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Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

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Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#101

Post by rayiner »

streptomycin wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #34

The problem with his argument is not the statistics, which are sound, but the fact that he begs the question and also ignores some obvious implications of the very data he presents. First, let's talk about mathematical ability. It's widely known that men outnumber women in the upper percentiles of mathematical ability. However, that's an explanation for why there are so few female Fields Medalists (in fact, there are…

Even if mathematical ability is totally determinative, and being a programmer required top 0.3-0.5% of mathematical ability, we would expect to see ratios of maybe 65/35 in the programming world, not 90/10 or 95/5. That's true. But he described multiple factors that bias men towards programming. Even if individual factors (like mathematical ability) only cause 65/35 differences in isolation, combining a few of them t…

The difference in mathematical ability is about the starkest difference between the aptitudes of men and women. You expect a 65/35 difference if mathematical aptitude is the only thing that matters, and if a top 0.5% level of mathematical aptitude is required for programming. If mathematical aptitude is say only 40% of what makes a good programmer, and the factors in the other 60% skew less than mathematical aptitude, then you'd expect a more even ratio than 65/35. Thus, consideration of other factors dilutes the analysis.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#102

Post by ninjac0der »

ivanca wrote: post #86
thatthatis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're mass murdering without justification in biological/cultural/racial differences, isn't that by definition not a genocide?

In that case, the grandparent-comment is not actually asking anything and just pointing out that a word for defining such events exists.

No, I would argue the holocaust and more are confusing cultural disagreements with racial stereotyping which have more to do with (surprise!) culture than race. I think it's much more believable that a large group of people grew angry with a culture of racial inclusion in financial matters leading toward the ease of hatred of a racial stereotype than the actual genes involved. Race is the identifier, not the cause.

If it wasn't race, it would family names or family colors/flags, gender, buck-teeth or what-have-you, as shown throughout history. Bickering and bigotry aren't reason for arbitrarily changing things.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#103

Post by subsystem »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #85
makomk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT's white-collar whereas the jobs you're talking about aren't. Apparently there's never been a huge amount of feminist interest in getting women into male-dominated blue-collar jobs or in working-class women in general; it's an old and fairly well documented issue.

It's money more than status. In the early 1990s, programming was still white collar but paid about the same as accounting, and nobody cared how few women were doing it.

There were also actually more women in computing back then...

http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files...

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#104

Post by scotty79 »

Girls worse at math? In US yes, in Sweden no.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-learning-brain/20121...

If you think the cause of girls being bad at math is biological you must conclude that swedish girls are more biologically different from US girls than from boys.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#105

Post by ivanca »

rayiner wrote: post #100
ivanca wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Among people who score a perfect 800 on the Math SAT (top 1% starts at 770), men outnumber women only 2:1 So you are selecting outliers to justify the "proper" average outnumbering? That doesn't add up.

The shape of the curves are such that men have a very small advantage on the Math SAT at the median, which gets larger up the scale. So using the disparity between the sexes at the median makes the author's argument even worse.

Even being 2:1 why would you expect those results being reflected anywhere else? Why would an employer hire from one of the two pools of people where one haves 50% less chance of being good enough for the position?

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#106

Post by dzink »

tekalon wrote: post #93
dzink wrote: post #37

Most of your research is from 20 years ago. Cultural norms play a huge part in this and norms have been changing (compare what you'd read about the roles of women in the 1950's vs today). My mother built one business after another even though my grandfather was forcing her to be a math teacher. She started 4+ businesses and each one carried the name of a guy in my family (even my brother, as soon as he turned 18) bec…

While I agree that a lot of it is cultural based, I do agree that there is some biological basis also. As a woman also, I can see myself in the points the author makes. While I had good grades (was in high school math club) I avoided risks in school and in career (went for 'easy' degree of history first). Only recently did I go back and get a degree in programming, requiring me having to learn differently than before…

Culturally, do you see the same demands placed on you as are placed on a male peer/brother of yours? I bet when you start seeing those you will start seeing similar behavior (because I have seen it).

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#107

Post by streptomycin »

rayiner wrote: post #101
streptomycin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if mathematical ability is totally determinative, and being a programmer required top 0.3-0.5% of mathematical ability, we would expect to see ratios of maybe 65/35 in the programming world, not 90/10 or 95/5. That's true. But he described multiple factors that bias men towards programming. Even if individual factors (like mathematical ability) only cause 65/35 differences in isolation, combining a few of them t…

The difference in mathematical ability is about the starkest difference between the aptitudes of men and women. You expect a 65/35 difference if mathematical aptitude is the only thing that matters, and if a top 0.5% level of mathematical aptitude is required for programming. If mathematical aptitude is say only 40% of what makes a good programmer, and the factors in the other 60% skew less than mathematical aptitude…

Let's say being a programmer requires X, Y, and Z. X is 65/35 male/female, Y is 60/40, Z is 55/45.

The odds of finding a woman with X, Y, and Z is 0.35 * .4 * 0.45, about 5%.

The odds of finding a man with X, Y, and Z is 0.65 * .6 * 0.55, about 20%.

All else equal, you'd find that about 80% of programmers are male.

Obviously my example is contrived, but if you think I'm wildly wrong, please respond with something math-based, even if it's equally contrived. Then we'll at least know what the other is really getting at.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#108

Post by dnautics »

GhotiFish wrote: post #22
dnautics wrote: post #11

I invited three women to be on the board of my corporation. All of them turned me down. All of the men I invited onto my board accepted.

interesting. Do you think they felt they weren't up to the task?

I did not ask them (two of them are personal friends of mine, so I didn't feel like taking them to task about it).

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#109

Post by dnautics »

CodeMage wrote: post #33
dnautics wrote: post #11

I invited three women to be on the board of my corporation. All of them turned me down. All of the men I invited onto my board accepted.

Why? Edit: I'm asking because @dnautics gave us an anecdote that doesn't add anything useful. Knowing why would be much more interesting, although still an anecdote.

the plural of anecdote is data.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#110

Post by arrrg »

asdasf wrote: post #99
arrrg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that argument is pretty universal. Even MRAs are sort of making that argument, only they claim the reason is some sort of weird feminist conspiracy, something that really makes no sense at all. I would consider the culture of working oneself to death generally harmful and strictly policed gender roles can play a very dangerous and enforcing role there.

You can "actually" all you want, but it doesn't change reality. The vast majority of people are neither feminists nor MRAs. Even if the absurdity of you trying to equate two different positions were overlooked, the total of both of those groups is still a minority, not anywhere even remotely close to universal. On a side note, you aren't helping the image of feminism by bringing up MRAs out of nowhere just to deliber…

Oh, look! Who’s a good boy and learned all their logical fallacies! You! Adorable!
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