>"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.
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> 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.
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.