[vonGraudenz]

My apologies, I confused your OP with one of Dona's of a similar vein, that I was also reading.

[vonGraudenz]

Educational reforms will only take us so far. Education is useful for teaching people to respect each other, for opening up new horizons and possibilities to people who may not have considered different paths in life. However we can't forget as humans we to a large extent regulated by the gelatinous mass between our ears. Well, many humans are, but there are a few that merely use their head as a hat rack. Our brains hence thought patterns are not just shaped by education, but by many other influences. This includes the chemicals produced by our own bodies or introduced from the outside such as hormones, pheromones, adrenalin to name a few. Until we have gained a better understanding of those effects we will be doing a lot of debate over who should play what role without much affect. Overcoming natural tendencies will be very difficult, even with targeted education. Legislation which is always a favoured option does not necessarily have the intended results, or in some cases may make matters worse.

As far as feminism goes, we men need to tread lightly. Women themselves are having a difficult time defining what it means and what it's goals should be at this point. In the late sixties when the message was controlled by a few, feminism was clearly defined and easily understood by most. Now the message has gotten very diluted, as feminist women have broken up into any number of constituencies. Another foe feminism is facing are the non-feminists. Not to be confused with the anti-feminist. The non-feminists enjoy the benefits that the previous generation has won for them, but will do nothing to maintain or further those gains, nor can they even be bothered by the whole notion of feminism. They are apathetic to the whole issue, for lack of a better term they are the "Cosmo girl". The mind set is I am a girl and will use that to get what I want, and work is something to be suffered that interferes with hair, make-up and clothes. They spend a great deal of time demeaning other women, while inflating themselves. Not just single women are this way either. They actually do more damage to the fight for equality than the anti-feminist.

[Costin Moroianu]

Quote

There might not be a perfect way to reconcile family and work, but the employers can and should make the transition and return if desired as easy as possible, because we are not talking about numbers on an excel sheet, we are talking about people and a child.

Here I will disagree somewhat because while I do believe that that paternal leave should not affect your salary for the time you've has been away from work but during that time you've been gaining less experience then those who have been working constantly without the break, why should they not be promoted before you? They've earned it ( This is assuming of course the people are of about the same skill and have the same job ).

However this mentality does tie in with another problem, the family one, since you are affected negatively ( either in salary or how fast you will be promoted ) more and more families are unwilling to have children and even if they do they will have 1 or maybe 2 max.

[slimgrin]

Feminism was flawed from the beginning. It means, by definition, more rights for me (women), less for you (men).I can only espouse equal rights, women's rights - especially in certain countries...but not Feminism.

[▫ Dona ▫]

vonGraudenz said:

My apologies, I confused your OP with one of Dona's of a similar vein, that I was also reading. ›››

To be fair, I never wrote about sexism in the IT world, I wrote about women in TW2 having same-y faces and body types. But what I wrote and how people understood it and what that discussion turned into are very different things.

And yeah, the 'non-feminists'... a lot of girls are internalising misogyny and it's a problem. Girl-on-girl hate is pretty sad and isn't helping anyone involved, at all. It's another pretty complex problem and closely tied to ego, imo, so recognising it and then ditching it takes some time and effort.

@slim
We already discussed nomenclature earlier in the thread. I agree with Knight where feminism = equality; wanting to be the sultan instead of the sultan is pretty ridiculous and hypocritical. Would it be better if we CTRL+H'd feminism with equality in this entire thread?

[Veleda]

vonGraudenz said:

They are apathetic to the whole issue, for lack of a better term they are the "Cosmo girl". The mind set is I am a girl and will use that to get what I want, and work is something to be suffered that interferes with hair, make-up and clothes. They spend a great deal of time demeaning other women, while inflating themselves. Not just single women are this way either. They actually do more damage to the fight for equality than the anti-feminist. ›››

Isn't the point that they can be useless twits if they so choose? Shallowness and vanity are human traits and female shallowness isn't any more harmful to society than male. I detect subtle sexism in the idea that it is.

