You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It • Hacker News Board

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#71

Post by irahul » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

afuchs wrote: post #69

irahul wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never indicated we should all be the same, rather we should all be free to develop our identities without the social constructs that society puts in our way. Minimizing differences, which you have advocated again and again, imply we should all be same.

The OP's article describes a Swedish school's overreaction to gender bias by forcing behaviour modification on students who display gender-conforming behaviour. This is an overreaction to gender bias issues both real and perceived. Ignoring the context presented by the article, emmapersky is advocating gender neutrality. They aren't advocating the forced minimization of gender differences; they want to end bias again…

> Gender-variant behaviour should be tolerated instead of being discouraged.

I never contended that. I said the same thing when I said elsewhere that all attempts to eradicate differences are not only misguided, they are dangerous. People are different and should be allowed to be different. We should embrace the differences.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#72

Post by B-Con » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 5:47 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #64

boboblong wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If one look at university education, women dominate the class room in every areas of math except one subject (abstract math) In other words, women are better than men at complex arithmetic, but men are better than women at mathematics.

If abstract math is the only "pure" mathematics is open to debate :). On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men. I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.

> On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men.

This is almost definitely false. While the male/female gender ratio is reasonably close to even for math majors (I think it's 60/40 m/f?), it is nowhere close to even for many heavy math-based disciplines. Engineering and computer science degrees are very male-dominate and the students routinely spill over into math classes.

FWIW, I majored in math at a university that was 10th highest in the student female to male ratio. I counted some of the classes for fun, and I remember counting a slight male majority most of the time. One semester I believe I counted a 57% male population over my math classes.

> I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.

This certainly seems to be true. High school females are starting to outperform males in math, while males continue to dominate math graduate school. Reasons are unknown, but in general we can say that "girls aren't bad at math".

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#73

Post by saraid216 » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 7:54 PM UTC

irahul wrote: post #59

saraid216 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the mistake of presuming the GP was contributing a substantial comment. This was not the case. In that case, he was not trying to pretend that three singular cases were representative of a trend. > False data is still data isn't it. No, it is not. Data has to come from reality. False data does not. > Many fields use self-reports as a central part of their data gathering. Yup. And then they recognize the potent…

> then perhaps I should start subscribing to the GP's paranoid fantasies of an Orwellian thought police. Apparently schools actually banning free playtime is a fantasy. Did you actually read the article and my comment before running in both arms flailing?

Hey, look at that. Instant pluralization. Thank you for proving my point.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#74

Post by breakyerself » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

boboblong wrote: post #66

breakyerself wrote: post #20

Something seriously stinks about this article. I agree that boys should be allowed to act like boys and girls like girls, but I don't see how that's a position that needs to be defended with such a lengthy article. This feels more like some kind of propaganda. I have a really hard time believing the swedes are going batshit crazy trying to repress masculinity wherever they see it, as this article seems to describe. T…

>Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words, it's a bimodal distribution.

That's true, but my point remains the same. There are people who fall outside of the two big statistical clusters. Those people deserve inclusion. I don't think were there yet. Whereas this article seems to imply that the fight for gender equality has gone to far. I don't agree. A few cherry picked examples from Swedish fringe groups isn't going to convince me.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#75

Post by belorn » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:23 AM UTC

B-Con wrote: post #72

belorn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If abstract math is the only "pure" mathematics is open to debate :). On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men. I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.

> On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men. This is almost definitely false. While the male/female gender ratio is reasonably close to even for math majors (I think it's 60/40 m/f?), it is nowhere close to even for many heavy math-based disciplines. Engineering and computer science degrees are very male-dominate and the students routinely spill over into m…

See top post about this being specifically about Swedish statistics. For specifics, it was data reported by the universities themselves, calculated by the overseeing body for education, and published in Swedish news media 2011 last time I saw it.