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Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

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Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#11

Post by edmccard »

peacetreefrog wrote: post #2

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – wom…

why the equal and greater negative stereotypes against women in law, medicine, etc were completely powerless

They weren't powerless; it took several class-action lawsuits and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints in the 70's to increase the number of women lawyers.[1] I've also heard, for example from some comments by 'rayiner here on HN, that law schools made deliberate changes to their admission policies

yet for some reason the negative stereotypes in engineering were the ones that took hold and prevented women from succeeding there

Maybe because tech, both industry and academia, hasn't made the same efforts that the legal profession did?

[1] http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... (p.14 ff)

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#12

Post by peacetreefrog »

luu wrote: post #9

Am I missing part of the argument here? At the beginning of section IV, Scott argues that stereotypes can’t explain the gender gap in engineering because of the differential rate at which people major in math vs. engineering (45% women in math, 20% women in engineering). He says: > Might girls be worried not by stereotypes about computers themselves, but by stereotypes that girls are bad at math and so can’t succeed…

So you're issue is that math is more "things" oriented too, so why would women make up 45% of undergraduate mathematics if the things/people brain differences were real? I think it's an interesting point.

It's purely anecdotal, but the two women math majors I personally know are high school math teachers, which would be more "people". Are math teachers enough to account for a 20% (engineering) to 45% (math) difference? Probably not, but I think it is more open ended in terms of what math majors end up doing vs engineering or computer science.

I find Scott's arguments persuasive though, and could easily be fitting my memory/interpretation/facts etc to work within other beliefs. Post hoc rationalizations like this are always tricky.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#13

Post by peacetreefrog »

RodericDay wrote: post #10
peacetreefrog wrote: post #2

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – wom…

Here's an explanation. Doctors and lawyers make for great television and movies, because of the drama involved and the ease of portraying it. Pretty girls are also a requirement for entertainment, for . So many doctor and lawyer TV shows were cast with women in them. And then many girls aspired to be doctors and lawyers, because they saw a viable path that way. Also, secretaries and nurses worked close to doctors and…

It's definitely a hypothesis, seems testable too. Not a ton of vet or linguistic or biology shows though.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#14

Post by Glyptodon »

luu wrote: post #9

Am I missing part of the argument here? At the beginning of section IV, Scott argues that stereotypes can’t explain the gender gap in engineering because of the differential rate at which people major in math vs. engineering (45% women in math, 20% women in engineering). He says: > Might girls be worried not by stereotypes about computers themselves, but by stereotypes that girls are bad at math and so can’t succeed…

I'm not sure about math[1] but chemical engineering can (though not always) have a lot of overlap with bio-eng and med-eng, which parallels his argument somewhat. I'd be curious to see the degree to which a more detailed breakdown of gender differences both in engineering disciplines and scientific disciplines matches his thesis for sure. If his argument holds maybe physics would be more male, biology more female, and chemistry somewhere in the middle-ish?

[1]: Anecdotally, foreign students have made up a larger percentage of the female mathematics (and physics) graduate students I've known than of the male math (and physics) graduate students I've known, though I have no idea if my experience normal, sample size is very small and biased, etc.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#15

Post by my_first_acct »

peacetreefrog wrote: post #2

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – wom…

> In the year 1850...

The first women were admitted to Harvard Business School in 1963 [1], which is a couple of years after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the earth. The first women were admitted as undergraduates to Caltech in 1970 [2], which is a year after the first moon landing.

> As the feminist movement gradually took hold...

"Gradually" seems to be the right word.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School

[2] http://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#16

Post by pinaceae »

does it not strike anyone here a bit odd that only white men are rushing to defend the manifesto guy?

isn't any employee that needs to write a 10 page manifesto about anything on the wtf side?

and now a practicing psychiatrist from the midwest who really likes to pontificate on the web about anything rushes in to gloriously defend the rights of the eternally oppressed - men. who can't just shut the fuck up and compete. no, it has to be endless verbal diarrhea.

sometimes i wish actual alpha males would exist.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#17

Post by FeepingCreature »

pinaceae wrote: post #16

does it not strike anyone here a bit odd that only white men are rushing to defend the manifesto guy? isn't any employee that needs to write a 10 page manifesto about anything on the wtf side? and now a practicing psychiatrist from the midwest who really likes to pontificate on the web about anything rushes in to gloriously defend the rights of the eternally oppressed - men. who can't just shut the fuck up and compet…

He's rushing in to gloriously defend the rights of the eternally oppressed.

Sounds like he's competing to me.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#18

Post by exolymph »

pinaceae wrote: post #16

does it not strike anyone here a bit odd that only white men are rushing to defend the manifesto guy? isn't any employee that needs to write a 10 page manifesto about anything on the wtf side? and now a practicing psychiatrist from the midwest who really likes to pontificate on the web about anything rushes in to gloriously defend the rights of the eternally oppressed - men. who can't just shut the fuck up and compet…

I'm a woman and I defended him, even though I don't entirely agree with what he wrote.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#19

Post by smsm42 »

ve55 wrote: post #4

If you enjoyed this post you should read a few others that have been posted by Scott recently (on the linked website). If any chance were to be made, the least that I would hope for is that people stop responding to every argument with nothing but hatred. Just pure, unfiltered, hatred. It's very difficult nowadays to find communities, or even individuals, who are good at this.

> If you enjoyed this post you should read a few others that have been posted by Scott recently (on the linked website).

In fact, you should read all posts in that blog (only joking a little here). I am saying this as a person who disagrees with Scott on many political views. If everybody approached to controversial topics the same way as he does, Internet would be the best place ever for political discussions.

Re: Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

#20

Post by ZeroGravitas »

my_first_acct wrote: post #15
peacetreefrog wrote: post #2

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – wom…

> In the year 1850... The first women were admitted to Harvard Business School in 1963 [1], which is a couple of years after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the earth. The first women were admitted as undergraduates to Caltech in 1970 [2], which is a year after the first moon landing. > As the feminist movement gradually took hold... "Gradually" seems to be the right word. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Busines…

He's also talking about a field being "conquered" by quoting stats on graduating students. I would guess the split in law is less for Judges, in business for CEOs etc. so if this process is happening, then it's still in progress in all of those fields, and I'd guess you could look into each one in turn and find that some started earlier and progressed faster than others. Be interesting to see what the common points for the laggards are. I don't see any great case being made for computing to be an outlier that's different in kind rather than simply degree.

I googled some stats on judges, I was correct that it lags student numbers (I say "lags" on the optimistic assumption that those students will eventually go on to be judges in similar quantities. Possibly a judge will release a 10 page manifesto about how the marxist left is forcing women to be judges when they're rather be baking cakes though, so maybe we shouldn't count our chickens until they've hatched):

http://gavelgap.org/

in particular this infographic which points out that women have been 50% of the students for 2 decades now, but still only 36% of the profession, and only 30% of state judges.

http://gavelgap.org/assets/infographic-3-c78b5c8147005783a23...

So it seems my use of "lags" was over optimistic and student numbers aren't a great predictor, even after two decades.

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