Comment by jasonx1e | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonx1e | Hacker News Reader

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Except this isn't true; there are many cases where inequality of outcome is not a cause of inequality of opportunity - unless you're telling me the system actively encourages men to die on the job - so much so that 93% of all occupational deaths are male.[0]

CollegeBoard testing statistics demonstrate that in high school, 2-3 times as many boys take the AP Calculus BC, AP Physics, AP Computer Science exam than girls.[1][2]

And as you probably know, AP exams don't discriminate against gender or race - they just need you to pay the testing fee (or the reduced fee if you qualify).

UC Berkeley's EECS major has a department ratio of 4:1 M/F across all 4 class years (CalAnswers - any alumni can check this if they don't believe me), and because of California law the UC system is not allowed to consider gender as part of admissions.[3]

Differences in gender makeup of engineering and computer science come down to fewer girls choosing to pursue the field, and not because the system is inherently biased.

Given these factors, if we are seeing 50/50 gender outcomes in tech at this moment in time, it is the result of a system that undermines the meritocracy by discriminating against males.

[0]https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0006.pdf [1]https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/re... [2]http://i.imgur.com/ZalZhtF.png [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209

Oh, gosh! Of course it's an anonymous dude showing up to try to preserve the argument that women are biologically inferior. With an account that's doesn't appear to care about much besides arguing against diversity. What a surprise.

We aren't of course seeing 50/50 outcomes in tech. As I said elsewhere in this thread, we are steadily approaching them in law and medicine. This is despite that fact that goofs like you made effectively identical arguments for decades about it just not being in women's nature to study those topics, to do that work.

That ended up not being true. When the barriers in law and medicine were diminished, representation ended up pretty quickly moving toward 50/50. If you talk to women in tech you'll quickly discover that they face similar barriers. Prof. Ellen Spertus wrote this in 1991:

http://www.spertus.com/ellen/Gender/pap/pap.html

Talking with her recently, she mentioned that she believes the problems are the same or worse.

We have seen this pattern over and over for many topics for the last 100 years. Dudes say women can't or intrinsically don't want to. When we reduce the discrimination, they can and do want to. It turns out what women don't want is to deal with discrimination. Like, I'm sure, yours.

Anonymous? My user can easily be googled...

>> to try to preserve the argument that women are biologically inferior

You clearly didn't read, because I made the argument that women are less INTERESTED, not that they are biologically inferior. Get rid of that chip on your shoulder.

This is why conservatives aren't willing to discuss these issues. Because the moment I call you out on using bullshit arguments you call me a sexist despite not having once made a single comment on the abilities of females.

I used evidence proving that even at the high school level (where there are practically 0 bars for entry), girls constitute a significantly smaller part of the classroom than boys in CS/Physics/Calc 2, and then gave an example of a university system that legally was not allowed to consider gender as part of admissions having similar gender representation - because as it turns out most universities practice gender based affirmative action in STEM, and thus girls are overrepresented at schools like MIT and Stanford.

It turns out that the 3:1, 4:1 ratios of the AP exams and Berkeley EECS department happen to be consistent with the hiring makeup of tech companies.

>> we are steadily approaching them in law and medicine.

The same stats I listed earlier show near equal representation in AP tests for AP History (World, European, and US), Government, Chemistry, and Biology. Some of these even skew towards majority female. So 50/50 representation is to be expected.

Again, at this point in time, equal representation in tech would only be a product of discrimination against males.

Perhaps it won't be the case in the future as there are more outreach efforts now than ever to get girls to pursue science.

But I specifically worded my response the way I did for a reason.

I made the argument that women are less INTERESTED

But interest is an outcome, influenced for example by the presence or absence of role models or the impression of certain fields as not welcoming to women.

If I remember the state of things correctly, the gender imbalance of interest in science is not present at early ages but develops around junior high ages when kids start picking up on which jobs or fields are "appropriate" for males vs females.

I don't think anyone is saying the gender imbalance is purely a result of hiring discrimination (although it likely plays a role), but there are clearly other biases in force that directly arise from the gender imbalance. How do you propose getting rid of those biases except by trying to "prime the pump"?

>> influenced for example by the presence or absence of role models or the impression of certain fields as not welcoming to women.

Sure it can play a part in the outcome, but that in no way limits anyone from still pursuing the field, and hence there is still equality of opportunity. The latter is what (hopefully) any rational human being wants.

