Live data from Hacker News

The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

theatlantic.com

591–600 of 630 posts

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries with gender equality (is this what you mean by "matriarchy"?) No... I mean the dictionary definition. Where men didn't have the right to vote, work or own property until recently, where women are expected to own and make all the money, where men are raised to be married away, where men are expected to make the coffee and women to run the meeting. So on and so forth. I'm afraid that entire paragraph does n…

> No... I mean the dictionary definition. Where men didn't have the right to vote, work or own property until recently, where women are expected to own and make all the money, where men are raised to be married away, where men are expected to make the coffee and women to run the meeting. So on and so forth. I'm afraid that entire paragraph does not address my comment because you misunderstood what matriarchy means. W…

> We would expect to see even lower rates of women in STEM. The data shows an inverse relationship between women gaining more rights and resources and women's representation in STEM

That's just disingenuous, we literally don't have that data to make any claims on it. You're the one which said you'd expect women participation rates to be randomised, as in some countries to have more women in STEM than men. I simply counterpointed with the fact that societies aren't randomised, they are all patriarchal on some level, that's why you never see more women in tech in any country.

> In fact, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic see the same or lower rates of women in technology than in the United States.

Oh, so your correlation that stricter gender roles and women getting into STEM is not true? Did you just prove yourself wrong?!

Also, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia have higher participation rates than the US...

It's almost like your alleged correlation is BS and random, even within similar countries and cultures.

> The "problem" is that men and women have difference interests, and this difference is largely universal across different societies.

You're literally reading an article claiming the opposite (with sources) mate. Did you read it?!

> But this influence only shifts the representation of women in tech by 10-15%.

That's like gigantic. It's almost parity in the workplace. How can you dismiss it?!

The small difference is explained by the difference in labour participation rates.

We already talked about this but it's like you didn't read my comment.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#592
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cannot guess what the numbers should be then how would you know the problem is fixed? Or even if there is any problem at all?

First of all, note that this argument works both ways. You also can’t put exact numbers on how many women we’d expect there to be in the industry in the absence of any sexism whatever. So how do you know that there’s no problem? But actually, the question is quite easy to answer for me. I am more interested in sexism per se than in the gender distribution. When women in the industry infrequently report that they are…

[deleted]

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#593
post #583
post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Men as a group did not choose to force themselves at the threat of gun point to go into trench war fare and die. As you must be aware, I didn't suggest that this is the case. I simply said that men chose to exclude women from military service.

The men who got forced into the trench war did not have a choice in who got drafted. People who society deems expendable and at the bottom of the social ladder do not have that power or influence. The people who got excluded from military conscription were women, rich men and men with influence.

But there were plenty of rich men who volunteered to join the military. Women couldn't, regardless of whether they wanted to.

What you're saying is correct, it's just completely irrelevant.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#594
post #593
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The men who got forced into the trench war did not have a choice in who got drafted. People who society deems expendable and at the bottom of the social ladder do not have that power or influence. The people who got excluded from military conscription were women, rich men and men with influence.

But there were plenty of rich men who volunteered to join the military. Women couldn't, regardless of whether they wanted to. What you're saying is correct, it's just completely irrelevant.

The usually social ladder puts rich men at top, women in the middle and poor men at the bottom. Sometimes described as a differences in bell curves during gender equality discussions.

Poor men, having no influence or power gets conscripted against their will. Women, being in the middle, are exempted from conscription but can't volunteer. Rich men, being at the top of influence and power, was exempted from conscription and also had the choice to volunteer (usually for officer or other high ranking positions).

No one denies that the small percent that makes up rich men have more influence and power with more freedom to choose during conscription. Men as a group however is both the poor and the rich. If we only look at the top then we ignore an already marginalized and vulnerable part of the population. Those at the bottom.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#595
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If women started working in dangerous environments that harms their bodies, it would have a direct impact on their reproductive ability..which on a large scale would be detrimental to the perpetuation of humans as a species and hence our survival. This is how we evolved. Not likely going to be a popular opinion, but it is mine.

Also remember lot (most) of Marxism predates Darwin and evolutionary biology. Even though Darwin and Marx were contemporaries. Since left is still quite based on Marxists ideas, it just does not account for many evolutionary biology theories and hence tends to find reasons which do not explain things correctly.

I would take it one step further. Marxists/Leftists generally discount time as a variable entirely. It's all about addressing a concerns in the present. There's very little to no considering to the impact of time. There are two ways this disregard of time manifests itself. First, is what you mentioned, in that there is no consideration for the value of wealth building, which (1) takes time and effort, and (2) produces the greatest returns over multiple generations (Basically, every one of us are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors). The second is preference for distributing the fruits of labor in the present equitably instead of using the fruits of labor to create greater returns in the future.

While not specifically about time, the difference principle in Rawl's Original Position is also relevant. Under that principle, inequality is permissible if it can lead to the worst off being better off than they would if there were equality. This principles presupposes that time is considered when trying to maximize well being for the worst off. If you want to maximize the well being of the worst off in the present, you implement equality right now, but that may be worse for the worst off in the future.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No... I mean the dictionary definition. Where men didn't have the right to vote, work or own property until recently, where women are expected to own and make all the money, where men are raised to be married away, where men are expected to make the coffee and women to run the meeting. So on and so forth. I'm afraid that entire paragraph does not address my comment because you misunderstood what matriarchy means. W…

> We would expect to see even lower rates of women in STEM. The data shows an inverse relationship between women gaining more rights and resources and women's representation in STEM That's just disingenuous, we literally don't have that data to make any claims on it. You're the one which said you'd expect women participation rates to be randomised, as in some countries to have more women in STEM than men. I simply co…

> That's just disingenuous, we literally don't have that data to make any claims on it. You're the one which said you'd expect women participation rates to be randomised, as in some countries to have more women in STEM than men. I simply counterpointed with the fact that societies aren't randomised, they are all patriarchal on some level, that's why you never see more women in tech in any country.

