High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#41

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:22 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

As complete populations, girls aren't any smarter than boys on average, but in those programs the girls are always among the top students -- because it's only the most exceptional girls who overcome the social factors which keep most of their peers out of those subjects.

Social factors like the assumption that women who consistently outrank their peers are 'significantly more aggressive'? I'm sure you mean well but your post here seems like a classic example of circular reasoning. You assume that because the total population of women entering such programs is not any smarter on average, those who consistently perform well rather than quitting must therefore be of only average intelligence, and are making up for it by being more aggressive and competitive (than, I assume, the average man). It's equally possible that women of average or median intelligence deicde they're unlikely to succeed in that field and drop out, leaving only the best female students.

My wife is an EE and there were only 2 women in her graduating class out of a total of 30 or 35. She's had to put up her share of colleagues complaining about her being 'abrasive' and so on. It seems to me that this only exists relative to the complainant's prior expectations of women, eg her emails tend to be short and to the point rather than chatty or friendly. The horror.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#42

Post by cperciva » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

melindajb wrote: post #33

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

Your argument is not logical. These were professionals in the same sphere: tech. And one could make the argument that the sample of men was also biased--towards men who liked tech. No one claimed this was an iron clad peer reviewed scientific study--and I'd love to see some done on this in addition to those that already exist. Deborah Tannen is one of the more well known researchers in this area to uncover distinct g…

At what point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS a problem

I'm not disputing the fact that there is a problem. I'm sure there are lots of problems, in fact.

What I'm saying is that it's facile to observe that women in tech are more often described as being aggressive and to assume that this is a problem with how people are described; it would be equally consistent with the evidence to conclude that the problem is one of non-aggressive women never getting hired into this field.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#43

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:25 PM UTC

lukasb wrote: post #28

mullingitover wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point: My girlfriend is a tech designer who's worked at Guess, Hot Topic, and a slew of smaller companies. She absolutely loathes the working environment because of the drama and bitterly regrets getting into the industry. She's considering going into customer service in a call center(!) (a 50%+ pay cut) because the work environments are so stressful in the fashion industry. She explicitly blames it on the gende…

So, anecdotal. Got it. But let's say we accept it. We still need data on the "relative drama" of male-dominated industries. And considering this includes industries like finance, law and policing, I think you might be surprised what the answer turns out to be.

Yes. She may just be seeing the grass as greener on the other side. There's been drama to an absurd degree between men at places that I've worked.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#44

Post by NotAtWork » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

conistonwater wrote: post #40

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS a problem, and believe those of us who have experienced this exact phenomenon? The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed, it's the nature of it that is debated. In addition, the existence of a problem does not justify misrepresenting it, even if the intention is to raise awareness.

> The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed This thread includes people's opinions that this is not a real effect, and is instead the result of poor methodology, sampling bias, and whatnot. It is really not fair to say that the problem's existence is undisputed. There are plenty of people who dispute it, and that's also a problem.

Most of the comments (all of them that I've seen) say that the effect is real, but the source isn't necessarily a bias in the reviews, because of how the study was conducted (eg, there could be a hiring bias).

Bringing up a different cause to explain an effect is not dismissing the effect as existing in the data, merely calling in to question the source of it.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#45

Post by cperciva » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:28 PM UTC

blutoot wrote: post #25

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

I don't see the problem in sampling only professional women when the hypothesis is whether professional women are rated differently than professional men. It would be problematic if this hypothesis was tested with a sample from the overall female population. Non-professional women don't have reviews to be useful to the study. What you described is an explanation for WHY they are rated different. It doesn't discredit…

What you described is an explanation for WHY they are rated different. It doesn't discredit the study methodology.

Right, and I'm not objecting to the conclusion "women in tech are described as being more aggressive than men in tech". What I'm objecting to is the logical jump from there to assuming that the difference is due to a bias in the "described" part rather than a bias in which people enter the tech field.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#46

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:30 PM UTC

conistonwater wrote: post #40

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS a problem, and believe those of us who have experienced this exact phenomenon? The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed, it's the nature of it that is debated. In addition, the existence of a problem does not justify misrepresenting it, even if the intention is to raise awareness.