See how easily these arguments can be turned any which way? But that's one reason that I'm anti-feminist. It's 99% political theater and 1% things that are actually useful, which don't need the ideology anyway.

[grregg]

@Babli

I watched the videos you posted, the documentary was quite entertaining I have to say. It was really funny to see the social scientists squirm when presented with the studies. As someone remarked, social science will always be based on some theory of human nature, but why does it have to be based on theories that are couple of hundred years obsolete?

But that's not the point and if you're trying to convince me that men and women are biologically different, then you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm convinced. On a side note, I would recommend Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate as a thorough debunking of the blank slate-based theories.

Back to our discussion, the question is not whether men and women are biologically different, the question is rather, do biological differences account for the gap that we see in fields like software engineering or game development (or nursing). And, as I said before, I'm skeptical for several reasons.

First, the historical precedent. As I wrote before, every time women tried to enter a field, there was an outcry of protest, usually pointing out some biological differences and claiming that they prevent women from performing adequately. And so far, most of them (if not all) proven to be false. Which basically shows us that there are many possible ways of performing most jobs and conversely that it is pretty hard to convincingly connect any mental or personal trait with a job skill.

The second reason is pretty much what was mentioned by the Scottish evolutionary psychologist in the video you linked. For most (all?) traits there is a huge overlap between the sexes. It's not like each and every guy is a faster runner that all the women in the world. And the same goes for mental abilities and personality traits as well. Studies show that the performance gap between male and female long distance runners is approx. 11%. Interestingly enough, the differences shown in the Baron-Cohen study discussed in the video are actually in the similar range (~10% preference for faces in girls, ~20% preference for mobiles in boys).

So the question is if the differences seem to be roughly in the 15% range, why are certain fields almost exclusively male (or female)? Shouldn't we expect the similar range? Why are we getting a significantly larger differences?

One can expect a larger than predicted discrepancy in very exclusive, elite fields. If we're looking for the fastest 1000 runners in the population of 7 billion, they will likely be all men. However neither software engineering nor game development (or nursing) are that elite. So where does the difference come from?

If I were to speculate I would posit that the social nature of humans serves as an amplifier of innate differences. Once a majority in a neutral field gets established, it tends to get bigger, eventually creating and perpetuating the notion that the field is inherently male (or female). And then we get the situation like the game industry today. And that would also mean that we can reverse this process. If we manage to combat the associated social prejudice, we can narrow the gap to what's dictated by the biology. Which, if you ask me, is probably in the seemingly standard range of 20% or so.

The game industry still has a long way to go, it seems.

As far the other video goes, I'm not sure what's the outrage about. The notion that one has to stop and think before saying something does not strike me as an outlandish requirement. Not when applied to people older than 5 years of age anyway. Perhaps it is sad that a country has to pass laws to force its people to be polite, but oh well.

I guess we can argue the wisdom of legislating savoir vivre, but a demand that people are not assholes is reasonable in my book.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Excellent post Gregg.

I read about a theory some time ago in a journal article in my university, that since evolution is a constant process, the indeed existent biological differences between the sexes are not set in stone but rather ever evolving and could potentially be reduced to a very bare minimum. It also theorized that these biological differences were amplified by tens of thousands of years of social practices and human behavior based on the environment. It drew a parallel to the animal kingdom, citing major differences between the male / female divide amongst different kinds of groups even within the same clade or even species based on essentially how they lived and evolved.

I thought it was an interesting theory albeit I'm not knowledgeable enough to adequately support it. I do find it compelling however. Biology is a constant flux that is inevitably linked to the outside environment.

