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Comment by ianvanness | Hacker News Reader

"Today, even as so many barriers have fallen — whether at elite universities, where women outnumber men, or in running for the presidency, where polls show that fewer people think gender makes a difference — computer engineering, the most innovative sector of the economy, remains behind. "

With younger demographics showing far less bias towards gender in polls and elsewhere, and with the tech scene bringing in so much young talent, why is it that non-males are still not accepted as peers by the general male tech crowd? If anything, shouldn't the tech community have accepted non-males long before other industries given these circumstances?

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>elite universities, where women outnumber men, or in running for the presidency, where polls show that fewer people think gender makes a difference

>computer engineering, the most innovative sector of the economy, remains behind

Peculiar why people attribute the former to the natural order of things, while simultaneously attributing the latter to bias.

Of course you also can't (reliably) measure bias by asking people if they are biased (as in a poll).

Granted.

Considering that most elite universities started as male only and have taken a long path to inclusion, it is unlikely the power dynamics there have gone from biased pro male to biased pro female. So yes, the hard won primacy of women in higher education is probably the natural order of things.

Or it could be a sign that the lack of male teachers in our primary education system somehow has an effect on male student performance? Primary school teachers used to be mostly male so the teacher gender balance has clearly changed over time, but it seems incredibly hard to study this subject.

Personally I think it is important for our society that kids get more exposure to male role-models and caretakers.

>Considering that most elite universities started as male only and have taken a long path to inclusion,

>it is unlikely the power dynamics there have gone from biased pro male to biased pro female.

>So yes, the hard won primacy of women in higher education is probably the natural order of things.

Neither of your conclusions follow from your premise.

That's a good question. However, polls don't necessarily tell us what's really going on, since:

- People can lie to pollsters because they're not comfortable admitting their true biases.

- People may not have enough maturity or empathy to realize that their own behavior is offensive to others, so they don't think the questions about bias apply to themselves.

Also, the "tech industry" is much bigger than the small world of Silicon Valley startups. In the wider corporate world, where there's more diversity of age and sex (and more HR people keeping a watchful eye on employees), the accepted norms of behavior are very different from "bro culture".

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