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

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#471

Post by MistahKoala » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #433

MistahKoala wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you mention is also referred to in the article itself Admittedly, I'm yet to read it (Pocketed it for later). I assume I agree with your sentiment about what equality means and what its relationships with freedom and liberty are - it's just not something that can easily be said in the open without running the risk of having to defend it or attracting pariah status. I don't really want to say much more on the m…

>> Admittedly, I'm yet to read it (Pocketed it for later). Tut tut. You should always read the article before commenting, the manual before turning it on and the contract before signing it. But, you know- no pressure :P

What can I say, I'm a man! I attempt to build the Lego without the instructions, drive the car without the map, and play the board game without the rule book :D

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#472

Post by mdorazio » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #464

mdorazio wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the additional information. What about RNs vs. junior devs, which you completely ignored? As far as I know, that profession requires only a bachelor's degree. I'm also trying to figure out what your point in the third paragraph is, exactly. If NPs are geographically distributed roughly equally and software developers are not, you would see exactly that median salary distribution. Again, that's the whole po…

> What about RNs vs. junior devs, which you completely ignored? I didn't ignore it, I addressed it implicitly with the reasons I rejected the validity of NP to software developer comparison; but to address it explicitly: The median RN plaisibly makes in the same rough range as the median junior dev (“junior dev” being a seniority level within an occupational rather than a distinct tracked occupation in the BLS data,…

Ok, I misread your original reply and did not see that you had reduced your selection set to look at the Chicago area BLS numbers rather than national. To your point on junior devs progressing through the ranks, registered nurse is also entry-level and the expectation is that RNs will progress to expert/mentor/manager nurse, a specialty, etc.

However, I have pretty big issues with BLS data in general, so it's pretty clear we're not going to come to an agreement here based on that data set. If you're going to treat BLS data as gospel and other sources as garbage then we can save time and stop here.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#473

Post by Goladus » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #388

mdorazio wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point. Median salary nationally is massively skewed for computer science because salaries in tech centers, where those jobs are clustered, is extremely high. The same is not true for nursing, which is distributed fairly uniformly across the country. For example, according to Glassdoor, a software dev in Chicago has an average salary of about 82k compared to about 120k for a nurse practitioner. Or if…

> For example, according to Glassdoor, a software dev in Chicago has an average salary of about 82k compared to about 120k for a nurse practitioner. Becoming a Nurse Practitioner requires, at a minimum, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, followed by licensure as an RN, followed by a Master's in a NP specialty, followed by certification as an NP. Practically, it requires more because most NP programs require practice a…

You're still just cherry-picking. It's more sophisticated cherry-picking but what you are not doing is taking a balanced cross-section of people with a varying array of personality and cognitive traits and then tracing them through life/career decisions to see where they end up and why.

Software development is a great career. But it's just a career. It's not a prize. It's not some kind of gift handed out to a privileged elite. We need to stop treating it that way.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#474

Post by meuk » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #451

meuk wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial? I would say cultural. I would surely like there to be more women in CS. There are literally no women at my office, and the only women I met for the last six months are from HR. I am single, and so is about 50% of my coworkers - this is not a particularly good position to be in on the 'relationship market'. On the other hand, I can't blame women for not wanting my job. IT has a reputation for attracting wh…

> There are literally no women at my office Really? Where do you work (as in what part of the country)? I'm in the Dallas area and have been for 20 years - everywhere I've ever worked has had lots of women (close to 50/50) in technical roles. They're almost all Indian, though (as are 90% of the people in any technical roles). Rare to see a female manager of any nationality, though.

The Netherlands. There work about 25 people at my office. I am currently working at a client, where there are again no women in the software engineering department (about 15 people).

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#475

Post by door2 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

rvo wrote: post #465

door2 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White men get advantaged over nonwhite nonmen in pretty much all aspects of society. “Preferential” treatment towards people other than white men is really just a tiny little correction against the massive social and economic advantages white men experience. How many white men have you ever heard feeling bad because they were only hired for their white maleness (“Culture fit”)? And yet that is the dominant status quo…

So correct racism with more racism ... "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." I guess that means nothing these days. It scares me when people start talking racially, especially like you. You call me a person of color (basically a new version of colored people). You see race first, conte…

I guess I’m the real racist for pointing out that racism exists?

Racism is the systematic disenfranchisement of a group of people based on their race. Correcting that disenfranchisement, empowering people who systematically don’t have power is literally the opposite of racism...

Pointing out that white people face massive advantages in the United States isn’t “hating white people”, it’s an obvious and undeniable fact. My ideal world is one where everyone is treated equally, and the road to that world isn’t just imagining everyone is treated equally and everyone enters the world with the same advantages, it is through acknowledging and correcting socioeconomic disparities.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#476

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

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…

> Why is equality of outcome not a desirable goal

I guess it depends on how you go about it. If you needed 100 programmers, and there were exactly 100 programmers available, but 80 were men and 20 were women - but you insisted on equality of outcome, you'd hire 50 of the male programmers, all 20 of the female programmers, and be 30 programmers short, even though there were 30 perfectly capable programmers that would upset your gender ratio.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#477

Post by door2 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

bluthru wrote: post #463

door2 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You called women catty. That’s straight up misogyny. I don’t know what else you want me to say.

Describing a gender with a negative adjective is never ok? Is it wrong to call men "clueless"?

It’s not the same. If women and men held totally equal power in society, it would be the same, but they don’t. Attacking women in tech as a group is punching down, attacking men (at least for their rampant horrible and sexist behavior) is punching up. In terms of gender relations, men are absolutely, in general, and especially in tech, totally clueless.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#478

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #387

mixmastamyk wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Cal, 90% of the women I’ve worked with are south or east asian, and all locals.

Its just social inertia. I am willing to bet most of their parents are engineers.

I would agree but call it "cultural," and less stigma to being a geek.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#479

Post by novia » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:40 PM UTC

rvo wrote: post #321

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…

There is the flip side too. I wouldn't want to be known as the diversity hire. I want to be judged on my work and my skills. Not on what chromosomes I carry or what my melenin level is. The more we keep framing things in the context of hiring to meet gender based quotas, the more people will see us as diversity hires. I would hate that more than knowing someone doesn't like me because of my gender because that person…

Will it help if I preemptively refer to myself as "diversity hire" as a joke?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#480

Post by rvo » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

door2 wrote: post #475

rvo wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So correct racism with more racism ... "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." I guess that means nothing these days. It scares me when people start talking racially, especially like you. You call me a person of color (basically a new version of colored people). You see race first, conte…

I guess I’m the real racist for pointing out that racism exists? Racism is the systematic disenfranchisement of a group of people based on their race. Correcting that disenfranchisement, empowering people who systematically don’t have power is literally the opposite of racism... Pointing out that white people face massive advantages in the United States isn’t “hating white people”, it’s an obvious and undeniable fact…

I am just extremely wary of people who call me a person of color and who view things firstly through the lens of race. Of course there is racism in the west but correcting that shouldn't mean more racism.

Do you also believe Indians and Asians face a massive advantage in America? They are some of the most successful racial groups in America. Should their advantage be "corrected"? I guess it already happens via college acceptances...

How about Jews? Should we correct their advantage as well?

There is nothing wrong in addressing socioeconomic disparities. The lowest of our societies should be helped to a point of self sustanence and leadership. But it's just so offensive to call us all colored people, I mean people of color. Can I suggest not labeling people with higher melanin with that phrase? It reduces me down to a racial label and it makes me super uncomfortable. No kidding, it kinda reminds me of when I used to hear "Arab" or "terrorist" by right wing nut jobs as that label was also based on my race...