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Nevertheless, She Coded

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Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#161

Post by oh_sigh »

phlakaton wrote: post #104

If ever I had a notion that an expression of solidarity for women in tech was unnecessary or quixotic, the response to this article on this very forum would be sufficient to dispel it.

Well, the very first claim the article brings up is that women face a pay gap, which is simply not true when you control for other variables. So that's not a good start.

Also, the origin of the quote 'Nevertheless, she persisted' is from a completely non-gendered context, where a woman persisted in breaking the non-gendered rules of the US Congress.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#162

Post by tmnvix »

drewrv wrote: post #153
CryoLogic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied economics in college, and worked with a professor who was researching the "pay gap". We found that adjusting for a number of factors (profession, experience, education, etc.) the pay gap actually closes significantly. That isn't to say some companies don't have pay gap, but it is largely overblown and often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. tl;dr 70 cents on the dollar is not a real thing when yo…

> often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. Why do these "other factors" push down the pay rate of women by almost 30%? If these other factors were random noise you'd expect them to affect both genders approximately equally. The fact that men work more hours or that women take on more childcare duties does not mean that the pay gap doesn't exist. All it means that it's caused by cultural factors.

Then it becomes an earnings gap and not a pay gap.

I do agree that having an earnings gap is a problem that should be addressed (especially with regard to superannuation). The problem is when we are told that there is a pay gap and that it is due to sexism in the workplace - disallowing discussion of the cultural factors that you highlighted.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#163

Post by cbhl »

CryoLogic wrote: post #129
Pigo wrote: post #4

"continued pay disparity" here we go...

I studied economics in college, and worked with a professor who was researching the "pay gap". We found that adjusting for a number of factors (profession, experience, education, etc.) the pay gap actually closes significantly. That isn't to say some companies don't have pay gap, but it is largely overblown and often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. tl;dr 70 cents on the dollar is not a real thing when yo…

If men become doctors and women become nurses, or if men become Software Engineers and women become Test Engineers, then there's still something wrong with the world.

"Adjusting for profession" ignores the cultural context of terms like "pay gap" -- we come from a world where women couldn't work certain jobs at all.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#164

Post by oh_sigh »

smt88 wrote: post #118
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #110

Also because the issue essentially doesnt exist. A victim complex is a real thing and there are real victims. You must acknowledge both, not just the latter (or just the former for that matter.) Sexism is real but severely overblown in my experience.

Is your experience that of a woman? If not, you really have no idea whether it's overblown or not.

This is a horrible argument to make, because you're basically saying that a woman could never feel that sexism is overblown.

Do you really think no women in the world think that the talk of sexism is overblown?

If so, I'm curious what other opinions you believe women aren't allowed to have?

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#165

Post by [deleted] »

smt88 wrote: post #118
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #110

Also because the issue essentially doesnt exist. A victim complex is a real thing and there are real victims. You must acknowledge both, not just the latter (or just the former for that matter.) Sexism is real but severely overblown in my experience.

Is your experience that of a woman? If not, you really have no idea whether it's overblown or not.

[deleted]

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#166

Post by sheepmullet »

T-R wrote: post #159
sheepmullet wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there are disparaging comments because people love to quote misleading statistics... kind of just like you did. From the glassdoor wage gap study you mentioned in [2]: > After taking into account differences in education and experience, men working at tech companies overall make 5.9 percent more than women do From a brief scan of the study they didn't control for hours worked and they are already down to 5.9%…

> they didn't control for hours worked Are the programmers in question being paid by the hour? Does programmer pay within each gender correlate closely to hours worked?

I wouldn't know. It seems reasonable.

All the academic studies I have seen either adjust for it explicitly or put forward a strong case on why it isn't being included.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#167

Post by unknownsavage »

The grandstanding is corny at best. Take the first example:

> Despite continued assaults on the credibility of her contributions to modern computer science as the world’s first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace coded.

Yet in reality she was very much respected in her day, and despite her challenges received widespread support. The first "assaults" on her scope of her contributions came over 100 after her death, and not some sexism she had to fight and overcome.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#168

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #157
cmiles74 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be easy to find problems with any study with which you disagree. I want to be clear: studies that are trying to distill something with this vast a number of moving parts will never be entirely satisfactory to everyone. The issues are simply too complicated. That said, I find it much easier to believe that women are paid less than men, on average, than to believe otherwise. This has been the case histori…

> It's going to be easy to find problems with any study with which you disagree. Exactly. Which is why it's important to look at broader aggregates and more data. In fact, when you do that, you find you end up averaging in a ton of other studies that show men being under paid, and... Hah, right. There are no such studies. Everyone who bothers to look at this comes back with some variant of the same answer: women are…

[deleted]

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#169

Post by T-R »

sheepmullet wrote: post #166
T-R wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn't control for hours worked Are the programmers in question being paid by the hour? Does programmer pay within each gender correlate closely to hours worked?

I wouldn't know. It seems reasonable. All the academic studies I have seen either adjust for it explicitly or put forward a strong case on why it isn't being included.

It's certainly reasonable for a studies across fields with hourly pay or, e.g., including both part-time and full-time (such as the BLS survey cited by the Forbes article), but I'm not sure we can make that assumption for software development - programmer productivity in a given time period is, on its own, somewhat mythically considered to vary by orders of magnitude.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#170

Post by sheepmullet »

T-R wrote: post #169
sheepmullet wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't know. It seems reasonable. All the academic studies I have seen either adjust for it explicitly or put forward a strong case on why it isn't being included.

It's certainly reasonable for a studies across fields with hourly pay or, e.g., including both part-time and full-time (such as the BLS survey cited by the Forbes article), but I'm not sure we can make that assumption for software development - programmer productivity in a given time period is, on its own, somewhat mythically considered to vary by orders of magnitude.

Fair point.

I'd argue it's a more logical and likely explanation than sexism though.

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