8 ms·

It doesn't actually treat women worse than lots of other places that have plenty of women. Islam, acting and modeling all treat women worse than computing (flog

It doesn't actually treat women worse than lots of other places that have plenty of women. Islam, acting and modeling all treat women worse than computing (flogging them for rape, casting couches), yet have far more women. Women are sometimes treated badly in technology. Technology also has few women. But what evidence do we have that the former is a significant cause of the latter? It's hard to even demonstrate a correlation, let alone causation.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
geofft 12y ago
So is our primary goal increased representation of women, or treating women well? (Put more directly, if we find that mistreating women makes more of them enter technology, what should we do?) It's certainly possible that not as many women are interested in technology careers as men. (Seems overwhelmingly unlikely to me based on both anecdotal and rigorous evidence, but as a good scientist, I should say it's possible.) But why does that justify mistreating those women who are interested? And why should we be satisfied with our behavior based on merely being not as bad as a religion or another industry?
tptacek 12y ago
The notion that there is some intrinsic property of women that makes them uncompetitive in computer science, but not in accounting, actuary, law, medicine, &c is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. No such evidence has been presented. The notion that a male majority which happens to almost entirely comprise the upper echelons of the technology industry might, intentionally or (just as likely) not, set up self-reinforcing cycles of encouragement for men and discouragement for women is not an extraordinary claim. It is bog-standard human pack-animal clique behavior. And nevertheless, clear, ringing evidence of these phenomena are published routinely.
- raldi 12y ago
  That's a strawman. The actual claim is that playing with computers at a young age has a high correlation with becoming a great programmer later in life, and that generally young girls are not encouraged to play with computers.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    So the claim is that playing with computers at a young age is vital to the development of programming skill, just as the Hasbro game "Operation" is for physicians. See: "extraordinary claims...".
    - raldi 12y ago
      No, again, you're creating a strawman. I never said it was vital; just that it helps a lot. And I see no reason such a claim would require a similar effect to be present in every industry. In fact, the evidence supporting the idea that programming is special in this regard is precisely that you don't hear doctors talk about how they had spent their childhood years endlessly playing Operation, while meanwhile you do hear many great hackers say they spent their whole childhoods playing with computers (or, when unavailable, then the nearest facsimile: taking apart electronics, playing with Game Genie codes, building erector sets...)
      - tptacek 12y ago
        It's hard to tell whether you're missing my point or agreeing with it. The idea that computer science is unique among the sciences and professions --- including detail, abstraction, and symbol-intensive fields like aerospace engineering and forensic accounting --- is itself an extraordinary claim. It's also a counterintuitive claim, given the reality of what software development work actually is. A plurality of professional developers do little more than plumb connections from SQL database tables they understand poorly to front-end frameworks they didn't write. That's the practice that requires exposure from preschool, like a competitive concert violinist? No. Not buying it. Sorry.
        12y ago
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Every field you mentioned had the same male majority, yet they all failed to keep women out. Well, almost every field you mentioned - actuaries were quite successful. http://www.prb.org/pdf08/scientistprofiles/occprof08_actuaries.pdf http://www.prb.org/pdf08/scientistprofiles/occprof08_actuari... If you want to appeal to "bog-standard human behavior", it would help if you showed that computing, physics and actuary have "bog-standard human behavior" while law and medicine don't. As I said, not even correlation has been demonstrated. Just so that you can understand what I mean by "correlations", let me demonstrate with a different theory. Theory: women are less likely to have high quantitative ability, so fields with higher quantitative ability requirements will have fewer women. Demonstrating a correlation would involve showing a downward sloping graph with quant ability requirements on the X-axis and %women on the Y-axis. Like the graphs here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required... Then I'd need to present evidence that women are less likely to have high quant abilities. Like in these papers here (note that the abstracts have been creatively worded to be published, skip to the data tables): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/494.summary http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/494.summary http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2889145?