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How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

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Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#211

Post by tptacek »

rhapsodic wrote: post #210
tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields".

> I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields". Even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.

Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#212

Post by rhapsodic »

tptacek wrote: post #211
rhapsodic wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you missed some subtext. That list of fields characterizes pretty much the whole of "STEM". It's not a "handful of other fields". Even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.

Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.

> Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.

Well, I think its noteworthy that you distinguished statistics from mathematics, but apparently felt automotive engineering (which I specifically asked about) to fall under ME, and you didn't comment on mining engineering, which does not fall under EE/ME.

But for some reason, you seem to think it's meaningful, so I'll acknowledge that for the purposes of this discussion, you have indeed effectively provided that accounting.

And I stand by my earlier response, to wit, that even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#213

Post by tptacek »

rhapsodic wrote: post #212
tptacek wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.

> Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have. Well, I think its noteworthy that you distinguished statistics from mathematics, but apparently felt automotive engineering (which I specifically asked about) to fall under ME, and you didn't comment on mining engineering, which does not fall under EE/ME. But for some reason, you seem to think…

Thank you. Now, to avoid what would otherwise be a special-pleading argument on behalf of CS, you'd have to explain what innate preference would lead women to avoid CS despite:

* The fact that the other STEM fields are usually more intellectually rigorous than CS.

* The fact that some of those STEM fields are in fact the intellectual foundation for CS (Daniel Bernstein has an old quote about how mathematics is fundamentally the "easiest" of the STEM fields, and has as a result advanced much further into the frontiers of human knowledge than the other field, which creates the impression that it is more forbidding than it actually is).

* The fact that almost all of these fields are dominated by computers; in fact, I know professors in bio fields who do more hardcore programming than the typical CS grad does (to wit: they're sometimes forced to write things in C, even in 2017).

* The fact that many of the STEM fields that feature significant female participation are more "things"-oriented than CS, which, as it is practiced in the industry, is largely abstractions wrapped around human social interactions.

* The fact that the rest of STEM, in which women excel, feature large amounts of long-term solo investigative work, while CS as practiced in the industry is universally a team pursuit which has been recognized at least since Fred Brooks as being overwhelmingly about communications and coordination skills.

If you'd like to broaden the analysis outside of STEM --- for instance, to observe how much other professions impinge on personal lives, make demands of home life, have poorer work-life balance, have utterly inflexible hours and workplace location requirements, and require short-notice travel, and still have nearly 50/50 participation of men and women, we can do that too.

It seems plainly obvious to me that there's not much of an argument for an innate female aversion to computer science that wouldn't contradict these observations. When you have to gerrymander an argument around inconvenient facts like that, we call the result "special pleading". Can you make a clear argument that won't be that thing?

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#214

Post by ubernostrum »

deepnotderp wrote: post #195
ubernostrum wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. So what do you believe is the logical course of action to take based on this? Since he mentioned diversity programs, presumably he thinks there is some logical link between his argument and some proposed course of action, though of course for any such proposed course someone will pop up and say that he didn't advocate that and obviously anyone claiming he did must never have read what he wrote. Do you believe tha…

Stop illegally preferring less qualified women over more qualified men to meet quotas. (Before i get straw manned, I'm NOT saying that all women at Google are less qualified, just that it does happen, and Google even apparently makes its diversity meetings secret)

The specific hiring approach Damore objected to was "reducing the false negative rate" for women.

A false negative in hiring occurs when a qualified candidate is rejected (as opposed to a false positive, where an unqualified candidate is hired). So Damore's objection was not to "preferring less qualified women", it was to an attempt to raise the proportion of qualified women being hired.

So I'm curious why you chose to jump to "preferring less qualified women".

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#215

Post by pron »

deepnotderp wrote: post #208
pron wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Re…

Your claim of rampant sexual harassment causing women to leave the tech industry does not seem to hold merit. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-... https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/NSF_Stemming%20the%20Tid...

That's not at all what I claimed. There is rampant sexual harassment, not just in tech but in many fields, but we should have been horrified indeed to learn that sexual harassment is so pervasive as to drive a large percentage of women out. What we see is that culture drives away a significant portion of women.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#216

Post by mdorazio »

abalone wrote: post #190
mdorazio wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 profession…

You're kind of stacking turtles here to arrive at a conclusion. Let's assume that you're correct in that anti-women practices were in place in medicine and law, but were subsequently dismantled (which I don't agree with). Why weren't they dismantled in tech over the same period of time? You're basically arguing that sexism was everywhere, but somehow it's only still keeping women out of tech today.

Also, on your article references, you've shifted the discussion. We're talking about gender representation in professions, not income parity or senior-level representation, which have nuanced reasons for favoring one set of people over another (including bias). You need to answer the question of why women aren't even entering CS degree programs in the first place, while they enter med school and law school at close to parity with men.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#217

Post by ubernostrum »

mpweiher wrote: post #194
ubernostrum wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I've read the whole thing several times. But suppose I were coming to it fresh, with no background whatsoever, and simply reading it through, and let's try to Socratically figure out what's going on in it. Since you're apparently very concerned with people misinterpreting it, perhaps you'd like to help. So, first off: would you agree that the memo was intended by Damore to communicate some type of argument, reaso…

Again, dodging and weaving. And not doing what you demand of others. All the old tricks.

Oh, I intend to advance an interpretation based on the actual words that Damore actually wrote and actually published. But since you're going to fight every step of the way to kick and scream and move goalposts and argue that "he didn't actually say that!" in response to basically anything, I have to start from first principles on you.

So: would you agree that the memo was intended by Damore to communicate some type of argument, reasoning from evidence, in support of some particular conclusion, and that he felt this was not merely idle speculation but something genuinely important in need of attention from many people?

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#218

Post by pron »

deepnotderp wrote: post #199
pron wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are certainly not correct, although right now I would be happy to balance the very unequal distribution of knowledge you and I have on this subject (although I am far from being an expert myself), because I feel like Richard Dawkins debating evolution with some Christian from Kansas who insists there is no evidence for evolution because that's what they read on a Christian website that scientifically debunks…

Then in concrete terms, what do you want?

We want the marginalization of women from power, that has been going for centuries, to end. In other words, we want society to lift its hand from the scale against women.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#219

Post by pron »

deepnotderp wrote: post #204
DanBC wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a sexist, so why do you care if people say you are?

Of course I'm a sexist. That's what everyone who doesn't agree with you is. Just like Pinker and everyone else...

Huh? Everyone is sexist. That's the whole idea of sexism. Just like everyone is covered in germs and potentially spreads disease. Just like proactive action is required in order not to spread disease, proactive action is required in order not to spread sexism. When we point out people (or, more commonly, actions or policies) as "sexist", we mean that they either choose not to take that proactive action, or worse, choose to take action to increase sexism. So yeah, of course you're a sexist, and so am I.

Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

#220

Post by pron »

deepnotderp wrote: post #198
pron wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same as that of most researchers: that his conclusions are scientifically problematic, but regardless of their merit, they are ultimately irrelevant to the issue of sexism, which is far better established, seems to have a much bigger effect, and can and should be rectified regardless of other possible contributing factors. That there are other causes for cancer is irrelevant to the issue of whether the chemical p…

>The same as that of most researchers: that his conclusions are scientifically problematic So scientific conclusions i don't like are now "problematic"

Dude, read the scientific debate!
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