[mark_integerdsv]

>This is a dangerous line of thinking. If women are naturally better at certain things, it is not a stretch to imagine that they would be naturally worse at certain things.

Does anyone truly believe that this is not the case? People are different, sets of people differ along various, sometimes similar parameters.

>This could impede our quest to bring about gender equality.

It really shouldn't though. Differing from one subset of people should not impact your rights as a human being. 'Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal rights.

Am I not getting this?

[TeMPOraL]

> 'Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal rights.

The GP was being very sarcastic (there's no way he/she actually meant this).

What you wrote is what gender equality should be about. However, the gender equality being fought for and pushed in the media is the one of conveniently pretending there's no biological differences between genders when it suits you, and then complaining that different results must surely be a result of conspiracy of one gender against the other.

[rayiner]

> What you wrote is what gender equality should be about. However, the gender equality being fought for and pushed in the media is the one of conveniently pretending there's no biological differences between genders when it suits you, and then complaining that different results must surely be a result of conspiracy of one gender against the other.

Gender equality being fought in the media is about presuming that disparities in representation are the result of discrimination unless there is evidence to rebut that presumption. Nobody in the mainstream media is talking about the low representation of women in positions that require lots of physical strength because we have evidence of such differences.

The difference is not being willing to accept "oh it's just different preferences" as a reason for observed disparities without evidence.

[shasta]

> The difference is not being willing to accept "oh it's just different preferences" as a reason for observed disparities without evidence.

Not accepting such an explanation is fine, but making unwarranted assumptions about the cause until they're disproved is not.

The goal isn't statistical equality of outcomes. It's minimized injustice. When a woman is passed over for a job or offered less money than a less qualified man, that's an injustice. Those who seek to equalize outcomes by adding injustice "the other way" are missing the point.

[rayiner]

> The goal isn't statistical equality of outcomes. It's minimized injustice

The mainstream presumption is that statistical inequality presumes the existence of injustice unless proven otherwise. That's a reasonable presumption.

> Those who seek to equalize outcomes by adding injustice "the other way" are missing the point.

That's a short-run versus long-run issue. From 1970 to 2010, the proportion of women earning medical or law degrees increased from under 10% to almost 50%. That was, in part, the result of affirmative action measures to increase the representation of women. But those measures are no longer necessary and no longer applied. The new ratios are self-perpetuating.

The point that people preoccupied with short-term injustice miss is that skewed gender ratios in professions are often the result of past discrimination and so are in and of themselves a continuing injustice. All else being equal, a rational person would rather enter a profession where they will not face career headwinds as a minority than one where they will. Some measure of additional injustice in the short term can set up a more just equilibrium in the long term.

The opposition to that is an emotional rather than a rational argument. The rational approach is to look at the net level of injustice integrated over time.

[shasta]

> statistical inequality presumes the existence of injustice unless proven otherwise. That's a reasonable presumption.

I disagree. There are too many other factors that are plausibly contributing. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

I'm fine with attempting to change the culture to make e.g. STEM more appealing to women. Achieving this by enforcing an artificial prioritization of women over men in tech jobs seems to me a last resort approach. Is that really the only way to achieve the culture shift? In any event, at least I would find reasoning along these lines honest and am not opposed in principle.

[rayiner]

> The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

Who properly bears the burden of proof is a question of your policy objective. For example, we place the burden of proof on the prosecutor in criminal proceedings because we have a policy objective of rather having guilty people go free than innocent people imprisoned. But nothing intrinsically says the burden of proof has to be with the prosecutor. If our goal was to prioritize making sure guilty people are held accountable, we could shift the burden of proof to the defendant.

Placing the burden of proof it on the person making the claim simply prioritizes the status quo, which may or may not be what you want. Given our status quo is the product of proven, vicious discrimination against women, protecting the status quo through allocation of the burden of proof is the opposite of what we want.

So instead, we have chosen to place the burden of proof on the party citing intrinsic differences as an explanation/excuse for evidenced disproportionate representation.

