I am well aware that the climate is well against this position, but you cannot just dismiss the 'Damore' view out of hand. He is not just 'wrong'. The Damore view is at the very least plausible and tarring a whole industry filled with many thoughtful and introverted (i.e. not messing with others, often taken advantage of themselves) individuals to support some view of gender economics is morally wrong.
We now live in a time where we are increasingly told what we should believe. In my view morality shouldn't extend to belief. For one it leaves certain individuals (like myself) out in the cold. Sorry, I cannot be told what to believe.
Maybe this is just the current hot topic and many people want to read it, but to me it reads as a form of propaganda (by definition media created to determine what people believe) or at least journalistic activism, and who is this guy (apparently some business journalist) to write authoratively on the subject, based on one fact (the predominance of women in early programming jobs). The fact of the matter is that programming has changed beyond recognition, particularly between 1950 and 1980 or so and that is more than enough to at the very least plausibly explain the change in programmer demographic. Anyone who is in the industry knows these eras cannot be compared (surely?).
> but you cannot just dismiss the 'Damore' view out of hand
But it is not dismissed out of hand. It is dismissed by serious scholars after significant research. It is Damore who dismisses their well-informed position out of hand by taking out of context some papers whose significance he is not qualified to judge. It is he who rejects scholarship and serious investigation in favor of gut feelings. If Damore's view were as well researched as the prevailing view, then it would merit more careful consideration. But as it stands, he is some lay person who, for his own reasons, decides that the scholars are wrong.
Physicists don't debate all the bloggers who misunderstand or take out of context physics papers, so why should social scholars debate some random guy at Google who wrote a rant? After all, the couple of papers he cites are scholarly works. Do you think those works are not debated in the research community? But you can't debate some layperson who clearly did not bother to put any effort into studying the issue (e.g., he does not discuss any other paper that contradicts his political views, and there are many more of those). If you want, there are some venues (like /r/science, /r/AskHistorians and others) where experts discuss research with laypeople, and you're welcome to ask them questions there. The belief that there is any serious scholarship behind Damore's rant that's being silenced by non-experts is the exact opposite of what's really going on.
Both are conservative publications, which is fine, but: There are certainly some researchers, like those in the first article, who agree with Damore's position, but they are by far the minority; if you're interested in the subject, I suggest you at least read some research written by the majority opinion. The second link is written by a non-expert, and therefore does not constitute a scholarly opinion at all. I occasionally enjoy reading some of Alexander's writing, but he is clearly not a serious social scholar, and his writing suffers from some obvious methodological problems that have been well covered in social scholarship.
So far I haven't seen a single article opposing him that didn't (have to) resort to crass misrepresentation of what he actually wrote, when it even bothered at all.
If you have to lie about your opponent, you're probably not in the right.
He's not an opponent; he's just some random guy on the internet, who, by his own admission, has no idea what he's talking about, because he writes about a subject he has not studied nor shown interest in studying. Many of the people arguing against him or for him are other random guys on the internet, and your entire opinion on this very important matter, which has occupied hundreds of researchers for decades and affects the lives of many people is based on some online debates you've read between various random guys on the internet. Do you see how ridiculous this is? It's like forming an opinion about Bell's theorem by listening to debates among fourth-graders who've heard the term "quantum mechanics" on Rick and Morty.
He's famous only because his office shenanigans caused such a massive PR shitstorm for his employer, that the CEO of Google had to cut short his family vacation to deal with the mess this low-level employee had caused.
Hmm...a "report" created by and for an advocacy group.
Which links very tenuous studies about performance on tests to interest in tech by...nothing.
And of course it doesn't address what I think is the elephant in the room: how can people be so arrogant as to claim that all the women flooding into other fields don't know what they want? "You poor girl, you may think you like early childhood education, but you're deluded, you really want to to do CS and are prevented by the evil sexism"
Which is about par for the course for the "blank slate" side of the debate.
First of all, it's a report written by actual experts on the subject, and one that actually cites more than two sources, not all of them affirming the same point of view. It’s not the Principia, but it’s scholarly work, and a hundredfold better than some rant written by some random guy who has not studied the subject at all, not even as an amateur. But if it’s not to your liking, you’re welcome to go down the list on Google Scholar. If you’re looking for scholarly confirmation of Damore’s views, you’ll have to dig deep. If, however, your intent is to dismiss serious scholarship in a subject you have not studied at all so you don’t have to read it and can continue believing what some dude wrote because it fits with your gut feeling, then there’s really no point to discuss this subject seriously at all.
Second, your question is answered in the vast literature of the field who's scholarly conclusions you so dismiss without study. Just to give you an elevator pitch: the starting point of the discussion isn't tech at all, but the overall position of women. It is a fact disputed by no expert that 1. women have overall far less power in our society than men, and 2. this structure was created by at least centuries of social policy. The only assumption is that women do not want to have less power than men. The discussion about tech is merely an offshoot of that, as now tech is a significant source of power in our society. You can learn the rest if you're interested, but just to make it clear: your presentation of the feminist side is completely and absolutely wrong. Also, while you imagine this arrogance simply because you have not studied the subject, it is an undisputed fact that women have actually been commanded by society for centuries what to do and learn (which, for much of history, was very little). So I wouldn’t start talking about arrogance, because that on the side of men has been pervasive for centuries.
Very simple: As a first approximation, we are concerned about women being marginalized from positions of power, not about them being underrepresented in any particular profession. Tech (and politics, law, finance, entertainment, journalism, medicine and upper management) is a position of power; bricklaying, nursing and k-12 education aren't (it's not necessarily an intrinsic property of the professions, but rather an empirical observation). Sexism (and racism) is an unequal distribution of power; feminism is simply the attempt to rectify that. That's the whole story in a nutshell.
However, you will find concern over the lack of women in construction, as well as the lack of male nurses. This is due to less direct effects on power distribution. E.g., some of the power that a profession endows on its practitioners is related to its perceived prestige, and it's known that an over representation of women in a profession lowers its prestige -- another sexist effect -- and therefore its power. When it comes to construction work and other "low power" blue-collar professions, I believe that the desire to increase women participation is mainly due to a general desire to reduce (though not necessarily eliminate) the gender association of professions in general.
> Very simple: As a first approximation, we are concerned about women being marginalized from positions of power, not about them being underrepresented in any particular profession.
...
I think that's all I need to know here. So feminists think that it's okay to go into an industry and demand that there be more women because it is a "powerful industry"? And somehow those of us who support Damore are the unreasonable ones?
What? No! After researchers having established, with thorough researched that's available for all to see, that women have been marginalized from positions of power -- which includes the tech industry, where women participation, in the US, has been declining in the past three decades or so -- we feminists demand that the practice stop. That's all.
You literally just stated that you are interested in the tech industry because it is a "powerful" industry, and you feel that women have been historically marginalized from positions of power. Consequently, you feel that females are entitled to obtain these positions in order to "balance this power distribution". Am I correct?