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105200582321 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2889145?uid=3738256&ui... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21038941 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21038941 http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf Simply pointing out that humans act like humans fails - it predicts flat graphs rather than downward sloping ones.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    I said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You just made two different extraordinary claims: that women (as a demographic) intrinsically lack quantitative ability, so much so that they're at a disadvantage in industry (not merely at a disadvantage in the competition for Fields Medals), and that computer science as an industry is uniquely dependent on quantitative ability, moreso than actuaries (where there is significantly greater female participation.) Your extraordinary evidence for this is a blog post with regression lines. Sometimes your rhetorical strategy on HN is bracing and useful. Like all message boards, HN is prone to flights to abstraction and goalpost moving, and the introduction of facts can cut through that and ground the discussion. Other times, it seems like you simply have far too much confidence in the significance of the facts you choose, and your overconfidence hamstrings you. I don't have to care whether male quantitative ability has more variance than female ability. I can sort of enjoy reading about it on Marginal Revolution without incorporating any of those conclusions into my identity or philosophy. I do care about the idea that results about variance in quantitative ability speak to CS ability. For the great majority of specialties in CS, they do not, at all. I think you may be blinded to this by the specialty you've chosen to work in, which is math-intensive. I'm a systems programmer --- in fact, a crypto-intensive systems programmer! --- and I will go to the mat against the idea that computer science requires atypical quantitative ability. At any rate: it is self-evident that professional software development doesn't require the quantitative aptitude required to compete for university math tenure.
- sheepmullet 12y ago
  I think you are ignoring the much more likely scenario that women see computer science/software development as a bad bet or it simply does not appeal to them. For example it is a field where if you take 5 years off you are treated worse than a fresh graduate... Funnily enough a lot of women might want the ability to take a few years off. Or for example it is an industry which has a lot of instability and lack of internal mobility. This means that you often are forced to leave jobs you love and where you have close friends in order to progess, or because they pivoted, or simply went out of business. Less women are willing to put up with this crap. I've worked as a software developer at a couple of larger companies where maybe 15% of the developers were female. However, about 40% of the systems analysts/business analysts/project managers/testers/QA were female. These are roles in which you interact with the developers on a daily basis.... Surely if the issue was software developers being sexist then women wouldn't want to do these other roles either. There is some sexism in the industry, but no more than many other industries which have plenty of women.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    No offense, but I'm not sure you've actually said anything here. Take this exact comment, substitute "women" for "men", and it seems equally valid. If you can't explain why things would be different specifically for women, you're not addressing the fact that there are four men for every woman in software development.
    - sheepmullet 12y ago
      I'm saying that women, on average, might value the attributes/factors I listed more than men. I.e. Being able to take 1+ years off when you have children without serious career damage is more important to woman than men. The research I have read suggests that women are much less likely to leave a job they enjoy and where they have made friends in order to get a pay rise than men are. It's not much of a leap for women to consider this issue before entering a field. Likewise there is considerable research on women being more risk averse than men and surely this at least has an impact on joining the startup world. My last two paragraphs basically boil down to a question for you: why are women who are, in your opinion, not becoming software developers because of sexism still entering into roles that interact heavily with these sexist software developers?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

