As a female developer, yes, those things are hard to believe.
This is a great example of why I was hesitant of entering the field. You feel totally comfortable saying this when your profile links to your blog with your real name and place of employment. If you're that comfortable in this belief you can't expect me to believe that you don't treat women in your work place differently and with less respect.
i'm not ashamed to speak my opinion, nor associate it with my name. i don't think i'm making especially ridiculous or unbackable claims...
it shouldn't be offensive to women imo. i am not offended by the many opportunities that women have and i don't - that they are /generally/ more socially adept, need to make significantly less investment to find a mate /in general/, and are constantly treated with special care an attention in particular areas (e.g. violence against women is constantly considered especially distasteful even though 90%+ of violent crimes are between men exclusively, there are more illnesses and disabilities specific to men - but most research focuses on those specific to women etc...)
i don't think my opinion that women and men are measurably different should imply that i will treat women with less respect... why should it? i'm not saying women are somehow distatsteful or undesirable in some moral or value sense - just that they are different, measurably so and that claiming we are all equal in the sense of political correctness, and shoehorning every possible behaviour into that ideal is ignorant - it does disservice to humanity - not just men or women as a sex.
i've had a look at that article, but it is authored with a tremendous bias imo... the fact that its hosted on an openly feminist website does of course skew me but the wording itself is highly presumptuous (perhaps iam too?). i will not deny that their data does show a large variation... but i will gladly deny your conclusion because reorganising that graph shows a reasonable correlation between those countries we consider 'most free' and those we do not... with outliers and natural variation as you would expect.
I can believe that there are biological differences that make women, on average, less likely to enter STEM fields, and also treat those that do enter as equals.
A question is where these differences come from. One explanation is that the gender differences occur due to different upbringing as a child. Under this hypothesis, by the time they enter the workforce, men and women are significantly different. A different explanation is that entering the workforce, men and women are the same, but then they are treated differently within the workforce. Under this hypothesis, I would expect free market economics to have already resolved issues such as the wage gap.
On a different note, given the large population, it is likely that there is a non-zero, biologically driven, difference that is statistically significant, even if it is of such a small magnitude as to be irrelevent. In this case, any such difference is being overshadows by the non-negligible cultural influence, but it is always worth keeping in mind what statistics actually say.
> Same with Female HR workers. Women make up a massive percentage of HR departments from 72% to 90% and have an interesting habit of discriminating against "unattractive men" and "attractive women" in their hiring practices.(I'm not saying men are perfect just showing that everyone's human)
I think people tend to overrate how much influence HR departments have in the hiring process, at least for tech jobs.
After the screening process, where "attractiveness" does not really come into play, technical interviewers usually have much more weight in the final decision (in my limited experience, at least).
ok. so get ready to hate me but i think that none of these things are real 'problems' and that there are reasons:
> African Americans are 12% of the population but today make up over 65% of the NFL.
During slavery African Amercians were bred to be better stronger slaves. Before that the African environment of their ancestors better favoured physical strength - it is no coincidence imo that the best long distance runners are from Africa and the best sprinters are African Americans. In general black people dominate physical sports - track, field, team sports.
In short what keeps caucasians out is that they aren't as good at sports on average - they just aren't as strong or physically fit.
> Same with Female HR workers. Women make up a massive percentage of HR departments from 72% to 90% and have an interesting habit of discriminating against "unattractive men" and "attractive women" in their hiring practices.(I'm not saying men are perfect just showing that everyone's human)
I'm not sure if this such a strong trend. I can believe it though... women in general do seem to discriminate against unattractive men and attractive women - at least in my experience. A rationale here is obvious - they want to out compete the women and they do not desire unattractive men.
In their defense men do the same in reverse... esp treating attractive women with disproportionate respect and care to the point where with men and women in the same role - the more attractive women may end up doing significantly less work for the same pay, if they are doing anything truly productive - much to the annoyance of others. Its not their fault... I've seen this in every factory and warehouse type environment i've worked in. Nobody gets more annoyed about it than the 'average' looking girls who already work there and actually carry their weight and have to watch that guy they fancy covering for some dumb and unappreciative pretty girl with his efforts to sleep with her.
> Lastly, every major Hollywood studio was founded by Jewish people. Jews are massively over represented in films as directors, producers, writers, and actors.
Yes Jews are disproportionately successful, not just in Hollywood, and I believe their history has much to do with it as a much persecuted people and the long connection with banking as a religious loophole until relatively recently. IIRC Jews of european descent average higher IQ scores than any other ethnic group. Jews are smart.
I am an arab... so... eep! I shouldn't really say anything nice about Jews (j/k - i hope) :P
> The one thing that I dislike is when we use blame as a motivator to increase a gender's presence in an industry.
Thank you. :)
> A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes
As an aside I somehow imagine the number of men thinking 'pfft women would screw that up' is massively outweighed by the number of women thinking 'pfft men would screw that up'. for women to have a stab at men in a sexist way is just the norm manflu! men are pigs! men are stupid! - and its part of the male ethos to take it and not complain. The other way round is considered a social faux pas...
During slavery African Amercians were bred to be better stronger slaves.
Do you have a citation for this? I've been on the internet for 20 years and this is the first time I've seen anyone claim that slaves in the US were bred for characteristics like work dogs.
actually my source is very flimsy - its a chris rock sketch i saw a few years ago.
this is perfectly believable though considering the often inhuman treatment of slaves.
googling this matter reveals that its popular enough to appear in the auto complete, gets mention on the wiki page about african american slavery and even some counter arguments:
so its not clear cut i guess... although its interesting that there is a furore or knee jerk reaction against things like this. i don't really get it...
i especially enjoyed this bit from his article though: And while some slave masters did engage in eugenics their efforts were ineffectively crude, being incredibly limited in scale and inexactly uncontrolled. Further, even with a more controlled and widespread eugenics program, 250 years would not have been enough time for major genetic differences to emerge.
he seems to have some basis for this assertion so it is probably fiction - but its judging from the internet presence its a relatively common myth.
This is a great example of why I was hesitant of entering the field. You feel totally comfortable saying this when your profile links to your blog with your real name and place of employment. If you're that comfortable in this belief you can't expect me to believe that you don't treat women in your work place differently and with less respect.
Gender roles still very much exist. If something biological were keeping women from entering the IT industry it wouldn't vary so much from culture to culture. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/gsf/12220332.0001.103?rgn=main;v...