[vonGraudenz]

To certain extent I can agree with grreegg's speculation that social expectations amplify some biological differences. I do think though that in some cases the biological differences are the sole reason for a field to be male or female dominated. I think where we can make the biggest gains is where it is strictly dealing with what society is imparting on us as to what type of work we should do based upon our gender. One example is the vocational high school system in the US. In the vast majority of the country vocational high schools are seen as the place where the "bad boys" are sent("encouraged to go"). Those boys that are too rebellious(not juvenile delinquents), or just don't fit into a traditional college preparatory high school, but you rarely see those types of girls sent there. I think that is strictly a mind set problem with school administrators. That is an area where educating the educators, and encouraging girls to pursue those types of careers will lead to more equality both in wages and work places. On the other hand I also believe that biological differences do have an impact on some career choices. I have known any number of very intelligent females in my life, and yet they work in some of the most menial administrative jobs by choice, despite being told more than once they could do much better. That is the much harder area make any headway in. How to overcome the biological factors, but then again do we want to? Isn't it part of equality to let women be girly? After all we really don't make any special effort to change the direction of men who willingly go into careers that are a waste of their intellectual talents.

[Costin Moroianu]

Quote

Perhaps it is sad that a country has to pass laws to force its people to be polite, but oh well.

Passing laws forcing people to be polite will not solve anything.

[Aver]

Quote

Back to our discussion, the question is not whether men and women are biologically different, the question is rather, do biological differences account for the gap that we see in fields like software engineering or game development (or nursing). And, as I said before, I'm skeptical for several reasons.

All you have wrote was mentioned in this video. Conclusion was that there are some social and biological influences - there will be more female engineers and male nurses if we get rid off social influences, but probably it will never be 50/50 because of biological influences.

[AnDr01d]

grregg said:

One can expect a larger than predicted discrepancy in very exclusive, elite fields. If we're looking for the fastest 1000 runners in the population of 7 billion, they will likely be all men. However neither software engineering nor game development (or nursing) are that elite. So where does the difference come from? ›››

Ah, but then again that's close to the point but missed it, too.—In other words: I'm not convinced.
You say that software engineering isn't an elite field, well, I can accept that. But the apparent problem discussed here was a wage gap and a disproportionate presentation of women at a CEO-show-off. And the position of the CEO (or Lead Designer or whatever higher ups you want) are elite fields within software engineering. So by your own words, if men are on average 10% better than women, there would be almost exclusively men in the higher positions.
And that would also explain why there is a wage gap, as any higher ups usually earn a lot more than common workers.
And don't say the studies about a wage gap only compare those with equal positions.—Yeah, so? They compare all normal workers against each other and they are almost the same. Then they compare the leading positions' incomes and due to less females being there (or being in the really high, really well paying positions) you almost certainly will get that men are paid more. Viola, wage gap.

[Ward Dragon]

grregg said:

Back to our discussion, the question is not whether men and women are biologically different, the question is rather, do biological differences account for the gap that we see in fields like software engineering or game development (or nursing). And, as I said before, I'm skeptical for several reasons.

From what I've heard over the years, I've gotten the impression that women in general value things like job security, benefits and flexibility in terms of the schedule whereas men place a higher value on the overall amount of money they make, so women are willing to "settle" for a lower salary in exchange for more freedom and peace of mind while men are willing to put up with more danger and worse hours in exchange for more money.

Of course this doesn't apply to everyone, but it's the most convincing explanation I've heard for the overall differences in the types of jobs that men and women work at. I certainly don't believe that women are incapable of doing the riskier jobs, but it makes sense to me that women in general might include more factors in their career decisions aside from just the money. I myself chose my job based on being able to work from home and make my own hours, and I probably could get more money if I worked at a different job, but it's not worth the extra stress to me.

vonGraudenz said:

One example is the vocational high school system in the US. In the vast majority of the country vocational high schools are seen as the place where the "bad boys" are sent("encouraged to go"). Those boys that are too rebellious(not juvenile delinquents), or just don't fit into a traditional college preparatory high school, but you rarely see those types of girls sent there. I think that is strictly a mind set problem with school administrators. That is an area where educating the educators, and encouraging girls to pursue those types of careers will lead to more equality both in wages and work places. ›››

I guess it depends on the area. I used to work at a vocational high school a few years ago and it seemed roughly 50/50 in terms of girls versus boys. Granted there was still some voluntary segregation, probably due to society's expectations of male versus female jobs (the cosmetology class was mostly girls and the autobody class was mostly boys) but overall it was about equal and the more neutral-ish classes were more evenly split.

