How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution • Hacker News Board

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#181

Post by pron » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 1:10 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #179

pron wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how the few of men whose livelihood may have been affected by unfair allegations is compared to the millions of women who are harassed while earning their livelihood and/or pushed away from earning one, every year, for centuries. Frankly, I'm amazed at how level headed the "outrage machine" is given at how much bigger the real outrage should have been. Also, those who want or are willing to be educate…

Your analogy to evolution is a textbook false equivalency. That you think the evidence for your narrative is as strong as the evidence for evolution is frankly absurd. And your patent acceptance that outrage is a legitimate response to these scenarios highlights exactly the problem with how this has been playing out. Suddenly your comparison to Dawkins falls apart quite spectacularly.

> That you think the evidence for your narrative is as strong as the evidence for evolution is frankly absurd.

It really isn't, but seeing how adamant you are not to study the topic, I have no idea how you'd know whether it's absurd or not. But you are forced to declare the subject absurd, as that is the only thing that can justify, in your mind, not even bothering to examine it with any care (as, I assume, you consider yourself otherwise curious), which is what you want; namely, you don't want to see the fossils, and I really can't make you.

> Suddenly your comparison to Dawkins falls apart quite spectacularly.

Oh! You got me there! But one should bear in mind that creationism isn't what condemned millions to dependence and humiliation. A wise man once said that it's easy to remain cool-headed about other people's problems.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#182

Post by naasking » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 1:28 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #178

naasking wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number of citations on Google scholar says nothing about the quality of that scholarship, and so says nothing about how many social scientists accept any given position. And your study of history is hardly relevant to the status of these topics now, at best, you might be able to claim that you knew what the prevailing opinion was at some point. So basically you have nothing, which is what I figured.

Dude, do you really think that I thought there was any chance you would have a different conclusion out of this discussion? See, you're already dismissing studies that you haven't even bothered to look at, and still haven't even read the most basic Wikipedia pages on the topic. Actually, "I" have mountains of incontrovertible evidence, which, like Dawkins's fossils, are available for all to see. The only reason you c…

So let's summarize the facts:

1. neither of us are scholars in these fields,

2. without detailed scholarly knowledge, it's too easy to be mislead by flawed studies, or to improperly generalize the results

3. as a proxy for scholarly knowledge, most people operate on the evidence of a consensus among scholars for any given position; such a consensus is easily produced for any topic for which such a consensus exists

4. you've claimed such a broad consensus on these topics

5. I've asked for evidence of this consensus

6. you respond that I should read thousands of papers on the topic, effectively becoming a scholar in the field, thus defeating the entire use of consensus as proxy

7. The replies by non-experts and experts, like Sadedin, that I've read, literally attack a straw man of Damore's arguments, or cite no evidence of their own, instead hand waving away their existence (like you).

8. The replies from experts that agree with Damore's empirical claims reinforce that narrative quite well.

What exactly am I supposed to find convincing? I think you should take a step back and review how you and others are approaching this topic, because you're frankly not doing yourself any favours.

You've now written 15 or more replies to a number people who have asked for evidence similar to my request. You could have saved yourself a lot of time and aggravation by either producing verifiable evidence of this consensus, or by acknowledging that such a consensus has no easily verifiable evidence, and so skepticism is perfectly warranted.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#183

Post by naasking » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #181

naasking wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy to evolution is a textbook false equivalency. That you think the evidence for your narrative is as strong as the evidence for evolution is frankly absurd. And your patent acceptance that outrage is a legitimate response to these scenarios highlights exactly the problem with how this has been playing out. Suddenly your comparison to Dawkins falls apart quite spectacularly.

> That you think the evidence for your narrative is as strong as the evidence for evolution is frankly absurd. It really isn't, but seeing how adamant you are not to study the topic, I have no idea how you'd know whether it's absurd or not. But you are forced to declare the subject absurd, as that is the only thing that can justify, in your mind, not even bothering to examine it with any care (as, I assume, you consi…

A 1987 study found 700 out of 480,000 Earth and life scientists don't believe in evolution. Are you suggesting these gender topics have a comparable consensus ratio? If so, evidence of this consensus should be trivial for you to produce.

So go ahead, I firmly believe attacking the strongest opposing argument, and I'm only interested in facts. Pick what you believe is Damore's weakest evidence, just one point, and show me the evidence of consensus contrary to Damore's position with a ratio on the same order as above. Then I will happily acknowledge that your analogy to evolution is 100% faithful.

> But one should bear in mind that creationism isn't what condemned millions to dependence and humiliation

A humiliation and dependence that none of the outraged people actually lived through. It's amazing that women could put up with the insane discrimination and sexism to achieve gender parity in so many other male dominated fields, like law and medicine, all without needing the outrage machine, but they are somehow powerless against a bunch of nerds who, by and large, just want to play with cool tech.

