Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#301

Post by d23 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #271

megaman22 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I regret that I only have one upvote to give. Things that we here take for granted are nigh impossible, or look like magic to 90% of the population. Even among the subset of people that are employed as software engineers, it can be sobering to realize how many of them struggle and flail at "just wiring form fields to databases in new and exciting ways."

It’s not that this stuff isn’t challenging. It’s that it’s not particularly more challenging than abstract statistics or organic chemistry or tax accounting, fields where you see lots of women.

Yeah, I'm not sure why we have to take the approach of crapping on one or the other. I happen to think things like construction are probably pretty complicated too.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#302

Post by collyw » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #267

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…

yes, does the OP feel the same about the percentage of males females in jail?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#303

Post by bnthatcher » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

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.

It is not artificial at all. Women notice early that it is a hard field with little respect for the practitioners, so they move elsewhere.

Men catch on to these things when they are 30 and see that the HR drone who moves from one web app to the next in order to create some activity gets more credit than persons fixing kernel bugs.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#304

Post by Veelox » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #9

it’s fine and valid to research whether people encounter improper bias in their careers, which is clearly often the case. But their discussion is incomplete without at least recognition of another possible partial cause of gender disparity in tech, the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon. These cues are delivered by parents, te…

While this theory makes sense, I find a rather large issue with it.

The basis for this argument is that both boys and girls are equally likely at birth to go into a given field. As they grow society gives cues to them that X is for boys and Y is for girls. These cues end up shaping preference and explain the large difference we see in the ratio of boys/girls in X. The issue I have with this theory is that it shouldn't apply only to STEM, it should work for all fields. Thus if instead of STEM we say Law or Finance or Medicine have cues then that should mess with the ratios there.

If you go back several decades the ratio of men/women in Engineering, Law, Finance, and Medicine were all equally low. As time moved on the ratios improved in Law, Finance, and Medicine but not in Engineering/STEM. If you want to claim cues as a major factor in the current STEM ratio you have to explain either

1) why unchanging cultural cues were not the reason for the improvement in Law/Finance/Medicine but still negatively affected STEM or 2) why the cultural cues when away for the other fields and not STEM

I haven't been able to find an answer to either of those points and so I think that while some cultural cues exist, it isn't the main reason for the ratio differences and doesn't need to be address to fix the issue.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#305

Post by err4nt » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #295

bloak wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.

I dunno, it threw me off for a bit - "doctor" still has a very male connotation with me. Mind you I've not seen one in forever.

In english 'Doctor' is a word that at one time exclusively did refer only to males. A word used for females was 'Doctress'

http://doctordoctress.org

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#306

Post by 131012 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #287

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. Can we rank these fields by day to day... sociability? Or how solitary they are? Say, by the number of coworkers you talk to on a given day for a given number of hours. Or the amount of time you spend not at all speaking, and staring at a screen? Can we approximate th…

Prestige is usually sought by male pupils.

Also, when kids make program choices, they do it by their 'perception' of the profession, not by actual professional reality.

To reflect on first op, first half of the article is straw man attack, second half is golden insight. The author must be really scared of cultural studies-like interpretation to fend off so many windmills before giving us some meat.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#307

Post by edna314 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #286

edna314 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. This doesn't answer my question. Is equality of outcome in the NBA a desirable goal or not? If not, why is it one in science or tech fields? > Because they don't seem to care. I'm sure many do. Many women "don't seem to care" that they took nursing jobs while many men took software en…

> This doesn't answer my question. Is equality of outcome in the NBA a desirable goal or not?

Sorry I didn't get that you were interested in my personal opinion on that topic. I just tried to tell you what I would find a reasonable approach to answer that question.

> I'm sure many do. Many women "don't seem to care" that they took nursing jobs while many men took software engineering jobs.

Yeah, seems like many of them are still ok with the situation. I'm just saying that it is likely that there will be a problem in the future and its better to fix it now than later. Plus, I think you would agree, that this problem is on a social level more relevant than your NBA example.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#308

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

traverseda wrote: post #227

dragonwriter wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per BLS, registered nurses have a $68,450 median salary. [0] Software developers have a $102,280 median salary. [1] [0] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/registered-nurses.... [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

In san-fran, sure. I'm in Canada (Nova Scotia) and they're pretty similar, with similar levels of respect. It depends a lot on country, but the gender ratio holds pretty steady. They make 80k, I make at most 80k if I work at the highest-end webdev firms.

> In san-fran, sure

That’s national data for the US, not local for SF.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#309

Post by Slansitartop » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #193

drewbuschhorn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this sentiment from former fans of left leaning fiction, and I have to ask: are you sure it's not the culture that's stayed the same and you who drifted right?

If you look at the actual issues in US culture you’ll see if the left that has drifted further left. As an example you don’t have to go far back to see Nancy Pelosi advocating keeping immigrants out, Hillary taking a moderate stance on abortion or even Obama being to the right of Trump on some social issues like marriage equality. I’m for all of those things but there is zero doubt society has moved left fast.

> I’m for all of those things but there is zero doubt society has moved left fast.

Definitely factions of society have, though I wouldn't say society as whole just yet. Those factions have thought-leaders who are unusually viscous and aggressive (e.g. heaping abuse on those who disagree with them, calling them "garbabe-people" etc.). I'd wait for things to settle down before making the final call.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#310

Post by maratd » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

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.

The overwhelming majority of kindergarten teachers are female (over 97%). Is this a travesty as well? Why can't various fields be dominated by one sex?

> is artificial

Our entire economy is artificial, so that goes without saying. I think you were insinuating that this is purposeful. It isn't.

> Is it stereotype threat? Implicit bias?

It isn't.

Women are simply more sensitive to work/life balance. For whatever reason, our industry seems to think it's normal to work 12 hours a day. Very few women want to spend 12 hours at a job. That's fine. Very few men want to spend time taking care of little kids. That's also fine.