geofft 12y ago

So is our primary goal increased representation of women, or treating women well? (Put more directly, if we find that mistreating women makes more of them enter technology, what should we do?) It's certainly possible that not as many women are interested in technology careers as men. (Seems overwhelmingly unlikely to me based on both anecdotal and rigorous evidence, but as a good scientist, I should say it's possible.) But why does that justify mistreating those women who are interested? And why should we be satisfied with our behavior based on merely being not as bad as a religion or another industry?

tptacek 12y ago

The notion that there is some intrinsic property of women that makes them uncompetitive in computer science, but not in accounting, actuary, law, medicine, &c is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. No such evidence has been presented. The notion that a male majority which happens to almost entirely comprise the upper echelons of the technology industry might, intentionally or (just as likely) not, set up self-reinforcing cycles of encouragement for men and discouragement for women is not an extraordinary claim. It is bog-standard human pack-animal clique behavior. And nevertheless, clear, ringing evidence of these phenomena are published routinely.

raldi 12y ago
That's a strawman. The actual claim is that playing with computers at a young age has a high correlation with becoming a great programmer later in life, and that generally young girls are not encouraged to play with computers.
- tptacek 12y ago
  So the claim is that playing with computers at a young age is vital to the development of programming skill, just as the Hasbro game "Operation" is for physicians. See: "extraordinary claims...".
  - raldi 12y ago
    No, again, you're creating a strawman. I never said it was vital; just that it helps a lot. And I see no reason such a claim would require a similar effect to be present in every industry. In fact, the evidence supporting the idea that programming is special in this regard is precisely that you don't hear doctors talk about how they had spent their childhood years endlessly playing Operation, while meanwhile you do hear many great hackers say they spent their whole childhoods playing with computers (or, when unavailable, then the nearest facsimile: taking apart electronics, playing with Game Genie codes, building erector sets...)
    - tptacek 12y ago
      It's hard to tell whether you're missing my point or agreeing with it. The idea that computer science is unique among the sciences and professions --- including detail, abstraction, and symbol-intensive fields like aerospace engineering and forensic accounting --- is itself an extraordinary claim. It's also a counterintuitive claim, given the reality of what software development work actually is. A plurality of professional developers do little more than plumb connections from SQL database tables they understand poorly to front-end frameworks they didn't write. That's the practice that requires exposure from preschool, like a competitive concert violinist? No. Not buying it. Sorry.
      - 12y ago
yummyfajitas 12y ago
Every field you mentioned had the same male majority, yet they all failed to keep women out. Well, almost every field you mentioned - actuaries were quite successful. http://www.prb.org/pdf08/scientistprofiles/occprof08_actuaries.pdf http://www.prb.org/pdf08/scientistprofiles/occprof08_actuari... If you want to appeal to "bog-standard human behavior", it would help if you showed that computing, physics and actuary have "bog-standard human behavior" while law and medicine don't. As I said, not even correlation has been demonstrated. Just so that you can understand what I mean by "correlations", let me demonstrate with a different theory. Theory: women are less likely to have high quantitative ability, so fields with higher quantitative ability requirements will have fewer women. Demonstrating a correlation would involve showing a downward sloping graph with quant ability requirements on the X-axis and %women on the Y-axis. Like the graphs here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required... Then I'd need to present evidence that women are less likely to have high quant abilities. Like in these papers here (note that the abstracts have been creatively worded to be published, skip to the data tables): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/494.summary http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/494.summary http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2889145?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105200582321 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2889145?uid=3738256&ui... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21038941 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21038941 http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf Simply pointing out that humans act like humans fails - it predicts flat graphs rather than downward sloping ones.
- tptacek 12y ago
  I said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You just made two different extraordinary claims: that women (as a demographic) intrinsically lack quantitative ability, so much so that they're at a disadvantage in industry (not merely at a disadvantage in the competition for Fields Medals), and that computer science as an industry is uniquely dependent on quantitative ability, moreso than actuaries (where there is significantly greater female participation.) Your extraordinary evidence for this is a blog post with regression lines. Sometimes your rhetorical strategy on HN is bracing and useful. Like all message boards, HN is prone to flights to abstraction and goalpost moving, and the introduction of facts can cut through that and ground the discussion. Other times, it seems like you simply have far too much confidence in the significance of the facts you choose, and your overconfidence hamstrings you. I don't have to care whether male quantitative ability has more variance than female ability. I can sort of enjoy reading about it on Marginal Revolution without incorporating any of those conclusions into my identity or philosophy. I do care about the idea that results about variance in quantitative ability speak to CS ability. For the great majority of specialties in CS, they do not, at all. I think you may be blinded to this by the specialty you've chosen to work in, which is math-intensive. I'm a systems programmer --- in fact, a crypto-intensive systems programmer! --- and I will go to the mat against the idea that computer science requires atypical quantitative ability. At any rate: it is self-evident that professional software development doesn't require the quantitative aptitude required to compete for university math tenure.
sheepmullet 12y ago
I think you are ignoring the much more likely scenario that women see computer science/software development as a bad bet or it simply does not appeal to them. For example it is a field where if you take 5 years off you are treated worse than a fresh graduate... Funnily enough a lot of women might want the ability to take a few years off. Or for example it is an industry which has a lot of instability and lack of internal mobility. This means that you often are forced to leave jobs you love and where you have close friends in order to progess, or because they pivoted, or simply went out of business. Less women are willing to put up with this crap. I've worked as a software developer at a couple of larger companies where maybe 15% of the developers were female. However, about 40% of the systems analysts/business analysts/project managers/testers/QA were female. These are roles in which you interact with the developers on a daily basis.... Surely if the issue was software developers being sexist then women wouldn't want to do these other roles either. There is some sexism in the industry, but no more than many other industries which have plenty of women.
- tptacek 12y ago
  No offense, but I'm not sure you've actually said anything here. Take this exact comment, substitute "women" for "men", and it seems equally valid. If you can't explain why things would be different specifically for women, you're not addressing the fact that there are four men for every woman in software development.
  - sheepmullet 12y ago
    I'm saying that women, on average, might value the attributes/factors I listed more than men. I.e. Being able to take 1+ years off when you have children without serious career damage is more important to woman than men. The research I have read suggests that women are much less likely to leave a job they enjoy and where they have made friends in order to get a pay rise than men are. It's not much of a leap for women to consider this issue before entering a field. Likewise there is considerable research on women being more risk averse than men and surely this at least has an impact on joining the startup world. My last two paragraphs basically boil down to a question for you: why are women who are, in your opinion, not becoming software developers because of sexism still entering into roles that interact heavily with these sexist software developers?