Earlier quoted context omitted.
> #1 reason: "Don't like the actual work". Also, a significant number leave engineering for management. Huh? I don't understand your argument at all. Of course hostile culture isn't the #1 cause! Very rarely are very serious social problems -- even the most serious social problems -- the #1 cause of pain. Poverty and crime aren't the number one causes of death. Lack of jobs isn't the #1 cause of illness etc. What per…
> > And of course the Ceci/Williams study showing a 2:1 hiring advantage for women for tenure track positions in STEM fields. What does this have to do with anything? I don't think you understand what the issue is at all. His point is that there is no "hand on the other part of the scale holding down women" or whatever quasi-poetic phrase you use.
How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
241–250 of 258 posts
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> #1 reason: "Don't like the actual work". Also, a significant number leave engineering for management. Huh? I don't understand your argument at all. Of course hostile culture isn't the #1 cause! Very rarely are very serious social problems -- even the most serious social problems -- the #1 cause of pain. Poverty and crime aren't the number one causes of death. Lack of jobs isn't the #1 cause of illness etc. What per…
That sound we're hearing is the goal posts breaking the sound barrier. I'll explain this to you step-by-step. Your claim was that, well it's a little difficult because you dodge and weave all the time. Anyway, you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said. When that turned out to be wrong, you claimed that the science was wrong, again without any evidence. When it turned out the scienc…
> you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said.
No. I said that what Damore wrote is completely irrelevant, whether true or not, just as the question of whether there are other causes of cancer is irrelevant to the question of whether a chemical plant should be allowed to continue polluting the water. This makes his argument wrong.
> Now again, you never showed any actual evidence for that theory being either "better established" or having a "bigger effect".
No. I did show actual evidence. You refused to look.
> And it turns out the biggest issue was not sexism, contrary to what you claim
A. Never claimed that, B. that's not what that data shows in the slightest.
> Which, not entirely coincidentally was what Damore was claiming, though he made the much weaker claim that interest could be a contributing factor. Turns out he was right. Dead on right.
Not in the slightest. Again, his point was "please allow us to continue as before". That point is not remotely made by any of his irrelevant claims. The only reasonable arguments in favor of allowing the plant to continue behaving as usual are to show that 1. there's no pollution, or 2. pollution is harmless. He doesn't make such arguments.
For example, he says that we should stop assuming sexism is the cause of the gender gap. 1. There are good reasons to assume that, but regardless, 2. that assumption is completely unnecessary.
> they asked actual women instead of deciding on their behalf.
That's ironic, because the only thing that's been conclusively established beyond any doubt, as I've shown, is that society has been deciding on women's behalf for centuries (at least).
> Again, your claim is "sexism >>> interest".
Nope. My main point is: sexism is pervasive (and is bad although that's a value not a fact) => stop sexism. A more nuanced point, which I could discuss with someone who knows what sexism is, is that it's difficult to separate interest from sexism.
> Clearer now?
The only thing that's clear is that you have no idea what are the claims you supposedly oppose and haven't bothered reading what sexism is.
> where on earth did you get that from?
Uh, from Damore saying that diversity programs must be stopped/changed because he thinks a couple of papers show that there are other causes than sexism.
> However, it does show that sexism isn't the primary factor that explains why there are far more men in tech than women
NOOPE. If you bothered to read just a tiny bit about sexism, you'd see that the conclusion is quite the contrary. It's like you're saying, "a ha! it's not germs that cause disease, but contact with other people!"
Please, it's ridiculous to continue debating this if you have not the slightest idea what sexism is.
> And as to this whole "women in tech" being a coordinated effort to keep women out of positions of power
Sigh. Who said "coordinated effort?" Do germs have a coordinated effort? It's a dynamics! Please, just learn an itsy bitsy bit about this thing that you're talking about.
> The data show something else.
No, they don't. Of course, if you don't know what sexism is, you don't know what's not sexism.
> Simple math shows that gender disparities are the primary cause of skewed incidents of a sexist nature, not their result.
Please. This statement is total BS, beginning to end. We have no clear idea even what the effect size is or whether it exists at all, let alone to determine that it's an underlying cause. Even Steven Pinker doesn't belive that.
> Tech is a shitshow for everyone. If a woman were to recount the things that happened to me in my career, you would take it as the clearest indication of "sexism" possible.
Again, you don't know what sexism is, but you keep talking about it and getting it wrong every single time.
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Let me rephrase that. In non-BS terms, what do you want from the tech industry?
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me rephrase that. In non-BS terms, what do you want from the tech industry?
To fight sexism. The problem is this discussion is that you clearly don't have the first clue as to what sexism is, in spite of me having provided links for you to learn what it is that you're arguing about. But just to explain a bit: 1. sexism isn't misogyny; 2. it isn't a concerted conspiracy against women, either. It is the name given to the social dynamics by which discrimination (often unconscious and perhaps ev…
You're giving extremely vague and hand wavy responses like "remove the hand from the scale against women" And other flowery phrases that mean nothing.
