71–80 of 228 posts
Similar to the diagnosis by Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eieVE-xFXuo Personally I think it is oversimplification - the thing is that - yes there is a root cause in biology - but than that root cause is multiplied by social circumstances. If there are few women in tech - then it is costly for employers to adjust to them (stuff like adding women sizes t-shirts) - plus it is also cheaper intellectual…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> yes there is a root cause in biology No. Proof: http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/percent-bachel... If there was a root cause in biology, in 1980 there wouldn't be the same % of women in CS as in business, or almost the same as social sciences. Or almost the same as there are women in math/stats today. Something happened in the early 80's. I have a hypothesis for that, tied to the rise of video-games, s…
Actually, you're wrong. This doesn't disprove anything, unfortunately, because there also can be a feedback effect from people preferring fields with more people of their own gender (that is for example women will prefer jobs with more women over jobs with less women, ceteris paribus). In the presence of such feedback effects, even if the ratio of men and women who intent to work in some field is the same, you will g…
No, that would mean that women in business, architecture, physical sciences, etc. would not have increased.
The fact that women in CS followed closely several other fields (business, architecture, etc.) means that % of women already on the field is not relevant.
The fact that other fields that use skills similar to CS (math, stats, physical sciences) have much higher women ratios, show that there is no inherent biological factor impacting it.
Similar to the diagnosis by Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eieVE-xFXuo Personally I think it is oversimplification - the thing is that - yes there is a root cause in biology - but than that root cause is multiplied by social circumstances. If there are few women in tech - then it is costly for employers to adjust to them (stuff like adding women sizes t-shirts) - plus it is also cheaper intellectual…
> yes there is a root cause in biology No. Proof: http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/percent-bachel... If there was a root cause in biology, in 1980 there wouldn't be the same % of women in CS as in business, or almost the same as social sciences. Or almost the same as there are women in math/stats today. Something happened in the early 80's. I have a hypothesis for that, tied to the rise of video-games, s…
> My impression is that there were lots of women in CS in 1980 for the same reason there were lots of Jews in banking in 1800: they were banned from doing anything else.
> Computer programming was originally considered sort of a natural outgrowth of being a secretary (remember, 77% of data entry specialists are still female today, probably because it’s also considered a natural outgrowth of being a secretary). Women had lots of opportunity in it, and a lot of women who couldn’t break into other professions naturally went into it.
> Then people let women become doctors and lawyers, so a bunch of the smart ones went off and did that instead.
> You can see the same thing going on with teachers. There’s been a huge decline in the percent of the most talented women who become teachers.
[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one said you have to be obsessive, but it helps.
No, it doesn't. It makes you one-dimensional and particularly poor at building products for others unlike yourself. The sooner the tech industry realizes that this sort of person is not an asset and that having too many of them around just drives others away, the better off it'll be.
As someone who does actually love all this stuff so much that work doesnt start and hobby doesnt really stop... We meet and work with people like you all the time. We like the diversity. There are many ways to contribute to the end result and any smart company hires both of us.
But your resentment is mean spirited. Get over yourself. We are not driving any one away. From operations to sales we are all needed to make the engine work. But if you come here arguing that those who love their job should be fired so there is place for you without you trying so hard, that just silly. Here is the thing: from all disciplines i know there are people who love and breathe their job. If thats not the case in engineering for you, then you likely want to find the field that does make you that happy.
That might just be a smarter plan than trying to convince yourself by convincing us that in a field dominated by people who love it, you can be competitive while considering it just a safe career path. You'll just end up miserable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> yes there is a root cause in biology No. Proof: http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/percent-bachel... If there was a root cause in biology, in 1980 there wouldn't be the same % of women in CS as in business, or almost the same as social sciences. Or almost the same as there are women in math/stats today. Something happened in the early 80's. I have a hypothesis for that, tied to the rise of video-games, s…
That's not proof. It's an observation that needs explaining. Scott Alexander's post[0], which was linked in TFA offers a plausible explanation. > My impression is that there were lots of women in CS in 1980 for the same reason there were lots of Jews in banking in 1800: they were banned from doing anything else. > Computer programming was originally considered sort of a natural outgrowth of being a secretary (remembe…
And then, suddenly, they stopped growing and started declining.
As for myself, her sentiment seems in line with the kids in HS who called my type the nerds/geeks/other term for loser. I also think that's where society needs to change. If society treated me more inclusively I might feel more inclined to be social. I was savagely bullied all through k-12. If I had not experienced that I would be much more comfortable expressing myself and being around people in general. I think 'techies' being more inclusive to other walks of life would happen if we, 'techies', weren't ostracized early in life.
(Having said that, I'm personally very open and 'liberal' in the more non-political sense. But I'm also making almost no efforts to socialize currently. I want to move far away from where I currently live.)
I wish she had elaborated on her valuation of personal hobbies in the same field as work. Instead I feel like she dressed up a personal anecdote around several paragraphs but failed to get to the meat of the issue.
The idea that you've got to be some sort of obsessive wretch with no life outside of tech in order to successfully fill a role at a tech company is nothing but a pernicious myth. So is the idea that you've got to be some ridiculous super-genius. All you have to do is be reasonably smart and capable of learning on the job. When interviewers at tech companies mistakenly believe that every successful candidate has to be…
HackerNews seems to largely agree with that idea:
I was in the throes of a brief, doomed romance. I had attended a concert that Saturday night. I answered the question with an account of both. The guys stared blankly. Then silence. Then one of them said: “I built a fiber-channel network in my basement,” and our co-workers fell all over themselves asking him to describe every step in loving detail. At that moment I realized that fundamentally, these are not my people…
I agree with you in part - I find the biological explanations very unsatisfying given the many peculiar things we are socialized to do (proms, engagement proposals, baby showers, amongst many others, likely do not find their origins in our genes). An analogy I thought of while reading this was that of a broken random number generator function. We're more likely to assess the software/environment in which the code is…
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/public-priva...
I wrestle a lot with such questions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> yes there is a root cause in biology No. Proof: http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/percent-bachel... If there was a root cause in biology, in 1980 there wouldn't be the same % of women in CS as in business, or almost the same as social sciences. Or almost the same as there are women in math/stats today. Something happened in the early 80's. I have a hypothesis for that, tied to the rise of video-games, s…
Actually, you're wrong. This doesn't disprove anything, unfortunately, because there also can be a feedback effect from people preferring fields with more people of their own gender (that is for example women will prefer jobs with more women over jobs with less women, ceteris paribus). In the presence of such feedback effects, even if the ratio of men and women who intent to work in some field is the same, you will g…
The memo was making the point that because men have more affinity to things than women, Google should not try for a 50/50 balance between men and women. The author here says that she enjoyed her work but left because the predominant male co-workers had affinity to things and couldn't relate with them. If anything the author makes a case for Google's current strategy of striving for 50/50 men women balance, since that…