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Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

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Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#181

Post by nostrebored »

NTDF9 wrote: post #175
nostrebored wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"There are capable women who climb ladders successfully. The other women who couldn't, simply couldn't, just like many men who couldn't." There are fewer women, proportionally, who "climb ladders" successfully. This implies that there are fewer capable women than men in the world. >"Who said that man doesn't want to take a paternity leave? Every single recent father I know wants to take time off to bond with the kid…

>> There are fewer women, proportionally, who "climb ladders" successfully. This implies that there are fewer capable women than men in the world. Or, they make different life choices. >> The mother being present is not required for a child to be exclusively breastfed anymore. Pumping is quite effective. The only argument for only the woman to be taking the time off and making these career compromises is one that vie…

>>Don't be a good parent.

Nice to see where this is going.

>>Get this law to treat women the same as men.

Wrt to parental leave, that's what I've been advocating for throughout this thread. I think that the social and legal status quo sets up women as the caregiver defaults, which is harmful to women.

>>Women can play point guards when they start having families with deadbeats.

Or, men could leave their jobs and let women return to work at a more reasonable rate. You're again assuming that the male has to be the provider. Why can't a man sacrifice his current career path while his partner continues hers?

>>You can have men sitting at home taking care of the kid, but I don't see many women married to men like that. Care to set an example?

I think you've missed the point. This is exactly what I did. Both my partner and I have CS degrees from a top 10 university, and we decided that her career looked more promising.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#182

Post by zepto »

andrepd wrote: post #171
deciplex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It brings a little value, in the form of a single data point. Not "none" otherwise no one could talk about their experiences ever, without being accused of wasting everyone's time. Also, there need not be more than 50% of schools enforcing this policy, for it to discourage men from entering the profession. Even 10% would be a lot.

My point is that your single anecdote (or "data point" or whatever you want to call it) isn't indicative of the statu quo. Does it mean there are places where men are discriminated against? Yes. Does it mean the statu quo is discrimination against men? No.

Actually that single data point does a lot. It shows an example of something important. In the absence of more data points, it is not reasonable to assume this is an isolated case. Unless you have statistics or evidence to support your position that discrimination against men is negligible, we have data to support that there is discrimination, and no data to support the countervailing position - only your assertion.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#183

Post by brighteyes »

wpietri wrote: post #122
H0n3sty wrote: post #117

What would people think if the genders were reversed and this institution was discriminating against women and only helping men? Women have a far larger presence in other fields like biology and education, but you don't see new organizations popping up every other month to change that in favor of men. Discrimination like this should be illegal.

The reason women dominate in certain fields is that those fields were generally seen as less important, so women were pushed into them. E.g., doctors were men, women were nurses, and there was an enormous pay and prestige difference between the two. (Hint: it did not favor the nurses.) If you're interested in learning more, researching "pink ghetto" will get you started.

That is a theory that can explain some fields. However, so many exceptions exist that it can't be the whole story. For example, women dominate

* Clinical psychology

* Veterinary medicine

* Biology

All of which are important, fulfilling, well-paying fields. In all of them it's hard to say women were "pushed" there, rather women were very interested in them, and arrived in larger numbers than men.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#184

Post by nostrebored »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #176
nostrebored wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know that there are sex specific physical characteristics that differ between men and women. Nobody is arguing that's not true. Extending these to mental differences however is a stretch and not easily observed. The people with the pet hypothesis here are those who assume without causal evidence that there is a difference in cognition between men and women. Neuroscience is converging on the fact that sex specific…

> We know that there are sex specific physical characteristics that differ between men and women. Nobody is arguing that's not true. Extending these to mental differences however is a stretch and not easily observed. Yes, it is easily observed and has been extensively studied. Wikipedia has several articles about "Sex differences in ..." on different topics. For example, see "Sex differences in intelligence" [1] or "…

The mobile/face study has not been reproduced. Researchers who tried again, making the study gender-blind (i.e. dressing the babies in gender neutral outfits and not looking at the names) found that there was no significant differences. [4]

[3] is thoroughly conditioned into women [5]. Not only do people say that males are more visually intelligent, boys take part in more activities that develop spatial reasoning and coordination, namely sports and video games. This difference starts at a young age, with boys receiving more functional toys that develop logic and hand eye coordination, while girls receive more dolls, dollhouses, stoves, strollers, etc.

[4] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.00000110...

