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On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

laurasanders.net

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Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#211
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, if you just say "the evidence says I am right", while the evidence says the opposite, it is hard to have a reasonable conversation. Rather than cite anecdotes and your perception of how many "researchers" are on your side, how about cite an actual study that controlled for all the factors that can effect income? I posted one, it was even commissioned by the department of labour specifically for policy guidance s…

Gah, I had a big reply ready, and I lost it. This will be shorter. Here is the long and short of it. If you're honest, you can follow the references at the bottom of Wikipedia and read them to come to wind up at studies like http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279 that found a 7% persistent unexplained gap in the federal workforce. There are a bunch of those you could wind up at. But I'm not interested in doing that.…

>If you're honest, you can follow the references at the bottom of Wikipedia and read them to come to wind up at studies like http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279 that found a 7% persistent unexplained gap in the federal workforce.

A study which did not control for hours worked. This is exactly what I said before, more than once. If you lump all "full time workers" together, of course it will look skewed. Because men work more hours than women.

>I sanity checked against Wikipedia (which tends to be relatively neutral), found that your view appears to be a minority position, and pointed that out.

An abundance of ignorance does not make the facts change. Lots of incorrect ideas are believed by a majority, especially when lobbying groups spend lots of time, effort and money publicizing them.

>You have shown no openness to considering any possible theories that do not agree with your preconceptions of there not being a difference

That is simply lying, how do you reconcile that with your idea that you are trying to engage in an honest conversation? I have already spent many hours studying the subject, I have considered the possibility quite extensively, and used to be one of the majority of people who mistakenly believe there is such a gap. Being open to considering does not mean "ignore facts and change your mind cause I said so". As I said, I am very interested in seeing any evidence of such a gap. But in all my research, I have never found a single study that controls for all other factors, and still find a gap of statistical significance. And in response, I consistently get dishonest rhetoric like yours, pointing me at studies which do not control for all other factors.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#212
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.

I'm pretty sure every minute spent listening to someone who calls themselves "FreeBSD Girl" is a wasted minute. Also listening to anyone who hasn't studied the issue for years is a wasted minute. You're actually wasting two minutes for every minute.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About aggressiveness : It turns out that when women act aggressive, they are often treated differently than men who act the same way. This is a perfect example of where unconscious biases fuck up the system. This is something actual research has been done on, though I don't have any links handy. :(

You may be talking about people who confuse 'aggressive' with 'assertive', which would apply to either gender.

For posterity, here is an article discussing one such study. (They use both words.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07...

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