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The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#381

Post by foldr »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #376
foldr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable? You can't possibly think that this is what the person you are replying to is saying. But anyway, the point is that the conception of programming as a task suited to people who like to work in isolation is incorrect and harmful. One…

I don't really follow the distinction you're drawing here. If you think that working in isolation is a bad thing, and most programmers should be talking to lots of people all the time, "people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient" sounds like an accurate summary of that view. It seems perfectly reasonable for an introvert to say that they don't want to work that way, and that it would…

>"people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient" sounds like an accurate summary of that view.

???

I don't say that they're deficient as people, or that working in isolation is bad per se. I'm just saying that people who like to work in isolation are unlikely to make good programmers (in the context of a typical programming job).

Personally, I switched to programming from academia, where I really did work in isolation on challenging problems. Now I spend most of my time talking to my colleagues to figure out exactly which not very challenging problem I should be spending my limited time on solving.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#382

Post by pmdulaney »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #138
pmdulaney wrote: post #29

People ask me how The Atlantic differs from Harper's. Here is a good example. Harper's would _not_ run an article that would even suggest a crack in the framework of leftist orthodoxy. But noting the date of the article, would this article be published now that Mrs Jobs is at the helm? Perhaps not...

The Atlantic was bought by Laurene Powell Jobs in July 2017[0], about nine months before this article was published. I've stopped asking people not to make such accusations without any evidence. But could you at least check if the most basic facts do not contradict them? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic#Ownership

I am duly rebuked for not having done fact checking on my comment.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#383

Post by tptacek »

tathougies wrote: post #375
rayiner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. I feel like this is a “??? Profit!” argument. Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Even within the context of traditional stereotypes about male/female preferences, what makes programming a “male” thing? The analogy that programmers “bu…

> The analogy that programmers “build things” is just that—your typical programmer is certainly not cut out to be a construction worker. Building things is not just construction though. I mean, your average clock maker is not qualified to plumb a bathroom, but that doesn't mean he's not making things. I don't have an opinion on this, but the idea that programmers aren't building something is a bit silly.

Programmers build things the same way garment-makers build things with sewing machines and needles.

Construction worker may do even less engineering design work than garment-makers do.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#384

Post by foldr »

jimbokun wrote: post #378
foldr wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming culture selects for those people, to an extent. If you're employed as a programmer, you're most likely being paid to solve other people's problems by writing code. If you can't communicate with those people, you'll never be able to do that successfully. It's no conspiracy. A socially clueless introvert who's being paid a lot of money to do nothing useful doesn't have much to offer.

Of course you have to communicate with people to be effective. There are also a lot of tasks where thinking deeply without distractions or interruptions for an extended period of time is the best way to come up with good solutions. And even a lot of the best communication comes from taking time in quiet and deeply thinking about what you want to say and writing a good, convincing argument. Thinking introverts have no…

Of course you sometimes need quiet time alone to work on a programming task. The point is that you'd better also be capable of communicating frequently and effectively with your colleagues. For sure, many introverts are perfectly capable of doing that. (There are also many extroverts who can work alone when the occasion calls for it.) My point is that introversion is not a wholly adventitious trait for a programmer. Looking at the job description objectively, one would not expect programmers to skew strongly towards introversion.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#385

Post by tptacek »

banads wrote: post #326
rayiner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. I feel like this is a “??? Profit!” argument. Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Even within the context of traditional stereotypes about male/female preferences, what makes programming a “male” thing? The analogy that programmers “bu…

>Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Programming jobs often involve extremely minimal face to face interactions

I've spent the last 15 years of my life working with engineering teams, hundreds of them, and I've never met a single one that worked this way. The opposite thing is true, unless you're fixated on literal in-the-same-room face-to-face interactions, in which case, what's your point?

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#386

Post by octokatt »

chongli wrote: post #358
TulliusCicero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. Sure, but it seems more than a little convenient that the male-chosen professions seem to generally pay significantly more, on average, than the female-chosen ones. Haven't there been studies that showed that women moving into a profession was actually associated with pay dropping?

more than a little convenient that the male-chosen professions seem to generally pay significantly more It’s not a coincidence at all. Men place a higher priority on pay to the exclusion of all else, when choosing a career, than do women. Women are much more likely to choose careers with flexible working hours, benefits, and the potential to help other people (positive externalities). When you look at it this way, it…

Given women are usually called upon to take more time to do unpaid labor like child-rearing, elder care, and holiday preparation, the fact women choose a flexible schedule is a result of societal expectations, and should be ruled out as a causal link.

Because, on average, men are given a lot less social pressure to "be there", they can more often take high-pressure jobs. Then the high pressure becomes a status symbol, and a gate to keep people with higher social obligations out.

As this phenomenon also causes a ton of burnout and is a cause for men's shorter lifespans, the whole thing needs to be actively taken down.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#388

Post by microcolonel »

foldr wrote: post #303
mistrial9 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the highest levels of sexism I have personally seen are in Finance, followed by construction workers; the highest levels of complaining I have personally seen are in FOSS UnConferences and PhD level academia.

It makes sense that higher levels of complaining would correlate with lower levels of sexism. Things don't usually get fixed unless people complain.

The rise in complaining has not been correlated with a drop in "sexism", even the kind that is a bit of a stretch.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#389

Post by foldr »

zarkov99 wrote: post #369
foldr wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about a hypothetical scenario where all sexist stereotypes are eliminated. It’s obviously silly to guess at what the numbers would be. I see no reason to expect a precise 50/50 gender balance in every one of the listed fields. Conversely, I would also not expect to see the massive disparities that we see currently. The problem in STEM isn’t that the gender balance isn’t exactly 50/50. It’s that substa…

If you cannot guess what the numbers should be then how would you know the problem is fixed? Or even if there is any problem at all?

First of all, note that this argument works both ways. You also can’t put exact numbers on how many women we’d expect there to be in the industry in the absence of any sexism whatever. So how do you know that there’s no problem?

But actually, the question is quite easy to answer for me. I am more interested in sexism per se than in the gender distribution. When women in the industry infrequently report that they are experiencing sexism, then I’ll consider that we’re well on the way to solving the problem. The current gender imbalance is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#390

Post by retsibsi »

foldr wrote: post #303
mistrial9 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the highest levels of sexism I have personally seen are in Finance, followed by construction workers; the highest levels of complaining I have personally seen are in FOSS UnConferences and PhD level academia.

It makes sense that higher levels of complaining would correlate with lower levels of sexism. Things don't usually get fixed unless people complain.

Could be more the other way around: in a really Xist field, there are fewer complaints because a) there are probably fewer [minority group] to complain, b) complaining feels riskier and less likely to achieve anything, c) complaints that do get made are more likely to be quickly shut down rather than amplified.
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