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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

women get paid less, are taken less seriously, are subject to glass ceilings, harassment, discrimination, have a higher probability of being raped, etc etc, every single day.

Conversely, men are less likely to attend college, are more likely to be unemployed, are more likely be injured in the course of employment, are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, are more likely to be incarcerated, etc etc, every single day.

Just because there are no laws preventing women from doing something does not mean that the playing field is equal.

Just because there are inequities in one direction does not mean that there aren't also inequities in the opposite direction.

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"Conversely, men are less likely to attend college, are more likely to be unemployed, are more likely be injured in the course of employment, are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, are more likely to be incarcerated, etc etc, every single day."

Yes. I never claimed otherwise. I was making an argument as to the cultural conditioning that might lead women to be, on average, more risk averse than men. This doesn't mean that bad things don't happen to men. The two statements, in fact, have nothing to do with one another.

"Just because there are inequities in one direction does not mean that there aren't also inequities in the opposite direction."

Yes. Again, I never claimed otherwise. Inequities are bad. That's my point. Inequities that disadvantage men are also bad and, had that been the subject of the conversation, I would have made that point too. However, we're not talking about inequities that apply to men, we're talking about a field in which there are demonstrably fewer women participating than men and we're asking why. I was arguing that first, we need to go beyond a conclusion that states "women are choosing not to do X, so it's not a problem", second, that women may be risk averse for cultural reasons that may be worth addressing, and finally, by extension, that it's insufficient to claim that so long as women are legally treated the same way as men the playing field is equal so we shouldn't worry about it.

In other words, I'm not sure what your point is.

>we're talking about a field in which there are demonstrably fewer women participating than men and we're asking why

I'd like to ask why you imagine that in any field there would be equal numbers of men and women? Or indeed why there should be any reason beyond simple preference. More women like milk chocolate; more men like dark (pulled that one out my arse incidentally). Does it matter?

If you take a gender blind view then you only have to look at individuals and say - "were you discriminated against due to prejudice?" if not then no foul.

There's a natural skew I think: if both men and women equally wanted to start families then more women would normally be able to than men (artificial insemination, one-night stand, stop using birth control, decide contrary to the male to not have an abortion, whatever). This leaves more men doing startups whether they prefer that to starting a family or not.

No, I'm not saying this accounts for any discrepancy I'm just saying this seems to be a reasonable explanation as to why there might be an imbalance and that these sorts of possibilities lead me to think that should it be clear there is no discrimination then it is highly unlikely that equal numbers of any two sub-populations (male-female, blue eyes-brown eyes, ...) occupy a particular field.

"I'd like to ask why you imagine that in any field there would be equal numbers of men and women? Or indeed why there should be any reason beyond simple preference."

Listen: "Women are choosing not to as a matter of preference so there's nothing wrong" is a cop-out. I'll grant you that the reason for the lack of equality is "simple preference." Clearly, because if women "wanted" to do startups/tech, they would. There are no laws preventing them.

"More women like milk chocolate; more men like dark (pulled that one out my arse incidentally). Does it matter?"

Intrinsically? No, of course not. But if we start from the assumption that gender shouldn't matter, we would expect a distribution that cleaves pretty closely to the gender distribution in the population. The fact that that it's doesn't isn't necessarily bad per se, but it suggests that maybe something is going on that may be worth investigating a little further. To do otherwise is intellectually lazy.

It's totally possible that the discrepancy is completely innocent, or that there's some reasonable gender-based explanation that involves no negative cultural messages, discrimination, whatever, to explain the massive differences in the number of women and men who choose to go into tech. <snark>I suppose there's a first time for everything.</snark> I just haven't been convinced by any of the pat explanations so far. None of them have explained, for example, the relatively low number of women working for large, stable tech companies (some of the best employers in the world if you're looking for benefits and stability), nor why the relative percentage of women in tech has been dropping pretty consistently over the last 30 years (actually since the early days of computing, but whatever). The point of my original post was mostly that we should go farther than saying something simple like "Women are risk averse!" and ask, well, why? Because it's not totally out of the question that cultural forces are at work, and it might behoove us to at least think about them a little bit.

"There's a natural skew I think: if both men and women equally wanted to start families then more women would normally be able to than men (artificial insemination, one-night stand, stop using birth control, decide contrary to the male to not have an abortion, whatever). This leaves more men doing startups whether they prefer that to starting a family or not."

If it were that simple then tech/CS/startups should have a gender imbalance roughly equivalent to that of the rest of the working world.

In the past, simple, personality/preference/constitution-based explanations for gender discrepancies have proven false many times - women didn't have the constitutions to be doctors, women didn't have the temperament to be lawyers, etc etc - so I'm inclined to distrust this sort of explanation, at least initially. I'm not saying "Oh because it wasn't true that women just didn't want to do law and medicine it can't be true here.", or that we need 50-50 male/female representation or I'm burning my bra, or even that we should change anything or that anyone is suffering any overt injustice at the hands of anyone else. I'm just advocating for a little critical thought about our society/culture instead of just shrugging our shoulders and assuming that there's no problem.

> But if we start from the assumption that gender shouldn't matter

There's your problem. By using the word "shouldn't" you seem to be conflating "our best guess at objective reality" with "what we think would be morally correct". It is unfortunate that thinking like this is still allowed to infest some higher educational institutions but it doesn't cut the mustard when nobody's funding is on the line.