The administrators at that school spent a lot of effort promoting the program as a positive alternative for students who wanted skills that would help them get a job, so I think that might explain why a lot of non-"problem" students chose to attend even though a lot of people in general did view vocational high school as a place for failures to go (which I don't understand -- some of those kids got jobs right out of high school and are making more money now than a lot of college graduates without any of the debt).

[Wichat]

Generally, women will look for jobs which allow their to take care of children too because in at the moment of truth, an entrepreneur still prefers to hire a man who asked not to bring their children down to the dentist, or to attend a parent meeting at school, or go to buy school supplies and clothing to their children. Thus, the work which a woman really can access is very limited in order to work elite.
It is not a question of ability, accept this truth is not politically acceptable, so as to camouflage the different productivity. The family concilacion is too expensive for employers and ultimately, a cashier or nurse is easier to be replaced on a temporary contract to a senior executive. (at this point, the most female senior executive has sacrified thier mother role in order to accomplish her dreamwork= not bieng mother or failing delegating raising children to nannies or boarding schools). With those bases, young girl really are not being very encouraged to study a profession that Sketch lifetime. We all want to work to live, not live to work.

You can tell me that this attitude about role's parent is changing now.... well, let me be a little skeptical after all I see and listen at my everyday.

[Veleda]

Wichat said:

With those bases, young girl really are not being very encouraged to study a profession that Sketch lifetime. We all want to work to live, not live to work. ›››

Upthread somewhere, I linked an article that showed that in workplaces which adopted things like flex time and longer maternity leave, there are fewer women in top level positions than in other companies. It could simply be because women take advantage of those benefits and thereby take themselves out of the running for the most competitive positions, either because they have worked fewer hours and aren't qualified or they're just not interested in the stress of a high level position. But that is their choice.

@ gregg: Certainly I would argue against the wisdom of legislating savoir vivre. I find that kind of use of state power for planning social outcomes abhorrent, and, since the government rarely follows its own rules or enforces them against those who are wealthy and have the right connections, it's also hypocritical.

[slimgrin]

grregg said:

@Babli

I watched the videos you posted, the documentary was quite entertaining I have to say. It was really funny to see the social scientists squirm when presented with the studies. As someone remarked, social science will always be based on some theory of human nature, but why does it have to be based on theories that are couple of hundred years obsolete?

But that's not the point and if you're trying to convince me that men and women are biologically different, then you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm convinced. On a side note, I would recommend Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate as a thorough debunking of the blank slate-based theories.

Back to our discussion, the question is not whether men and women are biologically different, the question is rather, do biological differences account for the gap that we see in fields like software engineering or game development (or nursing). And, as I said before, I'm skeptical for several reasons.

First, the historical precedent. As I wrote before, every time women tried to enter a field, there was an outcry of protest, usually pointing out some biological differences and claiming that they prevent women from performing adequately. And so far, most of them (if not all) proven to be false. Which basically shows us that there are many possible ways of performing most jobs and conversely that it is pretty hard to convincingly connect any mental or personal trait with a job skill.

The second reason is pretty much what was mentioned by the Scottish evolutionary psychologist in the video you linked. For most (all?) traits there is a huge overlap between the sexes. It's not like each and every guy is a faster runner that all the women in the world. And the same goes for mental abilities and personality traits as well. Studies show that the performance gap between male and female long distance runners is approx. 11%. Interestingly enough, the differences shown in the Baron-Cohen study discussed in the video are actually in the similar range (~10% preference for faces in girls, ~20% preference for mobiles in boys).

So the question is if the differences seem to be roughly in the 15% range, why are certain fields almost exclusively male (or female)? Shouldn't we expect the similar range? Why are we getting a significantly larger differences?

One can expect a larger than predicted discrepancy in very exclusive, elite fields. If we're looking for the fastest 1000 runners in the population of 7 billion, they will likely be all men. However neither software engineering nor game development (or nursing) are that elite. So where does the difference come from?

