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Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

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Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#161

Post by saraid216 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #158
saraid216 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual agency en masse should be a random distribution, which results in a proportionate representation within reasonable error margins. Not having this suggests that there's another factor besides individual agency factoring into decisions. It could be something acceptable, like men can't biologically give birth (yet), or it could be something unacceptable, like blacks being targeted by police solely on suspicio…

> Individual agency en masse should be a random distribution // Would you like a) a beer, b) a hot chocolate ... Hmm, I'm sure it'll be a random distribution with equal weighting of men and women. Is it really that weird that lawyers predominant in a legislative field? It seems like it would be the least weird tendency - like if street cleaners, dental hygenists or pop-stars were predominant that would be weird.

> Is it really that weird that lawyers predominant in a legislative field? It seems like it would be the least weird tendency - like if street cleaners, dental hygenists or pop-stars were predominant that would be weird.

Nah. Usually I'm actually arguing on the other side of this one. But it seemed like a good example for illustrating how biases can be systemic to ethics-illiterate techies, since a remarkably large number of HNers are allergic to having respect for lawyers.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#162

Post by slamdesu »

ebfe wrote: post #96
slamdesu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, you're saying that aside from skin colour, black and white people are exactly the same and, in a vacuum, the distribution of race in any given profession should be perfectly equal? You really believe that?" ^ It wasn't long ago that that type of claim was used often. Sexist views always have some sort of justification like "men and women ARE different!" or "men have a natural ability to think logically and are t…

How about this: So, you're saying that aside from the numerical value, a set of people with an average testosterone level of ~500ng/dL are exactly the same as a set of people with an average testosterone level of ~20? To deny that hormones exert a tremendous influence over our behaviors and motivations is absurd.

The contention in this particular discussion is that women are somehow not natural programmers. There is no evidence that testosterone levels will affect someone to the extent that they have a natural tendency to logic or programming. Hormones DO have an effect, but it's socialisation that is pressuring men and women to adopt their roles.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#163

Post by slamdesu »

paulwithap wrote: post #78
slamdesu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, you're saying that aside from skin colour, black and white people are exactly the same and, in a vacuum, the distribution of race in any given profession should be perfectly equal? You really believe that?" ^ It wasn't long ago that that type of claim was used often. Sexist views always have some sort of justification like "men and women ARE different!" or "men have a natural ability to think logically and are t…

You're right. Apples and oranges are basically the same thing. That book holds about the same scientific weight as 50 Shades of Grey. If you don't think there are inherent psychological differences between men and women, then you're just delusional.

Where's your evidence for inherent psychological differences? There are differences in adult men and women due to their SOCIALISATION which is not an inherent property. Raise a generation of women to believe that they're useless at male-dominated jobs then they'll start to think they are!

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#164

Post by slamdesu »

nerfhammer wrote: post #114
slamdesu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, you're saying that aside from skin colour, black and white people are exactly the same and, in a vacuum, the distribution of race in any given profession should be perfectly equal? You really believe that?" ^ It wasn't long ago that that type of claim was used often. Sexist views always have some sort of justification like "men and women ARE different!" or "men have a natural ability to think logically and are t…

> I would recommend reading the book "Delusions of Gender" > to learn how all of those studies have proven flawed/heavily biased Notice the extreme impression you've gotten from this book. She does not "prove" flaws in all research on this topic, though often her criticisms are valid she chooses areas to criticize and hints that it's representative of all research that show gender differences. She could have also cho…

Sure but that isn't her argument. The number of studies that attempt to demonstrate some fundamental difference between the sexes vastly outnumber claims of similarity, and those disproportionate claims need to be addressed. The book goes through the studies that are touted as the most demonstrable difference in the sexes (tests on empathy) and shows how they're flawed and once you control for that flaw there is no demonstrable difference between the sexes.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#165

Post by DanBC »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #154
DanBC wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to consider, seriously, the possibility that avoidance of high tech in favor of health fields is a very rational choice [...] It's great if people are making a rational. Onsidered choice. I'd love to see research. I suspect that people are not making that informed choice and that segregation along sex happens much much earlier. And if being an RN is so good why are so many nurses imported from other nations…

OT, aside: Not sure what relevance your anecdote has to the topic, however ... > he said "no Dan, pink is a girl's colour." // I found for my sons that the girls in their nursery were very strong policers of colour and toys ("you can't play with that it's for girls" or "pink is for girls"); all the teaching staff are women, most parents/carers/guardians present at pick-up are women .. I corrected the kids [I'm like t…

The children do seem to be strong enforcers of what is "acceptable". There's an article about a cabal that formed in a nursery around Lego.

