Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nevertheless, She Coded

dev.to

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 398 posts

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#71

Post by LyndsySimon »

acdha wrote: post #64
u_wot_m8 wrote: post #18

there's no pay gap in any industry when you take into account hours worked and years of experience. Women generally work less than men and take time off to have babies, man lands on moon.

This is a common assertion but there's research showing that the gap persists even after controlling for education, years of experience, etc.: http://time.com/money/4285843/gender-pay-gap-excuses-wrong/ “A 2011 study from Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce found that "men with some college but no degree earn about the same as women with a Bachelor’s degree," and that "wo men have to have a Ph.D. to ma…

None of this addresses the parent's comment - they believe the pay disparity along gender lines disappears when hours worked and time spent out of the workforce.

> Women in their late 20s earn around 92% of what their male peers receive, whereas women in their early 50s make just 71% of the average man's wages

That makes sense, but doesn't mean that disparity increases as a woman ages - my first impression is that a woman in her late 50s entered the workforce about 40 years ago. There was certainly pervasive inequity at that time, and the opportunities those women were excluded from early in their careers compound.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#72

Post by cmiles74 »

prepend wrote: post #28
zephyrthenoble wrote: post #21

I'm frankly quite surprised by the initial wave of comments disparaging this message. The facts are that women are poorly represented in the tech community[1], and do make less than men[2]. Any attempt to let women feel more accepted and bring about much needed change should be championed, not picked apart and belittled because you feel like you are personally being attacked when people are just asking for help. 1. h…

This is a really good point, but I think for me it's more of a visceral response to falseness or inaccuracy that was developed by programming actually. It is good to encourage women and other underrepresented groups to enter tech-just imagine how many awesome programmers we are missing out on- but I feel we can do this by being objectively accurate. I'm with you on the underrepresented story, this is very common. But…

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 historically since pretty much the founding of the nation. While I would certainly hope and do believe that women now make more than they have in the past, and that their pay is now approaching that of men, I think it's unreasonable to believe that we have reached "pay equity" between the sexes.

In my opinion, I would not consider pay between men and women equitable until I have seen reasonable looking studies that have proven the case. I think it would be wise to be skeptical of such studies but look forward to their being published.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#73

Post by KirinDave »

pkd wrote: post #63

I personally don't find anything flag worthy in this. Can the mods please unflag this?

I concur. There is nothing flagworthy here. This is only controversial because people doing flagworthy things are trying to inject politics into a celebration of people who write code and build software.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#74

Post by cmiles74 »

u_wot_m8 wrote: post #18

there's no pay gap in any industry when you take into account hours worked and years of experience. Women generally work less than men and take time off to have babies, man lands on moon.

No men would have landed on the moon without women. Your implication to the contrary is kind of crazy.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#75

Post by Pigo »

acdha wrote: post #64
u_wot_m8 wrote: post #18

there's no pay gap in any industry when you take into account hours worked and years of experience. Women generally work less than men and take time off to have babies, man lands on moon.

This is a common assertion but there's research showing that the gap persists even after controlling for education, years of experience, etc.: http://time.com/money/4285843/gender-pay-gap-excuses-wrong/ “A 2011 study from Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce found that "men with some college but no degree earn about the same as women with a Bachelor’s degree," and that "wo men have to have a Ph.D. to ma…

Even your article admits the biggest factor, and the most important one. Men choose careers that end up paying more on average. It seems they still try give the impression that women doing the same _exact_ position as a man gets paid less in every case. I can believe there is a disparity, especially in certain fields where the general public's perception of skill reflects your perceived worth (like physicians, maybe law). Some people get paid more just because they're taller, and that isn't the company being heightist.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#76

Post by cmiles74 »

dethswatch wrote: post #16

Warren violated the rules- it has _nothing_ to do with her gender. Whether her points are validate or not, the rules were followed as they would have been with any man. If she wants to get her opinion out, she can hold a press conference outside the Senate or simply call Maddow, like she did- a friendly audience that would allow her to speak as long as they had time for.

I don't think it's reasonable to flag this page because of the link to Senator Warren.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#77

Post by prepend »

cmiles74 wrote: post #72
prepend wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point, but I think for me it's more of a visceral response to falseness or inaccuracy that was developed by programming actually. It is good to encourage women and other underrepresented groups to enter tech-just imagine how many awesome programmers we are missing out on- but I feel we can do this by being objectively accurate. I'm with you on the underrepresented story, this is very common. But…

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…

That's pretty fatalistic, there are many quality studies that people disagree with. The soundness of a paper isn't based on whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it is based on the methods and the data.

It's interesting that you require data to change your assumption that there's not a problem.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#78

Post by cmiles74 »

prepend wrote: post #77
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…

That's pretty fatalistic, there are many quality studies that people disagree with. The soundness of a paper isn't based on whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it is based on the methods and the data. It's interesting that you require data to change your assumption that there's not a problem.

I think it is easy to nitpick studies, especially when they are trying to measure something that is this complicated. While the soundness of the paper should be grounded in the methods and the data, it is far too easy for an individual to discount it's value based on a perceived mistake in method. The more complex the methods, the more polarizing the results, the more this is the case. For this particular issue, I think the methods by definition need to be fairly complex.

I am comfortable with my assertion that I will need to see some data before I take the position that women are not paid less than men in a discriminatory fashion. In my opinion, that women are discriminated against is a historical truth. I am not trying to be insulting, but I do find it hard to believe that people disagree on this.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#79

Post by prepend »

and0 wrote: post #50
prepend wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "everyone is telling you it's not rare?" I read accounts of women who were treated horribly and unjustly, but certainly not by "everyone." I expect I see a post or three every month and that is rare considering there are 3.6M programmers in the US and 18.2M worldwide. I don't stare at a screen all day. I work and have worked with teams of all sizes, hiring, firing, negotiating salary, dealing with…

You're claiming you can estimate the frequency of these incidents based on how often they crop up on HN, which just flagged this straightforward and innocent link for being feminist, so yes you are definitely sheltered from these issues.

I'm not making that claim at all. I'm claiming that it seems rare to me based on my experiences in the industry.

I am claiming that you should not assert something is common without data. Somehow your anecdotal conversations are valid for a really broad assumption for frequency?

It's very interesting that you have such a double standard toward things you believe. How do you form beliefs? Do you randomly decide things, then cherry pick enough "data" to back up your opinion?

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#80

Post by cmiles74 »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #71
acdha wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common assertion but there's research showing that the gap persists even after controlling for education, years of experience, etc.: http://time.com/money/4285843/gender-pay-gap-excuses-wrong/ “A 2011 study from Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce found that "men with some college but no degree earn about the same as women with a Bachelor’s degree," and that "wo men have to have a Ph.D. to ma…

None of this addresses the parent's comment - they believe the pay disparity along gender lines disappears when hours worked and time spent out of the workforce. > Women in their late 20s earn around 92% of what their male peers receive, whereas women in their early 50s make just 71% of the average man's wages That makes sense, but doesn't mean that disparity increases as a woman ages - my first impression is that a…

It sounds like you believe it to be self-evident that pay equality was a problem in the past but not presently. What, to your mind, has made pay between the sexes equal in the last fifty years?

While I grant you that people have made the issue more visible, I don't see any reason to think pay somehow became equal. On the contrary, studies insist that the problem persists to this day.

Post reply on HN