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As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

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Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#241

Post by naasking »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #200
naasking wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait – I thought back then (1950s/60s/maybe 70s), "programming" refered to something more akin to data input, i.e., someone designed a program, and the "programmer" entered that program into the computer's memory, using punch cards or whatever That's exactly right, "programming" was considered secretarial work, and guess what, pretty much all secretaries were women. Male engagement in programming exploded with the…

Not my experience. I was in college when PCs exploded, and programming was already a mostly-male field

I never claimed STEM had gender parity in terms of numbers, but if you look at the gender ratios you can pretty clearly see that female CS degrees peaked in 1984 and then fell quite rapidly:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp

The "programming as secretarial work" happened in the 50s and 60s which predates this data, so I haven't found a canonical source for that.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#242

Post by claudiawerner »

apatters wrote: post #190
ramblerman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if it is purely cultural then aiming for 50/50 gender parity across all industries is a reasonable goal. If it is not, it is a 'terrible', 'terrible' idea to approach gender equality from that angle.

Why would 50/50 gender parity across all industries ever be a desirable goal? Coal mining is male dominated -- should we push more women into becoming coal miners?

It's worth noting that the "Why don't feminists try and push for gender parity in coal mining?" is a very tired question (and rather silly meme) and it's got without a variety of answers from casual feminists. A cursory Google search for this question on Reddit has thrown up a variety of answers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/3bjr41/why_ha...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/2rpbil/why_ar...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/3inzi0/lookin...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/97f59k/are_fe...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/63lydf/why_do...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/5z79oe/are_fe...

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#243

Post by Abutere »

atoav wrote: post #57

The question is: What follows from that difference? Should a society treat a subset of the population different (in a positive or negative way) because on average they act different, because they have a different story to tell, because they had a different place throughout history and society? Isn't planfully treating a subset of the population different reproducing that difference? Isn't not treating a subset of the…

You bring up very good points. I especially like your last sentence, it's a bit of a Churchill-esque call to action that great societal conflicts are solved by average people working together. I do feel that it is not compatible with internet culture as it currently stands. Facebook and oh my especially Tinder all rely on the viewer to be fed generalizations and make them back. These algorithms do not encourage a nuanced view of people.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#244

Post by twtw »

antt wrote: post #139
iliketosleep wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think it's strange that it's seen as a 'paradoxical' outcome? The modern trend of gender-associated differences being primarily attributed to cultural influences seem unscientific at best and politically motivated at worst, especially when for many years we've had well-documented differences in the male and female brains that are clearly evident in brain-imaging studies. All else being equal, of course ther…

>well-documented differences in the male and female brains that are clearly evident in brain-imaging studies. Has there been any robust evidence that brain images correspond to any real world capability differences? An AMD and Intel cpu look very different under an xray too, but they run the same software at pretty much the same specs.

> An AMD and Intel cpu look very different under an xray too, but they run the same software at pretty much the same specs.

This is a pretty bad example. Although the two CPUs may be compatible, the micro architecture differs substantially, frequently causing Intel processors to excel where AMD struggles and vice versa.

Although the CPUs are capable of the same things, we might say they have different, erm, 'preferences.'

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#245

Post by sundvor »

mindcrime wrote: post #227
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I hire the person who was away for a solid year on parental leave over the guy who has been working diligently during that time? Maybe I'm coming from a place of privilege but that point of view makes me incredibly sad. I can't imagine being able to discriminate based on parental leave

But it isn't "discriminating based on parental leave". It's "discriminating" based on experience. The reason why someone takes a year (or whatever) off isn't the issue. Does this feel unfair in some sense? Yeah. But would it be less unfair to artificially punish the person who didn't take time off? Questionable...

It occurs to me that you're kind of equating a year of holidays with that of having a baby, which ensures the continuation of our species. In our (HN) case, that is putting a few more technologist offsprings into the mix for what that's worth.

I can assure you looking after a baby the first year is not leisure time.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#246

Post by illumin8 »

jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #213
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I hire the person who was away for a solid year on parental leave over the guy who has been working diligently during that time? Maybe I'm coming from a place of privilege but that point of view makes me incredibly sad. I can't imagine being able to discriminate based on parental leave

> Maybe I'm coming from a place of privilege but that point of view makes me incredibly sad. Why? It makes me sad that anyone would want to force business to take on risk that it wouldn't otherwise in the name of "equality". Choices have consequences, if you choose to stay out of work for a year to raise your child then you will be less employable.

