Brotopia: Analysis and Review
quillette.com
quillette.com
Still, he makes plenty of other good points. And as for meetings in sex clubs, I have no doubt that this still occurs in plenty of other fields, even ones that aren't male dominated.
The fact that Chang's book appears long on rumour and short on data is what should disqualify it from being taken seriously.
Could you summarize, or mention a few? Because I struggle to see much of any merit to the article. It starts out with scare quote even in the first paragraph which is, if not just outright bad, criticized enough to be a faux pas in itself. It continues with rhetorically embellished opinions about the book, which most of us haven't read. Then presents a bunch of numbers that we again don't know if they are particularly relevant. Finally it spends most of the rest of the article discussing other theories that the author prefers.
I would expect an analysis like this at least partly present the theories discussed in the book in a relatively natural light to then discuss those theories.
I suggest reading the introduction to the book in Amazon. Plenty of "scare quotes" there too, just pushing an opposing narrative. Maybe the tone of the article is reflective of the book rather than a bias people seem all too quick to ascribe to the article's author (although the author is almost certainly biased too -- we all are). I'm not sure the article has embellished much given the introduction.
The article actually points out the book's main bias, "Chang does not consider any alternative theses that might cause gender disparities in occupational sectors." People attempting to analyze an issue with a narrative already firmly in mind is all too common, and the signal to noise ratio on this subject been getting worse. This book appears to be more of the same. I've done a lot of reading on this issue, and the book's intro and this article reflect a common narrative that can explain only some of the data rather than following where the data leads.
The article cites a few books by professional psychologists that discuss gender differences at length. That's where you'll find better data and better theories to explain the data.
As for other good points in the article:
1. I think the article is correct to point out that tech is getting an unusual amount of attention given the gender disparities in other fields. I think people with a feminist agenda see tech as a big lever for social change because of how pervasive tech is in our lives. Adopting that agenda will have upsides and downsides, but we should always be wary of agendas, because they are by necessity blind to effects outside their narrow scope. This agenda is often couched in phrases like "diverse teams always outperform non-diverse teams". If that were true to any meaningful degree, then there would be no need for any explicit action on our part because compensation for diversity would reflect that.
2. The article is also correct to point out that redistributing work means taking women out of other sectors and displacing men to other sectors (although obviously hyperbolic in suggesting we just swap with nurses), and this change won't necessarily lead to better outcomes overall.
Finally, consider the obvious question: why is it necessary to "break up" the boy's club in tech when we clearly didn't need any such call to break up the boy's clubs in medicine or law. Arguably, they were far more insular and sexist, but women broke into them anyway and achieved gender parity. But note that while those fields overall are roughly gender equal, the genders have still segregated themselves into various specializations, eg. surgery is still male dominant, pediatrics is female dominant. The sexism narrative can't explain this, but the works by the psychologists the article cites actually can.
This is one among a few data points that tells me who is more closely pursuing the data, and who is pursuing a narrative. Anyway, I could trot out plenty of citations on this, and I have here on HN in the past, but there's little point. It almost always devolves into pointless squabbling.
I don't see the relevance of the tone of the book. Especially not if the author of the article suggest that his own arguments have more merit. Nor does the introduction of the book [0] actually seem to have many scare quotes. A scare quote is when you question something by quoting it, most often without elaborating. That isn't the usage of quotes in the introduction of the book as far as I can tell, it is the usage of quotes in the article though.
> I'm not sure the article has embellished much given the introduction.
Again I don't see why it is relevant what the book does nor that this is actually the case in the book. Things like "colourful mud-slinging on the basis of anecdotes" and "can be dismissed as lurid gossip" is certainly just that and present in the article. If it was true that Brotopia only contains anecdotes that can easily be dismissed then why do we even need the rest of the article?
> The article actually points out the book's main bias, "Chang does not consider any alternative theses that might cause gender disparities in occupational sectors."
Since we don't really get to know what the theory of the book is in the article I don't think that is that relevant either. When I read an "analysis and review" I want to know what the theory of the book is and its merits. That the author of the book didn't consider a specific theory might be an argument in the overall discourse, but isn't necessarily relevant for the merit of the book's argument. Unless it can be specifically tied to what the book is actually saying.
> That's where you'll find better data and better theories to explain the data.
If he wants to discuss the overall issue, and not just the book, there are plenty of other research studies one could and should refer to.
> I think the article is correct to point out that tech is getting an unusual amount of attention given the gender disparities in other fields.
Again I don't see the relevance since we are talking about a book on this exact issue. How do you correctly measure the amount of attention something should have? I would say it is pretty safe to skip that discussion all together and just argue the issues instead.
The majority of these points have now been about other things than the contents of the book in question.
> The article is also correct to point out that redistributing work means taking women out of other sectors and displacing men to other sectors (although obviously hyperbolic in suggesting we just swap with nurses), and this change won't necessarily lead to better outcomes overall.
Even from the scare quote summary earlier in the article I can guess that the book argues that this should happens because the state of the boys club isn't the natural state, but an injustice. You could certainly argue that that doesn't matter, but then you would also have to argue against being a meritocracy.
> why is it necessary to "break up" the boy's club in tech when we clearly didn't need any such call to break up the boy's clubs in medicine or law.
Didn't we? In these discussions people tend to argue that medicine and law is much more formalized and that it therefor is easier to effect change from the top. Since the book presumably is about the informal structures in technology that seem like a relevant argument.
> But note that while those fields overall are roughly gender equal, the genders have still segregated themselves into various specializations, eg. surgery is still male dominant, pediatrics is female dominant.
Which largely isn't the case in technology i.e. its an overall problem not in specializations.
> The sexism narrative can't explain this, but the works by the psychologists the article cites actually can.