No, you are certainly not correct, although right now I would be happy to balance the very unequal distribution of knowledge you and I have on this subject (although I am far from being an expert myself), because I feel like Richard Dawkins debating evolution with some Christian from Kansas who insists there is no evidence for evolution because that's what they read on a Christian website that scientifically debunks evolution. Seriously, you are so engaged with a topic that you clearly haven't even bothered to read a couple of Wikipedia articles about.
We want the marginalization of women from power, that has been going for centuries, to end. In other words, we want society to lift its hand from the scale against women.
To fight sexism. The problem is this discussion is that you clearly don't have the first clue as to what sexism is, in spite of me having provided links for you to learn what it is that you're arguing about. But just to explain a bit: 1. sexism isn't misogyny; 2. it isn't a concerted conspiracy against women, either. It is the name given to the social dynamics by which discrimination (often unconscious and perhaps even benevolent) causes women to have less power in society. I don't know exactly what "BS terms" mean to you other than terms you haven't bothered to look up in the links I provided.
So what exactly does the tech industry have to do? You said you're only interested in tech because it is powerful. It seems to me that you feel that you think it is reasonable to demand positions in the tech industry independent of qualification because it will help rectify your imagined "power imbalance".
You're giving extremely vague and hand wavy responses like "remove the hand from the scale against women" And other flowery phrases that mean nothing.
> So what exactly does the tech industry have to do?
That's a very difficult question about policy, and one that I do not have a strong opinion about (though happy to discuss). Experts believe that certain diversity programs are effective, and so I think we should defer to them to try them.
> It seems to me that you feel that you think it is reasonable to demand positions in the tech industry independent of qualification because it will help rectify your imagined "power imbalance".
The problem -- like that of affirmative action -- is that the state of affairs is one when women have already been discriminated against. For example, for a long time women were prevented from studying a lot of professions, and their lack of knowledge was then used against them. We are at a place where things are much more subtle. One thing is clear: if women are somehow deterred at any stage, then that deterrence must be removed. When it comes to affirmative action, the debate gets more heated, but it may help to realize that hiring underqualified people is already very common, so at the very least, underqualified women should not be hired at a lower rate than underqualified men. Now we get to more contentious grounds. I think it is fair to prefer a woman over a man, with otherwise equal qualifications.
> And other flowery phrases that mean nothing.
They don't mean nothing, but they do require a much more precise study of things.
I have a question: why does anyone think this tired soundbite is a smashing knock-down utterly destructive CHECKMATE FEMINISTS rebuttal when anyone who thinks about it for a moment can discover that
1. Advancement and representation in high-status positions has a strong normalizing effect which spreads beyond just those specific job titles, and
2. Plenty of people do acknowledge and want to encourage better gender balance in professions like nursing, teaching, etc.?
For someone who claims elsewhere to be making serious rebuttals, you're curiously resorting to some pathetically-weak talking points instead.
And the key difference (at least for me) is that these programs encourage men and don't accuse women of coordinated sexism. By contrast, the women in tech movement is happy to paint us all sexist.
Huh? Everyone is sexist. That's the whole idea of sexism. Just like everyone is covered in germs and potentially spreads disease. Just like proactive action is required in order not to spread disease, proactive action is required in order not to spread sexism. When we point out people (or, more commonly, actions or policies) as "sexist", we mean that they either choose not to take that proactive action, or worse, choose to take action to increase sexism. So yeah, of course you're a sexist, and so am I.
I have neither the time nor inclination to go through feminist theory "papers" or the related "scholarly papers" about how the tech world is obviously sexist/misogynistic/racist/bigoted/etc.
You said that Damore's view was held as wrong as by the "majority view".
Where is the "majority view" point by point rebuttal of Damore's memo?
I'm sorry, but I have no inclination to do that. If you have a strong opinion on some subject which is based on things said by people who you know are not expert and have not researched it -- namely, your opinion is knowingly based on ignorance of the issue -- yet you can't be bothered to look up what the experts say on the matter, then I have no desire to educate those who don't wish to be educated. Either you care about this subject or you don't. And if you do, I hope you have the scientific curiosity to actually learn about it, and only then shape your opinions. Thankfully, after decades of study and action, we no longer need to convince the world that germs exist — the world now knows. So we no longer need you to listen; we have critical mass. You wish to remain spitefully ignorant? Be my guest. My comments are intended to those who are interested in learning, not to those who say, "thank you, but I'd rather take the word of some schmoe who knows nothing about the the subject he so vehemently writes about than spend some time actually learning about it from those who have".
I will, however, say this: Damore’s email is deeply misguided regardless of the merit of the couple of papers he cites (and must have run across in some conservative blog, as that is the extent of his real interest in the issue). It is basically a memo written by the owner of a chemical plant who dumps radioactive waste in a river, and claims that the pollution should not be stopped in spite of an increased incidence of cancer in the area by citing some papers showing that not all cancer is a result of exposure to radioactive waste.
And don’t worry, there's no need to learn any feminist theory; just some sociology and history, even at Wikipedia level. Anyway, I don't know why you put the word papers in scare quotes, as I don't think you have any idea as to what feminist theory is, and I don’t understand how you can ridicule something without even knowing what it is that you ridicule (I guess you’re basing your disdain on connotations you have of the name and maybe writings by others who have similarly not bothered to find out what feminist theory is before writing against it). And the fact that you, again, confuse sexist/racist with misogynistic/bigoted, shows that you don't even understand what the issue is, and instead wish to ridicule some strawman position that you imagine your imagined opponents possess.
> If you have a strong opinion on some subject which is based on things said by people who you know are not expert and have not researched it -- namely, your opinion is knowingly based on ignorance of the issue -- yet you can't be bothered to look up what the experts say on the matter, then I have no desire to educate those who don't wish to be educated. Either you care about this subject or you don't.
No, because, again, all I'm saying is look at the entire field, and you, like Damore, wave some specific research at me. I have read everything Pinker has to say on the subject, because that's how you do research.
The same as that of most researchers: that his conclusions are scientifically problematic, but regardless of their merit, they are ultimately irrelevant to the issue of sexism, which is far better established, seems to have a much bigger effect, and can and should be rectified regardless of other possible contributing factors. That there are other causes for cancer is irrelevant to the issue of whether the chemical plant should be allowed to dump waste in the river. Certainly, the possible existence of those other causes must not be used as an excuse to allow the plant to continue polluting.
And your take-away was obviously to copy the tactics he described in the book: ignore the actual science and the actual arguments put forward, because you know those show you to be clearly in the wrong.
Instead, weave around the facts, do advocacy and sell it as science, vilify your opponents etc.
Quite the opposite, in fact. And I don't know what you base your opinions on, because clearly, you know so little about the subject, having read no more than a couple of popular, very one-sided books. I find it mind-boggling how someone can read just one side of a debate and believe that they "debunked" the other side. But I'm guessing you probably also read Joy Christian's book and believe that that Bell's theorem has been "thoroughly debunked", and that those who contest that notion ignore the "actual science" and "actual arguments", and "vilify" Christian in some crazy emotional witch-hunt.
I hope you realize, however, that it is those who least have the fact on their side, yet constantly demand to be acknowledged, who claim that there's some witch-hunt against them, and that the reason they are not taken as seriously as they think they should be is because people are afraid of the truth.