If I were to speculate I would posit that the social nature of humans serves as an amplifier of innate differences. Once a majority in a neutral field gets established, it tends to get bigger, eventually creating and perpetuating the notion that the field is inherently male (or female). And then we get the situation like the game industry today. And that would also mean that we can reverse this process. If we manage to combat the associated social prejudice, we can narrow the gap to what's dictated by the biology. Which, if you ask me, is probably in the seemingly standard range of 20% or so.

The game industry still has a long way to go, it seems.

As far the other video goes, I'm not sure what's the outrage about. The notion that one has to stop and think before saying something does not strike me as an outlandish requirement. Not when applied to people older than 5 years of age anyway. Perhaps it is sad that a country has to pass laws to force its people to be polite, but oh well.

I guess we can argue the wisdom of legislating savoir vivre, but a demand that people are not assholes is reasonable in my book. ›››

So how do you ( the state) propose to recruit women in elite fields, and why do you think it's necessary in a free society? I mean seriously, prove to me said elite fields will be better for it. Any elite field - the sciences, writing, the arts. Not against women in elite fields but there's no proof I know of that integration in these instances makes things better. And as game devs go, look no further than DA2's writing team, mostly women.

[vonGraudenz]

While it is possible to legislate the inclusion of women into career fields, it unintended consequences of such legislation almost always creates other problems for society to have to try and resolve. What happens if you don't enough female applicants? What if the female applicant isn't as qualified as the male applicant? Do you have to hire her anyway? If she she fails to meet the performance requirements of the position can you fire her? If you do fire her, what are the legal repercussions of that act? I see nothing wrong with laws mandating equal pay for equal work, or laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring, but laws that you must hire x number of women are never a good idea for several reasons.

[Guy N'wah]

vonGraudenz, you're right. Legislation is about the most counterproductive thing you can do to promote equality. Because the problem isn't solved by attaining equal rights in the eyes of the law. It's solved by attaining equal respect in the eyes of other people. And I don't see that happening until we have a generational change that eliminates the idea that it's in any way or form acceptable to have bias against men or women training for or entering any trade or profession.

Sexist conditioning starts young and is enforced with a heavy hand, not merely by advertisers but as Ward Dragon points out from her own experience, largely by pervasive bias in public education. Thoughtlessly tracking boys into mechanical vocations is just as objectionable as tracking girls into caregiving vocations. But for the purpose of this thread, the really important problem is the discouragement of girls who have talent for, and want to take up a career in, STEM fields. This discouragement takes both active and passive forms. It runs from counselors who exclude girls from mathematics courses to peers who tease girls for showing aptitude in maths. Or in computer science in particular, from a massive male majority that conditions its newcomers to pretend that women need not be listened to because they have nothing to contribute. I've been doing this for too long. I've seen it happen not just once or twice but hundreds of times. I've seen my daughters treated this way, again and again. And to say I'm f***ing sick of it is the understatement of the year. It's a cancer on my trade.

Protesting over all the presenters at a trade show being male is laughable only because it chooses such a puny example. The real discrimination is much worse and much deeper, and making a mockery of your own protest by choosing such a trivial target is the sort of stupidity that sets causes back rather than advances them.

[Demut]

Guy N said:

Legislation is about the most counterproductive thing you can do to promote equality.

So I take it that you’re also a staunch opponent of the anti-segregation laws of the U.S.A. and South Africa? I mean people have to WANT to provide services to these people and employ them, don’t they? You can’t just FORCE them to do this with laws, right?

[monotoy]

Demut said:

So I take it that you’re also a staunch opponent of the anti-segregation laws of the U.S.A. and South Africa? I mean people have to WANT to provide services to these people and employ them, don’t they? You can’t just FORCE them to do this with laws, right? ›››

I think he has a (debatable) point of view in how to address the problem - more state vs. less state (I personally think too that if you wait 100 years and less state doesn't change a fucking thing, at some point a bit more state doesn't hurt). But if you read his entire post, I think the allegation you made is plain wrong.