If you, like the article, dismisses the book in favor of a particular study that might be the case, but that just isn't a very strong argument. To make that a strong argument you would have specifically address the points, and the overall thesis, of the book and then make a counter argument based on that. That is exactly what I would expected and didn't get from the article.
> Anyway, I could trot out plenty of citations on this, and I have here on HN in the past, but there's little point. It almost always devolves into pointless squabbling.
I am not asking to write as long as you did. I much prefer one or two points and we could argue. I just don't think there is much support for that in this article which is exactly what I argued in my previous comment.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-01/women-onc...
> If it was true that Brotopia only contains anecdotes that can easily be dismissed then why do we even need the rest of the article?
Clearly because the viewpoint presented is not going away and is taken quite seriously.
> Since we don't really get to know what the theory of the book is in the article I don't think that is that relevant either.
I'm not sure why you say this. The article is pretty clear what the book's theory is: sexist, explicitly exclusionary practices are why women are avoiding tech.
> How do you correctly measure the amount of attention something should have?
By consistently applying the principles espoused by the book, in this case, gender parity. Inconsistency entails special pleading or an agenda that isn't necessarily honest, which reveals implicit or explicit bias.
> The majority of these points have now been about other things than the contents of the book in question.
That's a fair point, but I'm not sure I'd expect anything else considering the subject is a contested social issue and the book is a call for forceful and radical change.
> Which largely isn't the case in technology i.e. its an overall problem not in specializations. [re: gender dempographics]
That's not actually true. There are plenty more women in project management positions than there are female programmers. Which is tangential to the point that a sexism narrative can't explain such voluntary gender segregation, while alternative theories fair better on this measure.
> To make that a strong argument you would have specifically address the points, and the overall thesis, of the book and then make a counter argument based on that.
If the article is accurate that the book did not present any other possible explanations other than overt and implicit sexism, then the article did just that.
My main critic of the article is that it doesn't address the arguments the book is making, but instead dismisses them.
If one person says "chocolate ice cream is the best because it has so much flavor" a merited response isn't "chocolate sucks, vanilla is pure flavor". That is just an opinion. A response containing argument would be "the chocolate flavor overpowers the taste of the cream, vanilla is better since it has a more subtle flavor making it more balanced". Now we as readers can decide among those argument, or make our own.
That is what we should get from the article. He should address the specific points made in the book. If sexism is the main point of the book, he should address that. He can't just dismiss those things by saying "toxic work environment" and "sexism" in quotes.
The entire part of the article addressing the book can be summarized as with this sentence:
"The point is simply that the complaints data does not suggest that Silicon Valley is “rife” with sexual discrimination and harassment or worse than California more generally. On the contrary, Silicon Valley seems better than average."
Not only isn't that very interesting, but as others have pointed out actually misguided. He doesn't perform any sort actual analysis of even the numbers presented, nor does he compare them against other sources. He doesn't explore the demographics, the consequences or the meaning of the data. These number could be explained in many other ways including but not limited to that more men in the workforce leads to less complaints, more white-collar jobs leads to less complaints, more unbalanced gender leads to less complaints, tech companies handle more complaints internally or that there isn't actually less complaints when properly analysed.
There just isn't a strong basis for his claims.
Here is a study finding that sexual harassment is a problem in workplaces and professions similar to those in SV. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24994/sexual-harassment-of-women...
A flawed analogy. A more faithful analogy would be someone claiming "chocolate ice cream is the most preferred flavour the world over", and the article's response is akin to "they didn't even ask people if they liked vanilla". That is a proper response to the original claim. Even if he were to add a flawed analysis like, "over half of the 50 people in my neighbourhood preferred vanilla", that doesn't change the fact that the core of his rebuttal is still correct.
You are correct that the article's math isn't definitive, but it doesn't need to be (and he should have left it out IMO). The article claims that the book is simply a narrative backed by anecdotes, and if that's the case, then all the reviewer needs to do to undermine it is present an alternative narrative that's equally or more plausible, which he did. This narrative is justified by actual data and so is already more than the book (allegedly) provides.
> These number could be explained in many other ways including but not limited to that more men in the workforce leads to less complaints, more white-collar jobs leads to less complaints, more unbalanced gender leads to less complaints, tech companies handle more complaints internally or that there isn't actually less complaints when properly analysed.
So it sounds like you have mostly the same qualms with this review as the reviewer has with the book. Except a) the standard for books should be higher than book reviews, and b) if you disliked this analysis, then you won't like the book which the reviewer claims is even sloppier, so he succeeded in conveying that you wouldn't like this book.
> Here is a study finding that sexual harassment is a problem in workplaces and professions similar to those in SV
No one's denying that women experience sexual harassment. They no doubt experience such harassment in every field. The questions surrounding STEM specifically is whether harassment or other such sexist factors meaningfully affects female retention. That is not so clear, and as I mentioned earlier, women have staked their claim in even more competitive and aggressive fields.
We should endeavour to reduce harassment and sexism everywhere as a matter of principle, but the loud saber rattling implying that harassment entails lower engagement, particularly at the levels seen in STEM, is simply unjustified.
Quillete essentially a crypto, "respectable" outlet of the alt-right. I don't know whether this is a good book or not. It probably isn't. But the review is obviously an excuse to take a swipe at gender equality, while still acting smart and scientific.
Yes. I'm using her own success as a direct refutation of her argument.
For example, if a bro culture does exist, then it may very well follow from the gender disparity which is itself the result of other factors. This may in turn create an environment that is unappealing to the women who do enter tech.
Extreme BS. I succeed in tech because I'm a very good developer. I've also had VCs treat me very poorly. It's not a gender thing, a lot of them are just assholes.