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.
