On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal • Hacker News Board

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#131

Post by papsosouid » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #111

papsosouid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given a little bit of time, perhaps she will see that some sexism-based discrimination does exist Did you skip the "reading the article" part? She made it quite clear that she has experienced sexism before, just not yet in the web industry. She didn't say sexism doesn't exist, just that it doesn't seem to be a web/it problem. >It is a cold, hard fact: women make less than men. No, it isn't. The wage gap myth is just…

You state yourself very confidently. Care to back it up with citations? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disp... many studies have found that there is a persistent gap that remains, even when you control for education level, hours worked, experience, etc. It is unclear whose fault this gap is. For instance when people get a job offer, men are more likely to try to negotiate than wo…

>According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disp.... many studies have found that there is a persistent gap that remains, even when you control for education level, hours worked, experience, etc.

It does not say that. It says one single economist testified to that affect. And that others offered rebuttals. Controlling for hours worked, education, experience, etc leaves you with the opposite of what you think: there is no gap. And the exact page you are linking to points out that the gap also goes the other direction when you don't account for confounding factors, do you also think there is widespread sexism against men lowering their income?

"According to an analysis of Census Bureau data released by Reach Advisors in 2008, single childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most United States cities, with incomes that were 8% greater than males on average"

The only studies I've seen that claim there is still an unexplained difference after accounting for confounding factors all have the same flaw. They do not actually account for hours worked. They classify "full time" as all the same. When 60 hours and 40 hours are considered the same, you are not controlling for hours worked. They end up with figures at around 5% pay gap. Which confirms the nonexistence of this gap, as the average full time hours per day of a man is 8.14, and a woman is 7.75.

The US department of labor commissioned a report on the subject. They found that there is no wage gap, the pay gap can be fully explained by differences in work (job choice, hours worked, etc): http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#132

Post by trhtrsh » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #43

Toshio wrote: post #11

Randi Harper a.k.a. FreeBSD Girl was interviewed for the FLOSS Weekly podcast and she said that every minute spent on discussing gender issues in technology is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software.

Great quote. I try to convey this to people. Melvin Van Peebles didn't complain that blacks were underrepresented in Hollywood. He just went out and made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (and it wasn't easy). That movie ushered a new era of black cinema. He solved the problem by doing, not pontificating. I'm not saying there's no room for talking, but at this point no one is bringing anything new to the table; I'm s…

Bill Cosby took another approach. (Both are valid, attacking the front and the flank.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Spy_(1965_TV_series)

> I Spy's contribution to American television and society by being the first series to star a black and a white actor together,

> (Culp revealed in his audio commentary on the DVD release that he and Cosby agreed early on that "Our statement is a non-statement" regarding race, and the subject was never discussed again.) As a strait-laced Rhodes scholar fluent in many languages, Cosby's "Scotty" was really the brains of the team. His partner (Culp) was the athlete and playboy who lived by his wits.

Then, of course, came The Cosby Show's years of illustrating a non-stereotypical black family, almost never talking directly about it.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#133

Post by pwf » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

> I’ve found men to be more laid back, friendlier, and easier to talk to than women.

I had to stop reading there. Is this article supposed to be an example of what real sexism looks like?

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#134

Post by zachinglis » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

eavc wrote: post #116

"Isn’t social research by its nature normally based on anecdotal evidence?" No. That's the very antithesis of what social research is, by its nature.

If you read his Tweets, when Laura tried to contact him on Twitter before. Anything she said was "wrong" because of evidence suggests otherwise. She literally couldn't give her personal views, because evidence denies it.

But let's be fair, you can make research say whatever you want. Especially social research. It's a very valid thing, but it should not be taken as gospel.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#135

Post by trhtrsh » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

skylan_q wrote: post #74

thisone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that there aren't more women because of sexism. I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences. I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family, or friend's families was in IT. At school it wasn't something that was talked…

The same kind of logic would lead us to believe that the dearth of men in nursing is a result of sexism against men.

It's really more of sexism against women, in the sense that nursing (and teaching) is one of a small set of careers traditionally open to women, and so they clustered.

Like Jews and finance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism#Restricti...

