women do the same as men when gender is hidden
[OCP 17 book] | [OCP 11 book] | [OCA 8 book] [OCP 8 book] [Practice tests book] [Blog] [JavaRanch FAQ] [How To Ask Questions] [Book Promos]
Other Certs: SCEA Part 1, Part 2 & 3, Core Spring 3, TOGAF part 1 and part 2
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:Well, you use the term "statistically" a lot there, but I'm not seeing any statistics to back up those sweeping generalisations.
chris webster wrote:Given the complex interaction of genetic, historic and cultural influences on the ability of women to compete on a level playing field with men, not to mention how little we really understand what skills or characteristics make a good programmer, I would be very cautious about claiming women are intrinsically better or worse than men at doing pretty much anything that isn't a direct function of biology (like childbirth).
Ahmed Bin S wrote:In my personal opinion, men are statistically better at logical and numerical reasoning. Women are statistically better at things like languages. This is most likely due to the way we evolved and the different roles men and women played. Men needed to be able to solve problems for the tribe to survive and so they developed better skills in these areas. Women needed to be able to be effective communicators to raise their children and work with others to keep peace and harmony, which is why they developed better skills in these areas.
Paul Clapham wrote:But this is just pop psychology. You could equally well say "Men needed to be able to negotiate with other men threatening to invade their territories so they developed better communication skills than women." There's no evidence for what you said, or what I said either.
Paul Clapham wrote:Such things are usually trotted out to justify some choices, whether past choices or future choices.
Paul Clapham wrote:For example it's easy to make up such a pop psychology explanation of why more doctors are men. But then in Russia more doctors are women than men. Here the evolutionary hand-waving falls on its face. It's not evolution. It's culture. And culture can be examined critically, and more importantly it can be changed. We don't have to say "We're like this because we evolved that way and so we really can't consider trying to change that."
Paul Clapham wrote:And likewise statistics are often trotted out to justify choices. Sure, statistically there are more men at the top level of mathematics than women. But just voicing that fact can encourage people to choose men rather than women, or to persuade women to stay out of the field. It's a subtle encouragement, too, as those people favouring men over women will deny it, and indeed often they aren't consciously doing it. But actions directed by the subconscious mind work just the same way as actions directed by the conscious mind.
Ahmed Bin S wrote:Again, there is a confusion of hypothesis and theory. You do not need evidence to form a hypothesis, so I am not sure why I an being asked to provide evidence.
I'm not concerned with what people usually do. I am concerned with gaining knowledge and finding out why things are the way they are.
I know of no academic who has ever hypothesised that there are more male doctors than female doctors because of some evolutionary reason.
So basically you're saying that because there are sexists who will use statistics to discriminate, we should not be able to discuss certain things? I could not disagree more. If there is evidence that shows that men are statistically better at Maths than women, then we should be able to say this. Discrimination isn't believing that one group might perform better than another group on a certain task, discrimination is painting every member of the group with the same brush and not treating them individually. If I am a Warehouse Manager, and a woman applies for a job that involves heavy lifting, and I say to myself women are statistically weaker than men, and therefore I won't give her the job, then I am being sexist. That is totally unacceptable. However, holding the belief that men are stronger than women isn't sexism.
Similarly, if someone believes men are genetically pre-dispositioned to be better at Maths than women, and they have some rationale for their hypothesis, that isn't sexism, and this individual should be able to say why they think the way they do. However, if this individual then decides to employ a man instead of a woman based on his hypoethsis, that now is discrimination.
Paul Clapham wrote:
I'm not asking you to provide evidence. I'm just saying that your hypothesis is just one example of a class which is full of made-up stuff and so therefore it shouldn't be considered too seriously.
Paul Clapham wrote:
And yet what you posted isn't really about gaining knowledge, it's more like posting the usual excuses. The way things are is because people behave that way, so looking into behavioural psychology would be a better idea.
Paul Clapham wrote:
That's a strawman argument. I didn't mention academics -- such arguments are routinely made up by people of all types.
Paul Clapham wrote:
Yes, yes, that's all true. Even if we believe discriminatory stuff we shouldn't act on those beliefs. And yet people do act on those beliefs. And frequently they manage to produce explanations about how they weren't really acting on those beliefs but they had some other reason for behaving the way they did. So sure, you can discuss all you like. You're free to do so. But when you discuss those things you support sexism, even though you say you don't mean to. There are studies, for example, which show that when girls are told something like "Usually girls aren't good at math but I'm sure you will do well on this test" they do less well than when they are just told "I'm sure you will do well on this test".
Ahmed Bin S wrote: Therefore, if I had a daughter and she asked me whether boys are better than girls at Maths, my answer would be "I think there might be a possibility that boys are genetically pre-dispositioned to be better than girls at Maths, however there is no proof for this at all, and anyway, nurture tends to have a much greater effect than nature and if you study hard there is every chance you will score very high on the test" - and I very much doubt that this would cause a girl to lose confidence and perform worse on a test. The real issue here isn't hypothesising, the real issue is the culture we are raised in where boys and girls are boxed into certain categories and are expected to behave in certain ways according to their gender.
[OCP 17 book] | [OCP 11 book] | [OCA 8 book] [OCP 8 book] [Practice tests book] [Blog] [JavaRanch FAQ] [How To Ask Questions] [Book Promos]
Other Certs: SCEA Part 1, Part 2 & 3, Core Spring 3, TOGAF part 1 and part 2
Ahmed Bin S. wrote:Therefore, if I had a daughter and she asked me whether boys are better than girls at Maths, my answer would be "I think there might be a possibility that boys are genetically pre-dispositioned to be better than girls at Maths, however there is no proof for this at all, and anyway, nurture tends to have a much greater effect than nature and if you study hard there is every chance you will score very high on the test" - and I very much doubt that this would cause a girl to lose confidence and perform worse on a test.
Paul Clapham wrote:Well, it's like this. The experiment which you described in your OP was strictly a study of behaviour. And as such I completely approve of it.
Paul Clapham wrote:
But you've twisted that into "Do women write better code?" which as I've tried to point out, is not a harmless question.
Paul Clapham wrote:And you have continued to defend that question by trying to make distinctions between "hypothesis" and "theory" which are really pointless distinctions and to defend various other statements which aren't particularly relevant.
Paul Clapham wrote:
My point is that we don't need to know whether women write better code at all. The best you can get is some kind of statistics, but first you'd have to define a goodness metric for code and have that metric applied impersonally and so on. So getting good statistics on that would be a complicated and controversial process. But we don't need those statistics. They don't help us to evaluate code and they don't help us to evaluate coders. All they do is to provide us with reasons to discriminate.
Paul Clapham wrote:
This is how it works. Here you make a (hypothetical) discriminatory statement but you excuse yourself by doubting that it's discriminatory.
Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
Really? I hope you'd say something more like "I believe you can do anything you'd set your mind to. You are just as smart as everyone else".
[OCP 17 book] | [OCP 11 book] | [OCA 8 book] [OCP 8 book] [Practice tests book] [Blog] [JavaRanch FAQ] [How To Ask Questions] [Book Promos]
Other Certs: SCEA Part 1, Part 2 & 3, Core Spring 3, TOGAF part 1 and part 2
Ahmed Bin S wrote:I did not twist the research into asking whether women write better code. Please misattributing this to me. I even made it clear in a later post but you still choose to ignore that and continue to misattribute to me.
Ahmed Bin S wrote:Anyway, I actually regret starting this thread now! I think some topics are way too emotional that the debate just ends up becoming extremely reactionary.
Out on HF and heard nobody, but didn't call CQ? Nobody heard you either. 73 de N7GH
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime. |