The main problem with Pinker, BTW, is not at all the merit of his claims about biological inclination, but that none of that has anything to do with the undisputed, completely noncontroversial, and far better established fact that women have been socially marginalized from positions of power for centuries. Like in my allegory of the polluting plant, even if there are indeed other causes for cancer, that has very little to do with the demand that the plant stop dumping chemical waste in the river. Waving science supporting the claim that there are other causes for cancer as an excuse to continue polluting shows a very basic misunderstanding of the issue. My goal is not to prove that there are no innate psychological differences between men and women; it is to end the marginalization of women that no doubt exists, regardless of whether or not those innate differences are real (what's funny is that even those who believe they are real, don't notice that the effect size they claim to find doesn't even come close to explaining the situation on the ground, nor that it is constantly changing).
It's interesting how much you "know" without, you know, actually knowing anything.
Anyway, thanks for writing that up in detail, I will just leave it at that, because you've done a better job at discrediting yourself than anyone else could ever possibly do.
This is how free speech works: just let the other side talk.
Now you're just being a dick. I spent a few studying this subject. But you'll go to great lengths to justify to yourself why you shouldn't look at the fossils.
It does. But an academic literature review by actual experts does require a bit more effort to process than an office memo written in an afternoon by some programmer.
Yes, I saw that. It is yet another of the posts which basically say "the science is not saying that the differences are 100% certain, so somehow that means that Damore is totally wrong".
I actually did a half-way pickthrough of that post on twitter, not gonna repeat it here. Annoying enough with 140-character per message limitation. I'm done with this memo.
As I explained in another comment (chemical plant pollution), Damore is totally wrong regardless of the merit of the couple of papers he (a layman with zero knowledge or interest in the field) picked. My problem with that medium post is that an actual scientist shouldn't argue with some random dude on the internet who's clearly not interested in learning about the subject, while using actual science (and the very careful, measured wording that is common in this very inexact science). After all, anyone who chooses to believe someone as uncredentialed as Damore, and his explicit non-research in the first place, is unlikely to be persuaded by actual scholarship. I also
I would rather we stop treating Damore as someone other than a dude who wrote some memo in an afternoon. He did no original research, no secondary research, and expresses not a single idea we have not read hundreds of times since at least the eighteenth century. Just last week I read a text from 1795 by a Scottish minister who translated some of Leonhard Euler's work, where he says that maybe it's time people would stop repeating the claim that women are naturally incapable of doing science and using that as an excuse to exclude them from learning it.
I also think it is misguided to debate the effect size of biological causes just because Damore happened to say something about that, while not starting the discussion with the much better established social causes. Like my pollution analogy, we know social causes exist, we want to fix them as they cause harm, and once we do we can scientifically debate whether nature has indeed decided to imbue women, blacks and Asians with such flawed intelligence, and why the Jews and the French are so smarter than everyone.
Before we proceed, please provide a clear, coherent, short summary of what you personally believe Damore's argument is, and then agree to personally commit to that belief for the duration of debate.
99% of the problem of this debate is that his "memo" was so vague in places -- despite being so allegedly well-written! -- that we end up being able to attribute zero claims and zero positions to him, since any alleged position can be disclaimed on vagueness/indirectness, leading to the conclusion that, until someone will commit to interpreting him as making a claim, he apparently wrote a memo which said literally nothing whatsoever.
But suppose I were coming to it fresh, with no background whatsoever, and simply reading it through, and let's try to Socratically figure out what's going on in it. Since you're apparently very concerned with people misinterpreting it, perhaps you'd like to help.
So, first off: would you agree that the memo was intended by Damore to communicate some type of argument, reasoning from evidence, in support of some particular conclusion, and that he felt this was not merely idle speculation but something genuinely important in need of attention from many people?
I'm asking this because:
1. I'm attempting to be charitable, and assume that his choice of what to write was inspired by what he believed to be a logical argument structure, and to convince readers of something he himself believed to be the conclusion of that argument. In other words, I'm assuming that if something is in there, it's not a non sequitur -- it's in there because he believed it was relevant to or supported the argument he was making.
2. He chose a wide distribution channel within Google, and now appears to have chosen an even wider distribution channel outside of Google. My experience is that people generally don't do this for things they believe are idle or trivial, but rather for things they believe are genuinely important.
Oh, I intend to advance an interpretation based on the actual words that Damore actually wrote and actually published. But since you're going to fight every step of the way to kick and scream and move goalposts and argue that "he didn't actually say that!" in response to basically anything, I have to start from first principles on you.
So: would you agree that the memo was intended by Damore to communicate some type of argument, reasoning from evidence, in support of some particular conclusion, and that he felt this was not merely idle speculation but something genuinely important in need of attention from many people?
"Before we proceed, please provide a clear, coherent, short summary of what you personally believe Damore's argument is, and then agree to personally commit to that belief for the duration of debate."
Considering my complaint was that none of his defenders will do that, and thus it's impossible to engage with what he wrote (since inevitably the response will be "He never argued that and I never said he did!"), I feel it's reasonable to say: you first.
Damore says that there are possible non-bias reasons that women display less affinity towards the tech industry thus possiblypartially explaining the difference in gender representation.
OK. So what do you believe is the logical course of action to take based on this? Since he mentioned diversity programs, presumably he thinks there is some logical link between his argument and some proposed course of action, though of course for any such proposed course someone will pop up and say that he didn't advocate that and obviously anyone claiming he did must never have read what he wrote.
Do you believe that, if this position were to be conceded for sake of argument, there would be any logical change to be made to, say, how Google approaches interviewing and hiring?
Stop illegally preferring less qualified women over more qualified men to meet quotas.
(Before i get straw manned, I'm NOT saying that all women at Google are less qualified, just that it does happen, and Google even apparently makes its diversity meetings secret)
The specific hiring approach Damore objected to was "reducing the false negative rate" for women.
A false negative in hiring occurs when a qualified candidate is rejected (as opposed to a false positive, where an unqualified candidate is hired). So Damore's objection was not to "preferring less qualified women", it was to an attempt to raise the proportion of qualified women being hired.
So I'm curious why you chose to jump to "preferring less qualified women".
Well, Damore made some strongly-worded and poorly-cited claims in an attempt to pass off his "science" as somehow uncontroversial and irrefutable. The fact that multiple people have chimed in pointing out that A) it's very far from uncontroversial/irrefutable and B) his arguments are based on studies whose effect sizes would not produce the results we see, is a pretty convincing rebuttal.
Also it's telling that "the differences are not 100% certain" is your comment while it's still taken by people on the internet to mean "Damore was absolutely right about everything ever and we should all stop diversity efforts since women are too hobbled by their genetic ladybrains to work in tech in large numbers anyway".
>"Damore was absolutely right about everything ever and we should all stop diversity efforts since women are too hobbled by their genetic ladybrains to work in tech in large numbers anyway"
Do you want to build a strawman?
All we are resisting is being told we are sexist for not having a higher proportion of females in our industry despite having approximately the same proportion of which there are female graduates.
No one is asking the tech industry to hire more women engineers than there are graduates. It might just be nice to have a bit fewer women report such horrible experiences working in the industry, so that maybe we'll have more graduates, which everybody should agree is a good thing.
