High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#61

Post by Dwolb » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:51 PM UTC

melindajb wrote: post #52

andrewflnr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cperciva did not attack the methodology at all, which would be clear if you'd thoroughly read the first sentence. He didn't really say anything that disagreed with it at all, but rather put forward a hypothesis explaining the data therein. Said hypothesis implicitly acknowledges that it is harder for women to get into the workplace. But because his phrasing happened to include the phrase "sampling bias", you got angr…

I find it telling that you jump right into assigning me an emotional response for countering his logic with my own. Do you often accuse women of being too emotional? Or too aggressive? I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional. Try it sometime, as a woman. It's most instructive.

>I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional.

I'm not being sarcastic or facetious - this is a very enlightning statement and I almost cannot believe my own bias. To me your comments have sounded aggressive and emotional and it may just be my subconcious had seen your account name and biased my conscious assessment. So please forgive this bias, I didn't realize it ever existed! (for what it's worth I have historically thought myself to be logical, rational, and understanding of my own bias in most circumstances!)

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#62

Post by melindajb » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:53 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #56

melindajb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic is inconsistent. This author is applying real data to an assertion. That assertion is backed up not only by my own experiences, but to the dozens if not hundreds or thousands of women sharing this all over social media with something akin to "see, this happens to all of us." The author makes no such blanket statement as you suggest--rather she shows the results of her own study. What's facile is not her co…

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what the author wrote, but it seems clear to me that, having identified a statistical anomaly, she is assuming one explanation -- that there is a problem with the review process -- and ignoring other potential explanations (e.g., a bias in hiring which results in non-aggressive women never being hired and thus never being reviewed).

I do think you are misinterpreting the author.

1. She states very clearly in the last line: this is a call to action to review the language in reviews for for bias, not just the scores.

2. I can see you and others here very willing to accept the possibility that women just are more aggressive and that worries me about potential bias far more than this study does. Do you see that in yourself? To be fair to you, I see in myself the bias to believe what I read here because it is absolutely consistent with my experience. If you do too (i.e. you believe women in tech/business are somehow more aggressive, out of gender norm, etc) then that is a perfect reason to step back for a minute and examine your perceptions.

3. As you state above, non aggressive women never getting hired--one possible reason could be, as others have stated is that non aggressive women do not have the emotional or financial resources to withstand the cultural assault of doing something outside of gender norms. Do you see why that's a problem? Why the stereotypes of behavior in tech/business that are predominantly male are so damaging? And why it would be so important to look at the language used here?

4. Honestly, now, are you not struck by the difference in tone in those reviews? Or do you truly believe the women's words were "deserved?" because that's the fundamental question that the author asks us to consider.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#63

Post by melindajb » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:58 PM UTC

Dwolb wrote: post #61

melindajb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it telling that you jump right into assigning me an emotional response for countering his logic with my own. Do you often accuse women of being too emotional? Or too aggressive? I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional. Try it sometime, as a woman. It's most instructive.

>I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious - this is a very enlightning statement and I almost cannot believe my own bias. To me your comments have sounded aggressive and emotional and it may just be my subconcious had seen your account name and biased my conscious assessment. So please for…

I respect your ability to admit that and share it with people here. Truly isn't that the way we can all get better at understanding each other, to walk in each other's shoes?

hats off to you.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#64

Post by melindajb » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:06 AM UTC

NotAtWork wrote: post #59

melindajb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me understand: you think nothing of value can be determined from this study even though my entire newsfeed on facebook is full of my friends in all industries sharing it as exactly in line with their experiences?

Yes. You have a sampling bias in the types of people you associate. Facebook applies a filter to posts which selects for things that are popular with a wide swath of your friends and which support your political/social views (as guessed by their profiling tools). That something blows up with your friends on Facebook is usually a better indicator that it's polarizing drivel than that it's a well thought out, impactful…

Polarizing Drivel. Wow. That's pretty harsh.

The author posts the data, then calls for further study. Isn't that the very basis of science? She admits fully its potential for inaccuracies and wonders aloud about its flaws. Isn't that what peer review is for? The women in tech say it feels true, and it matches their experience. So why isn't the Hacker News Community demanding a peer reviewed study and supporting it, and financing it? Why does it instead choose to ignore its substance, and tear down its conclusions based on its already admitted flaws?

Truly, the persistent and relentless attempts on the part of some Hacker News denizens to discredit any science about bias in technology is disappointing. Any and all attempts to quantify the problem are met with such resistance that it belies the community's own assertions about its objectivity.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#65

Post by erichocean » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:08 AM UTC

Dwolb wrote: post #61

melindajb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it telling that you jump right into assigning me an emotional response for countering his logic with my own. Do you often accuse women of being too emotional? Or too aggressive? I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional. Try it sometime, as a woman. It's most instructive.

>I can tell you that I have a male named account on hacker news and it never, ever gets called too angry, or aggressive, or emotional. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious - this is a very enlightning statement and I almost cannot believe my own bias. To me your comments have sounded aggressive and emotional and it may just be my subconcious had seen your account name and biased my conscious assessment. So please for…

I also thought the OP "sounded aggressive and emotional", and it was until she brought up the issue of a commenter's gender that I notice the OP's own gender (assuming "Melinda" is female, of course).

