Hacker News Reader

Comment by leilacc | Hacker News Reader

I can't believe that in 2018, people are still upvoting posts with lines like "A woman does not equal a man, and she shouldn't.". What the fuck.

Do you have any idea how much social/cultural conditioning influences men and women's "biological" decisions to go into whatever field? I am immensely grateful to my parents, who told me that I could do anything I wanted and put me in math and science camps as a kid. I am not surprised that little girls (and boys) who are not given that kind of support don't go into "competitive" "STEM" careers.

View on HN

I can't believe that in 2018, people are still upvoting posts with lines like "A woman does not equal a man, and she shouldn't.". What the fuck.

A woman should be considered equal to a man. All sentients should be considered equal, in a political and moral framework. However, this should not be conflated with women and men being exactly equal in every conceivable way. If there was ever false equivalence then it is exactly this kind of sloppy thinking.

Do you have any idea how much social/cultural conditioning influences men and women's "biological" decisions to go into whatever field?

Actually, the extent to which biological factors vs. societal factors are at play is something we're still working out.

"Countries with Higher Levels of Gender Equality Show Larger National Sex Differences in Mathematics Anxiety and Relatively Lower Parental Mathematics Valuation for Girls"

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

"The Gender Equality Paradox"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8

Google & YouTube execs claim that Google's hiring rate for women is the same as the Computer Science graduation rate for women, then go on to espouse James Damore's suggestions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc

> I can't believe that in 2018, people are still upvoting posts with lines like "A woman does not equal a man, and she shouldn't.". What the fuck.

I always see people gasp when they hear things like this, but can you really disprove it? I'm genuinely curious.

People are angry at your tone, but you’re correct. The evidence shows that disproportionate gender representation in STEM is the product of social conditioning, not anything innate:

https://www.nature.com/articles/442133a

Thank you. I'm tired of having these discussions and would love to live in a world where men and women are just assumed equal and we don't have to discuss these things. We no longer discuss if people of different color are equal right? It's amazing what shit women have to deal with.

Most people in the USA don't realize this but women only became full citizens only as recently as the 1970s when they were finally allowed to be on juries. That's less then 50 years ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com