Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
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Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#2Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#3[deleted]
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#4Won't happen unless they actually invent a vaccine that gives autism and use it on girls.
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#5I have two concerns with the ideology espoused in this article; the first is that a majority female program is lauded as "diverse", whereas a majority male program, even by a similarly small margin, is considered problematic. I don't buy the idea that any given subset of students has to either exactly match or disfavor men compared to the general population.
My second concern is with the stubborn insistence that we must force the demographics of different institutions to adhere to some arbitrary constructed criteria. Whether we like it or not, there are social differences between men and women that cause them to have different interests. Here's a recent article that speaks to this point (although taking the opposite stance as me): http://qz.com/823162/a-new-study-shows-how-star-trek-jokes-a...
The article I linked basically advocates some sort of planned social manipulation to make CS culture more appealing to women. That doesn't sit right with me at all. No one suggests that we should go and macho-fy teaching or nursing or literature so we can get more men in those majors. I think it would be very destructive to do something like that.
The reality is that different fields have characteristics that tend to match (or not match) with the unique social characteristics of different groups. I think it's fine if you don't like those unique characteristics (maybe you think everyone should have the exact same culture), but don't try to force the world to adhere to your vision by lowering educational standards or trying to manipulate the academic culture of whatever group you're targeting.
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#6Won't happen unless they actually invent a vaccine that gives autism and use it on girls.
This is pretty far from the most relevant counterargument to that statement, but autism and Asperger's are routinely misdiagnosed / underdiagnosed in girls because the diagnostic criteria are based on boys' behavior, because society expects boys' behavior and girls' behavior to be different and picks up on non-conforming boys' behavior more easily, etc. See, for instance:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-diffe...
https://spectrumnews.org/opinion/male-slant-to-research-may-...
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#7I have two concerns with the ideology espoused in this article; the first is that a majority female program is lauded as "diverse", whereas a majority male program, even by a similarly small margin, is considered problematic. I don't buy the idea that any given subset of students has to either exactly match or disfavor men compared to the general population. My second concern is with the stubborn insistence that we m…
There's plenty of discussion of cultural barriers to males becoming nurses...
https://www.google.com/search?q=nursing+school+culture+males
I guess there is no one suggesting ways to "macho-fy" it, but more sensible discussions are occurring.
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#8I have two concerns with the ideology espoused in this article; the first is that a majority female program is lauded as "diverse", whereas a majority male program, even by a similarly small margin, is considered problematic. I don't buy the idea that any given subset of students has to either exactly match or disfavor men compared to the general population. My second concern is with the stubborn insistence that we m…
[deleted]
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#9I have two concerns with the ideology espoused in this article; the first is that a majority female program is lauded as "diverse", whereas a majority male program, even by a similarly small margin, is considered problematic. I don't buy the idea that any given subset of students has to either exactly match or disfavor men compared to the general population. My second concern is with the stubborn insistence that we m…
I'm having trouble reading that Quartz article as arguing that men and women have intrinsically different interests, and I think you acknowledge that by saying that there are social differences. It doesn't seem like they're arguing that there's anything in Star Trek posters that deters people with certain hormones, but that socially, Star Trek posters convey an association with a closed male culture.
Thing is, this is already social manipulation on arbitrarily-constructed criteria. It'd be one thing if we discovered that male brains were inherently better at tech thinking (it would be an extraordinary hypothesis that would need correspondingly extraordinary evidence, but it's certainly possible that evidence could be found). But we're arguing that these purely artificial constructs of geeky men bonding over Star Trek are worth upholding. And for what advantage? Keeping qualified people out of an industry that badly needs them?
It seems to me like it's entirely legitimate to plan social manipulation to disrupt existing social manipulation that gets in our way.
Re: Harvey Mudd College Attempting to Address Tech Diversity Issues
#10I have two concerns with the ideology espoused in this article; the first is that a majority female program is lauded as "diverse", whereas a majority male program, even by a similarly small margin, is considered problematic. I don't buy the idea that any given subset of students has to either exactly match or disfavor men compared to the general population. My second concern is with the stubborn insistence that we m…
Some people argue that more diverse teams will produce better results but I have yet to see evidence that this happens in Computer Science related tasks.
In addition I remember being taught that you ultimately want teams to "jel" much more than some marginal productivity gain you might get from diversity. Wouldn't homogeneous teams make "jelling" easier? Notice that I mean this in the limited scope of programming I know there is evidence to the contrary at the management level.