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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

#121

Post by USNetizen »

enjo wrote: post #25
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…

sure... sure... I firmly believe that women will easily overtake men in technology Huh?

Yup. In the management of technology there are certain sectors where women handily outnumber men. I was referring, though vaguely, to that.

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

#122

Post by rayiner »

streptomycin wrote: post #107
rayiner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mat…

Your math obviously doesn't make any sense, since say a 65/35 representation of men versus women among people who score a perfect Math SAT doesn't mean there is a 65% probability of finding a man with that characteristic and a 35% probability of finding a woman with that characteristic.

I was thinking more like this: consider giving everyone a goodness score. At first, let's say the goodness score is entirely based on mathematical ability, which skews strongly in favor of men. Then, let's make the goodness score based 50% on mathematical ability, and 50% based on an independent criterion that skews in favor of men, but less strongly. There should be more women who achieve a certain goodness score under the second set of criteria than the first. That's what I mean when I say that considering additional criteria is dilutive.

Besides that, all your metrics skew in favor of men. But out of the various metrics that go into being a good programmer, I think mathematical ability is the only one that skews in favor of men. Studies show that female students get higher grades, because they are more attentive over longer periods, have more patience and impulse control. Also, in terms of programming teams, I think being social and communicative is far more of an asset than being competitive.

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

#123

Post by rayiner »

ivanca wrote: post #105
rayiner wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If an employer just hired people with perfect SAT math scores, you'd expect a 2:1 distribution. If an employer just hired men, because they were twice as likely to have a high SAT math score, then the employer would be retarded because for both genders there is over a 99% chance that any given person will not have a high SAT math score.

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

#124

Post by coldtea »

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.

But if "lack of diversity" in the ratio of men/women working on IT is an issue _for the reasons you mention_, it means that you accept that men and women have different interests/thinking (uses/biases), and can bring different perspectives.

In which case you should also entertain the idea that women might just not like IT style jobs and the kind of problem solving people do in programming. That's a different bias/perspective too, after all.

>Have you looked? I'm not sure about fishermen, but there are many programmes to increase the number of men in nursing, or women in construction.

Citation needed.

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

#125

Post by anu_gupta »

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.

As someone purporting to be a scientist I'm surprised you even contributed this anecdote to this discussion.

So, what's the point you're trying to make - that women are offered opportunities but turn them down, and therefore there is no problem?

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

#127

Post by lotsofcows »

I don't understand the competition argument. Technology is competitive? Somehow I've missed that throughout my career.

I'm also not sure about the maths argument. Anyone got the stats for accountants? There are more women, I think?

When I started in this industry, almost all the IT specialists had come straight from the accounting department. And the sexes were split 50/50. But even then it was very obvious that the next, university trained, generation were predominantly male.

This post has failed to convince me that the issue is anything other than cultural - from the earliest age. By the time we're thinking about careers, there are so many barriers against women that the effect seen is inevitable.

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

#128

Post by DanBC »

coldtea wrote: post #124
DanBC wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But if "lack of diversity" in the ratio of men/women working on IT is an issue _for the reasons you mention_, it means that you accept that men and women have different interests/thinking (uses/biases), and can bring different perspectives. In which case you s…

> Citation needed.

They're not hard to find. Australia, UK, US examples for females into construction:

http://www.heatingandventilating.net/news/news.asp?id=6255&t...

> A successful initiative set up to support women working in the construction sector, has been granted £420,750 further funding to continue.

> The government-funded Women and Work: Sector Pathways Initiative is led by Construction Skills and aims to help get women into construction work and supports women already working in the sector to get further training.

http://civilconstructioncareers.com/women-in-construction.ph...

> The Women in Civil Construction Initiative will directly address the skills required for entry to the civil infrastructure sector of the industry. The Civil Contractors Federation (CCF), in collaboration with their funding partners Construction Skills Queensland, is delivering a flexible based program designed to deliver the entry level skills required to participants who wish to pursue a career in the Civil infrastructure sector. The WIC program is already underway within Queensland.

http://www.construction.co.uk/construction_news.asp?newsid=7...

http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/news/136592/new-program-to-...

Men into nursing: http://aamn.org/

Men into early years educations: http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/working-groups/men/

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

#129

Post by tomp »

arrrg wrote: post #98
tomp wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there aren't any other jobs. The real question is, though, why don't the women get/take such jobs. I think the answer is a mixture of the following: (1) they are worse at such jobs than men (physically weaker and menstruating, which I assume might matter for a job like truck-driving), (2) (I assume) women get more government help, because they are more often (single) mothers and (3) women can play on other qu…

And this power imbalance between workers and employers is terrible. Yeah, all pretty standard socialist stuff I’m a huge fanboy of. It’s of course not only gender roles that play a role here. You reasons are pretty bullshitty, so I don’t think I ever want to talk to you again. Bye!

Don't shoot the messenger :) These are more guesses than opinions, so if you have any better ideas, shoot!

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

#130

Post by ivanca »

rayiner wrote: post #123
ivanca wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If an employer just hired people with perfect SAT math scores, you'd expect a 2:1 distribution. If an employer just hired men, because they were twice as likely to have a high SAT math score, then the employer would be retarded because for both genders there is over a 99% chance that any given person will not have a high SAT math score.

Not a "high" but a better, and that's usually enough; and the gap seems to be increasing[0].

[0]http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/2012-sat-test-results-a-hug...

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