It has some odd messages about ownership. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtml

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#166

Post by vacri »

paulwithap wrote: post #63
mcphilip wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence: I started off in nursing school with an intent to get a master's before ultimately finishing with CS. The nursing school I went to was well respected and made great efforts to make male students feel 'normal' in the female dominated area. They didn't aggressively recruit males at that point, but we were seen as valuable and worth including. I'd like to think that females could have a similar exper…

I absolutely agree with you. Obviously, no one should ever feel like they aren't welcome in a field because of their gender. I just don't see the point of making giant, obsessive efforts to push a group of people into a field and then patting ourselves on the back when our plan works, and we don't feel so guilty anymore.

The problem is that when nursing does things to make males feel welcome, female constituents pretty much all go "okay, cool". When software engineering does things to make females feel welcome, half the male constituents bleat endlessly about how unfair it is. Much of the noise made is this declaration of victimhood, and it's generally this noise that makes molehill efforts into 'giant obsessive' mountain issues.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#167

Post by e12e »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80
saraid216 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. You need to hire a coder, mostly.

As a coder, never work for a startup without founders who can code.

There's a difference between "can code" as in understands the challenges and opportunities well enough to create a good business plan, and "can code" as in knows how to implement a floppy disk controller in software (yes, that's a reference to Steve and Steve of Apple).

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#168

Post by e12e »

snizzysnaps wrote: post #142
wutbrodo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. CS61A hasn't been the intro course for inexperienced students for as long as I can remember: What about CS3? I came into CS having never touched or seen a piece of code, and I took CS3 because my understanding was that it was supposed to be the gentle introduction for complete neophytes. I found CS3 to be enormous…

We shouldn't be making things easier just to accommodate a bunch of women who pissed away their time studying foolish nonsense like women's studies, or socialist studies. Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. Sorry, but the cats out of the bag. I don't care how many classes women take, men will still rule the technology world. If it's any consolation there will always be charity positions for unde…

I'm not a lady (or woman) so I can't speak for them, but you certainly managed to offend me.

> Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers.

People are generally awful programmers. Don't know that many engineers, but I've certainly met a few good engineers of both sexes in the offshore industry.

As for female programmers, most of those I've met or seen the work of are on average much better than men -- but that's probably just because I've seen more code written by men (and also more crappy code).

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#169

Post by pbhjpbhj »

DanBC wrote: post #165
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT, aside: Not sure what relevance your anecdote has to the topic, however ... > he said "no Dan, pink is a girl's colour." // I found for my sons that the girls in their nursery were very strong policers of colour and toys ("you can't play with that it's for girls" or "pink is for girls"); all the teaching staff are women, most parents/carers/guardians present at pick-up are women .. I corrected the kids [I'm like t…

The children do seem to be strong enforcers of what is "acceptable". There's an article about a cabal that formed in a nursery around Lego. It has some odd messages about ownership. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtml

That's really good - thanks for sharing.

Reminds me somewhat of Thomas Paine's "Agrarian Justice" as well pedagogically as the teacher running a live experiment on racism using eye-colour (I'm sure you've seen it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s).

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#170

Post by nerfhammer »

slamdesu wrote: post #164
nerfhammer wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would recommend reading the book "Delusions of Gender" > to learn how all of those studies have proven flawed/heavily biased Notice the extreme impression you've gotten from this book. She does not "prove" flaws in all research on this topic, though often her criticisms are valid she chooses areas to criticize and hints that it's representative of all research that show gender differences. She could have also cho…

Sure but that isn't her argument. The number of studies that attempt to demonstrate some fundamental difference between the sexes vastly outnumber claims of similarity, and those disproportionate claims need to be addressed. The book goes through the studies that are touted as the most demonstrable difference in the sexes (tests on empathy) and shows how they're flawed and once you control for that flaw there is no d…

> The book goes through the studies that are touted as the most demonstrable difference in the sexes (tests on empathy)

Touted as such by whom? It sounds like just Baron-Cohen et al. Your comment gave the impression that "all" studies of gender differences have been refuted.

The most well-known, replicated, large effect study that I'm aware of I searched for and didn't find any reference to in her book. http://www.elainehatfield.com/79.pdf

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