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

Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

ilaba.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–87 of 87 posts

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#81

Post by javascripter9 »

speeder wrote: post #5

Gender bias will never cease to exist, and for good reasons, the fight for equality happened many times before in history, and never ended well. Male and female are very dismorphic, we cannot change that easily, male and female have very specialized roles and purposes. Yes, I am happy that people now in general have more equal opportunity than ever, and that we can have awesome workers on some areas from any backgrou…

Homosexuality exists for a scientific reason. Specifically, the genes that make a male gay, when expressed in a female, make her hyper-fertile, 3-5 children as opposed to the 1-2 on average. The homosexual males then assist in the raising of the additional siblings. So your position that homosexuality leads to population decline is an ignorant one. It's a boon to population, in fact, our entire evolution engineered it to insure the survival of the species. Gender bias may never cease to exist, but the idea that equality can be a bad thing was dead on arrival. No equality seeking culture has ever erased themselves. Name one, and point out what makes that an equality seeking culture that killed itself because it was seeking equality and not because of hundreds of more relevant reasons.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#82

Post by smsm42 »

Claudus wrote: post #38

I've worked with a lot of programmers. Some of them have character flaws that make them unpleasant to work with. These character flaws do not affect their ability to "get the job done", but I'd rather not work with them and take steps to avoid doing so when possible. From a link in the article: Renowned conductors have asserted that female musicians have "smaller techniques," are more temperamental and are simply uns…

I have a scary thought. What if you set out to prove they didn't exist and turns out they do? I'm not saying that would necessarily happen but what if it does? Men and women have serious differences both biologically and psychologically... What if it turns out that, for example, statistically female musicians are more temperamental?

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#83

Post by illuminate »

Claudus wrote: post #38

I've worked with a lot of programmers. Some of them have character flaws that make them unpleasant to work with. These character flaws do not affect their ability to "get the job done", but I'd rather not work with them and take steps to avoid doing so when possible. From a link in the article: Renowned conductors have asserted that female musicians have "smaller techniques," are more temperamental and are simply uns…

"If you really want to end sexism, I feel like these sorts of questions need to be asked and answered."

The problem is generally that the people who do so ask and answer them on an individual level, using an unhealthy amount of selection bias.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#84

Post by illuminate »

smsm42 wrote: post #82
Claudus wrote: post #38

I've worked with a lot of programmers. Some of them have character flaws that make them unpleasant to work with. These character flaws do not affect their ability to "get the job done", but I'd rather not work with them and take steps to avoid doing so when possible. From a link in the article: Renowned conductors have asserted that female musicians have "smaller techniques," are more temperamental and are simply uns…

I have a scary thought. What if you set out to prove they didn't exist and turns out they do? I'm not saying that would necessarily happen but what if it does? Men and women have serious differences both biologically and psychologically... What if it turns out that, for example, statistically female musicians are more temperamental?

It's more scary to think that people think that any of the "qualities" mentioned would make a person an inferior or unhireable candidate for any of these roles. Aside from, of course, simple issues of body build for which a similarly-sized male would also be unsuitable.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#85

Post by smsm42 »

illuminate wrote: post #84
smsm42 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a scary thought. What if you set out to prove they didn't exist and turns out they do? I'm not saying that would necessarily happen but what if it does? Men and women have serious differences both biologically and psychologically... What if it turns out that, for example, statistically female musicians are more temperamental?

It's more scary to think that people think that any of the "qualities" mentioned would make a person an inferior or unhireable candidate for any of these roles. Aside from, of course, simple issues of body build for which a similarly-sized male would also be unsuitable.

That's a different question. So far I think people are trying to prove that there are actually no difference. If we found out there is a difference and acknowledged it, then depending on a kind of position it could be completely irrelevant or highly relevant. For example, hiring a socially awkward person as a computer programmer is nothing uncommon, but hiring one as a salesman or customer service representative may be unwise. Other qualities may have similar effects.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#86

Post by smsm42 »

meredydd wrote: post #3
return0 wrote: post #2

It's hard to distinguish bias from genuine preconceptions based on experience - for that one would need gender neutral data that is impossible to obtain. The reverse kind of gender bias could be found in divorce custody cases for example. Maybe one could do an experiment in online job marketplaces: change the gender of a large number of work providers and observe how payouts change. In any case this was a shallow and…

I almost wish the author had included this trope too: "If I begin a conversation about sexism I am experiencing, that means that sexism against men must immediately become part of the focus of the conversation". It's not that those issues are unimportant, but does it not strike you as strange that the very first comment doesn't discuss the content of the article directly, but does make sure to bring up sexism against…

Until this concern is taken seriously, I don't see why it should not be repeated. So far I only see it reflexively dismissed as "oh this, yet again". While the silent assumption is that only certain people and certain biases are discussed and "we are all biased" actually means only certain set of data is taken into account, and other data is dismissed as irrelevant. It's not about focus, it's about basic inclusion.

Data about gender/discipline compositions in academic disciplines: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/01/college-class-of-2011-by-ac...

I remember hearing a lot about sexism in disciplines which are 80+% male in this list. But I pretty much never hear about sexism in disciplines that are 80+% female.

Now, I don't make any claims here about existence or non-existence of sexism one way or another just basing on the percentage data. Maybe there is sexism in one place, maybe there is not in another, even though percentages looks the same. That's not my point here. What I am questioning is that seeing 80% on one side is universally taken alone as supporting the claim of sexism, if not proving it completely, but the same study showing the same bias to the other side is not considered the base to the same claim. I think this is related to the content of the article.

Re: Gender Bias 101 For Mathematicians

#87

Post by unconed »

_Dude_ wrote: post #62

It's funny how 'sexism' is used as if it could only be against women. Let's just say it: a white straight middle class young male is a public enemy. Why doesn't she just solve one of those Millennium Prize Problems? That would be a really nice case against anti-women kind of sexism.

"Check your privilege!" you hear, after a woman scorned summons her white knights with a simple retweet.
Post reply on HN