> #1 reason: "Don't like the actual work". Also, a significant number leave engineering for management.
Huh? I don't understand your argument at all. Of course hostile culture isn't the #1 cause! Very rarely are very serious social problems -- even the most serious social problems -- the #1 cause of pain. Poverty and crime aren't the number one causes of death. Lack of jobs isn't the #1 cause of illness etc. What percentage of women experiencing an inhospitable culture (let alone leaving because of it) do you consider acceptable?
> And of course the Ceci/Williams study showing a 2:1 hiring advantage for women for tenure track positions in STEM fields.
What does this have to do with anything? I don't think you understand what the issue is at all.
> > And of course the Ceci/Williams study showing a 2:1 hiring advantage for women for tenure track positions in STEM fields.
What does this have to do with anything? I don't think you understand what the issue is at all.
His point is that there is no "hand on the other part of the scale holding down women" or whatever quasi-poetic phrase you use.
That sound we're hearing is the goal posts breaking the sound barrier.
I'll explain this to you step-by-step.
Your claim was that, well it's a little difficult because you dodge and weave all the time. Anyway, you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said. When that turned out to be wrong, you claimed that the science was wrong, again without any evidence. When it turned out the science is actually pretty established (even if you don't agree with it), you again switched and said it didn't matter whether the science was wrong or right (huh?), because:
> "issue of sexism, which is far better established, seems to have a much bigger effect"
Now again, you never showed any actual evidence for that theory being either "better established" or having a "bigger effect". Instead you just claimed it and claimed that you knew better, and therefore it must be true. Showing a complete lack of knowledge as to how science works (your approach is religious, not scientific, and of course that is par for the course for "gender and women's studies", which are quite blatant about being about political advocacy rather than scientific truth).
So the people published in the ACM and Professor Fouad did something radical: they asked actual women instead of deciding on their behalf.
And it turns out the biggest issue was not sexism, contrary to what you claim, but "didn't like the work" or "not interested in the work". Which, not entirely coincidentally was what Damore was claiming, though he made the much weaker claim that interest could be a contributing factor. Turns out he was right. Dead on right.
Again, your claim is "sexism >>> interest". Actual science shows "interest >>> sexism". Damore's claim that "interest could be a factor" is right, if much weaker than the truth.
Clearer now?
Does that mean that "sexism is OK"? Of course not, where on earth did you get that from? (Well, you obviously got that from "holy shit what I wrote was complete BS, let's switch the topic", which is of course also why you have steadfastly refused to do what you demand of others and clearly + succinctly state your position. Dodge and weave is all you got)
However, it does show that sexism isn't the primary factor that explains why there are far more men in tech than women. Interest is the main factor that explains the difference, and there are multiple layers of interlocking scientific results, with large sample sizes and large effect sizes that show this to be the case. And as to Damore's point: if you have a wrong theory as to the causes, you're unlikely to get the results you want.
In fact, even though sexism exists (everywhere) it is unclear whether it plays any part in causing the disparity, because (a) women in CS report that they receive more support from the companies than men, not less and (b) there is a well-supported 2:1 hiring advantage.
If anything, sexist practices appear to be preferential towards women, so if sexist treatment stopped you'd have even fewer women in tech, not more.
And as to this whole "women in tech" being a coordinated effort to keep women out of positions of power ("we are concerned about women being marginalized from positions of power"): again, one of the highest targets for women leaving engineering work is management, so they leave for positions of more power, lording it over the menfolk who prefer to do the techie stuff.
And as to the series of incidents that you appear to be referring to.
(a) The plural of anecdote is not data. The data show something else.
(b) Simple math shows that gender disparities are the primary cause of skewed incidents of a sexist nature, not their result. (Though of course you can have feedback loops).
(c) Tech is a shitshow for everyone. If a woman were to recount the things that happened to me in my career, you would take it as the clearest indication of "sexism" possible.
(d) But I don't know if any other professions are better.
That sound we're hearing is your willful ignorance and lack of interest in the subject you so vehemently argue over breaking the sound barrier, and the meaningless buzzing of someone who has zero knowledge about a subject yet continues to debate it with furor.
> you claimed that there was simply no scientific evidence for what Damore said.
No. I said that what Damore wrote is completely irrelevant, whether true or not, just as the question of whether there are other causes of cancer is irrelevant to the question of whether a chemical plant should be allowed to continue polluting the water. This makes his argument wrong.
> Now again, you never showed any actual evidence for that theory being either "better established" or having a "bigger effect".
No. I did show actual evidence. You refused to look.
> And it turns out the biggest issue was not sexism, contrary to what you claim
A. Never claimed that, B. that's not what that data shows in the slightest.
> Which, not entirely coincidentally was what Damore was claiming, though he made the much weaker claim that interest could be a contributing factor. Turns out he was right. Dead on right.
Not in the slightest. Again, his point was "please allow us to continue as before". That point is not remotely made by any of his irrelevant claims. The only reasonable arguments in favor of allowing the plant to continue behaving as usual are to show that 1. there's no pollution, or 2. pollution is harmless. He doesn't make such arguments.
For example, he says that we should stop assuming sexism is the cause of the gender gap. 1. There are good reasons to assume that, but regardless, 2. that assumption is completely unnecessary.
> they asked actual women instead of deciding on their behalf.
That's ironic, because the only thing that's been conclusively established beyond any doubt, as I've shown, is that society has been deciding on women's behalf for centuries (at least).
> Again, your claim is "sexism >>> interest".
Nope. My main point is: sexism is pervasive (and is bad although that's a value not a fact) => stop sexism. A more nuanced point, which I could discuss with someone who knows what sexism is, is that it's difficult to separate interest from sexism.
> Clearer now?
The only thing that's clear is that you have no idea what are the claims you supposedly oppose and haven't bothered reading what sexism is.
> where on earth did you get that from?
Uh, from Damore saying that diversity programs must be stopped/changed because he thinks a couple of papers show that there are other causes than sexism.
> However, it does show that sexism isn't the primary factor that explains why there are far more men in tech than women
NOOPE. If you bothered to read just a tiny bit about sexism, you'd see that the conclusion is quite the contrary. It's like you're saying, "a ha! it's not germs that cause disease, but contact with other people!"
Please, it's ridiculous to continue debating this if you have not the slightest idea what sexism is.
> And as to this whole "women in tech" being a coordinated effort to keep women out of positions of power
Sigh. Who said "coordinated effort?" Do germs have a coordinated effort? It's a dynamics! Please, just learn an itsy bitsy bit about this thing that you're talking about.
> The data show something else.
No, they don't. Of course, if you don't know what sexism is, you don't know what's not sexism.
> Simple math shows that gender disparities are the primary cause of skewed incidents of a sexist nature, not their result.
Please. This statement is total BS, beginning to end. We have no clear idea even what the effect size is or whether it exists at all, let alone to determine that it's an underlying cause. Even Steven Pinker doesn't belive that.
> Tech is a shitshow for everyone. If a woman were to recount the things that happened to me in my career, you would take it as the clearest indication of "sexism" possible.
