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Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

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Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#401

Post by clevernickname »

evoloution wrote: post #387
clevernickname wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The gender roles are not baked into out DNA. Men are larger and stronger than women, women are flooded with hormones during pregnancy that force a bond between them and their children. That is literally your biology encouraging a role. >There are 'baked-in' DNA traits, that have emergently caused cultures to adopt those gender roles in their historical contexts. Evolution is random chance leading to mutations that i…

@clevernickname and @shkkmo you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree. clevernickname is right on his points on sexual dimorphism; the hormonal and genetic differences that lead to changes in body shape/function and structural brain differences with certain tradeoffs do shape two different forms of our species geared towards different tasks. Now gender roles will depend on the…

Thank you for understanding what I'm getting at, but I think you are misreading @shkkmo. They seem to completely reject the idea that there are sex-specific genetic factors that influence psychology and neurochemistry, or that gender roles and their genetic predisposition can be a self-perpetuating system.

But in regards to your hypothesis that changing society will change our (self-imposed) fitness criteria and result in a more convergent evolutionary path for both sexes, I partially agree. Partially, because 1. while evolution can and does happen on short time scales, its most prominent effects are shaped over aeons. Just because we are not hunter gatherers living in the woods today, does not mean that the evolutionary pressure that all of the generations of our ancestors underwent in those conditions can be subverted on a timescale meaningful to us.

And 2. because no matter how postmodern and liberal you think your culture is, we still need to have babies and raise them into functioning adults. If women are both gifted in this role and feel a psychological need to perform it, it makes no sense for them not to do it. That doesn't mean that women should be barred from the workplace, but it might mean that women taking less involved and prestigious roles in the workplace so that they may have more time to raise their children or look after grandchildren or what have you could be a good thing for society and not something to squawk about.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#402

Post by mdorazio »

leeleelee wrote: post #337
chiaro wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/stubborn-pay-gap-is... Nope. Male nurses still make more, which, with respect to your post, is a strong data point in favor of the discrimination hypothesis.

I am happy to be proven wrong if the data supports it. I am also not ashamed to make speculations which are backed by logic; which is what I have done. If I am wrong then so be it. But I don't think this supports the discrimination hypothesis. In fact I think you are the one with subconscious bias, and I'll explain why. What I essentially state was "hey I have a hunch that this is the way things are, but I am not cer…

Ok, then how many studies would you need? Kind of seems like you don't want to believe the data when presented with it. To control for the "male nurses take are more likely to be specialized" argument, here's one showing that a specific Nursing profession (CRNA) has a significant gender pay gap: http://www.geeksonfinance.com/info_7850041_average-hourly-sa...

The reason for the gap is of course up for debate, but it's still there.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#405

Post by stray »

shkkmo wrote: post #375
defen wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you make of studies that show monkeys and humans have a similar gender-biased breakdown of toy preferences and juvenile activities?

My first guess would be that those studies are probably poorly executed. If they were indeed properly double-blinded and used good statistical analysis, I would find that to be and extremely interesting result that would warrant further investigation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29418230

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#406

Post by shkkmo »

clevernickname wrote: post #398
shkkmo wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now gender roles will depend on the environment that you throw the humans into (if shkkmo mentioned that, it would make sense) I believe I did: >> "There are 'baked-in' DNA traits, that have emergently caused cultures to adopt those gender roles in their historical contexts." However, > you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree The only thing that I am disagreeing with him on…

>The only thing that I am disagreeing with him on is whether "it is safe to assume that gender roles are baked into our DNA". Ah, now I understand. You're practicing the common internet commenter behavior of picking out a single strongly worded statement and ignoring everything else the person said. Uncharitably reading my comments as "hurr durr women belong in the kitchen" instead of putting some faith in the author…

I am sorry if I mis-interpreted your comment, but words matter a lot in this discussion and yours were poorly chosen.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#407

Post by shkkmo »

clevernickname wrote: post #401
evoloution wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@clevernickname and @shkkmo you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree. clevernickname is right on his points on sexual dimorphism; the hormonal and genetic differences that lead to changes in body shape/function and structural brain differences with certain tradeoffs do shape two different forms of our species geared towards different tasks. Now gender roles will depend on the…

Thank you for understanding what I'm getting at, but I think you are misreading @shkkmo. They seem to completely reject the idea that there are sex-specific genetic factors that influence psychology and neurochemistry, or that gender roles and their genetic predisposition can be a self-perpetuating system. But in regards to your hypothesis that changing society will change our (self-imposed) fitness criteria and resu…

> They seem to completely reject the idea that there are sex-specific genetic factors that influence psychology and neurochemistry, or that gender roles and their genetic predisposition can be a self-perpetuating system.

Where did I reject that?

> we still need to have babies and raise them into functioning adults. If women are both gifted in this role and feel a psychological need to perform it, it makes no sense for them not to do it. That doesn't mean that women should be barred from the workplace, but it might mean that women taking less involved and prestigious roles in the workplace so that they may have more time to raise their children or look after grandchildren or what have you

The child rearing role is valuable and we should support people who choose to make that their role in life, regardless of their gender.

Gender does have a genetic impact on the traits that assist with child rearing. Like physical traits such as height, there is a large amount of overlap and thus there are many women who are less suited to child-rearing than the average male.

I would guess that it is likely that in a world with full equality for both genders, that you would still find some gender disparity in some roles. (See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11220916)

However, if you think that the current gender disparity is not primarily the result of gender inequality and disparate expectations, you need to take look at the data and talk to some of the women who have left the field.

Thus this disparity is not a good thing for society and is something we should squawk about because we are missing out on optimally utilizing a large portion of our population and we are discouraging them from realizing their full potential

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#408

Post by stray »

cortesoft wrote: post #232
shostack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beat me to it. The episode is basically an interview with Claudia Goldin who is about as qualified a person as you could hope for to speak on this matter. [1] tl;dr women start out with equal pay, but trade pure monetary compensation for flexibility and/or fewer hours when they have kids because society still sucks at gender equality when it comes to enabling parents to equally contribute to certain aspects of parent…

As the father of a 10 week old baby girl, it isn't as simple as just society enabling parents to contribute equally. I am SO into being a dad. I want to do as much caregiving as possible. However, breastfeeding kinda throws a monkey wrench into the "split all the work equally" plan. For newborns, eating is what they do most of the time (when they aren't sleeping). If you breastfeed your child, which all pediatricians…

It seems that you and this "mom" person you mentioned, may have stumbled upon a truly workable form of equality.

What if men and women were to form small teams -- and divide labor between themselves however they saw fit. Such a team would be able to cover for each other -- in sickness and in health and all that jazz.

/s

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#409

Post by shkkmo »

stray wrote: post #405
shkkmo wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first guess would be that those studies are probably poorly executed. If they were indeed properly double-blinded and used good statistical analysis, I would find that to be and extremely interesting result that would warrant further investigation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29418230

Is that supposed to be a citation? Try as I might I can't seem to find any further details on this study, which seems like it was conducted as part of a TV program rather than as a research paper.

For more information about the discussion of research into gender-based neuroscience, here is an actual article: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#410

Post by eli »

gozur88 wrote: post #325
eli wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are BLS numbers on profession by gender and age: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat09.htm The legal profession has actually made significant progress in closing the gender gap. Tech has a problem with gender. I'm not sure it's helpful to point out that other fields also have similar or even worse problems.

>Tech has a problem with gender. Only if you make the assumption fewer women are in tech because of sexism.

That's certainly a factor.
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