Frankly, it makes one question whether outrage is really a useful response at all.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#184

Post by Boothroid » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #67

cmiles74 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand where you are going with this... Is your argument that since society seems biased to pay men more money, we should blindly do so? Does that logic apply to race as well as gender? IMHO, Damore was playing to the misplaced belief held by some men that they are innately better then everyone else and that societal biases have played no role in their successes.

Who said anything about paying men more? The claim in the memo is that men are pushed towards jobs that are high paying. If a man tries to go to low paying jobs they are generally punished by society, often by being called things like lazy, weak, unfocused, and so on. Those that do seek and get high income get rewarded with high social status and strong correlation with dating success. It has nothing to do with getti…

This is the hilarious irony to the whole argument - women prefer their men to be higher status than themselves, yet by increasing the competition in the jobs market women are actually harming their chances of romantic satisfaction.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#185

Post by pron » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #183

pron wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That you think the evidence for your narrative is as strong as the evidence for evolution is frankly absurd. It really isn't, but seeing how adamant you are not to study the topic, I have no idea how you'd know whether it's absurd or not. But you are forced to declare the subject absurd, as that is the only thing that can justify, in your mind, not even bothering to examine it with any care (as, I assume, you consi…

A 1987 study found 700 out of 480,000 Earth and life scientists don't believe in evolution. Are you suggesting these gender topics have a comparable consensus ratio? If so, evidence of this consensus should be trivial for you to produce. So go ahead, I firmly believe attacking the strongest opposing argument, and I'm only interested in facts. Pick what you believe is Damore's weakest evidence, just one point, and sho…

> Are you suggesting these gender topics have a comparable consensus ratio?

Uh, yeah. A comparable ratio of social scholars are convinced that sexism is a major cause of the power disparity between the sexes.

> If so, evidence of this consensus should be trivial for you to produce.

It is. Like I said, it's on fucking Wikipedia!

> A humiliation and dependence that none of the outraged people actually lived through.

Really? You must lead a charmed life. Do you have any idea how many women experience sexual harassment at work every year in the US alone?

> It's amazing that women could put up with the insane discrimination and sexism to achieve gender parity in so many other male dominated fields, like law and medicine, all without needing the outrage machine, but they are somehow powerless against a bunch of nerds who, by and large, just want to play with cool tech.

Ha! Are you aware of the "outrage machine" (or "political action", in the professional academic jargon) that was required to get us to the point where women are even allowed to practice medicine or at all (or to vote)? That achievement wasn't gained by "putting up" with anything. You think "this is outrage?! Take a look what it took to get women the right to vote in Britain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette#Early_20th_century...

I always find it funny (and indicative of a complete ignorance of the subject) when people think that feminists today have taken it too far (of course, conservatives often acknowledge the justice of past progress yet claim that this time it's too much).

The fight with nerds isn't the longest or hardest -- far from it; it's just the most recent.

> Frankly, it makes one question whether outrage is really a useful response at all.

That is a good question, but one that history can thankfully answer. Yes, it turns out that outrage can be extremely effective. Of course, it's hard not to be outraged in the face of injustice (just look at how outraged some people were after Damore's firing, even though this is a truly rare occurrence, and he did cause a scene that required the CEO of Google to cut short his family vacation).

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#186

Post by pron » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #182

pron wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, do you really think that I thought there was any chance you would have a different conclusion out of this discussion? See, you're already dismissing studies that you haven't even bothered to look at, and still haven't even read the most basic Wikipedia pages on the topic. Actually, "I" have mountains of incontrovertible evidence, which, like Dawkins's fossils, are available for all to see. The only reason you c…

So let's summarize the facts: 1. neither of us are scholars in these fields, 2. without detailed scholarly knowledge, it's too easy to be mislead by flawed studies, or to improperly generalize the results 3. as a proxy for scholarly knowledge, most people operate on the evidence of a consensus among scholars for any given position; such a consensus is easily produced for any topic for which such a consensus exists 4.…

1. True, but I did study it in grad school for a few years. That was over a decade ago, but I remember the basics.

6. Not at all. I said you should start from one of the handful of links I posted, all to Wikipedia pages and to the top hit on Google Scholar. You can equally start from any of the top hits on Google, as at this point, anything would be better than nothing. You can read the whole thing in a couple of hours. And don’t worry, that won’t be enough to turn you into a scholar by any means.

8. I am not sure what narrative you're referring to. Reminder: we are not talking about whether or not there are innate biological differences that can be partial explanations to the lower interest of women in tech. We are talking about whether or not that has any bearing on the subject of sexism or relevant policy actions. Like in my analogy of the polluting chemical plant, the subject under discussion isn't whether cancer can be caused by factors other than exposure to chemical waste, but whether that possibility should be used as an excuse for the plant to continue polluting.