The core thesis of the article posted is that societies that are more egalitarian - closer to "matriarchy" - on average have less female representation in tech. The more countries drift away from "patriarchy" and towards "matriarchy" the fewer women go into tech.

> Oh, so your correlation that stricter gender roles and women getting into STEM is not true? Did you just prove yourself wrong?!

Many of these countries are more egalitarian than the US as per the data in the original post. Perhaps you should not have assumed that all Eastern European countries are less egalitarian than the US.

> Also, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia have higher participation rates than the US... It's almost like your alleged correlation is BS and random, even within similar countries and cultures.

The correlation is between gender equality and women's representation in tech. Yes, the rates of women in tech in Eastern European countries varies because different Eastern European countries have different levels of gender equality.

You're the one who erroneously claimed that "Eastern Europe and India have similar rates of participation but are vastly different societies" when in fact Eastern European countries have a variety of rates of women in tech, many of which are lower than the United States' 25% let alone India's 30%. I agree, the alleged correlation between Eastern Europe and rates of female representation in tech is BS and random - but that was your alleged correlation...

But what doesn't vary? The fact that these rates are overwhelmingly in a relatively narrow band between 20-35%.

> You're literally reading an article claiming the opposite (with sources) mate. Did you read it?!

If this is your takeaway from the article, I would suggest re-reading it. There is some variation across societies - but not much. The overwhelming majority of countries studied had female representation in tech between 15-30%. This is indeed a fairly consistent rate.

The slight variation that does exist demonstrates an inverse correlation between women gaining more rights and authority and female representation in tech.

> That's like gigantic. It's almost parity in the workplace. How can you dismiss it?!

It is nowhere near parity in the workplace. The countries with the greatest gender equality like Finland and Norway have 20% female representation in tech. Countries on the other end of the spectrum like Turkey and Indonesia have 35%. This is still barely over 1/3rd.

> The small difference is explained by the difference in labour participation rates.

> We already talked about this but it's like you didn't read my comment.

I did read your comment, and provided data that demonstrated that differences in labor participation does not hold true. This is factually incorrect. These countries with less gender equality have female labor participation rates that are often the same or higher than the US and other western countries. For example, Indonesia has a female labor participation rate of 52% as compared to the United States' 56%. Vietnam has a female labor participation rate of 76%. It we adjusted its female representation in tech to account for differences in labor participation, the percent of women in tech would go down.

Adjusting for this does not explain the difference in representation in tech. Furthermore, even if it were you are erroneously assuming that if more women entered the workforce those women would.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole lot of people who have studied fields that are irrelevant to today's industry needs and have ended up with no real marketable skill. Various forms of activist movements have money in it. Modern developed societies have solved most of the serious, basic problems making it easier for a group of people to capitalise on solving more lofty problems. I have seen someone who did a degree in communication stu…

You can just say Anita Sarkeesian, no need to beat around the bush.

Wasn't beating about the bush. I just forgot her name. Either way, her name wasn't important enough for me to look it up. The point was, someone who has no credentials about gender equality, video games or psychology were raising millions to fix a "problem" outside her expertise.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And lots of people are investing lots of time and effort into trying to fix that problem Are they? I worked in the mental health space for over 10 years and almost 80% of therapists are women -- and a vast majority of those are white women. There hasn't been any significant movement to "fix" that despite a very compelling argument that finding a therapist who is a good match to a patient is fundamental to the succe…

It's a matter of power. There extremely few women CEOs, or millionaires, in positions of power. Legally they have all the same rights, sure, but all these power structures are men's clubs. IT is one of those, it's a matter of power, but much less ambitious.

The power structures are sociopaths' club. If anything, I'd rather say that it's powerful people prefer to be men, than being a man gives one any power. Most of the men are clueless powerless people.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#599

It all comes down to equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. When there is equality of opportunity women choose different fields...often (but not always) because of different interests. Equality of outcome forces people to do things that they may not have an interest in. And that is before you get into interests vs natural talent and how that does or does not affect ones success in a field. On a fundamental l…

I don't understand why modern society doesn't understand/want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it's not all because of society.

I think it's the people in power are applying the usual divide and conquer technique: they add more women to tech, alienate men and women and keep them busy fighting each other. How to alienate them? By giving special preferences to only one group. This is a textbook technique.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worked with a few women in software development. 2 of them separately told me they liked working in an all men team more than working with women. There are far more male bosses than female bosses. Accordingly, assuming bad bosses are relatively rare, it's far more likely every female boss you've ever had is awful than every male boss you've ever had is awful. This is just probability. Let's take an example. Suppo…

GP's example didn't say anything about bosses, but rather all-male teams vs teams with >0 women. Your comment is just an extended non sequitur

> GP's example didn't say anything about bosses, but rather all-male teams vs teams with >0 women. Your comment is just an extended non sequitur

It doesn't matter if it's bosses or co-workers, the math works out the same.

Post reply on HN