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Comment by Lon7 | Hacker News Reader

I'm still pretty young yet I've experienced benefits solely from my gender.

My sister is smarter than me and better at math and physics than me. I was invited by my grade school to go to robotics camps over the summer, she wasn't. I was given special permission to take computer science courses not offered by our highschool, she wasn't. I was encouraged to to go into engineering by our guidance Councillor, she wasn't. My dad wanted me to go into engineering, he didn't really want her to. I didn't realize that any of this was happening at the time. It wasn't until years later that I was talking to my sister that she explained the countless opportunities and support that I had and she didn't. This all happened in a well off neighborhood in Canada.

So is it really any surprise that I'm the highly paid engineer while she is a school teacher barely scraping by? The status quo still benefits people based on race and gender.

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The question is where must the solution be applied ?

Is it at the companies where they taken in under-representes groups ? Or Is it at the grassroots level such as by teaching parenting to students in college to be more aware of the bias they may've whilst upbringing their child. ( Similar to Diversity-training)

My point is that instead of giving them a relatively easier seat at the workplace, we must strive to make their paths easier thereby ensuring that the most talent people end up where they want to.

I'm actually quite surprised that the councillor didn't encourage your sister for they're usually trained to be aware of such biases and be neutral in their disposition towards every student albeit it's difficult , they're usually better at it.

I can't speak about Canada, but in the US, personal anecdotes aside, 60% of college graduates are women.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/12/11/...

And young women earn more than young men, on average.

http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274...

I'm sorry about what happened to your sister, but that's not the norm.

> I can't speak about Canada, but in the US, personal anecdotes aside, 60% of college graduates are women.

The gender gaps under discussion are specific to computer science [1]. That more and more women have been (a) going to college and (b) getting into STEM with the exception of computer science is why this is so interesting to debate.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

I'm aware that some people are trying to limit the scope of the discussion, and yet, I wonder why no one cares about the young men who are now at a disadvantage.

Young men aren't at a disadvantage at all. They are still greatly advantaged, just to a very slightly lesser degree than before.

It's like a basketball game where a team was ahead by 45 points at the half. Now they are ahead by "only" 25 points, but somehow they are now at a disadvantage? Certainly they aren't winning by as much, but they are still winning by a significant margin.

That's the situation we are in in the tech world.

And in the larger world?

What data are you relying on that suggests young men are advantaged?

I've just cited two very significant statistics that suggest otherwise.

Leadership positions are dominated by men. Young men have a higher likelihood of landing those roles.

That could also explain why fewer men attend college. They don't need as many credentials to land higher ranked positions.

Elite positions are disproportionately occupied by men, but so are the positions at the lowest rungs on the social ladder. Men make up 93% of chief executive officers at large companies[1], but they also make up about the same percentage of the prison population (91%) [2]. Men disproportionately occupy both ends of success and failure.

On the note of education, men may not need credentials to achieve comparatively well paying jobs, but this comes with other trade-offs. For instance men make up 93% of occupational deaths[3] in the U.S. The tendency for to reach better paying jobs without the same educational attainment may not necessarily a sign of privilege so much as social pressure to take high-risk jobs for more pay.

Ultimately, things like privilege are subjective and heavily based on moral weightings. Does being more likely to be killed on the job offset a higher pay? Is being more likely to end up as a CEO offset being more likely to end up behind bars? These are moral - not factual - questions, so there's as many right answers are there are people on this planet.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-in-leadership-fort...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality#Gender

> Elite positions are disproportionately occupied by men, but so are the positions at the lowest run on the social ladder. Men make up 93% of chief executive officers at large companies[1], but they also make up about the same percentage of the prison population (91%) [2]

It's not unknown for destitute people in America to deliberately try to get sent to prison for better support; it's not the lowest rung on the ladder, counterintuitive—and perverse—as that may be.

Were these rates very different before women worked, or before they voted? I have a feeling men have always made up a significant portion of the prison population.

This isn't a zero-sum game. Helping women get placement in the workplace doesn't mean men won't get jobs. And, it certainly doesn't mean that we will stop supporting young men stay out of prison.

The idea is that as we become a more inclusive society we can all have more freedom to do what we want to do.

I don't disagree with anything you write here. I'm not sure how this comment is relevant to the point I'm making: that privilege and advantage is a subjective measure that depends on each person's individual values.

To re-use the analogy from one of the parent[1] comments in this chain, if societal advancement is a non-competitive game of basketball it's not a zero sum game, just as you say. One group's advancement does not come at the expense of another's. The point is, one person can see that one group is behind compared to another while a different person sees the opposite. For instance someone can place a greater emphasis on wage differences, while a different person more heavily values disparities in occupational deaths. Both reach a opposite conclusion, and neither is wrong since these are claims made based on values as much as data - and values differ from person to person.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15014872

> I'm not sure how this comment is relevant to the point I'm making: that privilege and advantage is a subjective measure that depends on each person's individual values.

> one person can see that one group is behind compared to another while a different person sees the opposite

Okay, I see.

I thought, when you started talking about men in prison, that you were tacitly supporting leereeves' statement that young men are disadvantaged compared to young women.

In fact, you just wanted to say that people's perceptions of "advantage" are subjective; therefore, one person could easily view men as advantaged in today's society, while another views women as advantaged.

To that, I would say, duh =). We're here debating how men and women experience the world in order to both present our own knowledge, and hear about others'. This helps us shape our future values by including more data than we have directly observed ourselves.

>>> 60% of college graduates are women

>> The gender gaps under discussion are specific to computer science

> I'm aware that some people are trying to limit the scope of the discussion

"Trying to limit the scope" ? This post is about tech's approach to diversity. You are the one moving the goalposts.

Besides, this is clearly a continuation of the conversation Damore started.

I believe Damore limited the scope to computer science because he found research indicating (1) women were more interested in people than things, and (2) programming is more thing-oriented.

Given that his cited research is under a good degree of scrutiny, broadening the scope to the suitability of women or men to all fields would require significantly more evidence.

> I wonder why no one cares about the young men who are now at a disadvantage.

The young men are only at a disadvantage if you believe women are biologically inferior or less-inclined towards certain occupations.

As yet, there isn't any evidence that is true. There is a lot of evidence showing that if we remove socialized barriers, like letting women attend university, then their participation rate in male-dominated activities increases.

I am unaware of any barriers to young men attending university. In fact, I believe I was a beneficiary of affirmative action, as my grades were slightly lower than the normal for my college, and our school's female-male ratio was 60-40 or more.

Because in the discussion of a highly disadvantaged group (gender or a minority) what matters is how to provide this group with rightfully equal opportunities, not how to widen the gap by looking how to give more advantages to already extremely privileged one.

The gap is very relevant. There are literally hundreds of thousands more young men without degrees joining the labor market and few professions other than military, software and sales remain promising routes to a middle class life in the US for someone without a degree.

Many thousands of men without degrees are turning to software as the best hope for their future (and possibly that of their families). How could this possibly not have an effect on the composition of applicant pools for software positions?

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