Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

quillette.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 536 posts

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#51

Post by akvadrako »

jabot wrote: post #14
akvadrako wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can hold beliefs because they have certain consequences. Nearly all beliefs are of this type. I believe the Earth orbits the Sun because it's helps me predict the seasons.

In a narrow sense you are probably right. In a more general sense, consider the "laws of physics". People believe in them not because of their consequences, but because they explain reality (and quite well). So people believe in gravity because it has worked for them in the past, and because it has been verified. Also... _not_ believing in gravity will not make much of a difference for your life (as long as you don't…

About religion: it may not be about societal consequences, but personal ones; acceptance of your peers, the afterlife, ...

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#53

Post by wantstosaysome »

jabot wrote: post #44
Scea91 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just note that believing something because it has nice consequences is just logically wrong. Formally: 1) A => B 2) I would really like B to be true, because it has some benefits. 3) Therefore A must be true. If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Also, even if A really turns out to be false, it doesn't mean that B can't be true…

First, please do not get too hung up about "all people are created equal". It's just an example in this context. > If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Yes, you can. It's called generalizing. Remember, we're not doing math here, this is ethics. Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone els…

>we're not doing math here, this is ethics.

What does that even mean? Ethics is moot, if the logical eventuality of the flawed reasoning is net harm.

>Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone else is a good thing. Now you generalize that into "everyone is created equal", and that turns into a justification for all these situations.

Please clarify here. Justification for all these situations? Or Justification for the belief?

If it is the latter, the belief cannot be justified if the does not reflect reality. All it help to create false expectations and what ever loss/harm it causes.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#54

Post by detaro »

tome wrote: post #52

Does HN have the equivalent of shadow banning for stories? This story is on the second page but has many more votes than front page stories that were posted at the same time.

Flagging affects ranking (quite strongly), which is what I would assume in this case, as do other things like vote-to-comment ratio.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#55

Post by ghaff »

Noos wrote: post #48

What's really annoying about this is that women are not underrepresented in STEM careers! The article mentions if anything, they are overrepresented in the life sciences, and are only underrepresented in math at the doctoral level. The issue is that we are suddenly defining STEM as computer science and engineering only, and that those are apparently the only worthwhile aspects of STEM. The sexism thing and message th…

>I think the problem with computer science in general is that it's one of the few careers you need to like at an early age and do a lot of self-directed study before you even enter college, or you are at a disadvantage compared to others.

I do strongly suspect that has a lot to do with the fall-off in women working in CS. (It's probably not limited to that though it probably also leads to some self-perpetuating feedback loops.) It's almost unique among careers in that regard with the arts (playing music, etc.) or sports being the only other major exceptions.

You don't just decide in high school you'd like to do the violin thing and apply to Juilliard. But it's considered perfectly normal to decide you really liked high school chemistry, even if that's the extent of your exposure to it, and consider majoring in it once you hit college.

On the other hand, I've taken a couple of programming MOOCs based on intro programming courses at a couple of elite schools. The idea that I could have made it through them as a freshman never having touched a text editor/IDE is farcical. Yet [EDITED for clarity: when I took an intro programming course as a mechanical engineer in college way back when there was no expectation that I had ever touched a computer]. (I had done a little BASIC programming in high school but it was very rudimentary.)

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#56

Post by gambiting »

jankotek wrote: post #40
gambiting wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Single mother is normal case. Look at stats and trends. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192... "The Majority of Children Live With Two Parents, Census Bureau Reports" Maybe I should have said "usual" not "normal" - being a single mother is a normal thing. But so is being a single dad. Claiming that women are somehow worse off because they spend more on childcare is completely bizarre. >>Goo…

I thing we can agree that raising kids in SF is very expensive, and that there are more single moms than single fathers. > women are paid less for the same work Gender pay gap is generally accepted fact. > more expenses because they are women, they have more expenses because of the choices they made) Not sure I understand. Family is not really a choice. And choice/not choice is irrelevant in argument. Goal is to get…

>>Gender pay gap is generally accepted fact.

Is it? I'm pretty sure it was debunked time after time after time, with studies basically finding that women work fewer hours(by choice) and even when presented with an opportunity to advance to a higher, more stressful position, they decline more often than men do. Women tend not to take the well paying, but risky jobs that men take, skewing the proportions further. On the other hand, men account for nearly all workplace deaths in the civilized world - but it looks like they are rewarded for taking those risks.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy...

>> Family is not really a choice.

Having a choice whether to have or not have children is a generally accepted fact, at least in 1st world countries.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#57

Post by JorgeGT »

imartin2k wrote: post #17

It’s important to investigate this topic from various perspectives, and the text contains a couple of important points (which of course are not new to anyone who’s been following this debate). However, right at the beginning, this is really a bad argument: “There is particular concern about the lack of women in prestigious STEM fields, such as Ph.D.-level faculty positions, but surprisingly there is no concern about…

> Thus gender imbalances [in lower-level technical jobs] don’t have the same supposed impact and perpetuating effect on structural imbalances as those in high-level fields .

Others have commented in this thread how gender-biased attitudes towards engineering fields are present even in young children. There's an obvious connection between this and the fact that when you're a child most of the adults you met in your everyday life practicing technical jobs (plumbers, cable technicians, car mechanics) are male. On the other hand, children see how their pre- and middle- school teachers are mostly female. Thus, children learn by observation that technical job => male.

Yes, neither car mechanics nor pre-school teachers have prestigious, 6-figure salary, PhD level positions, and yet they have a big impact in the perception of gender bias in adult labor when children are growing up and unconsciously cementing their views of the world.

I believe that a big step to close the gender gap in engineering would be young girls watching the super cool woman in the car shop expertly fixing daddy's car.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#58

Post by tome »

detaro wrote: post #54
tome wrote: post #52

Does HN have the equivalent of shadow banning for stories? This story is on the second page but has many more votes than front page stories that were posted at the same time.

Flagging affects ranking (quite strongly), which is what I would assume in this case, as do other things like vote-to-comment ratio.

Interesting. The ranking of this story has been bouncing around a lot! It's now halfway up the front page again.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#59

Post by benmmurphy »

shard972 wrote: post #27
jankotek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's ping tax? Google that... > How is daycare more expensive for women? Surely, a man raising a child on their own will pay exactly the same amount Most primary care givers are women. Women are hurt by that more. > In a normal case Single mother is normal case. Look at stats and trends.

I hate to be rude but I googled for a ping tax and maybe it's because I live in Australia, but all I can find is the ato answering questions about ping-pong tables and otherwise random economics subjects from china that use the word ping (eg: "Ping insurance", Gui Ping Wu). I can't find anything specific to women.

I'm guessing they meant pink tax. They might not be a native English speaker so didn't pick up on the mistake.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#60

Post by trextrex »

On one hand, the author takes a lot of effort (with a lot of references) to explain that stereotype threat, implicit bias, etc. may only be a small contributor to the unequal representation of women in STEM.

But, on the other hand, his counterargument for the existence of other potential factors seems to me to be quite weak and lacking the same rigor. The existence of "basic sex differences" is not discussed in detail, with only a couple of references. And a lot of his counterargument seems to be based on a few example countries with high gender equality rankings and low STEM participation.

Is there any validation that these gender equality rankings are a useful indicator of gender equality? What about factors that surface only after school/college in these countries? What about network effects in various fields?

Not that I'm saying such factors do exist. But the author makes a somewhat strong (IMO) argument against stereotype threat, implicit bias etc. and a very weak argument for the existence of other factors.

Post reply on HN