In terms of objective reality this assumption is unwarranted. There are significant documented differences between the distributions of intellectual capabilities of genders including the higher variance in IQ for men and men's aptitude skew towards maths and away from language.

> In the past, simple, personality/preference/constitution-based explanations for gender discrepancies have proven false many times - women didn't have the constitutions to be doctors, women didn't have the temperament to be lawyers, etc etc - so I'm inclined to distrust this sort of explanation, at least initially.

In the 70s, 80s and even 90s this would have made more sense. But as the years of higher university attendance of women stretch out, as women continue to succeed in previously male dominated areas such as medicine and law you have to ask 'why not in tech/CS/startups'. It isn't as if it is a area that has ever been reputed as having a history of institution chauvinism. To me, the weight of evidence points more and more towards the differences in distributions of capabilities and preferences between genders playing a significant part in participation rates in tech. However much of an 'Inconvenient Likelihood' this may be for both the tech industry and many women, it shouldn't blind us to evaluating the evidence as objectively as possible.

"In terms of objective reality this assumption is unwarranted. There are significant documented differences between the distributions of intellectual capabilities of genders including the higher variance in IQ for men and men's aptitude skew towards maths and away from language."

Are there? Cite some for me. And then explain why they mean there are fewer women in tech but not in other fields. Higher IQ variance means that there are more super geniuses and more mentally retarded men. You don't actually need to be a super genius to go into tech. Maybe to found a startup, though that's also a reach, but certainly not to go be a dev somewhere. And moreover, why do you assume that those differences are innate? Maybe they are, but there is also plenty of [uncited] evidence that suggests that many of those differences are learned.

I'm not assuming a priori that women are being screwed, but it mystifies me as to why this community tends to assume A) that the tech community is totally immune to societally constructed gender forces that have at some point affected pretty much everything else in the world and B) discrimination is the only bad thing in society that could be keeping women out of tech.

"It isn't as if it is a area that has ever been reputed as having a history of institution chauvinism."

…say what now? Maybe not like law/medicine did, but there's been plenty of chauvinism in tech.

"To me, the weight of evidence points more and more towards the differences in distributions of capabilities and preferences between genders playing a significant part in participation rates in tech. However much of an 'Inconvenient Likelihood' this may be for both the tech industry and many women, it shouldn't blind us to evaluating the evidence as objectively as possible."

What evidence? I'm very happy to evaluate the evidence objectively. But it seems so far that there's been very little evidence presented either way, and a common response then becomes "well, I don't see a problem, there must not be one!", despite the fact that A) this hasn't worked out as an explanation in the past B) there exist several societal factors we could point to that might explain the problem, if we bothered to think about it for two minutes instead of constructing some complicated and totally unfounded explanation based on evolution.

Instead of assuming that I'm a crazy and irrational feminist who cannot be convinced by facts, which is not the case, why not respond to the original argument I made, which was that our society conditions women to be afraid, which may explain why they're more risk averse?

> Are there? Cite some for me.

I'm sure you are aware of them and if you had any actual contradictory position on this you would have mentioned it.

> You don't actually need to be a super genius to go into tech.

I'd say you need to be well above average in 'math IQ' to be useful programmer. When you combine a lower mean in math-like capability with a smaller standard deviation this significantly cuts down the percentage of women who'd be expected to cross that 'threshold'.

> Maybe to found a startup, though that's also a reach, but certainly not to go be a dev somewhere

Can you actually program competently? Cause I'm getting the vibe that you don't have much respect for the art.

> why this community tends to assume A) that the tech community is totally immune to societally constructed gender forces that have at some point affected pretty much everything else in the world

Because at it's heart, the nuts and bolts of tech work is not about social interaction, it is about you and the computer/system. At some level it doesn't matter whether you are an bipolar lesbian midget with major personal hygiene issues or a privileged WASP, the computer doesn't care - your program will either work or not. True geeks don't need to ask for anyone's permission, approval or assistance to get into the area - they just start learning and coding. Sure, this is 'back room' stuff but at the heart of most successful tech startups you will find a healthy 'inner geek' that respects results above contemporary social mores.

> What evidence? I'm very happy to evaluate the evidence objectively. But it seems so far that there's been very little evidence presented either way

I agree in that none of he individual arguments presented are knockout blows. But when you accumulate the maths vs language gap, the variance difference, a reasonable explanation for different attitudes to risk, the successes in previous male bastions (law/medicine) versus the individualistic/mathy tech - it starts to look a lot like mutually supporting evidence.

When it comes to the 'complicated and totally unfounded explanation based on evolution' I see it as stronger than the 'secret societal forces that nobody can seem to put there finger on that stops women from entering tech'. Your argument about fear makes some sense but it is just as easy to argue that founding an ambitious startup is actually irrational in terms life result pay-offs - even for men.

In general I think it is quite too fall into the trap of thinking of people as fundamentally more similar to ones self than they really are, and to explain away the differences as societal influence. Modelling the rest of the world as 'slightly different versions of me' certainly has power but also great inaccuracies. This particular article called 'Generalizing From One Example' was a real eye opener for me.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

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