Again, you don't know what sexism is, but you keep talking about it and getting it wrong every single time.
As before, I have to thank you for clearly exposing the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this position more clearly than I ever could have.
Science? Irrelevant.
Truth? A distraction.
Math? Don't understand, don't want to understand.
Logic? Don't bother us with that.
What people say/write? Who cares?
What people want? I know what they should want.
It's a pure power play with no redeeming qualities and nothing to back it whatsoever. The whole thing hinges on the rhetorical trick of redefining words in such a way that the definitions already contain the conclusion you wish to reach, for which there is no actual evidence, and therefore you demand that as a precondition for having a discussion with you one must already accept your conclusions.
Well, it's such a cheap trick that it doesn't even pass the "debating 101" silly tricks laugh test, and just because you've constrained yourself to being inside an echo chamber that reinforces these religious beliefs (because that is all they are) unquestioningly doesn't actually give you any authority to speak on the subject.
Speaking of the subject of telling women what to want and logic, let me quote you something from the translator's introduction of the 1795 English translation of Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess -- which contains some important advances in the algebraization of logic, and directly influenced Augustus De Morgan -- by the Scottish minister Henry Hunter, D.D.:
> Euler wrote these Letters for the instruction of a young and sensible female, and in the same view that they were written, the are translated, namely, the improvement of the female mind; and object of what importance to the world! I rejoice to think I have lived to see female education conducted on a more liberal and enlarged plan. I am old enough to remember the time when well-born young women, even of the north, could spell their own language but very indifferently, and some hardly read it with common decency... While the boys of the family were conversing with Virgil, perhaps with old Homer himself, the poor girls were condemned to cross-stitch, on a piece of gauze-canvass, and to record their own age at the bottom of a sampler.
> They are now treated as rational beings, and society is already the better for it. And wherefore should the terms female and philosophy seem a ridiculous combination? Wherefore preclude to a woman any source of knowledge to which her capacity, and condition in life, entitle her to apply? It is cruel and ungenerous to expose the frivolity of the sex, after reducing it to the necessity of being silly and frivolous. Cultivate a young woman's understanding, and her person will become, even to herself, only a secondary concern; let her time be filled up in the acquisition of attainable and useful knowledge, and then she will cease to be a burden to herself and to every body about her; make her acquainted with the world of nature, and the world of art will delude her no longer.
So you are deeply mistaken about who it is that tells women what to want and who precludes them from making choices. An 18th century Scottish minister was more enlightened than you on the subject (although no less patronizing, but hey, 18th century) and more knowledgable. I'm guessing that's because he actually bothered to study math, logic, science and history, rather than just throw those words around.
-------------
> Science? Irrelevant.
You can't even understand simple sentences now? Science is not irrelevant. But chemistry is irrelevant to Goldbach's conjecture. A scientist would see that immediately.
The interesting question of nature vs. nature (to which, almost everyone agrees, the answer is "both", but may debate on degree), is simply unrelated to the question of how best to fight sexism.
> Math? Don't understand, don't want to understand.
Is that that same myth of "feminists tell women what they want" by those who haven't even spent an hour reading what feminism is, and know nothing about the history of gender relations? You really have no clue what you're talking about. You are repeating myths by others who think it is possible to express intelligent opinions about a subject without studying it for even a second. If you want to know what we feminists actually say (rather than parrot newspaper headlines and conservative blogs), why don't you take an hour or two to actually read it?
> It's a pure power play with no redeeming qualities and nothing to back it whatsoever.
It's clear you haven't even read the link I posted (to Wikipedia!) about what power even is. You're like one of those new-age folks who talk about "positive energy".
> The whole thing hinges on the rhetorical trick of redefining words in such a way that the definitions already contain the conclusion you wish to reach
Nope. Again, the same trope by those who believe that's what social scholars and feminists do, without ever having studied a thing about the subject. You are like a Reiki practitioner telling a physicist that her definition of "energy" is redefining words to reach the conclusion she wants to reach.
The truth is that someone who's learned nothing of a subject (and, no, reading blog posts by other equally ignorant people doesn't count) can't intelligently debate it, and, confused and angry, is reduced to attacking the rhetoric of his opponent.
> for which there is no actual evidence
I've provided links to mountains of very actual evidence, which you just refuse to look at. Shutting your eyes doesn't really make the world disappear.
> Well, it's such a cheap trick that it doesn't even pass the "debating 101" silly tricks laugh test, and just because you've constrained yourself to being inside an echo chamber that reinforces these religious beliefs (because that is all they are) unquestioningly doesn't actually give you any authority to speak on the subject.
Dude, you are speaking about something that you know nothing about. You call it religion because, knowing absolutely nothing about the subject, you want it to be that. Why are you afraid of reading research? Ignorance is not a virtue.
> If your formal education was math, then you should probably demand your money back.
Why? Have you spotted any errors in my lectures? They're usually very well received and I haven't had any complaints. Or perhaps your knowledge of math is as rich as your knowledge of sexism, and you say I'm wrong because that's what you think you're supposed to say in a debate and you really have no clue?
> Your idea of "science" laughable.
Why, what's my idea of science and what's wrong with it?
> Your attempts at drawing analogies is nothing short of desperate. Comically desperate.
For once I agree. Debating a topic with someone who knows absolutely nothing about it yet insists on making bold assertions tends to strain my rhetorical skills. I'm used to debating with other knowledgeable people. People ignorant of a subject usually just start flinging personal insults when they realize they have nothing intelligent to say, and it takes a lot of patience to keep them engaged. Analogies, even bad ones, often do the trick.
> Anyway, it's been fun.
Has it? I find it frustrating to debate something with someone who knows nothing of the subject they're debating.
It is a social dynamics (or the state of a society where this dynamics exists) that causes women to have significantly less power[1] than men. That dynamics is, of course, discriminatory, but the discrimination is not necessarily legal or bureaucratic; it may well be in attitude, pressure, education etc.
Occasionally, this discriminatory treatment is due to misogyny (disdain or disrespect of women), but much more often it is unconscious. This is why the first defense against sexism is knowing what it is and learning to see it, and why I like comparing it to germs. They're there, but we need to look for them to see them.
[1]: Power is one of the most important concepts in the social studies. I've already provided a link to the definition(s), but here it is again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) No one should engage in a debate over social matters unless they at least know what power means (which is covered pretty well on Wikipedia). That's like debating physics without knowing what force, mass or energy are.
> There are certainly some researchers, like those in the first article, who agree with Damore's position, but they are by far the minority;
This is a pretty wild claim. I'm not aware of any surveys or polls of social scientists on these topics, the way we've done surveys on, for instance, climate change. How could you possibly know what proportion of social scientists accept any given proposition? If you have a link to such a survey, I'd love to see it.
Also, calling those sites "conservative" is grossly inaccurate. You're just trying to spin the evidence they present as biased.
> How could you possibly know what proportion of social scientists accept any given proposition?
Umm, because I studied history in grad school for a few years? It's not "any given proposition", but the well-accepted, long-ago-established fact that social policy has marginalized women from positions of power for centuries, and continues to do so (although to a lesser extent, due to political action).