I'm not against more outreach efforts or helping encourage more girls to pursue STEM. I personally volunteer at a science museum and have in the past been a TA for high school STEM MOOCs.

What I am against is accusing the existing system for discriminating against females (unless you provide direct evidence that gender is the sole cause of the outcome inequality, which I will be happy to agree if the evidence is convincing) and then continuously lowering the bar for entry for females (thus achieving diversity but undermining meritocracy) - which is what I see happening right now.

Influenced has two sides, negative and positive. You have to account for both when establishing a cause for an outcome.

Just the other day I heard two kids around the age 10, a boy and a girl, talk about a life as a programmer. The boy wanted to make a AI so he could become rich and the girl wanted to make a AI to help make her social life better. The answers could not be more stereotypical gender defined. Men are valued and gain social rank through the pursuit of money so thats what is being imprinted onto the boy, women for their social skills.

A world where both women and men is valued based on the same ability, that is the ability to get money, would be a world where you would have 50/50 in all professions.

> Anonymous? My user can easily be googled...

Feel free to link it up with your real-world identity; I just find more generic profiles with the same user id.

> women are less INTERESTED

Yes, this is an example of your lack of historical grounding. That is the same sort of sexist nonsense that we've been seeing for generations. The argument goes: women aren't technically inferior, it's just that they're naturally not interested in bothering their pretty little heads with high-status jobs like law, medicine, and engineering. Their biology just drives them toward naturally nurturing jobs, like homemaker, paralegal, nurse, and secretary. Sure those jobs happen to be all low status, lower paying, and lacking in ability to advance to positions of authority. But it's just a coincidence that women's biological lack of interest happens to keep them subsidiary to men, just like they always have been.

It's just "women are inferior" dressed up in a dinner jacket so it fits in with polite company.

> where there are practically 0 bars for entry

This is just shockingly ignorant. Please actually read about the topic. Plenty of women in tech have stories that bely this. Plenty of research refutes it. In America, gender socialization starts early and runs deep.

> So 50/50 representation is to be expected

Sure, now. 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, it wouldn't have been. And somebody just like you would have been posting impassioned screeds about how women just don't want to be doctors and lawyers. How the data clearly shows that they aren't interested. How any advancement past the current status quo would have been only due to shocking discrimination against men.

As subsequent events prove, those dudes were making a self-serving, willfully ignorant argument. They were wrong. At least do yourself the service of understanding why before you post the same tired and discredited arguments in opposition to this generation's increment of progress in tearing down societal sexism.

>> "women are inferior" dressed up in a dinner jacket so it fits in with polite company

No, it's not even close to the same.

That an individual is less likely to choose a career doesn't mean that individual inherently is bad at it.

You keep trying to imply that I think less of women. I don't. I'm happy to acknowledge there are plenty of women who are much better than me at tech and plenty that have helped me out. Just because there happen to be less doesn't mean they are inherently worse.

And you could do well leaving out ad hominems. I have been respectful throughout this discussion, while you accuse me of sexism every other line. Most people aren't as impatient as I am when called a sexist as many times as you have. Do you see why conservatives avoid these discussions now?

Odds are I've done more to bridge the gap than you have - I have been a TA for a high school AP Physics MOOC and I am a volunteer at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Do you spend your weekends tutoring young girls and getting them to pursue science?

>> This is just shockingly ignorant.

As someone who had at least 15 girls in my AP Computer Science class in high school, no, it's not. In fact, you can google the requirements needed for taking an AP exam: find a high school willing to let you take it (usually the high school you attend), and pay the $100 fee. That's it.

>> Plenty of women in tech have stories that bely this.

Sure there are plenty of successful women in tech. No one's making the claim that all women aren't interested, and it's never even been mentioned that women are worse at tech.

They just happen in smaller numbers compared to men.

>> Plenty of research refutes it.

93% of occupational deaths are men, as I have mentioned 2 posts ago.

Why can't more women be truck drivers, police detectives, nuclear reactor facilitators, logistics workers, mechanics, or electricians? These jobs all happen to be high 5 figures and many are 6 figures.

It turns out, it has nothing to do with tech being sexist, and all to do with women on average being less likely to chase riskier careers in favor of more stable careers at the expense of a lower salary.[1]

>> At least do yourself the service of understanding why before you post the same tired and discredited arguments in opposition to this generation's increment of progress in tearing down societal sexism.