> The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed This thread includes people's opinions that this is not a real effect, and is instead the result of poor methodology, sampling bias, and whatnot. It is really not fair to say that the problem's existence is undisputed. There are plenty of people who dispute it, and that's also a problem.

The question is the problem vs a problem. This research uncovers a problem, it does not explicitly state what the problem is. What problem this research found is what people are questioning.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#47

Post by melindajb » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #42

melindajb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is not logical. These were professionals in the same sphere: tech. And one could make the argument that the sample of men was also biased--towards men who liked tech. No one claimed this was an iron clad peer reviewed scientific study--and I'd love to see some done on this in addition to those that already exist. Deborah Tannen is one of the more well known researchers in this area to uncover distinct g…

At what point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS a problem I'm not disputing the fact that there is a problem. I'm sure there are lots of problems, in fact. What I'm saying is that it's facile to observe that women in tech are more often described as being aggressive and to assume that this is a problem with how people are described; it would be equally consistent with the evidence to conc…

Your logic is inconsistent. This author is applying real data to an assertion. That assertion is backed up not only by my own experiences, but to the dozens if not hundreds or thousands of women sharing this all over social media with something akin to "see, this happens to all of us."

The author makes no such blanket statement as you suggest--rather she shows the results of her own study. What's facile is not her conclusions but rather the non data backed assertions you claim. You are the one asserting she extends her findings beyond her own sphere. to quote the author:

"I only have the data I have. I don’t know whether women were simply more willing to submit reviews that include critical language, or whether men removed language from their review documents before submitting. But the directional indication is striking and calls for further investigation by managers and HR departments. At most mid-size or large tech companies, HR leaders supervise review scores to uncover and correct patterns of systematic bias. This is a call to action to bring the same rigor to the review language itself."

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#48

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:32 PM UTC

melindajb wrote: post #33

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

Your argument is not logical. These were professionals in the same sphere: tech. And one could make the argument that the sample of men was also biased--towards men who liked tech. No one claimed this was an iron clad peer reviewed scientific study--and I'd love to see some done on this in addition to those that already exist. Deborah Tannen is one of the more well known researchers in this area to uncover distinct g…

cperciva did not attack the methodology at all, which would be clear if you'd thoroughly read the first sentence. He didn't really say anything that disagreed with it at all, but rather put forward a hypothesis explaining the data therein. Said hypothesis implicitly acknowledges that it is harder for women to get into the workplace. But because his phrasing happened to include the phrase "sampling bias", you got angry and apparently stopped reading, missing the forest for the trees.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#49

Post by cperciva » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:34 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #41

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

As complete populations, girls aren't any smarter than boys on average, but in those programs the girls are always among the top students -- because it's only the most exceptional girls who overcome the social factors which keep most of their peers out of those subjects. Social factors like the assumption that women who consistently outrank their peers are 'significantly more aggressive'? I'm sure you mean well but y…

the total population of women entering such programs is not any smarter on average

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that the total worldwide population of women is no smarter on average than the worldwide population of men. The evidence points to the subset of women who enter CS and engineering being smarter on average than the subset of men who enter CS and engineering.

It's equally possible that women of average or median intelligence deicde they're unlikely to succeed in that field and drop out, leaving only the best female students.

From everything I've seen it's less a matter of dropping out and more a matter of not entering those programs in the first place; but yes, there are societal influences which result in "marginal" men entering those fields while "marginal" women do not.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#50

Post by pnathan » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:34 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

Let's boil that away even more: suppose that the population entering CS is representative of the total population. Then, let's suppose that the social barriers to graduation & the professional workforce are adequately high that it filters out women who are not exceptionally determined to succeed in this environment[1].

When I've talked with women about this, they generally seem to agree with that.

[1] Some women get death threats over their analysis of sexism in video games. I can't think of a more hostile environment.