I find this response, and the downvotes on the parent comment, incredibly sad.

If you want to live in a libertarian fantasy world with no safety net, you are free to create one, and try to attract citizens to your country.

Even in prehistoric times, it was generally understood that there was societal benefit to letting women take care of children when they were extremely young and that perhaps letting a new mother skip some of her normal chores so she could breastfeed would be better for the tribe as her baby could grow up to be a hunter and help bring in more food and resources.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#247

Post by davrosthedalek »

Frondo wrote: post #231
jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm coming from the same place, except I don't think it's privilege, I think it's wanting to build a world where anyone can take a year off for anything and not have that held against them if they later want to go work for someone. Do YOU want to have surgery from a surgeon that hasn't performed in year? Your idea is fine utopian, fluffy unicorn, ideology. But practically it just won't work. This doesn't have anyth…

Surgeons can and do take a year off from their practice, and return to work. I would absolutely be patient #1 after some surgeon's sabbatical. I also find it deeply depressing that "a person should be able to take a year off work" is now utopian, fluffy unicorn ideology on a forum for forward-thinking technologists.

Oh, you totally should be able to take off for a year. The same way you can elect not to go to university. Or look in the laser. You just have to live with the consequences. And in many, many professions, a year or so out of practice means that you are measurably worse. Maybe (but likely) worse than before you left, but almost certainly worse than you could be if you would have used that year to get better at what ever you do.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#248

Post by Majestic121 »

KirinDave wrote: post #228
0x445442 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but why would those differences become greater after the introduction of the equality systems? That's the paradox.

What's curious to me about this stance is no one questions if the measures taken, when coupled to there outcomes, don't suggest failed policies. "Well we made policies and they didn't do what we expected, therefore women are making choices!" seems to me (with an American bias perhaps) to be a failure in the design or implementation of the policies, rather than immediately blaming women. I'm surprised how credulously…

I agree with your skepticism, but it's important not to fall back on the other end : i.e., "I know there's no difference between men and women therefore the policies are wrong !"

Second, I don't think anyone is blaming women here. Choosing (or being pressured by the environment) to have more 'gendered' (whatever that means) career path is not necessarily a bad thing.

It can become a bad thing if it hinders opportunity, but not before

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#249

Post by dwild »

js8 wrote: post #48
torben-friis wrote: post #37

I wonder how it adjusts for culturally pushed gender differences. Women could have the same opportunities as men but be expected to have different tastes, be subjected to different experiences growing up, etc. which could affect their choices in latter life.

I don't understand why people care so much whether preferences are biological or cultural. (Well, I understand it if we assume they are being dishonest, so assuming that something is not biological allows them to claim that it can be changed to whatever they think is morally superior. The debate whether being gay is cultural is a good example.) If I am given a true freedom to choose, to decide according to my prefere…

We have control over cultural things and if theses things bring a life that we can define as inferior, then I believe we should change that culture.

The culture make women an object of desire, which increase sexual misconduct toward them. We can change that culture, shouldn't we?

Look at women in the middle east, that's purely cultural. Is it alright?

Culture bring racism, is it alright?

>what does it matter what is the reason for these preferences?

The same way we can fix a bug in a software, we can fix our culture to remove theses faults. Equal opportunities means that there's no fault. We are equals, thus there's no reason for culture to make us different. It's alright for a men to want to raise his family, he shouldn't have to bear the weight of the culture that tell him that it's his wife job to do it.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#250

Post by [deleted] »

KirinDave wrote: post #228
0x445442 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but why would those differences become greater after the introduction of the equality systems? That's the paradox.

What's curious to me about this stance is no one questions if the measures taken, when coupled to there outcomes, don't suggest failed policies. "Well we made policies and they didn't do what we expected, therefore women are making choices!" seems to me (with an American bias perhaps) to be a failure in the design or implementation of the policies, rather than immediately blaming women. I'm surprised how credulously…

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