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Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

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Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#21

Post by shardling »

speeder wrote: post #8
speeder wrote: post #5

Gender bias will never cease to exist, and for good reasons, the fight for equality happened many times before in history, and never ended well. Male and female are very dismorphic, we cannot change that easily, male and female have very specialized roles and purposes. Yes, I am happy that people now in general have more equal opportunity than ever, and that we can have awesome workers on some areas from any backgrou…

I love HN, I make a huge post, and when the page finishes loading the tread again it is already downvoted

I downvoted you because I don't think the post was very coherent. It rambles, it doesn't make any effort to directly connect to the original story, and in general comes across more as a rant than a piece of thoughtful commentary.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#22

Post by fhars »

return0 wrote: post #2

It's hard to distinguish bias from genuine preconceptions based on experience - for that one would need gender neutral data that is impossible to obtain. The reverse kind of gender bias could be found in divorce custody cases for example. Maybe one could do an experiment in online job marketplaces: change the gender of a large number of work providers and observe how payouts change. In any case this was a shallow and…

If you actually had read the linked "shallow" article, you would have noticed that the author cited exactly the kind of study you want to see. In the very first paragraph.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#23

Post by andreasvc »

speeder wrote: post #5

Gender bias will never cease to exist, and for good reasons, the fight for equality happened many times before in history, and never ended well. Male and female are very dismorphic, we cannot change that easily, male and female have very specialized roles and purposes. Yes, I am happy that people now in general have more equal opportunity than ever, and that we can have awesome workers on some areas from any backgrou…

> Male and female are very dismorphic

You mean sexually dimorphic. This is actually the subject of significant controversy (esp. with regards to intelligence), so you cannot state this so carelessly. An uncontroversial case of sexual dimorphism is a male spider which is three times smaller than its female counterpart.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#24

Post by shardling »

return0 wrote: post #16
shardling wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have (I hope unwittingly?) just fulfilled one of the specific tropes she does mention.

... And which she outright dismisses citing an irrelevant study. (I did mention it's a poor article, didn't i?) When we talk about real-life statistical evidence, that’s not conclusive, either, because all differences are explained by women having babies, other priorities, etc (Except they’re not, as the linked document explains very clearly.) The linked document is a report with some recommendations about how to mea…

A trope is a recurring theme. In this context, it refers to highly predictable responses to particular arguments.

I don't think the post was super well written, but I also don't see how the cited study was irrelevant -- it shows the existence of a gender bias that operates completely independently of the choices of any individual woman:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/09/19/...

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#25

Post by almost »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

The word "fact" is used extremely loosely in this article. While the first "fact" is in fact factual it then very quickly goes down the rabbit hole of personal opinion/perspective. By the time we get to "fact 3" the author isn't even pretending any more and the "fact" is just a bizarre "you're a mathematician, you can solve this!!1!" point... I'm happy to have a discussion about gender politics/equality, this article…

That's an extremely shallow criticism of the article. It uses the Myth/Fact device which is quite common in articles, read then as Point/Counterpoint or something if you must. But let's talk about the content, not the style.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#26

Post by andreasvc »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

The word "fact" is used extremely loosely in this article. While the first "fact" is in fact factual it then very quickly goes down the rabbit hole of personal opinion/perspective. By the time we get to "fact 3" the author isn't even pretending any more and the "fact" is just a bizarre "you're a mathematician, you can solve this!!1!" point... I'm happy to have a discussion about gender politics/equality, this article…

Oh come on, just substitute rebuttal or response for fact. Do you dismiss a FAQ because the questions aren't actually asked frequently?! I think we should be discussing the actual content, not the form of presentation.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#27

Post by smsm42 »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

The word "fact" is used extremely loosely in this article. While the first "fact" is in fact factual it then very quickly goes down the rabbit hole of personal opinion/perspective. By the time we get to "fact 3" the author isn't even pretending any more and the "fact" is just a bizarre "you're a mathematician, you can solve this!!1!" point... I'm happy to have a discussion about gender politics/equality, this article…

That's a common trope now in the political discourse. Since mere opinion journalism got almost completely consumed by partisan hackery, in the search for credibility and reader's trust a new crop of opinion writing has emerged - the "fact checking". Some time ago, you would write "my political opponents claim A, but my opinion is B, and here are the arguments supporting it". Now, you write: "Myth: A. Fact: B. Resolution: my political opponents are liars-liars-pants-on-fire".

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#28

Post by smsm42 »

almost wrote: post #25
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

The word "fact" is used extremely loosely in this article. While the first "fact" is in fact factual it then very quickly goes down the rabbit hole of personal opinion/perspective. By the time we get to "fact 3" the author isn't even pretending any more and the "fact" is just a bizarre "you're a mathematician, you can solve this!!1!" point... I'm happy to have a discussion about gender politics/equality, this article…

That's an extremely shallow criticism of the article. It uses the Myth/Fact device which is quite common in articles, read then as Point/Counterpoint or something if you must. But let's talk about the content, not the style.

Common != right. Spam is common too :) If you write an opinion piece, there's nothing shameful in that, but it's not a fact. Word "fact" used to have meaning...

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#29

Post by mhansen »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

The word "fact" is used extremely loosely in this article. While the first "fact" is in fact factual it then very quickly goes down the rabbit hole of personal opinion/perspective. By the time we get to "fact 3" the author isn't even pretending any more and the "fact" is just a bizarre "you're a mathematician, you can solve this!!1!" point... I'm happy to have a discussion about gender politics/equality, this article…

You might be interested that this is such a common way to derail conversations about privilege that it's made part of 'Derailing for Dummies'.

http://birdofparadox.wordpress.com/derailing-for-dummies-goo...

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#30

Post by lutusp »

speeder wrote: post #8
speeder wrote: post #5

Gender bias will never cease to exist, and for good reasons, the fight for equality happened many times before in history, and never ended well. Male and female are very dismorphic, we cannot change that easily, male and female have very specialized roles and purposes. Yes, I am happy that people now in general have more equal opportunity than ever, and that we can have awesome workers on some areas from any backgrou…

I love HN, I make a huge post, and when the page finishes loading the tread again it is already downvoted

> I love HN, I make a huge post, and when the page finishes loading the tread again it is already downvoted

Posts aren't judged based on size, but content. And anonymous voting is often completely unfair -- just like life.

I suggest that you take this as useful feedback to improve how you express yourself. Your post has word usage issues (as other have commented), a problem with length versus content, things like that. At risk of quoting a cliche, make lemonade.

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