As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #178

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think there is something innate that changed genetically about women that led to them being much less likely to be computer programmers now than they were in the 1970s, but much more likely to be biologists? If not, there is probably some other factor at work leading to these changing "preferences," even though as far as I know women have had no legal barriers to working in either field throughout that period.…

> Do you think there is something innate that changed genetically about women that led to them being much less likely to be computer programmers now than they were in the 1970s [...] 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 wh…

Only really in mainframe shops - though I did in my first job enter a lot of code for a female engineer.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #338

DoreenMichele wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were many differences between my life and my mother's life. I don't actually want to hash this out further. It would be nice if the entire internet would not make wild speculation about why I failed to replicate the extraordinarily wonderful social life my mother managed to have.

Well maybe if you just tried harder, it would work! /s I'm right there with you. People are much different than they used to be; it's normal now to not even know your neighbors, let alone talk with them. I've had people decline dinner invitations, and former friends outright ignore my messages. I mean, I hope I'm not the problem but the thought crosses my mind. It sucks, especially if you want those relationships you…

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by Ari_Ugwu » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #369

avar wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is equality of opportunity. If some people in society want to do some activity knowing they won't build job experience while doing so, let them, even if other people don't want to and become more employable as a result. That's freedom. Whether e.g. women on average tend to take more parental leave is only a small subset of those sorts of situations in society. I (a man) took a months-long parental lea…

Equality of opportunity is a complex topic that sounds good to everyone but also means different things to everyone. The reason is that opportunities are, themselves, often the result of earlier choices. For instance, the opportunity for a desirable job may be the result of earlier experience attained, which may be the result of choices about how much time to spend on work versus family or other pursuits. It gets eve…

This aligns with my understanding. I applaud every experiment in this space. We just don't seem to know enough about ourselves for folks to speak as confidently about these terms and their impacts as we do.

As I'm raising my kid I'm amazed at how important just keeping her curious and oriented towards the unknown is. Just teaching her how to manage her own emotions and external frustrations. Even at a very young age I see parents conditioning their male children to physically _push_ through problems and frustrations but the girls are so often taught to communicate and understand their feelings _before_ acting. This then seems to really influence the types of activities they are introduced to and ultimately excel at.

If I'm being honest with myself when my emotional intelligence finally caught in my 30s it was a bit embarrassing. I just didn't have a good skill set for dealing with frustrations which weren't physical.

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

#394

Post by KirinDave » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #339

KirinDave wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one retains the traditional perspective, a much disliked but surprisingly defensible position, of the disparate desires of men and women, these results comport well with the presumption. It's odd though how so often this "traditional" viewpoint is eager to suggest, "These are the preferences of women and their outcomes," when it's suggested women result in a net disadvantage, but is a crisis when men see these o…

> An excellent example of this is how a 6-10% wage gap is considered an acceptable outcome of biological differences and choice, but a 10% average difference in primary education among young men is a crisis, with multiple think tanks suggesting society caters too much to young women and that being a young man is "a liability." You're comparing a difference in wages to a difference in population . The maximum range of…

> You're comparing a difference in wages to a difference in population.

This is not actually correct (and in fact, I'm not talking about college and these numbers are not correct for college participation!), but even if it were, we can formulate wage problems in terms of populations.

> Moreover, if you want to see a large difference, what's with the gender balance in the prison population?

And it's a popular argument among MRAs, literally headlining much of their materials, that women receive much better treatment in the prison system than men. This is just another example of my argument: it's a problem if there is a bad outcome for men. It's not a problem if there is a bad outcome for women, it's "choice."

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

#395

Post by tome » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

dekken_ wrote: post #148

grenoire wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterson in person is Peterson in his lectures, see comments below. Make up your mind yourself, and try to understand why people like and hate him both ways. He's a pretty compassionate guy as far as I can tell, he just can't tolerate people who aren't willing to have proper discourse with him.

> he just can't tolerate people who aren't willing to have proper discourse with him why would anyone? if it's not a discussion it's a battle of ideologies and someone (them/they) have to win

I suspect, by "why would anyone", you were referring to him tolerating rather than people having proper discourse.

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

#396

Post by jimjansen » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #204

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

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. We're living in an era where, resource-wise, we could be post-scarcity, but politically, it's all locked up in a shitty, shitty system. I want to keep imagining a world in which people are…

What on Earth are you actually proposing, that all else being equal someone who takes a year off work should earn the exact same pay or get the same job as someone who spent that year working? You are falling down an extremely slippery slope.

