Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology • Hacker News Board

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#91

Post by selmnoo » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #51

tomp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the butterfly effect. It starts with children. Better at math -> more interested in math -> better at math -> ... by they time young adults start seeking jobs, a small initial bias has turned into a large gap. Personally, I don't think that's the whole story (according to my observations, it's also upbringing, girls socialize more than boys, who are more likely to keep to themselves, and differences in to…

First, it's probably not the case that interest and practice can have any impact on your underlying mathematical aptitude. Second, regardless, the 2:1 ratio for perfect scores on the SAT Math manifests at 16-18, so when people are already mostly developed.

> First, it's probably not the case that interest and practice can have any impact on your underlying mathematical aptitude.

What?! How did you arrive to that conclusion? This is a really bad myth. Math abilities for the most part have very little to do with genes, and almost all to do with hard word, motivation, and practice. See http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-myt... for more.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#92

Post by thatthatis » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

ninjac0der wrote: post #89

thatthatis wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all of that self righteousness is driving in the direction of lets try to fix the disparity through social change. I'm saying that even if we believe they're going to be wrong, we should try what they propose (in a structured and measurable way).

So you want me to agree that it's a problem that the male to female ratio isn't equal before you've proven that the inequality is brought about by a bad reason as opposed to a natural and just reason? That greatly reduces my frustration as to why I'm not on board with any of this. edit: "lets try to fix the disparity through social change" ...as soon as you do the due diligence and convince me it's broken first. Evid…

I'm sorry, I don't follow what you're trying to ask or say here.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#93

Post by tekalon » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 6:37 PM UTC

dzink wrote: post #37

Most of your research is from 20 years ago. Cultural norms play a huge part in this and norms have been changing (compare what you'd read about the roles of women in the 1950's vs today). My mother built one business after another even though my grandfather was forcing her to be a math teacher. She started 4+ businesses and each one carried the name of a guy in my family (even my brother, as soon as he turned 18) bec…

While I agree that a lot of it is cultural based, I do agree that there is some biological basis also. As a woman also, I can see myself in the points the author makes. While I had good grades (was in high school math club) I avoided risks in school and in career (went for 'easy' degree of history first). Only recently did I go back and get a degree in programming, requiring me having to learn differently than before. I tell my boss I don't a managerial position because I don't want the responsibility (no matter how much he throws it at me). I've also had everyone around me supporting me to do what I want be it STEM or not. In many ways I see the cultural changes are allowing women to use their biological strengths better (running a business isn't too different from running a household of a large family). EDIT:typo.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#94

Post by ANTSANTS » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #6

One consequence is that many people don't understand just how hateful the WWW is for some other people. Sure, anyone can be the victim of really unpleasant attacks from others on the Internet, and it's been going on for years. But try creating different online characters. Give one a male name, give the other a female name. And make that the only difference. Now see the different ways people interact with you. Having…

I don't entirely buy this. Everyone can improve themselves by mingling with their peers and listening to the pros, so if women were so easily dissuaded by negativity on the internet, you'd expect them to do worse at everything, which is clearly not true. I think a missing nuance is that everyone is mean on the internet, but people are much more likely to take meanness in stride when it comes from members of their own gender.

The visual arts are very close to having gender parity (47.4% female in the US, according to [1]). A quick look around a site like Deviantart reinforces this. If you've spent any time around such communities, you'll know that young female artists are just as mean and obsessed with petty drama as young male computer geeks are with trying to look smarter than everyone else. Yet, the amount of professional female artists that emerge from those conditions is roughly equal to the amount of males that do.

This suggests that "guys being jerks to girls" is only a symptom of a different problem; for cultural, historical, or perhaps, as the article suggests but doesn't really back up, biological reasons, girls just aren't as interested in computers as guys are. If we had gender parity in tech, little Susan would probably be calling Anna a bitch for copying her code, and they'd both get by somehow.

As an aside, I've noticed that artists are much better about giving and receiving criticism than supposedly objective and "meritocratic" programmers are.

