Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians • Hacker News Board

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#31

Post by ivanmilles » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:52 AM UTC

fhars wrote: post #15

sprash wrote: post #6

The average man is pumped full of a hormone called testosterone. This leads them to take more risks and have a generally more aggressive way of doing things. This fact has been scientifically proven over and over again. In a fast moving market with high competition you need these qualities hence it is no secret why in average males are more employable in tech than women. This is a healthy market response and has noth…

Actually, organizing markets in a way that they favour one gender over another is an instance of sexist bias.

An excellent example of structural discrimination - one group both organizes and controls the perception of value in a field. It becomes hard to unless you support the structure - hence women who are forced to act on male terms. "Karen's alright, she's like one of the guys."

Such a structure becomes "sex inclusive" (accepting biological men and women who act masculinely) and not "gender inclusive" (accepting biological men and women who act masculinely or femininely).

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#32

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:53 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #18

return0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there is a gender pay gap. The question is: how do we know it's not justified? Presumably the pay reflects the work done

[deleted]

It's a huge presumption, but it's equally huge presumption that every person on the planet secretly hates women and isn't even aware of it. Either one needs proof to be called true, and neither is proven by just stating the statistics and postulating that one's favorite explanation is the right one.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#33

Post by UnoriginalGuy » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:54 AM UTC

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.

The article is so shallow its self that I didn't feel it deserved my time for a deep criticism.

The author just stop justifying their points after the first couple. It is like they starting writing a really good piece, then got two "myths" in and then switched to random opinion mode.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#34

Post by return0 » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:54 AM UTC

fhars wrote: post #22

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.

That's not the kind of study i meant. We need a way to observe whether men deserve to be paid more because they work more or not.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#35

Post by ivanmilles » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:56 AM UTC

return0 wrote: post #13

crntaylor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Do you really think that the problem is that enough studies haven't been done? The linked article mentions a study on the gender pay gap in academia[0], the results section of which includes "After accounting for [ underrepresentation of women at the full Professor level a…

I know there is a gender pay gap. The question is: how do we know it's not justified? Presumably the pay reflects the work done

>how do we know it's not justified? Presumably the pay reflects the work done. Again, do you think studies haven't been done? That's the core of the discussion: pay does not reflect the work done, and it is sometimes even inverted.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#36

Post by ivanmilles » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:57 AM UTC

return0 wrote: post #34

fhars wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not the kind of study i meant. We need a way to observe whether men deserve to be paid more because they work more or not.

...if they work more /as evaluated by men/.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#37

Post by lutusp » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:57 AM UTC

return0 wrote: post #9

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…

- The fight for gender equality is exclusively 20th century thing (correction 18+ century and limited to the industrial world); never happened before - Gender equality wasn't imposed in society by an external entity, it was brought about because it was essential (not only on moral grounds but economic as well) - Most societies for most of history were less hostile to homo/bi-sexuality than the modern (pre-1970s) West…

> The fight for gender equality is exclusively 20th century thing; never happened before

No, this is false. All that differed in historical accounts of gender struggles were the methods and the scale, not the goals. Do the names Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony ring any bells (19th century)? Or Margaret Cavendish from the 17th century?

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#38

Post by Claudus » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:57 AM UTC

I've worked with a lot of programmers. Some of them have character flaws that make them unpleasant to work with. These character flaws do not affect their ability to "get the job done", but I'd rather not work with them and take steps to avoid doing so when possible.

From a link in the article:

Renowned conductors have asserted that female musicians have "smaller techniques," are more temperamental and are simply unsuitable for orchestras

I think that "simply unsuitable for orchestras" is vague and unquantifiable, but "smaller techniques" and "more temperamental" seem like assertions that could be challenged.

I have a general concept of what "smaller technique" means, is this something that is difficult to measure in a standard audition? Do female musicians in fact have "smaller technique" in general?

Are female musicians "more temperamental" than male musicians in general? Is there a male equivalent of a "diva", if not does that support the assertion that female musicians are more temperamental? Can you determine how temperamental someone is from a blind audition? Is temperament a valid reason to not hire someone?

To me, these senior conductors, scientists, etc. are asserting that, in general, women differ from men in certain dimensions that factor into hiring decisions but are not detectable in initial screening process.

If you really want to end sexism, I feel like these sorts of questions need to be asked and answered. My observation of the subject is that many people have an intuition, gut feeling, opinion formed from personal experience, etc. that men and women in general have innate differences that make men (or women) more suitable for certain functions.

The ONLY way that gender bias will ever end is to challenge these ideas and in fact show that these innate differences do not exist.

On the other hand, if gender differences do exist, then fighting gender bias is an eternal struggle that will never end. It is human nature to min / max and game the system.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#39

Post by cell303 » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 10:59 AM UTC

sprash wrote: post #6

The average man is pumped full of a hormone called testosterone. This leads them to take more risks and have a generally more aggressive way of doing things. This fact has been scientifically proven over and over again. In a fast moving market with high competition you need these qualities hence it is no secret why in average males are more employable in tech than women. This is a healthy market response and has noth…

I don't like the biology argument. It sounds as if we would care about our biology in any other respect. The whole tech industry is about extending our human capacities beyond our natural limitations, fitting low-testosterone entities (aka women) into "fast moving markets with high competiton"* for the sake of equity [and to show the rest of the world just how awesome we are] is just another obstacle we want to overcome.

*I guess this makes it sound more manly and heroic than it actually is.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#40

Post by speeder » Sun, Feb 10, 2013, 11:00 AM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #30

speeder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

It was downvoted in the time between me hitting submit and the page loading again, how it was a judgement of content? The guy can read the whole wall of text in the three seconds it took my 3g to reload?