> What exactly am I supposed to find convincing?

Either you're being too sophisticated for me, or that you're naive in an almost cute way. Obviously, I am not trying to convince you of anything. That undertaking would be completely impossible until you yourself show some interest in the subject. Don't get me wrong: I would be happy to have an interesting discussion, or even a debate, with someone who's at all interested in this, but you can't have a meaningful discussion with someone on a subject they know virtually nothing about and are not interested in studying even superficially. My only intent is to convince other curious people who may be following this discussion to read a couple of Wikipedia pages and be exposed to a fascinating subject.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#187

Post by mpweiher » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #166

mpweiher wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your take-away was obviously to copy the tactics he described in the book: ignore the actual science and the actual arguments put forward, because you know those show you to be clearly in the wrong. Instead, weave around the facts, do advocacy and sell it as science, vilify your opponents etc.

Quite the opposite, in fact. And I don't know what you base your opinions on, because clearly, you know so little about the subject, having read no more than a couple of popular, very one-sided books. I find it mind-boggling how someone can read just one side of a debate and believe that they "debunked" the other side. But I'm guessing you probably also read Joy Christian's book and believe that that Bell's theorem h…

It's interesting how much you "know" without, you know, actually knowing anything.

Anyway, thanks for writing that up in detail, I will just leave it at that, because you've done a better job at discrediting yourself than anyone else could ever possibly do.

This is how free speech works: just let the other side talk.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#188

Post by rhapsodic » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #120

rhapsodic wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, nerds can do a perfectly effective job pushing women out of the profession without being aggressive or having social power. We do a lot to gender the profession in ways that has little to do with the work. Think about all the references to hiring "cowboy coders" and "code ninjas." We emphasize hiring the lone gunman coder who learned to code in their basements, while the job actually is highly collaborative…

So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS, despite the fact that those other fields are often more intellectually rigorous and challenging and despite the fact that most of those fields are dominated by computers and software --- in fact, many of them are even more challenging from a CS perspective than computer science itself as it is practiced in the industry, which is mostl…

> So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS...

That statement is so broad as to render it utterly meaningless. I don't doubt it applies to medicine, for example. But does it apply to automotive or mining engineering?

And even if it did apply to every non-CS STEM field, that still would not preclude the possibility that women, as a group, are simply not as interested in CS to the same extent men are.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#189

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #171

tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS, despite the fact that those other fields are often more intellectually rigorous and challenging and despite the fact that most of those fields are dominated by computers and software --- in fact, many of them are even more challenging from a CS perspective than computer science itself as it is practiced in the industry, which is mostl…

What other STEM fields are you referring to? Using CS as a tool to solve other problems is a different proposition than the study of CS itself. I don't see why they'd have to be connected in people's minds in the way you're suggesting. For instance, undergrad math enrollment is almost at gender parity, but postgraduate math study has similar gender ratios to CS. This is because you need an undergraduate degree for te…

Wrong on both counts. Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs (and way higher than CS undergrad degrees) --- this despite mathematics being among the small number of heavily gender-segregated STEM fields.

Further: almost nobody practicing computer science in the industry has a PhD. There are, believe it or not, places where having a doctorate is frowned on. For the degree that actually matters --- the bachelors --- math has as you say something approaching parity.

Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#190

Post by abalone » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #137

abalone wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your thought experiment doesn't go far enough. The issue is not merely that men entered the previously female-dominated programming profession, it is that they now dominate it overwhelmingly. Consider that if as you believe men are more motivated to seek higher-paying positions, that would actually incentivize them to throw up obstacles to female competition. If the teaching profession suddenly shifted to mostly-male…

I feel like we're talking about different things here. I'm saying that it's entirely plausible for one gender to come to dominate a profession simply because that profession aligns with their interests moreso than do the alternative professions available. More interest from one gender means more individuals of that gender, in absolute numbers, seeking to make themselves qualified candidates for the profession. More q…

Sexism is far from unique to the tech industry. See for example [1][2].

You note that "medicine and law were massively male-dominated for a very long time," yet confusingly you wonder whether "the anti-women practices that forced women out of tech were simply never applied to these other professions" (emphasis mine). Another possibility comes to mind: That anti-women practices were in fact applied to these professions, and some modicum of progress has been made in dismantling them, with varying degrees of success.

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/26/pf/gender-pay-gap-doctors/

[2] https://www.lawcareers.net/Information/Features/06062017-Fem...

"Although junior lawyers are split roughly equally between male and female, the senior positions at law firms, barristers’ chambers and in the judiciary are still overwhelmingly dominated by one demographic – white, upper-class men"