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sound we're hearing is the goal posts breaking the sound barrier. I'll explain this to you step-by-step. Your claim was that, well it's a little difficult because you dodge and weave all the time. Anyway, you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said. When that turned out to be wrong, you claimed that the science was wrong, again without any evidence. When it turned out the scienc…
That sound we're hearing is your willful ignorance and lack of interest in the subject you so vehemently argue over breaking the sound barrier, and the meaningless buzzing of someone who has zero knowledge about a subject yet continues to debate it with furor. > you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said. No. I said that what Damore wrote is completely irrelevant, whether true or no…
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 arti…
> 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). Nor do I. I just gave two citations demonstrating that sexism has not been dismantled in medicine and law. You merely repeated your implication that no sexism exists today. You also failed to explain by what mechanism these fields changed from being "massively…
> I also very explicitly referred to "high-paying careers" in my original reply, which is the only sensible way to look at sexism
What??? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Here's what you're saying if we follow your logic: If male person A wants to pursue a high-paying job, and female person B wants to pursue a low-paying job, sexism is keeping person B out of a high-paying career. That's not how sexism works. You're just arguing in circles here without showing me how the hypothesis that maybe women don't want to work in tech at the same rate as men is incorrect.
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sound we're hearing is your willful ignorance and lack of interest in the subject you so vehemently argue over breaking the sound barrier, and the meaningless buzzing of someone who has zero knowledge about a subject yet continues to debate it with furor. > you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said. No. I said that what Damore wrote is completely irrelevant, whether true or no…
Please define "sexism" then.
Occasionally, this discriminatory treatment is due to misogyny (disdain or disrespect of women), but much more often it is unconscious. This is why the first defense against sexism is knowing what it is and learning to see it, and why I like comparing it to germs. They're there, but we need to look for them to see them.
[1]: Power is one of the most important concepts in the social studies. I've already provided a link to the definition(s), but here it is again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) No one should engage in a debate over social matters unless they at least know what power means (which is covered pretty well on Wikipedia). That's like debating physics without knowing what force, mass or energy are.
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
To fight sexism. The problem is this discussion is that you clearly don't have the first clue as to what sexism is, in spite of me having provided links for you to learn what it is that you're arguing about. But just to explain a bit: 1. sexism isn't misogyny; 2. it isn't a concerted conspiracy against women, either. It is the name given to the social dynamics by which discrimination (often unconscious and perhaps ev…
So what exactly does the tech industry have to do? You said you're only interested in tech because it is powerful. It seems to me that you feel that you think it is reasonable to demand positions in the tech industry independent of qualification because it will help rectify your imagined "power imbalance". You're giving extremely vague and hand wavy responses like "remove the hand from the scale against women" And ot…
That's a very difficult question about policy, and one that I do not have a strong opinion about (though happy to discuss). Experts believe that certain diversity programs are effective, and so I think we should defer to them to try them.
> It seems to me that you feel that you think it is reasonable to demand positions in the tech industry independent of qualification because it will help rectify your imagined "power imbalance".
The problem -- like that of affirmative action -- is that the state of affairs is one when women have already been discriminated against. For example, for a long time women were prevented from studying a lot of professions, and their lack of knowledge was then used against them. We are at a place where things are much more subtle. One thing is clear: if women are somehow deterred at any stage, then that deterrence must be removed. When it comes to affirmative action, the debate gets more heated, but it may help to realize that hiring underqualified people is already very common, so at the very least, underqualified women should not be hired at a lower rate than underqualified men. Now we get to more contentious grounds. I think it is fair to prefer a woman over a man, with otherwise equal qualifications.
> And other flowery phrases that mean nothing.
They don't mean nothing, but they do require a much more precise study of things.
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Except the links you posted don't dispute Damore's arguments at all. Damore's arguments are perfectly consistent with the recommendations in the survey, with the possible exception of stereotype threat, whose studies have come under fire recently. > We are talking about whet…
> Except the links you posted don't dispute Damore's arguments at all. Which argument? That there could possibly be innate psychological differences between the sexes etc. (which is not Damore's point, but a distraction), or that this has anything to do with the problem we're trying to solve with diversity programs? The consensus is absolutely that there is a sexism problem. Damore pays lip service to the "existence"…
Re: How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Re…
That's not the claim being disputed. Either you're trying to participate in too many threads and losing the context, or you have serious reading comprehension problems.
> It is. Like I said, it's on fucking Wikipedia!
Show it. You keep saying this, yet your comment history cites no specific link showing this consensus, and particularly for the topic we're actually discussing, not the topic you seem to think we're discussing.
> Do you have any idea how many women experience sexual harassment at work every year in the US alone?
Every single one. But that's a false equivalence to what we were talking about.
> Take a look what it took to get women the right to vote in Britain:
Now look at the effect these actions actually had in convincing people. Public opinion only turned in their favour when world war I started and they ceased all violent activities and showed how they could positively contribute to society by stepping into traditional male roles.
> 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
Yet another straw man. Saying it's taken too far today does not entail feminists didn't also take it too far in the past.
> That is a good question, but one that history can thankfully answer. Yes, it turns out that outrage can be extremely effective.
It also led to the election of Donald Trump. Yay for outrage!
Like our other thread, it's clear you have some particular axe to grind and instead of addressing my specific arguments, you're shouting down some imaginary opponent. This is an unfortunate tactic employed on both sides, and I frankly don't have the patience for it.