Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads • Hacker News Board

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#271

Post by pvg » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 4:50 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #190

tptacek wrote: post #141

This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. The article does not accomplish that. Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low ; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for ge…

> This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. You're being uncharitable again. What it does establish is that the most common narrative for gender disparity in our field doesn't cleanly explain all of the data, unless you simultaneously push for the belief that program…

There's actually plenty of evidence that it's not.

What is the evidence? Even if you accept essentially any and all finding, however iffy, about gender-based cognitive differences, there is a huge leap from that to 'women are simply unsuitable for your typical programming job, to an 80/20 ratio'. I can't think of any actual scientists that make that argument, again, on the basis of any finding. It's not at all obvious how such a question could even be answered scientifically.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#272

Post by dogma1138 » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 4:58 AM UTC

lowry wrote: post #262

dogma1138 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women in the USSR were common in engineering degrees because many other high skill careers like law, medicine, philosophy and politics weren’t open to them. Bangladesh isn’t that different and rich families send their daughters to get a degree so they would be more appealing to prospective husbands. You can’t just pick random statistics and extrapolate data from them the fact is still that the more options women have…

Bullshit right in the first paragraph. Women snipers, women tank drivers, women pilots were not uncommon in USSR during the second world war. Half of the lawyers were women in USSR by 1980, although the comparison to US would be meaningless, the legal profession there is pretty different. Politics and philosophy... Peuh. These are not professions even in US.

Sorry that’s not true on both accounts.

Yes the USSR has had women in combat (so did other allied nations, even the US it just didn’t sent them to the front lines) however in very small amounts and mainly for propaganda purposes and while some of them achieved great things as far as anyone can be great in a war these weren’t by any stretch of the imagination the norm.

In the post war economy women were locked out of many positions my mother had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to teach in secondary education being both Jewish and a woman it took her nearly a decade to pass retarded committees and gain enough favors.

While the USSR might have been seen as a “feminist” heaven back in the day it was far from that it was and Russia is still is very old fashioned in some regards closer to 19th century court than to the bra burning days of the 1960s in the West.

And as far as women’s emancipation went it wasn’t as much emancipation as it was exploitation.

Lenin has seen women as part of the workforce and the USSR used them as such but delegated them to the most basic tasks and positions with progression and advancement near impossible regardless of their qualifications and effort.

Education was also seen by many as a way to escape having to work in the factories and fields.

I’m not entirely sure what your experience is with Russian culture and history but it seems we have quite different views of it.

But if you are willing to read then Wikipedia has decent articles about women and feminism in the USSR and I suggest a book called Gender in 20th century USSR.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#273

Post by Atheros » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

friedButter wrote: post #267

overcast wrote: post #44

I'll probably face wrath, and hell's fury for this, but maybe, men and women are different. Has forcing STEM upon the female population, driven any more of them towards the discipline? Taking the sampling size of every woman I've ever went on a date with in my 37 years, none of them were interested in anything related. The vast majority were teachers, psychologists, and nurses. Occupations based around nurturing othe…

> but maybe, men and women are different Umm.. even US courts have disagreed with you in the James Damore case, saying that Google was right to fire him for suggesting this... I agree with you, however when the govt, judiciary and private employers agree that "men and women are the same, except when difference benefits women", there isnt a lot that can be done

> US courts have disagreed with you in the James Damore case

U.S. courts have not yet weighed in on the James Damore case.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#274

Post by naiveai » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

jlehman wrote: post #211

tptacek wrote: post #141

This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. The article does not accomplish that. Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low ; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for ge…

This is how I see it. This article presents a thoroughly well-researched scientific study, and presents it in an objective way. You presented what sounds like an ideologically driven argument. It amounts to “I don’t like that the implications of this study are at odds with how I think the world should be.” You flagged the article, which had made it to the top of HN, which means that this community wished to discuss i…

Not only that, but he dryly calls commercial computer science a "symbol manipulation" job, which I find frankly extremely insulting and unnecessary to drive his point.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#275

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #270

depressedpanda wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this study shows that unfair treatment is a less important reason for women leaving tech than it is for Asian and white men. Why, then, are other people commenting here claiming that bad treatment of women is the main reason they leave tech, and at alarming numbers, no less?

If the raw fraction of women leaving is much higher than it is for Asian and white men, then the net effect is that a higher percentage of women are leaving because of unfair treatment than men are. Also, it's certainly the case that unfair treatment is a problem worth solving regardless of gender. (I don't think the design of that particular study was equipped to answer the question of what the raw fraction is / whe…

That site certainly seems to be though, given the bold quotes plastered everywhere.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#276

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 5:53 AM UTC

neaanopri wrote: post #193

aspaceman wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the wrong way to achieve that if more women don't really want to go into STEM This is a good point, which is why my argument rests on the claim that more women will want to go into STEM if they are going to feel more comfortable in those positions. In my view, it all comes down to why you think women aren't in STEM. Is it because they don't want to do STEM work, or is it because they don't want to be in these…

If STEM would "naturally" be 60% men, 40% women, and sexism makes it 80% men, 20% women, it's important to fight sexism so that the 20% of women can get their career back. It's just insane that people make the leap from "STEM might not have equal interest between men and women" to "Diversity-promoting programs are harmful".

Except you're making the leap that the natural ratio is much higher than the norms that are seen in every progressive nation on Earth, many of which have very different cultures. Don't you see how this shifts the burden to those who claim it's naturally higher to demonstrate this fact?