> If you have a link to such a survey, I'd love to see it.
But you don't really. That information is available within minutes on Wikipedia and Google Scholar. If you were truly interested in the consensus opinion, you would have found it by now. If you're too lazy, I've posted some links on this page for the sake of others who care so deeply about this issue yet couldn't be bothered to read the Wikipedia page on sexism or the top hit on Google Scholar for women in tech.
> Also, calling those sites "conservative" is grossly inaccurate.
Number of citations on Google scholar says nothing about the quality of that scholarship, and so says nothing about how many social scientists accept any given position. And your study of history is hardly relevant to the status of these topics now, at best, you might be able to claim that you knew what the prevailing opinion was at some point.
So basically you have nothing, which is what I figured.
Dude, do you really think that I thought there was any chance you would have a different conclusion out of this discussion? See, you're already dismissing studies that you haven't even bothered to look at, and still haven't even read the most basic Wikipedia pages on the topic. Actually, "I" have mountains of incontrovertible evidence, which, like Dawkins's fossils, are available for all to see. The only reason you can still doubt this is if you don't want to learn the subject, and there is absolutely nothing I say that can make you interested at this point.
2. without detailed scholarly knowledge, it's too easy to be mislead by flawed studies, or to improperly generalize the results
3. as a proxy for scholarly knowledge, most people operate on the evidence of a consensus among scholars for any given position; such a consensus is easily produced for any topic for which such a consensus exists
4. you've claimed such a broad consensus on these topics
5. I've asked for evidence of this consensus
6. you respond that I should read thousands of papers on the topic, effectively becoming a scholar in the field, thus defeating the entire use of consensus as proxy
7. The replies by non-experts and experts, like Sadedin, that I've read, literally attack a straw man of Damore's arguments, or cite no evidence of their own, instead hand waving away their existence (like you).
8. The replies from experts that agree with Damore's empirical claims reinforce that narrative quite well.
What exactly am I supposed to find convincing? I think you should take a step back and review how you and others are approaching this topic, because you're frankly not doing yourself any favours.
You've now written 15 or more replies to a number people who have asked for evidence similar to my request. You could have saved yourself a lot of time and aggravation by either producing verifiable evidence of this consensus, or by acknowledging that such a consensus has no easily verifiable evidence, and so skepticism is perfectly warranted.
1. True, but I did study it in grad school for a few years. That was over a decade ago, but I remember the basics.
6. Not at all. I said you should start from one of the handful of links I posted, all to Wikipedia pages and to the top hit on Google Scholar. You can equally start from any of the top hits on Google, as at this point, anything would be better than nothing. You can read the whole thing in a couple of hours. And don’t worry, that won’t be enough to turn you into a scholar by any means.
8. I am not sure what narrative you're referring to. Reminder: we are not talking about whether or not there are innate biological differences that can be partial explanations to the lower interest of women in tech. We are talking about whether or not that has any bearing on the subject of sexism or relevant policy actions. Like in my analogy of the polluting chemical plant, the subject under discussion isn't whether cancer can be caused by factors other than exposure to chemical waste, but whether that possibility should be used as an excuse for the plant to continue polluting.
> What exactly am I supposed to find convincing?
Either you're being too sophisticated for me, or that you're naive in an almost cute way. Obviously, I am not trying to convince you of anything. That undertaking would be completely impossible until you yourself show some interest in the subject. Don't get me wrong: I would be happy to have an interesting discussion, or even a debate, with someone who's at all interested in this, but you can't have a meaningful discussion with someone on a subject they know virtually nothing about and are not interested in studying even superficially. My only intent is to convince other curious people who may be following this discussion to read a couple of Wikipedia pages and be exposed to a fascinating subject.
> 6. Not at all. I said you should start from one of the handful of links I posted, all to Wikipedia pages and to the top hit on Google Scholar.
Except the links you posted don't dispute Damore's arguments at all. Damore's arguments are perfectly consistent with the recommendations in the survey, with the possible exception of stereotype threat, whose studies have come under fire recently.
> We are talking about whether or not that has any bearing on the subject of sexism or relevant policy actions.
You must be confusing threads. Your pollution example has nothing to do with anything we've discussed. I questioned your claim that Damore's arguments disagree with the consensus in the field and asked for evidence supporting your claim. Everything since then has been some bizarre pissing contest in which you repeatedly asserted your position without any apparent understanding of contrary arguments.
> Either you're being too sophisticated for me, or that you're naive in an almost cute way. Obviously, I am not trying to convince you of anything.
Nice, insults and ad-hominem. I've read plenty on the subject thanks, and your condescension is just the cherry on top of a now completely pointless thread in which you convinced no one of anything. Congrats. Have a nice day.
> Except the links you posted don't dispute Damore's arguments at all.
Which argument? That there could possibly be innate psychological differences between the sexes etc. (which is not Damore's point, but a distraction), or that this has anything to do with the problem we're trying to solve with diversity programs? The consensus is absolutely that there is a sexism problem. Damore pays lip service to the "existence" of sexism, yet seems to mistakenly believe that the research he cites means that diversity programs must be changed, just like in my chemical plant analogy.
> I've read plenty on the subject thanks
You clearly have not read even the basics. There is no condescension here. I am not smarter than you, nor more moral. I just spent a considerable time learning about this, and it is obvious that you don't even understand what sexism is (Neither does Damore, BTW), and it's become clear that you're not even interested enough to bother reading the most introductory material. You say, "there are no fossils," and I say, "here are the fossils," yet you refuse to look. How can I hope to convince you? The reason this doesn't bother me is that I believe that the problem of sexism is so obvious once you care to look and so well studied, that the only people who still resist it are those who insist on not learning what it is. Learning what it is would not make you a leftist, as facts do not prescribe values, and you'd still be free to contend that the situation does not merit intervention in the form of diversity programs, but at least it would make true discussion possible as it would make your arguments relevant.
You have no idea what I know or believe, and you clearly are even having trouble reading the arguments presented to you rather than some ridiculous straw man you've built in your head. I don't have time for people who argue in bad faith and who make absurd assumptions about anyone who disagrees with them.
How can you even know you disagree without knowing the most basic concepts? You are arguing over the likelihood of Goldbach's conjecture being true without even knowing what the natural numbers are, while relying on some chemistry studies, whose relation to the natural numbers is unclear to you. I don't know how it's possible to argue "in good faith" with someone who is completely unfamiliar with the subject and refuses to learn.
To summarize, Damore wrote some memo whose intent was to show that Google should not invest in diversity programs. Those diversity programs are intended to fight sexism; I don't know how effective they are, but neither does Damore. His "arguments" consisted not of denying sexism (the meaning of which he clearly does not know), but of quoting some papers in yet another field he's not an expert in that purport to show that there are other factors involved. Those papers and others similar to them have been largely debated in the research community, and knowing nothing about that field, I could add nothing to that argument except parrot others. But I do know what sexism is, and I know the basics of logic well enough to see that there is no relevance to those findings even if they were true (again, a heavily contested point in itself).