[1] http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/96.pdf

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#95

Post by unfamiliar » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:05 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #18

There's one really, incredibly glaring flaw in this argument right near the start. He argues that it takes men to come up with sites like Twitter and Facebook because most venture-capital-backed startups are created by men. Except, of course, venture capitalists openly admit they choose startups to back not just on their merits, but "pattern matching" the founders to what they expect a startup founder to look like -…

And your argument doesn't explain why venture capitalists would have got that impression in the first place.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#96

Post by unfamiliar » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #28

USNetizen wrote: post #21

This sounds like it was written for a 12th grade research assignment and makes several incorrect inferences without a basis of fact, i.e. the male hunting equating to math reasoning. I tend to think of it as the same reason minorities are not prevalent in these places either, probably because society held them as "lower class" until recently and they are just now making gains which are long overdue. All in all, women…

> I firmly believe that women will easily overtake men in technology in the future because attitudes have changed for the better. Do you have any reason for this belief? Also, if you really believe that is true, wouldn't it be proper to start promoting technology amongst boys?

Women in my country have already overtaken men for final scores on mathematics degrees.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#97

Post by theorique » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:19 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #59

theorique wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nursing is a well-paid profession that offers flexibility and good benefits. Fishing can also be a very well paid profession (look at Deadliest Catch for example) but the challenges, hardships, and stress are extreme for those challenging fishing crew jobs.

Hey, I'm not saying Nursing & Fishing aren't good jobs. If you're into that sort of thing then go for it! But it's not nurses and fishermen who are drastically pushing up the cost of housing in SF. It's the tech industry.

Ah OK, that is definitely true.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#98

Post by arrrg » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:27 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #80

arrrg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do they get such jobs? Because of rigid gender roles that force them to be a certain way. What’s your alternative explanation?

Because there aren't any other jobs. The real question is, though, why don't the women get/take such jobs. I think the answer is a mixture of the following: (1) they are worse at such jobs than men (physically weaker and menstruating, which I assume might matter for a job like truck-driving), (2) (I assume) women get more government help, because they are more often (single) mothers and (3) women can play on other qu…

And this power imbalance between workers and employers is terrible. Yeah, all pretty standard socialist stuff I’m a huge fanboy of. It’s of course not only gender roles that play a role here.

You reasons are pretty bullshitty, so I don’t think I ever want to talk to you again. Bye!

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#99

Post by asdasf » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:33 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #52

asdasf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a very tiny number of people would argue that.

Actually, that argument is pretty universal. Even MRAs are sort of making that argument, only they claim the reason is some sort of weird feminist conspiracy, something that really makes no sense at all. I would consider the culture of working oneself to death generally harmful and strictly policed gender roles can play a very dangerous and enforcing role there.

You can "actually" all you want, but it doesn't change reality. The vast majority of people are neither feminists nor MRAs. Even if the absurdity of you trying to equate two different positions were overlooked, the total of both of those groups is still a minority, not anywhere even remotely close to universal.

On a side note, you aren't helping the image of feminism by bringing up MRAs out of nowhere just to deliberately present the worlds laziest strawman on their behalf, so you can dismiss it.

Re: Why There Are No Women on Twitter’s Board, and So Few in Technology

#100

Post by rayiner » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

ivanca wrote: post #74

rayiner wrote: post #34

The problem with his argument is not the statistics, which are sound, but the fact that he begs the question and also ignores some obvious implications of the very data he presents. First, let's talk about mathematical ability. It's widely known that men outnumber women in the upper percentiles of mathematical ability. However, that's an explanation for why there are so few female Fields Medalists (in fact, there are…

>Among people who score a perfect 800 on the Math SAT (top 1% starts at 770), men outnumber women only 2:1 So you are selecting outliers to justify the "proper" average outnumbering? That doesn't add up.

The shape of the curves are such that men have a very small advantage on the Math SAT at the median, which gets larger up the scale. So using the disparity between the sexes at the median makes the author's argument even worse.