All this theorizing, and you still don't explain to me why we see the distribution of the AP testing that we do, why at gender-blind universities the rate of females is lower than those that practice affirmative action bar-lowering, and why you think discriminating against qualified men is an appropriate solution.

Until you provide feasible arguments to each of these, no amount of implicitly calling me a sexist is going to change my mind.

[1]http://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268.full.pdf

This is the heart of your ignorance:

> They just happen in smaller numbers compared to men.

Black people just happened to perfect slaves, unsuited to life as free people. [1] Women just happened not to want the vote. [2] Those were dumb arguments then, and it's a dumb argument now. Things don't just happen; they happen for reasons. And given our multi-millennial history of male dominance over women, these reasons are often historical.

You can dress it up however you like, but your vigorous defense of the historically biased status quo is inevitably sexist in result. Any woman seeing this is going to immediately have to prepare to be treated like this: https://xkcd.com/385/

If you really care about helping women into STEM careers, you'll learn some history and stop talking like this. Given the number of anonymous dudes who spend their time arguing against fixing historical sexism who also claim to be super-dedicated to helping women, you can probably work out what I think you'll actually do.

[1] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech#The_.27Corn... or https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.htm...

[2] E.g.: https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/1912/womens_suffrage/wo...

You keep saying the same thing, and I keep telling you why you're wrong, and for some reason you keep saying the same thing, as if somehow rewording them changes anything.

I'll repeat myself for a change, since you don't seem to get it:

"All this theorizing, and you still don't explain to me why we see the distribution of the AP testing that we do, why at gender-blind universities the rate of females in STEM is lower than that of those practicing affirmative action (which essentially amounts to bar-lowering), and why you think discriminating against qualified men is an appropriate solution.

Until you provide feasible arguments to each of these, no amount of implicitly calling me a sexist is going to change my mind."

>> Those were dumb arguments then, and it's a dumb argument now.

Back then, there were laws that actively prohibited African-Americans from attaining freedom and women from voting, and government backed frameworks in place to enforce these laws.

Name a SINGLE law today that actively restricts women but not men from choosing any career path.

>> you can probably work out what I think you'll actually do.

Can you tell me some of YOUR efforts in helping educate and tutor young kids in STEM?

Quit stroking yourself by claiming to be morally righteous, get your ass off the internet once in your life, and go tutor a young girl in trigonometry this weekend.

Buddy, based on your behavior here I'm explicitly calling you an active supporter of systemic sexism. You may or may not be personally biased, and I certainly have a guess, but that's irrelevant to my point here.

Your insistence that the only way that sexism and racism work is through the law is ignorant and ahistorical. They preceded the laws that expressed them; they also survived the demise of those laws. I've told you repeatedly that you are harming people through your ignorance. You don't care, and have never cared enough about this topic to actually learn about it. There is no point to arguing the minutiae of your weird little self-constructed justifications. My extensive experience with MRAs, etc, is that when proven wrong on point A will just drag out points B-Z. Or they'll go quiet. Or start introducing irrelevancies, like exactly how many young kids I've tutored in STEM this week. I've got better things to do.

If you're serious about helping women, you'll go take a women's studies class and learn something about this. Either way, I'm done.

I'd written a paragraph explaining why your arguments are wrong and asking you to reevaluate your viewpoint. But forget that.

I'll ask you this: UC Berkeley, a school that does not consider gender in applications per California law, has a EECS department makeup of 4:1 M/F.

UC Berkeley is required by law to not consider gender when evaluating applicants, is extremely liberal/left, and has an overall population of 52% female.

Explain to me what UC Berkeley is doing wrong, and how we should change it.

If you think UC Berkeley should lower the bar for female applicants to achieve parity, then our conversation is over, because we have fundamentally different ideals. I want meritocracy. You want to parasitically feed off of someone else's merits - I guess they call it "socialism" but that word has become so mainstreamed it doesn't do justice to how despicable your utopia is.

If you think increasing outreach efforts to get more children interested in science so (and therefore, there will naturally be more female applicants as a consequence) , you'd stop dismissing me as a "sexist" and think critically about why it is that I'm doing what I'm doing.

>> My extensive experience with MRAs, etc,

I'm not a mens right activist, nor have I once suggested that the system is designed against men, so you can throw aside your straw mans now.

>> I've got better things to do. If you're serious about helping women

Sounds like to me you don't actually want equality, you just pretend you do so you can "feel" like you're part of a new Civil Rights movement while actually doing nothing about it. Except occasionally tapping away at your keyboard calling others sexist.

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