He was fired for making a scene that required the CEO of Google to cut short his family vacation. If he were working for me, I would have fired him for incompetence and stupidity. Incompetence, because the guy does not know how to make a logical argument, lacks critical thinking, and failed to do even cursory study of the topic he discusses. Stupidity, because he didn't realize or didn't care that expressing himself -- a complete layman, and a rather disinterested one at that -- in that particular way, would have a negative effect on his coworkers and his employer. He's one of those people whose professional contribution to a company is negative.
Scott Aaronson is not an expert on this matter, either, and, as far as I know, he hasn’t even seriously studied the subject as an amateur.
I didn’t say that being conservative negates the argument in the first article (and the second is irrelevant regardless of Alexander’s conservatism); I just pointed it out to note that the publication picked scientists who reflect their views rather than attempted to neutrally present the current state of affairs in the relevant social scholarship.
> I just pointed it out to note that the publication picked scientists who reflect their views rather than attempted to neutrally present the current state of affairs in the relevant social scholarship.
In stark contrast to liberal publications who never do that. /s
Again, your reaction to the word sexism suggests you may be confusing it with misogyny, but anyway, here are some starting points, and you can follow the references from there:
James Damore's arguments are only plausible in the weakest sense of the word. The only way someone would find his arguments convincing is if one's priors already favor his conclusion.
If one weighs the evidence for social factors against biological factors, the question is how should a critical person weigh one against the other? It turns out if one ignores all the evidence for social factors and squint really hard at the biological ones, one can, I guess, scam oneself into thinking there's a strong argument there.
Biology and culture are not unrelated, there are very tight feedback loops at play there, the two factors are deeply intertwined. I'd be distrustful of anyone who suggests it's exclusively one or the other.
I found evidencs from CAH(Congenital adrenal hyperplasia) rather convincing, in that it is hard to imagine how that effect is entirely social. Admittedly, this evidence was not presented in Damore's memo, so I guess "The only way someone would find his arguments convincing" may stand, if we strictly restrict to "his arguments", but I think it's more useful to consider the best possible version of his arguments augmented by other people.
If you don't consider evidence you are aware of in an argument, it means you don't think that evidence is necessary to consider. He wants his argument to be considered rigorously in which case it is appropriate to make inferences about what he didn't consider as well as what he did.
It's a quiet truth that most disagreements between people have a crucial basis in the implicit nature of how we weigh and consider information.
A great deal of defense of Damore's arguments are to only consider what is explicitly said and not how it fits into the broader discussion, which is implicit by definition.
So Damore can claim he isn't saying that he thinks some female engineers currently at Google are there because the bar has been lowered (explicit) and this is accepted uncritically by some defenders, but it's not hard to draw the inference from his arguments and his policy suggestions that he thinks Google's current practices have a negative impact on the quality of engineers it recruits (implicit).
Likewise we are told to evaluate the information he gave (explicit) but not consider why he omitted discussing the mountains of evidence that suggest alternative positions and how his arguments should be evaluated in light of it (implicit).
My position is that there is the evidence of negative social feedback is significant enough that companies should experiment with changing their demographic compositions and empirically measuring performance.
Because software engineering requires a great diversity of skills, including people skills, empathy and whole-systems thinking, I think it's very plausible that making the gender balance less skewed will lead to more productive teams.
So basically, you are saying that you can judge him and what he writes not by what he writes, but whatever you want to arbitrarily insert into his writing.
Even the inquisition had higher standards than that.
Honest question in good faith: have you ever read a serious, rigorous exchange of criticism in any field like philosophy or politics? Because what I described is literally par for the course in critical thinking. If Damore and his ilk want to participate in an honest critical debate then their arguments are sure as fuck going to be analyzed the same way everyone's arguments are analyzed in every serious intellectually rigorous setting.
Your refusal to take this idea seriously is a microcosm of what's rotten in this whole discourse (or am I not allowed to draw a connection between what you wrote and literally anything else?).
He wasn't participating in a rigorous exchange of criticism in philosophy or politics.
>Because what I described is literally par for the course in critical thinking.
No, what you described is completely arbitrary.
> his ilk
Right, "rigorous" and "critical" debate. No pure ad-hominems to see here. Move along.
> every serious intellectually rigorous setting.
Er, no.
Just making shit up and attributing it to your opponent is the opposite of "intellectually" rigorous. It maybe ideologically rigorous, but that's about it.
> He wasn't participating in a rigorous exchange of criticism in philosophy or politics.
Um, his memo was intrinsically political. The matters of policy of a company are political matters. Therefore it is completely valid to scrutinize it politically and of course at a serious level which integrates it into the surrounding context.
> No, what you described is completely arbitrary.
No, not really. If it was completely arbitrary then I would be considering things like "Well James Damore didn't mention the ongoing debate on ham and pineapple pizza and clearly shows his bias in doing so". There is an inherent context to his memo that is completely obvious to everyone involved as evidenced by the fact that literally every side in the discussion involving it makes some sort of connection to that context.
On the side defending him, usually calling people who condemn his memo as irrational or the intolerant left, or some-such hostile dismissal.
> Right, "rigorous" and "critical" debate. No pure ad-hominems to see here. Move along.
Ad hominem is "James Damore is a doofus, therefore he's wrong". "James Damore is wrong, and because he is wrong in this way, he's a doofus", on the other hand, is not ad hominem. The only thing more odious than whipping out the latin is doing it incorrectly. From all the digital ink spilled on the topic, I have concluded that there are only a very small group of people defending him that earnestly consider the idea that he fucked up. The most common discourse is to simply presume that he didn't and then demand that everyone engage with him and his memo on their terms. Yawn.
> Just making shit up and attributing it to your opponent is the opposite of "intellectually" rigorous. It maybe ideologically rigorous, but that's about it.
James Damore's arguments are neither novel nor exemplary. The fact that he A) insists that he's being shut out of conversation and B) proceeds to make the same exact argument that has been discussed ad nauseum without bringing anything new to the table is telling. Everyone has already met a James Damore; they don't need another.
There is a lot wrong here, but what bothers me right this minute is the idea that computer programming has "changed beyond recognition" between 1950 and 1980 and that is the cause of the gender imbalance we see today. For sure, a lot of progress was made in the field during that time span. But did the work materially change? I don't think that's the case at all, we simply saw huge steps made in the quality of the tooling and the machines; they didn't fundamentally transform into different things. The tools improved a great deal and allowed the same amount of people to accomplish more work in the same amount of time, progress that continues to this day (we can complain about Electron until we're hoarse, but it does make it easier to get an application out on every device and one person could conceivably so just that).
This is just more painful gymnastics and contortions trying to find another reason for the gender imbalance when the actual cause is obvious and well documented: one gender is working to keep the other out. Damore's memo is an example of this: entirely lacking in applicable science and with a basis grounded almost entirely in the man's existing biases.
Talk to some of the people of another gender currently in the field and just listen to what they are saying. You'll hear about educators with axes to grind, encouraging them to pursue another field. You'll hear about coworkers and employers who suspect their work is not their own. You'll hear about job interviews where no answers are correct. And you'll come to Hacker News and read posts like these, from people in the field, insisting that there is no problem.