[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876159

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#185

Post by zurn »

larrik wrote: post #7

Women who are halfway into their careers in tech are leaving at a rate of 56%, which is more than double the quit rate of men. One reason for the high quit rate may be that women have a much lower chance of being promoted, even when they have the same amount of experience and tenure as their male peers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. So around the time a lot of people have kids? They probably…

Very US-centric view. In many places daycare is heavily subsidized and it makes financial sense to stay at work with 2-3 kids.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#186

Post by douche »

nostrebored wrote: post #184
Pyxl101 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know that there are sex specific physical characteristics that differ between men and women. Nobody is arguing that's not true. Extending these to mental differences however is a stretch and not easily observed. Yes, it is easily observed and has been extensively studied. Wikipedia has several articles about "Sex differences in ..." on different topics. For example, see "Sex differences in intelligence" [1] or "…

The mobile/face study has not been reproduced. Researchers who tried again, making the study gender-blind (i.e. dressing the babies in gender neutral outfits and not looking at the names) found that there was no significant differences. [4] [3] is thoroughly conditioned into women [5]. Not only do people say that males are more visually intelligent, boys take part in more activities that develop spatial reasoning and…

Spatial reasoning does seem to have strong male/female correlation. Give a hundred men and a hundred woman a map and an address to reach, and guess which cohort gets there more easily? Or give the same groups a Lego set and the instruction booklet (especially the tediously piece-by-piece modern ones), and see which population completes the set more quickly and more accurately.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#187

Post by exstudent2 »

imron wrote: post #167
exstudent2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's boring and very, very hard work. Which is why I believe that we should support stay at home moms (and dads) by elevating the position in society and recognizing the hard and rewarding work it is. Going back to a career and paying someone to take care of your child is quite frankly the easy way out. Women leaving the workplace to raise kids should be seen as a victory, not a "problem" that needs to be fixe…

> I know it's boring and very, very hard work So you're now agreeing with 'unfulfilling manual labor'?

hard != unfulfilling. The result is very fulfilling. It's really telling that raising a child being fulfilling is even up for debate.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#188

Post by exstudent2 »

tptacek wrote: post #147
exstudent2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's boring and very, very hard work. Which is why I believe that we should support stay at home moms (and dads) by elevating the position in society and recognizing the hard and rewarding work it is. Going back to a career and paying someone to take care of your child is quite frankly the easy way out. Women leaving the workplace to raise kids should be seen as a victory, not a "problem" that needs to be fixe…

You didn't answer his question. Can you?

It doesn't matter what my background is. My argument stands on its own.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#189

Post by H0n3sty »

deciplex wrote: post #164
imaginenore wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reversing the genders is not totally changing the context. It just shows that it is discrimination based on gender.

Unfortunately fighting discrimination purely by working to eliminate instances of it and revert to a gender-neutral (or race-neutral, or sexual orientation-neutral, etc) method of operation does not work. You must counter discrimination by elevating the oppressed group i.e. giving them privileges the already-privileged group does not possess. This is the basis of affirmative action, for example. It works because we c…

What if the "privilege" you think you see is actually a difference in average ability or preferences between groups of people that are in fact different from each other?

Affirmative action does not help the groups it is directed towards, it simply handicaps them further by preventing them from being properly matched to their level or ability.

Clarence Thomas recently wrote about this in detail... Slaveholders argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life. A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students. Although cloaked in good intentions, the University’s racial tinkering harms the very people it claims to be helping

If you'd like to learn about the unfortunate real outcomes of affirmative action then I strongly recommend researching Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#190

Post by Pyxl101 »

nostrebored wrote: post #184
Pyxl101 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know that there are sex specific physical characteristics that differ between men and women. Nobody is arguing that's not true. Extending these to mental differences however is a stretch and not easily observed. Yes, it is easily observed and has been extensively studied. Wikipedia has several articles about "Sex differences in ..." on different topics. For example, see "Sex differences in intelligence" [1] or "…

The mobile/face study has not been reproduced. Researchers who tried again, making the study gender-blind (i.e. dressing the babies in gender neutral outfits and not looking at the names) found that there was no significant differences. [4] [3] is thoroughly conditioned into women [5]. Not only do people say that males are more visually intelligent, boys take part in more activities that develop spatial reasoning and…

The abstract of link [4] says the following:

> Gender differences were found [] due to an increase in girls' gaze behavior. Girls also made more eye contact in female–female dyads and in the second interaction over the first. Boys' behavior remained unchanged over time. The data provide evidence for gender differences in mutual gaze in a younger sample and wider context than previously demonstrated.

This seems to reinforce the claim that there are gender differences, doesn't it? (I don't have access to the full paper and can't see the result you're referring to)

> This difference starts at a young age, with boys receiving more functional toys that develop logic and hand eye coordination, while girls receive more dolls, dollhouses, stoves, strollers, etc.

Did you know that a monkey research study examined toy and play preferences of male and female monkeys? Like humans, male adolescent monkeys prefer to play with wheeled vehicles, while the females prefer dolls. "Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children" [7]:

> Sex differences in juvenile activities, such as rough and tumble play, peer preferences, and infant interest, share similarities in humans and monkeys. Thus if activity preferences shape toy preferences, male and female monkeys may show toy preferences similar to those seen in boys and girls. We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females.

[4] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.00000110...

[7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

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