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Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#261

Post by edna314 »

moduspol wrote: post #241
edna314 wrote: post #95

I don't get it. Why is equality of outcome not a desirable goal, especially in science and technology? These authors only try to disprove theories which potentially explain the inequality and then conclude that there is no injustice. This is logically flawed in my opinion. In order to justify the inequality they would need to come up with a plausible theory why the inequality is inevitable and then support it with so…

Would equality of outcome in the NBA be a desirable goal? Why do we see so few East Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish NBA players? What policy would you create to correct this "injustice?"

> Would equality of outcome in the NBA be a desirable goal?

If it wouldn't on average it's reasonable to assume that there is a bias of some sort. You can decide if this bias desirable or not.

> Why do we see so few East Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish NBA players? What policy would you create to correct this "injustice?"

Because they don't seem to care. If they would care, it is your decision whether you fight with them or implement a quota.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#262

Post by rayiner »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #173
rayiner wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (and she) are focusing on the wrong part of the chain of reasoning. The issue is not whether there are gender differences in preferences, but why we have any reason to believe that programming is a “masculine” profession. The fact that men and women sometimes prefer different things due to biological factors does not mean that if you observe men and women preferring different things, that can be explained by biol…

Thank you for clarifying. Let’s not characterize programming as masculine or feminine (since that would begging the question and stereotyping). Let’s characterize it in terms of properties that have been scientifically studied. I would characterize programming as very far on the “Things” side of the axis that is “People vs Things”. See: Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests…

I would characterize law school as even more “thing” oriented than a STEM program (having done both). Law school is just pattern matching. You read cases to derive a set of abstract rules. Then on the test, you pattern match facts in a long hypothetical against the rules and write out how each element of each rule applies to the facts in the hypothetical. Whoever analyzes the most issues in 3 hours wins. Unlike STEM, there is no group work, there is no creativity, and although the fact patterns involve people, they are abstractions in the same way a person is just a database row. You’re actively penalized for thinking of people in terms of people, because professors set up hypotheticals to lead to results you might not want.

The practice of law at a business firm (where 50% of associates are women) occasionally involves people, but for the most part is thing oriented. I do less coordinating with team members and the client than when I was an engineer, because everything is on the record. You don’t have long meetings with the client to get their use cases, etc. When you do interact with people it’s systematized and highly artificial. Youre not trying to connect with the judge as a person. You’re breaking down an often highly abstract issue into constituent parts to help the judge understand it. And the things you’re dealing with are typically more abstract. The subject matter isn’t a website with pictures or human users. The subject matter is a lien, or a credit default swap, or a regulation embodying an economic theory. You talk about these abstractions as if they were things.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#263

Post by Caveman_Coder »

blub wrote: post #256
qwr23qwer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe women just see CS for what it is - 'simly not that hard, wiring form fields to databases', and think, let others tap away at the keyboards, I'll be a surgeon or whatever. So, if that were the case, would you say that it's fair to now force these would be neuro surgeons, doctors, lawyers, microbiologists, etc.. to 'wire fields to databases', because in 2018 some people believe that has a somewhat high status in…

A female relative was considering a career change, but even though the salary and perks sounded nice, the work itself seemed meaningless to her. Another friend did make the jump, mostly for the money and career opportunities and she's struggling and feeling a bit demotivated. The CS theory is quite hard, and it's not something she's especially interested in. These anecdotes don't prove anything, but I've been thinkin…

> "Having to spend their free time studying just to keep up with the latest fashion, doing overtime, going through the interview gauntlet every damn time, getting shafted by incompetent business leaders and managers."

This is why my wife left the industry to be a full-time mom/homemaker. The problems she solves are more rewarding and the time/energy she spends on things are more worth it according to her. Why would she want to get out of bed every morning to churn out JS for some scummy corporation every day when she could be spending time with our kid, teaching them new things, hiking/backbacking/kayaking/fishing with them, etc.?

She's appreciative that I go to work everyday to pay the bills and sees her position as the more ideal one.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#264

Post by arkh »

lfischer wrote: post #238
arkh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garbage disposal is not what people usually call a cognitively demanding field. The gender imbalance is still worse than CS. What those two have in common are shitty working conditions. Yes, coding is done sitting in climate controlled offices. But it is mostly shit: shit doc, shit managers, shit clients, shit hours, shit tools. Only dumbfucks who don't mind shit conditions for more money would do it. I'm sure if you…

Assuming you’re right about programming being so horrible, how is programming any worse than other clerical jobs?

In 4 words: maintenance programming and debugging.

Most clerical jobs don't have a lot of surprises hidden in the middle of some undocumented feature. And things are not improving with the multiplication of dependence on SaaS and build and deploy mechanism.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#265

Post by blub »

novia wrote: post #192

Hi everyone. I'm a woman with a math degree who just completed a computer programming certificate. I've wanted to study math my whole life, and I wasn't exposed to programming as a field of study until college. I just wanted to state that, for the record, having these sorts of discussions on hacker news is extremely distressing to me. I've worked hard to get the accreditations that I have, and I usually enjoy the thi…

Some will be openly dismissive, others will hide their disapproval, others won't care and some will enjoy working with you.