> did the work materially change? I don't think that's the case at all
How much money was the computer programming industry creating 1950 vs 1980.
In the memo, one of the larger points was that men are exceptional pushed/forced/heavy incentivize by society towards high paying jobs. Would you argue that this claim is false?
> men are exceptional pushed/forced/heavy incentivize by society towards high paying jobs
This is a very curious way of explaining how men end up with most of the money and power. They're forced to do it!
A perhaps plausible alternative theory: once jobs become high paying, men campaign to recast it as "men's work". This theory is supported by the true history of our profession, succinctly reviewed by this article.
"Forced" in the same sense that we say that women are forced to care about their physical appearance.
If we had an article claiming that men are being crowded out of the beauty industry, both as workers and customers, I would question the article if it did not take outside influence into account. The alternative theory that women are crowding out men and making it "women's work" would sound exceptional, and require exceptional good data.
Your premise is supremely flawed. Men actually dominate the beauty industry's top ranks.[1] This perfectly supports the theory that men put up obstacles to women around higher-paying jobs.
Also note that the Bloomberg article is well supported. It provides data on changing attitudes as programming became a higher-value profession. It cites studies on programmer psychology. It details the specific discriminatory mechanisms by which men shifted the composition from mostly-female to mostly-male. It is worth reading all the way through with an open mind.
Men only dominate positions that have high income in the beauty industry. Follows directly the predictive model as stated above.
Young women (ages 12-24) out-buy all other age groups when it comes to haircare, skincare, cosmetics, and fragrances (Source: “Junior League” by Kelley Donahue. American Salon
, January 2000).
Feel free to provide statistics that men are the majority customer for those products. You assume incorrectly that incentives has no role in how people behave. That is terrible flawed, both as a predictor in how society look like today and as a explanation in how we got there. By ignoring it you are doing anti-science and arguing out of belief. If you are just going to continue then this is a waste of time.
The focus by men on physical appearance, and the focus by women on wealth is a dominating factor in dating. It is the single strongest correlating variable out there (A worth reading are the OkCupid blog on the subject). In a separate survey done in china, over 90% of the women responded that they would not date a man earning less than average income (which eliminate more than half the male population), and a majority of responses thought that men should not be outside when they earn below average income. They should instead be inside working and try become marriageable. That is about as strong social pressure that you can get, similar to how certain countries think about women that are not married.
If you want to present how some mythical barriers to entry shaped the industry rather than plain incentives, then you got to actually bring some data. Not empty theories, but data and experiments that show how barriers to entry is the best explanation to explain gender segregation in the work force. Bloomberg is not attempting to do that, and only present it as their theory with some chosen quotes by a few people in order to support it.
> Men only dominate positions that have high income in the beauty industry. Follows directly the predictive model as stated above.
Nope. There are two predictive models, one that men were "forced" to take higher paying programming jobs, for which you've offered no support, and the other is that they worked to exclude women and recast it as "men's work", which is thoroughly detailed in the article with interviews, studies and specific mechanisms.
You attempted to discount the latter theory by citing the beauty industry, where you said it "would sound exceptional" if women were putting up barriers to men. This assumption is fatally flawed, as it is men who dominate the higher-paying jobs in the beauty industry. Thus it carries no weight as a counterexample, and we are again left to contemplate the total lack of support for your preferred predictive model.
You now seem to have regressed to talking about consumer preferences, a non-sequitur. This in no way contradicts the "men's work" theory, since the work here is running companies, not purchasing their products. You also again claim that no data or experiments have been offered to support the theory, when in fact the article cited data and studies, as I called your attention to. This smacks of willful ignorance.
Finally you state that men face pressure to make money. However you must admit that this does not in any way refute the theory that men place obstacles to women's access to higher-paying jobs. Thus it remains possible that our positions are compatible: that men face greater pressure to earn income, and thus have a strong incentive to exclude women from competition.
You attempted to dress up quotes from a Cosmopolitan news paper as it was a study based on data. It don't work, and I am not sure why you trying such a futile attempt at misdirection. That is anti-science, and is fatally doomed to fail at persuasion.
It clear that you won't admit that consumer preference exist, as it would shows a clear link between gender specific incentives and behavior. You can try to play ignorant, but it won't change the data. Incentives has a real impact on human behavior, and it is trivial fact in psychology.
Finally you admit that men, just maybe, just possible, just as a theory perhaps, might face a unique pressure to make money. Funny that. And yes there is a strong possibility that gender segregation has a multitude of factors (a fact that was well written in a government issued report on gender segregation in the field of education). The problem statement then changes at this point to define which factor has the bigger impact, and we get back again to look at experimental data to see what has a strong impact and what has a small impact.
Let for example guess there exist a study on what jobs children want to do when they grow up. What will the average income of those jobs be when comparing boys vs girls preferences?
Or let say a study at a bit later time in life, and look at when people enter the work force. Will we see men entering the work force earlier and with greater haste than women, and what incentives is there for young unmarried men to get an income around the ages of 18-25?
We can look at studies that survey what teens want in a job, and how they select which profession to study. We can continue by looking at whom and what impacts behavior during this crucial time period in a person life.
We can also look at the primary cause of gender segregation as highlighted in that government report I mentioned earlier. Do people feel more confident when entering a group that they belong? do they feel more self-doubt when they are a local minority (such as in a class room or work place). Does ingroup and outgroup exist as theories, what is the scientific proof for it, and does herd behavior exist in human psychology.
I will note that in the government report, no where does it even entertain the idea that women are crowding out men from the education system. Similar to bloomberg it does record a historical change where men used to be the dominating gender in education, but is no longer. Instead it gives other explanations, such as the government cutting funds and thus the social status of teachers dropped. When money disperse from a profession it also caused the gender ratio to favor more women. When money increase, the opposite happens. Fairly simple statement to prove or disprove by data. Here is your golden opportunity: convince someone on the Internet of your theory by disproving that a influx of money has an impact on gender segregation.
I don't understand where you are going with this... Is your argument that since society seems biased to pay men more money, we should blindly do so? Does that logic apply to race as well as gender?
IMHO, Damore was playing to the misplaced belief held by some men that they are innately better then everyone else and that societal biases have played no role in their successes.
The claim in the memo is that men are pushed towards jobs that are high paying. If a man tries to go to low paying jobs they are generally punished by society, often by being called things like lazy, weak, unfocused, and so on. Those that do seek and get high income get rewarded with high social status and strong correlation with dating success. It has nothing to do with getting paid equally.
We now live in a time where we are increasingly told what we should believe. In my view morality shouldn't extend to belief. For one it leaves certain individuals (like myself) out in the cold. Sorry, I cannot be told what to believe.
Maybe this is just the current hot topic and many people want to read it, but to me it reads as a form of propaganda (by definition media created to determine what people believe) or at least journalistic activism, and who is this guy (apparently some business journalist) to write authoratively on the subject, based on one fact (the predominance of women in early programming jobs). The fact of the matter is that programming has changed beyond recognition, particularly between 1950 and 1980 or so and that is more than enough to at the very least plausibly explain the change in programmer demographic. Anyone who is in the industry knows these eras cannot be compared (surely?).