regardless of their gender, but it doesn't happen regardless of gender, it happens because of gender. People start out thinking: "Woman. Probably not a good coder. Ah, see? She knows about job interviews! She's a recruiter! Not a programmer at all." Had it been a man, they'd be: "Hey, this programmer knows a lot about job interviews!"
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - MrScruff 12y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your argument. Are you suggesting that because there are more male programmers in total and hence more male programmers that are 'above average', that a randomly selected male candidate is statistically more likely to be 'above average' than a randomly selected female candidate? If so that would be incorrect.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - lutusp 12y ago
        > There are more males above average then females who are above average. You have dropped the qualifier "programmers", also if you hadn't done that, you aren't adjusting for population sizes, therefore you have left the realm of rational discourse. As to males versus females, adjusted for population size, they're equal (and this is a statistic, not a popular PC pronouncement). As to male programmers versus female programmers, without specific data but knowing that women are better at calculation, we can safely conclude that their population-adjusted abilities are either equal or contradict your implied thesis. The supreme irony of this conversation is that, if you were any good at calculation, you would see the systematic error in your claims. There's a large element of self-reference here.
  - 6nne 12y ago
    You have this a bit wrong. If ability is normally distributed for a given sex (and the mean of the ability of the same), then it is true that there would be more above-average male programmers than female programmers - just as there are more male programmers than female programmers at any skill level. If you are provided a skilled programmer, they are most likely male. And if you are provided any programmer, they are most likely male. However, If you pick a random male programmer and a random female programmer, the woman is just as likely to be a good coder as the man. This means that if you are talking to an anonymous person online and they are a good coder, you should assume they are male (if you're going to assume anything). This does not work backwards - if you are talking to a female programmer and you do not know their coding ability, it would not be particularly likely that they are a poor coder.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - 6nne 12y ago
        I don't know if you meant for your argument to be applicable to Gayle, but if so... well, it is not applicable. People only knew her gender and assumed she was not skilled because of it.
        mcv 12y ago
        They knew her gender and that she'd been talking code for an hour, and still assumed she was not skilled because of it. Some people are unbelievably dense.
      - MrScruff 12y ago
        But you were responding to a quote ">Woman. Probably not a good coder" Which would imply the probability of a woman being a good coder was lower from the probability of a man being a good coder. This is quite different to the probability of a good programmer being a man being higher than the probability of a good programmer being a woman. I mean, the probability of a good programmer being swedish isn't that high but it doesn't tell you much about the quality of programming in Sweden.
  - lutusp 12y ago
    > edit: downvoters can't handle the truth? No, your logic is flawed. Let's say there is a population of 1,000 male programmers, with a normal distribution of IQ (mean 100, S.D. 15), and therefore 15.87% are at or above 1 sigma. That's 159 male programmers, more or less, regarded as exceptional. Let's further say that we have a population of 100 female programmers with exactly the same statistical breakdown, with 15.87% above 1 sigma, reflecting the IQ stats for the population as a whole, male and female. This makes 16 female programmers, more or less, regarded as exceptional. This means (a) there are more exceptional male programmers by count than female programmers, but it also means that (b) statistically, a selected male programmer is likely to be equal to a selected female programmer, and the more programmers you compare, the more equal the outcome becomes. Mathematically: emp / tmp = efp / tfp = 15.87% Where: emp = exceptional male programmers tmp = total male programmers efp = exceptional female programmers tfp = total female programmers This means that your claim above: > So the male candidate is probably better a coder most of the time. Is perfect nonsense, and coincidentally calls into question the presumed intellectual superiority of males.

No one is doubting her ability because she's female. But you should be allowed to doubt their ability no matter their gender is.

by verroq 12y ago

No one is doubting her ability because she's female. But you should be allowed to doubt their ability no matter their gender is.

mcv 12y ago

How can you say nobody is doubting her ability because she is female? RTFA! Yes, of course you can doubt people's ability regardless of their gender, but it doesn't happen regardless of gender, it happens because of gender. People start out thinking: "Woman. Probably not a good coder. Ah, see? She knows about job interviews! She's a recruiter! Not a programmer at all." Had it been a man, they'd be: "Hey, this programmer knows a lot about job interviews!"

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- MrScruff 12y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your argument. Are you suggesting that because there are more male programmers in total and hence more male programmers that are 'above average', that a randomly selected male candidate is statistically more likely to be 'above average' than a randomly selected female candidate? If so that would be incorrect.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - lutusp 12y ago
      > There are more males above average then females who are above average. You have dropped the qualifier "programmers", also if you hadn't done that, you aren't adjusting for population sizes, therefore you have left the realm of rational discourse. As to males versus females, adjusted for population size, they're equal (and this is a statistic, not a popular PC pronouncement). As to male programmers versus female programmers, without specific data but knowing that women are better at calculation, we can safely conclude that their population-adjusted abilities are either equal or contradict your implied thesis. The supreme irony of this conversation is that, if you were any good at calculation, you would see the systematic error in your claims. There's a large element of self-reference here.
- 6nne 12y ago
  You have this a bit wrong. If ability is normally distributed for a given sex (and the mean of the ability of the same), then it is true that there would be more above-average male programmers than female programmers - just as there are more male programmers than female programmers at any skill level. If you are provided a skilled programmer, they are most likely male. And if you are provided any programmer, they are most likely male. However, If you pick a random male programmer and a random female programmer, the woman is just as likely to be a good coder as the man. This means that if you are talking to an anonymous person online and they are a good coder, you should assume they are male (if you're going to assume anything). This does not work backwards - if you are talking to a female programmer and you do not know their coding ability, it would not be particularly likely that they are a poor coder.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - 6nne 12y ago
      I don't know if you meant for your argument to be applicable to Gayle, but if so... well, it is not applicable. People only knew her gender and assumed she was not skilled because of it.
      - mcv 12y ago
        They knew her gender and that she'd been talking code for an hour, and still assumed she was not skilled because of it. Some people are unbelievably dense.
    - MrScruff 12y ago
      But you were responding to a quote ">Woman. Probably not a good coder" Which would imply the probability of a woman being a good coder was lower from the probability of a man being a good coder. This is quite different to the probability of a good programmer being a man being higher than the probability of a good programmer being a woman. I mean, the probability of a good programmer being swedish isn't that high but it doesn't tell you much about the quality of programming in Sweden.
- lutusp 12y ago
  > edit: downvoters can't handle the truth? No, your logic is flawed. Let's say there is a population of 1,000 male programmers, with a normal distribution of IQ (mean 100, S.D. 15), and therefore 15.87% are at or above 1 sigma. That's 159 male programmers, more or less, regarded as exceptional. Let's further say that we have a population of 100 female programmers with exactly the same statistical breakdown, with 15.87% above 1 sigma, reflecting the IQ stats for the population as a whole, male and female. This makes 16 female programmers, more or less, regarded as exceptional. This means (a) there are more exceptional male programmers by count than female programmers, but it also means that (b) statistically, a selected male programmer is likely to be equal to a selected female programmer, and the more programmers you compare, the more equal the outcome becomes. Mathematically: emp / tmp = efp / tfp = 15.87% Where: emp = exceptional male programmers tmp = total male programmers efp = exceptional female programmers tfp = total female programmers This means that your claim above: > So the male candidate is probably better a coder most of the time. Is perfect nonsense, and coincidentally calls into question the presumed intellectual superiority of males.