As an immigrant wondering how the natives perceive me, I've learned that one has to do their best and be assertive when it's necessary.

Ultimately it depends on luck. To split the world in ones tribe and "the other" is human nature, and not discussing things on HN won't make things better...

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#266

Post by alexandercrohde »

To get a little meta:

I think discussions like these make progress, but very slow progress. I think the root of the issue for many people is more than factual at this point, it's become emotional for both sides. And I think progress will come when both sides can get a handle on their frustrations and then articulate their feelings gracefully.

At the end of the day, I think only a very small percentage of people commenting here care too much about what a new study finds. I don't think it will move many viewpoints.

So I think I'll propose a template for resolving this conflict (a longshot, I know).

Pursuit of agreement:

A) Do I want to understand the feelings of the people I'm talking to? If not, don't expect progress.

B) Do I want to understand my personal feelings? Do I recognize why this topic is emotional to me, why I'm spending my Thursday morning arguing this?

C) Do I see how tangential the connection is between my feelings and the article at hand?

D) Do I care about reaching a point of agreement, or is my motivation more around rewarding myself/punishing others?

E) Am I willing to describe my feelings/worries/motivations without using emotionally charged-words?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#267

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tptacek wrote: post #152

Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation. One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed…

> Whatever is holding women's participation in our field at or below twenty percent is artificial, and a travesty.

Or just natural. I mean there's gender imbalance in most careers, as is also mentioned in that article; there's just less attention being paid to e.g. the gender difference in day cares (which is in part due to people's preferences in lines of work, but in that particular area a very clear case of gender discrimination and stereotyping)

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#268

Post by aje403 »

tptacek wrote: post #152

Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation. One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed…

"One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed in than the computer software industry."

All other points aside, this is simply an untrue statement - the lofty heights of the average software engineer at Alphabet is not even fractionally close to the pinnacle of "intellectual difficulty" in our professional field.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#269

Post by tscs37 »

edna314 wrote: post #253
tscs37 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plus, from a probabilistic point of view, wouldn't equal chances mean that for large numbers of trials (people) the outcome would also be equal? Yes. For most people those two options would be the same, which is why the difference between those two options matter. Equality of Chance merely means that everyone gets a shot at becoming, for example, a Math PhD. You still have to put in as much elbow grease as everyone…

> With brain I mean just that, I don't know why it lacks definition. I mean the raw organ of thought in the human skull. If I understood correctly in your original argument you tried to point out that you need this "brain/mind" to be good in STEM. I would argue that anything which has certain mental capabilities (which I'm not able to define) can be good at STEM whether or not it has a brain or even is human or not,…

>Or are you claiming once this hypothetical convincing theory is out "feminists" will be gone?

Hopefully not. Without opposition my hypotehtical theory would have no way of being refined further through discussion.

>I would argue that anything which has certain mental capabilities (which I'm not able to define) can be good at STEM whether or not it has a brain or even is human or not, would you agree to that?

I would agree to that in a limited capacity. These mental capabilities are more like capacities, the efficiency and speed of them is dependant on an individual. I propose that some of them may depend on which chromosome the human individual got at birth. In other physical forms this (potential) difference could be less pronounced or more pronounced.

>Yet people are concerned about doping. It's the athletes decision to risk his life for better outcome. Why does that make the competition unfair then?

Doping affects the added definition of fairness, other players who did not dope with the same skill level are outperformed; if two identically strong players were to participate, one doping, one not, then the doping one would have an unfair advantage that the not-doping player will have to compensate with a lot of hard work.

>But I can tell that the larger the differences in outcome averaged over many people, the more I'm suspicious.

That's usually a pretty terrible approach. Simply averaging the outcome is an easy way to trip over every statistical quirk there is.

The only way to be sure that the game is fair is to get a decent sample out of the population and perform a thorough statistical analysis that accounts for all variables possible. And I would suggest that the data crunching would be performed by people of differing political orientations, as much as possible, including hard right and hard left, to ensure that there is as little ideological bias as possible.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#270

Post by notlob »

tptacek wrote: post #179
SiempreViernes wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and after all those words about how even in advanced gender equality countries differences persist they offer the following qualitative reason for it: > The sex difference in interest in people extends to a more general interest in living things, which would explain why women who are interested in science are much more likely to pursue a career in biology or veterinary medicine than computer science. Right, so…

Not to mention that there's nothing touchy-feely about biochem, which is chem except you take orgo almost immediately. But the prefix "bio" in it allows them to dismiss it.

This is a misstatement of what the biochemistry coursework I am familiar with looks like.

Biochem, when offered as an undergrad program, is offered through the biology department and has a number of standard biology department requirements that would be elective at best for chemistry undergrads. Biochem majors also take orgo following gen chem, just like chemistry majors.

I don’t know what “touchy-feely” means in this context, but “chem except you take orgo almost immediately” does not match with my experience at all.

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