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0 pointssp3328y ago0 comments

But if other countries have more equal representation in tech, India and Malaysia for example, then doesn't the biological argument fall apart? The difference isn't between men and women but between America and other countries.

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hackinthebochs8y ago

Not really, the societies are too different to draw such conclusions. In less gender egalitarian societies a women without income is at the mercy of a sexist society. In more gender egalitarian societies, there is more social support and safety for women at lower economic levels. So in these less gender egalitarian societies, the drive to secure income is much greater and thus you would expect women to take lucrative but otherwise unappealing jobs. In societies where these pressures don't exist you would expect women to be less attracted to income in career choice. And this is how it plays out.

dionidium8y ago

Yes, this is exactly how it plays out. This isn't proof, in itself, but it does seem to have predictive power as a theory:

"Galpin investigated the percent of women in computer classes all around the world. Her number of 26% for the US is slightly higher than I usually hear, probably because it’s older (the percent women in computing has actually gone down over time!). The least sexist countries I can think of – Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, etc – all have somewhere around the same number (30%, 20%, and 24%, respectively). The most sexist countries do extremely well on this metric! The highest numbers on the chart are all from non-Western, non-First-World countries that do middling-to-poor on the Gender Development Index: Thailand with 55%, Guyana with 54%, Malaysia with 51%, Iran with 41%, Zimbabwe with 41%, and Mexico with 39%. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is not exactly famous for its deep commitment to gender equality."

Source: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

panda888888y ago

It's the same concept as FU money. In societies with poor gender equality, having financial independence is a crucial and powerful defense against societal injustice.

vcjohnson8y ago

For what it's worth, the stuff I've read on societies that flatten our social pressures for job roles, specifically the most egalitarian societies like in Scandinavia, have larger exaggerations of traditional job preference for the sexes rather than more equal distribution.

I don't think it's clear why both of these occur however and I haven't been convinced that people who try to derive a position solely off societal level trends tend to do anything other than show off their ideological preference on both ends of the debate.

Chris20488y ago

> more equal representation in tech, India and Malaysia for example

Places where women also have less choice / self-determination. When women get to choose their career path, they do not choose tech. That is the relevant correlation suggested as a cause.

pygy_8y ago

Not necessarily. These populations may have, for genetic reasons, a smaller gendered difference in tech interest.

The "young males prefer trucks, young females prefer dolls" split is also found in chimps FWIW.

Interest drives practice and practice drives skill.

daughart8y ago

It would truly be strange if genetic divergence over approximately 100,000 years (between these populations) ended up affecting a behavioral trait that has only been important for about 100 years in one of these populations. Well, it might not be strange if humans had the same generation time as insects. But for a species with generation time of 20 years, this is a very unlikely hypothesis IMO.

pygy_8y ago

It could as well have diverged by accident. Sexual dimorphism in these kind of interest may not have any evolutional impact, but be affected by genes that were close to other genes that improve male fertility for example. The closer two genes are on a chromosome, the more likely they are to be selected together.

daughart8y ago

Your position is scientifically illiterate but I suppose it's worth pointing out why: It would require basically one gene to control these complex behavioral traits, which is implausible. Moreover, such a strong, population-specific, selective force on the human genome does not exist, which we know from population genomics studies. Therefore, what you are arguing here is factually wrong.

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hackinthebochs8y ago

dionidium8y ago

Yes, this is exactly how it plays out. This isn't proof, in itself, but it does seem to have predictive power as a theory:

Source: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

panda888888y ago

It's the same concept as FU money. In societies with poor gender equality, having financial independence is a crucial and powerful defense against societal injustice.

vcjohnson8y ago

Chris20488y ago

> more equal representation in tech, India and Malaysia for example

Places where women also have less choice / self-determination. When women get to choose their career path, they do not choose tech. That is the relevant correlation suggested as a cause.

pygy_8y ago

Not necessarily. These populations may have, for genetic reasons, a smaller gendered difference in tech interest.

The "young males prefer trucks, young females prefer dolls" split is also found in chimps FWIW.

Interest drives practice and practice drives skill.

daughart8y ago

pygy_8y ago

daughart8y ago

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