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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

#111

Post by johngalt »

arrrg wrote: post #20
johngalt wrote: post #15

Hardly a definitive proof that it's all just biology. I'd scale it back, and draw the conclusions more conservatively. Along the lines of 'employment statistics don't necessarily imply discrimination'. Just because twitter's board is mostly male, doesn't necessarily mean that being male was a requirement. No one would argue that truck drivers are mostly men due to hiring policies.

No, but people would argue that mostly men are truck drivers due to rigid gender roles and strict gender policing of the patriarchy.

I'm sure someone would argue that it's the Illuminati. That doesn't make it a rational argument.

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

#112

Post by johnbm »

thatthatis wrote: post #8

Just positing that these things _might_ be true and should be investigated was a key factor in Larry Summers getting drummed out of his position as President of Harvard. The world at large isn't ready to hear these statistics, and overall that is probably a good thing. We shouldn't accept these disparities as driven by natural forces until we've tried everything we can imagine to try to bring the differences in line.…

It's really simple. The more gender equality there is in a country, the more women and men revert to stereotypical occupation choices. That is, there are more female engineers in India or Eastern Europe than in Scandinavia.

The countries where the percentage of women pursuing STEM is the highest, are the countries where STEM careers are disproportionately lucrative.

These findings have been confirmed by multiple studies with enormous sample sizes (e.g. Richard Lippa's n=200,000 survey of 53 countries).

Feminists will spend the next couple of years staunchly denying these findings, while the number of women in STEM has flatlined, and the percentage of students that are female only rises because men are systematically discriminated against.

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

#113

Post by theorique »

shriya wrote: post #84
rguzman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, the idea here is that IQ is measurable (even if the measurement is noisy) and real (has predictive power, doesn't change). This is accomplished by studies that look to test individuals at different points in life. Secondly, IQ is mostly genetic. This is evidenced mostly by twin studies. Thirdly, math tests are okay IQ tests. Note that I'm not saying that things are one way or another, or th…

But IQ is not that important when we're talking about being successful, making money, or building a good tech tool. Otherwise people with genius IQs would be the only ones ruling our society...but that's definitely not the case.

Some IQ advantage tends to help in these situations, but more isn't always better.

In other words, you're likely to do better if you're a little better than average (e.g. 1 SD or 115).

On the other hand, if you're one of those bizarro 180 IQ outliers who can't connect socially and emotionally (to say nothing of intellectually) with average people, you aren't likely to be able to be successful in a way that incorporates and leverages the contributions of other people.

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

#114

Post by jacknews »

Many valid points, which are often either ignored, or deflected with the argument that "men might be better at X, or women better at Y, but that's only because the way society educates little boys vs little girls".

However, I think the real reason there are fewer women in tech is simply that it can be a boring, solitary, highly detail-oriented and even a socially confrontational job, ideal for "loners" perhaps.

People seem attracted to and revere other people who demonstrate leadership, charisma, social grace, and so on, and actual tech jobs aren't a place where those qualities are most highly valued or the best environment to nurture them.

Aside from the exciting and highly social "Startup, VC, Marketing" side of the industry, and of course the good salaries currently enjoyed by engineers, tech has a fairly low social status.

I say this as a programmer myself, but I acknowledge it's still considered (and in some ways, is) a job for unsociable loners. For whatever reason, women seem to be more socially inclined, or at least very much more attuned to the sociability aspect of social status, and tech is therefore not generally an attractive proposition.

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

#115

Post by polemic »

As commented:

This post could only come from someone sitting comfortably in a position of considerable privilege and unawareness.

If you’re going to completely ignore issues of societal pressures, open misogyny in technology industries and a thousand other subtle (and not so subtle) ways that a fundamentally patriarchal society maintains the status quo, then you gain no insight at all. A thousand studies will tell you the outcome of this system of oppression – but you’ll interpret is “gender differences” because you are blind to oppression that you have never been subject too.

The sad thing is that you’ve now added another nail, unaware of the damage that you do to the humans around you. Congratulations, you’ve helped to solidify your position on top of the heap.

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

#116

Post by jacknews »

arrrg wrote: post #20
johngalt wrote: post #15

Hardly a definitive proof that it's all just biology. I'd scale it back, and draw the conclusions more conservatively. Along the lines of 'employment statistics don't necessarily imply discrimination'. Just because twitter's board is mostly male, doesn't necessarily mean that being male was a requirement. No one would argue that truck drivers are mostly men due to hiring policies.

No, but people would argue that mostly men are truck drivers due to rigid gender roles and strict gender policing of the patriarchy.

Or more simply that women simply don't find the idea of sitting alone in a cab for hours on end, possibly not showering for days at a time, constantly sleeping in strange places (maybe in the truck) to be an attractive career proposition.

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

#117

Post by mkr-hn »

DanBC wrote: post #50
coldtea wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The world at large isn't ready to hear these statistics Not the "world at large". Just (provincial) middle/upper class America. > We shouldn't accept these disparities as driven by natural forces until we've tried everything we can imagine to try to bring the differences in line. Shouldn't we in fact try to understand what's going on, instead of trying to change it because of a priori notion that there shouldn't be…

> Disparity (e.g less women in Tech) is NOT a problem in itself. Sure it is. Lack of diversity means lack of understanding about other uses. It also means that biases can go unchecked, and can develop into accepted wisdom. > Also, why is IT somewhat different? Because the (false) reasons given for other occupations don't apply at all for tech. "Men are stronger, that's why you don't get women in construction"; "women…

> Sure it is. Lack of diversity means lack of understanding about other uses. It also means that biases can go unchecked, and can develop into accepted wisdom.

I wonder if that would explain why all the faculty treated me like garbage in K-12.

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

#118

Post by bqe »

dnautics wrote: post #109
CodeMage wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably more like confirmation bias and cherry picking. Pretending you have data on this is laughable.

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

#119

Post by USNetizen »

tomp wrote: post #28
USNetizen wrote: post #21

This sounds like it was written for a 12th grade research assignment and makes several incorrect inferences without a basis of fact, i.e. the male hunting equating to math reasoning. I tend to think of it as the same reason minorities are not prevalent in these places either, probably because society held them as "lower class" until recently and they are just now making gains which are long overdue. All in all, women…

> I firmly believe that women will easily overtake men in technology in the future because attitudes have changed for the better. Do you have any reason for this belief? Also, if you really believe that is true, wouldn't it be proper to start promoting technology amongst boys?

We have been doing that for centuries.

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

#120

Post by USNetizen »

pwnna wrote: post #58
USNetizen wrote: post #21

This sounds like it was written for a 12th grade research assignment and makes several incorrect inferences without a basis of fact, i.e. the male hunting equating to math reasoning. I tend to think of it as the same reason minorities are not prevalent in these places either, probably because society held them as "lower class" until recently and they are just now making gains which are long overdue. All in all, women…

Interesting theory as well. The final statement seem to be not backed up by the arguments presented. I would love to see this theory getting more researched. So given that the original article used just numbers and assume that the time derivative of these are flat, you're suggesting that the time derivative is not, and I feel like there must be stats backing this in a more.. cited manner.

Please go research it then. Anyone can find citations to prove any point they want. The original article suffers from a narrow-minded adolescent hypothesis and the citations don't prove much of anything being as old as many of them are. That was my point.
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