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#136

Post by illuminate » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #110

rada wrote: post #99

The original "Primer On Sexism" : 8 points and dead, 0 comments The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't know what does. Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a…

Agreed. People seem to be incredibly invested in believing that intelligent people could ever be sexist. When I've called out people over the years for being sexist or racist, often they don't even realize immediately they'd said something offensive because it usually is subtle rather than overt - off-color jokes, sexualized images or inappropriate topics.

It reminds me of the whole Skepchick versus Dawkins & the "MRAs" drama that happened months back.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#137

Post by zachinglis » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

jenandre wrote: post #113

zachinglis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I (and she) do agree that she's not the best person to represent women in tech (she says so herself) a lot of people who have been do agree in the comments, and she does work with a big company that does development (.net, Windows Phone work, design and everything else in between too in a giant open plan office. So she does see more than you'd initially think)

That's like saying "I work as a nurse in a hospital in the 1950s". Sure, you may see some sexism second hand, but if you're a female doctor in the same position, it's a totally different experience. The primary thing I didn't like about the author's article was that her criticism of the original article (which were totally valid, by the way) kind of concluded with the impression (given by her anecdotal experience) th…

Of course. But is it any less valid that she says than Faruk, a guy. He's particularly talking about sexism for women - something by his own line he can never understand or experience.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#138

Post by jenandre » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

trhtrsh wrote: post #126

jenandre wrote: post #50

Ehh... Yeah. The original article was kind of a pile of crap, but it's hard to give this any credibility either. 1) She's only worked for 6 months 2) She works in UX, which is actually pretty well represented by women. My two cents from a woman who actually works in a technical position (I'm a developer) for > 10 years now. Also working in infosec, which is one of the least represented when it comes to gender balance…

> (and it's worse when people point it out -- I was asked an interview for a programming teaching position at a university BY A PROFESSOR "how will you handle it if people don't take you seriously as a female?") There are good ways and bad ways to broach the topic, but this is an important question to answer. Not as a hiring filter per se, but as a likely problem that needs a solution. I went to college with (And tea…

I agree, it's a valid problem to deal with, but the wrong time/place for it. Remember, at an interview, you are putting the impression in that young person's mind: "wait, people won't take me seriously as a female?" -- that's something they carry with them beyond the interview.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#139

Post by trhtrsh » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #131

btilly wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You state yourself very confidently. Care to back it up with citations? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disp... many studies have found that there is a persistent gap that remains, even when you control for education level, hours worked, experience, etc. It is unclear whose fault this gap is. For instance when people get a job offer, men are more likely to try to negotiate than wo…

>According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disp... . many studies have found that there is a persistent gap that remains, even when you control for education level, hours worked, experience, etc. It does not say that. It says one single economist testified to that affect. And that others offered rebuttals. Controlling for hours worked, education, experience, etc leaves you with the opposite…

Did you read the paragraph you quoted? It contradicts your claim.

> According to an analysis of Census Bureau data released by Reach Advisors in 2008, single childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most United States cities, with incomes that were 8% greater than males on average. This shift is driven by the growing ranks of women who attend colleges and move on to high-earning jobs.[7]

"[7]" is http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870442110457546...

> While these particular women earn more than their male peers, women on the whole haven't reached equal status in any particular job or education level. For instance, women with a bachelor's degree had median earnings of $39,571 between 2006 and 2008, compared with $59,079 for men at the same education level, according to the Census.

> At every education level, from high-school dropouts to Ph.D.s, women continue to earn less than their male peers.

the "8% advantage", and all the differences quoted in this article, clearly do not control for the type of work performed.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#140

Post by trhtrsh » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #77

shawnee_ wrote: post #45

Faruk Ateş' at least got this part right: The tone of our debates – which often get quite heated – is frequently different based on the gender of the author(s). Sanders' article seems a little more rant-y than it should be for someone who is basing her experiences "in the industry" (UK) since April 2012. Not that a relatively small amount of experience means you can't have an opinion, but it can't be good to become t…

> literally raped her of all her legal rights Really? That's the way you want to describe this?

'literally' means 'figuratively', figuratively.

'literally' means 'figuratively', literally, if you use 'literally' figuratively.