I'm male BTW.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#66

Post by true_religion » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:13 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

cperciva wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the total population of women entering such programs is not any smarter on average Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that the total worldwide population of women is no smarter on average than the worldwide population of men. The evidence points to the subset of women who enter CS and engineering being smarter on average than the subset of men who enter CS and engineering. It's equally possible that women of average or me…

The evidence points to the subset of women who enter CS and engineering being smarter on average than the subset of men who enter CS and engineering. Isn't this rather at odds with your hypothesis that they do well because of being more aggressive? I mean, perhaps that is true but if the data suggests that women entering those programs are in fact smarter why would your hypothesis be any more likely than the existenc…

> sn't this rather at odds with your hypothesis that they do well because of being more aggressive?

I don't think that's what he said originally. He said that aggressive women are those who overcome the social pressure to not join a male dominated field like CS/tech.

To give an extreme example, you can be a timid man and still join CS simply because there's no pressure against you doing so, but if you were a timid woman you wouldn't be able to overcome the poor atmosphere women in STS face.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#67

Post by true_religion » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:20 AM UTC

melindajb wrote: post #33

cperciva wrote: post #20

My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" -- not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment -- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional woman is significantly more aggres…

Your argument is not logical. These were professionals in the same sphere: tech. And one could make the argument that the sample of men was also biased--towards men who liked tech. No one claimed this was an iron clad peer reviewed scientific study--and I'd love to see some done on this in addition to those that already exist. Deborah Tannen is one of the more well known researchers in this area to uncover distinct g…

Interestingly, although the op uses the term 'sampling bias' which is usually used to discredit a study, the actual content of their comment doesn't seem intended to do so.

What they're talking about is not a sampling bias. If more aggressive women are hired than not, that's not a sampling bias... those women are representative of the population as it exists.

It's only a sampling bias, if say the study somehow selected individuals from the population in a non-random fashion, so as to overemphasize one particular trait.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#68

Post by lmkg » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:27 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #56

melindajb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic is inconsistent. This author is applying real data to an assertion. That assertion is backed up not only by my own experiences, but to the dozens if not hundreds or thousands of women sharing this all over social media with something akin to "see, this happens to all of us." The author makes no such blanket statement as you suggest--rather she shows the results of her own study. What's facile is not her co…

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what the author wrote, but it seems clear to me that, having identified a statistical anomaly, she is assuming one explanation -- that there is a problem with the review process -- and ignoring other potential explanations (e.g., a bias in hiring which results in non-aggressive women never being hired and thus never being reviewed).

> having identified a statistical anomaly, she is assuming one explanation

That is where you are going askew. There are two ways to derive knowledge from data. A) Start with a theory. Generate falsifiable hypothesis. Perform observation that validates or contradicts hypothesis. B) Start with statistical anomaly. Generate hypothesis (or hypotheses). Validate with more data.

Your objection assumes that the author took path B. She did not, she took path A: Starting with the hypothesis, and looking for confirming or disconfirming data.

The fact that there are other possible explanations is a valid point, but what you are doing is starting down path B, with your starting point being half-way through someone else's path A. It's a valid point, but it's not really an objection. In this approach, it would be a next-step, not something expected at this stage.

Sidenote: Most programmer-types seem to implicitly assume path B when reading research results. I assume this is because path B is how data-mining and machine learning work. Historically, path A is the more common approach, and is closer to the definition of the scientific method. Path B has only opened up recently, since data-collection has become more ubiquitous.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#69

Post by bkirkbri » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:30 AM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #53

bkirkbri wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a pet theory that the reason that women (as well as non-traditionally-masculine men) are considered bossy, while other men are considered "go-getters" is due to a lack of the threat of violence. Not that a type-A guy is going to assault you if you don't capitulate to their authority. More that there is a perceived or possible threat. In contrast to women who would be considered bossy or abrasive because they d…

This is an interesting point. We often observe a backlash against those who claim authority but don't deserve it (whether from being new, smaller, weaker, less skilled--lower on whatever status criteria is established in the group). In the case with masculine men, there might be a subconscious acceptance of their claim to authority, whereas with a woman there is a subconscious resentment towards their claim.

Right, but to be clear: I don't believe that only masculine men deserve authority. I think our species' slow evolution from violence as the single source of authority is possibly the most hopeful development in our history.

Re: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews

#70

Post by fenomas » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 12:37 AM UTC

bkirkbri wrote: post #32

rayiner wrote: post #6

I think this is an outgrowth of our general social tendency to judge men by what they do ("he works at a hedge fund!") and women by what they're like ("she's really sweet!"). I found this paragraph in particular interesting: > Words like bossy, abrasive, strident, and aggressive are used to describe women’s behaviors when they lead . . . . Among these words, only aggressive shows up in men’s reviews at all. It shows…

I have a pet theory that the reason that women (as well as non-traditionally-masculine men) are considered bossy, while other men are considered "go-getters" is due to a lack of the threat of violence. Not that a type-A guy is going to assault you if you don't capitulate to their authority. More that there is a perceived or possible threat. In contrast to women who would be considered bossy or abrasive because they d…

I've never heard this but the idea seems compelling!

Another way to describe it might be as a mismatch between the pecking order according to our simian brains and what's on the org chart. I.e. we don't resent bossy behavior by someone we perceive as a dominant alpha, but bristle when it's someone we see as below us in the "pack".