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

#397

Post by jimjansen » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

docbrown wrote: post #306

mindcrime wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in no way saying that taking care of a baby is leisure time, or anything of the sort. I'm just saying from the perspective of an employer evaluating two candidates, if all other things are equal, and one took a year off and one didn't, and the employer chooses the candidate who was at work continuously, they weren't specifically discriminating against "parental leave".From that point of view, the reason doesn't…

>I'm just saying from the perspective of an employer evaluating two candidates, if all other things are equal, and one took a year off and one didn't, and the employer chooses the candidate who was at work continuously, they weren't specifically discriminating against "parental leave". Gender aside, this is still discrimination based on a persons “experience”, as you call it, or very simply: their employment status.…

Ok well brb I'm going to apply for a SVP position at Google and if I don't get it they are clearly discriminating against me because I don't have 15 years of experience.

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

#398

Post by zeroname » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #330

zeroname wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who wants the benefits of owning a business can be subject to those rules. Oh, those benefits of running a business. You know, like working more hours than everyone else, putting your own money on the line, being the last to get paid. Here's some hard facts: 1. Most businesses are small businesses 2. Most people are employed in small to medium businesses 3. Most businesses fail because they lose money If you…

McDonalds is primarily a franchise operation, with the actual restaurants being owned by what could (if you squint ) be considered "small businesses". The financial resources required to buy and run an McD franchise are pretty hefty, so it's not exactly going to first timers, or people who don't already know how to run a franchise.

I'm aware of that, though not so much of the details. I'm trying to make a point of the blandness of the food. In a way, it's the worst of both worlds.

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

#399

Post by BeetleB » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #352

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Have you ever wondered whether there's other human values - perhaps kinder and more loving values - than venal self-interest and capital accumulation? 2. The word 'choice' is not really apposite here, given that one sex, by the mere lottery of birth, carries the burden of pregnancy (and, culturally - with a similar determinacy - women are expected to rear their children in their early years).

it's not just unfair to the business though. if i have five years experience as a c++ dev and you have four years plus one year as a stay at home parent, it is unfair to me if the hiring process treats us both as if we have equal amounts of experience.

>it's not just unfair to the business though. if i have five years experience as a c++ dev and you have four years plus one year as a stay at home parent, it is unfair to me if the hiring process treats us both as if we have equal amounts of experience.

In one negotiation book I read, they call "fair" the "F" word. It means different things to different people, and throwing the word around doesn't further discussions much.

Getting to the C++ dev position, as a person who hires, I've never cared how much experience a person has. I care about how much skills and knowledge he can demonstrate. And an extra year doing C++ is information-free. It tells me nothing that sets him apart from another candidate who has one less year.

I mean, seriously - in my former C++ job if I ranked people by their C++ coding abilities (which includes SW design, etc), there was probably no correlation with years of experience. My manager even complained to me privately that people who had over a decade of experience were performing noticeably worse than those who had 5 or less years.

I've never actually encountered a case where a few months off, or even a year, made any real difference. In my company people occasionally take a few months off every so many years (sabbatical). Their performance does not degrade. A former coworker of mine left the job and wandered the world for 10 months, and got rehired back to his old job. His performance was not impacted (in fact, they prioritized him over someone else external to the company because he was already familiar with the job, whereas an external person would slow things down as he ramped up). I've seen people change careers (e.g. transition to marketing), do it for 1-2 years, and decide to return to engineering/software - no measurable impact.

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

#400

Post by sangnoir » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #310

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Have you ever wondered whether there's other human values - perhaps kinder and more loving values - than venal self-interest and capital accumulation? 2. The word 'choice' is not really apposite here, given that one sex, by the mere lottery of birth, carries the burden of pregnancy (and, culturally - with a similar determinacy - women are expected to rear their children in their early years).

> 2. The word 'choice' is not really apposite here, given that one sex, by the mere lottery of birth, carries the burden of pregnancy Welcome to life, it isn't equal, and never will be. Maybe we should stop trying to make the playing field level and just appreciate and celebrate the differences.

> Maybe we should stop trying to make the playing field level and just appreciate and celebrate the differences.

Funny how I never heard this argument when the anti-poaching agreements between tech giants were revealed. Maybe we ought to have celebrated the unfair differences between man and employer?

HN's capacity for empathy seems rather limited until they (we?) are at the pointy-end of the stick. Drifting back towards the topic, I believe in the hacker spirit of experimenting/striving towards how things could be, instead of being satisfied with the stolid status quo.