Any other position is literally assuming the existing culture is full of bigots that must be stopped and forced to comply via "diversity promoting programs", all of which may ultimately have zero positive effects. How is that not insane?

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#277

Post by friedButter » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

Atheros wrote: post #273

friedButter wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but maybe, men and women are different Umm.. even US courts have disagreed with you in the James Damore case, saying that Google was right to fire him for suggesting this... I agree with you, however when the govt, judiciary and private employers agree that "men and women are the same, except when difference benefits women", there isnt a lot that can be done

> US courts have disagreed with you in the James Damore case U.S. courts have not yet weighed in on the James Damore case.

https://www.cnet.com/news/googles-firing-of-diversity-memo-a...

>Google didn't break the law when it fired James Damore over a memo that criticized the company's diversity policies and claimed tech's gender gap may be due to biological differences between men and women.

You're right, its some other entity in US that interprets laws, I assumed it was a court

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#278

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 6:13 AM UTC

aspaceman wrote: post #170

coldtea wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, as a group women have decided that the best way to make themselves more welcome in STEM - is to have more women in STEM. This will slowly correct the negatives by causing more individuals to come into contact with women and have to learn how to behave properly. But these same systemic issues prevent many women who would otherwise enter STEM from doing so. No one is claiming that a perfect 50/50 ratio is al…

> it's the wrong way to achieve that if more women don't really want to go into STEM This is a good point, which is why my argument rests on the claim that more women will want to go into STEM if they are going to feel more comfortable in those positions. In my view, it all comes down to why you think women aren't in STEM. Is it because they don't want to do STEM work, or is it because they don't want to be in these…

> Based on the myriad amount of women who can do work of a similar calibre (in medicine especially), AND the evidence that women used to be not only more welcome in programming, but absolutely DOMINANT in it: I disagree with the former, and subscribe to the latter opinion.

You would be incorrect. Programming used to be considered an offshoot of secretarial and data entry work, which is why it was once dominated by women. Then men's engagement skyrocketed while women's ambled along at a more gradual pace.

Secondly, this isn't about ability. Women are just as capable of doing this work, but there does exist an innate interest component. I recommend you read up on the people vs. things hypothesis, which has a high degree of predictive success in categorizing those who ultimately choose STEM work [1]. Those interested in working with things are driven towards pure STEM, and those interested in working with people largely avoid STEM or do STEM where they can apply those skills to work with people (think chemistry degrees to become pharmacists, math degrees to become teachers, etc.).

And lo and behold, wouldn't you know that those interested in working with things are largely men, by a significant margin, and those interested in working with people are largely women. Some of these tendencies may be socially influenced, but these preferences show up as young as grade 3!

Now there's definitely discrimination in STEM, but I haven't seen a comparative analysis that demonstrates that STEM exhibits worse rates of discrimination than other fields, such that it deserves all of this negative press. People just seem to assume that's the case because of the gender ratios and some terrible discrimination stories you've no doubt read about. I've read such stories about medicine and law, which have long since achieved gender parity.

So then empathetic people naturally conclude that the best way to stop this discrimination is by balancing the gender scales, but this whole edifice is based on very questionable premises, and the remedy consists of literally forcing women to pursue careers they're not interested in. The cure seems frankly worse than the disease.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#279

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 6:26 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #271

naasking wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. You're being uncharitable again. What it does establish is that the most common narrative for gender disparity in our field doesn't cleanly explain all of the data, unless you simultaneously push for the belief that program…

There's actually plenty of evidence that it's not. What is the evidence? Even if you accept essentially any and all finding, however iffy, about gender-based cognitive differences, there is a huge leap from that to 'women are simply unsuitable for your typical programming job, to an 80/20 ratio'. I can't think of any actual scientists that make that argument, again, on the basis of any finding. It's not at all obviou…

> Even if you accept essentially any and all finding, however iffy, about gender-based cognitive differences, there is a huge leap from that to 'women are simply unsuitable for your typical programming job, to an 80/20 ratio

Who said anything about unsuitability? I said the difference isn't necessarily artificial like the OP claimed, and you jump somehow to it being a matter of ability or temperament? You're putting words in my mouth.

The things vs. people hypothesis much better explains the gender ratios, and explains why it's seen across cultures, which doesn't fit well with the oppression hypothesis.

This is the latest metanalysis I'm currently reading, but there's a slew of studies confirming this gendered difference in preferences:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...

Certainly some such inclinations might be socially conditioned, but as discussed in the above, they show up as young as grade 3.

Regardless, even if it were all conditioned, hiring quotas and marketing programs directed even at high schoolers would already be too late and thus largely ineffective given these facts.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#280

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 6:30 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #268

naasking wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bangladeshis perceive STEM as important, and encourage both girls and boys to pursue it (even if they don’t expect girls to stay in the work force after they get married). That could be a critical factor. The other factor that I've heard posited is that career opportunities for women are limited in less liberal countries, so they take what they can get. This would be why Iran has gender parity in computer science,…

In Iran, women make up 70% of science and engineering majors, as well as 70% of medical students. These are not low status professions in Iran (Ahmadinejad was an engineer). So what professions are they being excluded from that they would prefer that they go into science and engineering instead?

All kinds. There are literally hundreds of articles written about this:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/25/its-mens-club/discrimi...

I don't see what "status" has to do with it. It's a matter of political and religious restrictions specific to that culture.