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Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

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Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#111

Post by unknownsky »

willhinsa wrote: post #54
ahmetnoid wrote: post #4

Still the problem here is we don't _really_ know whether this is genetic or shaped by our upbringing even when it comes to the most egalitarian societies. I'd like to see the same study done on the little left hunter-gatherers bands.

No. Why do female chimpanzees prefer to play with human dolls more than male chimpanzees if it's not a DEEP GENETIC DRIVE?

Female chimpanzees prefer to play with objects and use them as tools more than male chimpanzees overall. Most often, female chimps are observed using them as play weapons.[1]

On one single occasion, some female chimps were observed carrying some logs and "slapping" them. This was interpreted as playing with dolls and then it was all over the news that female chimps play with dolls.[2]

Humans aren't the only primates with culture. Chimp behaviour varies significantly according to the culture they are in, just like human behaviour does.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6387611.stm

[2]https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(10)...

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#112

Post by ergocoder »

defrost wrote: post #91
ergocoder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yonatan Zunger, a principle eng at Google and twitter, said how wrong Damore was and that: "a good number of the people you [Damore] might have to work with may simply punch you in the face" https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... I have no idea why this guy Yonatan is still allowed to work anywhere.

[flagged]

Advocate for violence is cool again... for people who don't agree with you

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#113

Post by mpweiher »

epicureanideal wrote: post #23

Does this mean James Damore was right? Or is there something wrong with this research?

Yes, he was very careful in his wording and close to 100% correct.

What the outrage mob did was as follows:

1. Change preference to ability: so "the research suggests that women, on average, prefer to do things other than code" to "women can't code"

2. Change a statistical argument to an essentialist one. So "on average" to "no women"

3. Change the population/sample from the general population to "people who work at Google". So at this point we have gone from "in the general population, there appear to be more men who like the sorts of tasks associated with coding than women who like the same kinds of tasks" to "Women at Google can't code"

4. Get horribly upset about someone claiming that they can't code.

5. Use the demonstrable fact of their being so horribly upset as evidence that he is the one creating a toxic work environment.

6. Voilà, he just has to go.

(7. Also: claim, falsely, that there is no research for what he said)

This multi-level shifting of definitions and wording is a common pattern, so something to watch out for.

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#114

Post by yung_steezy »

niceghost wrote: post #100

wtf those “preferences” are a result of history - societies raised women to take care (take care of their family and house chores) while men went out in the wild to play, study and work. - women had to be “empathetic” because understanding one’s mood was vital to their survival throughout history: in times where it was “ok” and even expected that women were beaten up to make them more docile or whatever. - women were…

I have to disagree that it can all be explained by societal conditioning. They tried to sample every society they could in this study to see if societal factors could explain the preference but could not see a societal effect. While you might be able to claim that every society around the world is fundamentally sexist to explain the difference in preferences, I think in that case you would have to be able to explain why every distributed society came to be arranged in a similar way.

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#116

Post by Izkata »

curiousguy wrote: post #75
epicureanideal wrote: post #23

Does this mean James Damore was right? Or is there something wrong with this research?

James’s mistake was to want to discuss taboo topics in _public_ and in a _working environment_. One of the best pg articles imo: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

> James’s mistake was to want to discuss taboo topics in _public_ and in a _working environment_.

It was a private report he was asked to write, that got leaked by someone else.

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#117

Post by defrost »

ergocoder wrote: post #112
defrost wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Advocate for violence is cool again... for people who don't agree with you

That's not what was advocated.

He recognised, as a manager, that Damore was that person that provokes people to the point where normal everyday people want to punch him.

Part of being a good manager is recognising people's traits.

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#118

Post by noisy_boy »

Scarblac wrote: post #71
catears wrote: post #37

The definition of working with people vs. working with things doesn't seem obvious to me. As a software engineer I am working a lot with my computer. Therefore I must be working with things! But... I am just as much working with my soft skills. Scrum retros, talking to stakeholders, discussions on design with fellow engineers, testing with end-users. Some days I don't spend even a minute working with "things". I don'…

>As a software engineer I am working a lot with my computer. Therefore I must be working with things! But... I am just as much working with my soft skills. Scrum retros, talking to stakeholders, discussions on design with fellow engineers, testing with end-users. Some days I don't spend even a minute working with "things". Yes but did you join the profession for the Scrum meetings or for the programming?

Third option: money

(speaking for myself, it was programming; never thought would get paid so much to do what I already love doing)

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#119

Post by Izkata »

meindnoch wrote: post #101
verisimi wrote: post #92

[flagged]

The two match like 99% of the time, so it wouldn’t have changed the conclusions at large.

The "Yes, but" part has me thinking it was supposed to be sarcasm... but not really sure anymore.

Re: Women like working with people, men like working with things, all over the world

#120

Post by unknownsky »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #97
unknownsky wrote: post #88

> gender differences appear to be greater in societies with greater gender equality and in which people have greater economic resources I don't think this is a paradox at all. Discouraging 50% of the workforce talent pool is a wasteful luxury that only countries with abundant resources can afford. I experienced this first hand when I moved to Sweden. I had never been made to feel like a freak for being a programmer u…

> I had never been made to feel like a freak for being a programmer until I moved to Sweden. Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Do you mind me asking where have you been before?

I have lived in a handful of different countries. I'm criticizing the idea that it's so simple to say one country is more sexist or more equal than another because there are so many metrics you can use to measure equality.

Sweden beats a lot of countries when it comes to a strongly protected right to parental leave for both men and women. But Sweden is behind many other countries when it comes to stereotypes and assumptions about what jobs men or women should be doing.

So it's meaningless to make a blanket statement that one country is more equal than another.

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