> Achieving this by enforcing an artificial prioritization of women over men in tech jobs seems to me a last resort approach

It has the strong advantage of being an approach that has actually worked in the past.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The mainstream presumption is that statistical inequality presumes the existence of injustice unless proven otherwise. That's a reasonable presumption.

That's just begging the question. We may be able to attribute some proportion of statistical inequality to factors other than injustice, or affirmatively attribute some proportion to specific injustice, but we will never be able to fully explain everything.

If you assume malice in all cases of uncertainty then it becomes impossible to recognize defeat of the injustice. Once you have actually defeated it you end up fighting your own shadow forever because the biased assumption always tells you that you haven't.

> From 1970 to 2010, the proportion of women earning medical or law degrees increased from under 10% to almost 50%. That was, in part, the result of affirmative action measures to increase the representation of women. But those measures are no longer necessary and no longer applied. The new ratios are self-perpetuating.

Those anecdotes don't generalize unless you assume the conclusion again. We don't know what the equilibrium proportion of women in each profession is "supposed" to be. Some professions may already be near their only stable equilibrium even if they are heavily unbalanced. Even the idea that there is a "correct" stable equilibrium proportionality in every profession is flawed. There could be professions with tipping points such that whichever sex dominates the culture becomes a substantial majority.

> The point that people preoccupied with short-term injustice miss is that skewed gender ratios in professions are often the result of past discrimination and so are in and of themselves a continuing injustice. All else being equal, a rational person would rather enter a profession where they will not face career headwinds as a minority than one where they will.

Being prohibited by law or violence from working a job because of your sex or race is an injustice. Being the first woman or minority in the old boy's club is a challenge. They are not the same thing. And the subtlety of the latter is not amenable to fine tuning via Uncle Sam's sledgehammer.

> The opposition to that is an emotional rather than a rational argument. The rational approach is to look at the net level of injustice integrated over time.

"In the long run we are all dead." -John Maynard Keynes

It isn't irrational to consider justice on a timescale that affects the people who are alive today.

[Kalium]

> The goal isn't statistical equality of outcomes.

Given that statistical inequality is frequently and loudly trumpeted as proof of injustice, one could be forgiven for reaching precisely this conclusion.

[JDiculous]

> Gender equality being fought in the media is about presuming that disparities in representation are the result of discrimination.

That's the problem, making assumptions of discrimination and identifying as a victim when it's convenient. If you're the one making the accusation, the onus is on you to support that with evidence.

The cultural narrative is to identify those who aren't straight men as victims (women, LBGT). Drunk female has sex with drunk male? The female is a "victim" and not responsible for her actions, while the male gets kicked out of school (this happened at Occidental College). Female prostitute willingly has consensual sex with a man for $1,000? The male is a criminal and the woman is a victim (that's the law in countries like Sweden, and I once spoke to a human trafficking prevention worker at a top non-profit who tried to convince me that all prostitutes are victims). Male tells a woman on the street she's cute? Sexual harassment (unless he's Brad Pitt).

And look at the media. Lead male celebrity actors in Hollywood movies get paid more than female leads? This is seen as a "problem" and must be the result of discrimination, and articles about it go viral on social media. Female models and pornstars get paid significantly more than their male counterparts? Supply and demand baby, nobody gives a shit.

The worst part is that it's heresy for a straight male to even question assumptions of discrimination without being accused of misogyny. Even the mildest joke alluding to differences between the sexes is grounds for being fired from your job and ostracized (eg. recent Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt).

[norea-armozel]

>The cultural narrative is to identify those who aren't straight men as victims (women, LBGT).

As one of those people who isn't straight (B and T for me), I am a victim. It's a fact of life that in the United States if you are openly LGBT you will get hurt or even killed. So, unless you got FBI crime stats that says otherwise, I'm sure your conservative/reactionary nonsense will fly for long.

[JDiculous]

Don't get me wrong, women and LBGT can definitely be victims of discrimination. I'm sure you suffer from real harassment on a daily basis, and that's totally unacceptable.

I was just trying to say that when there is a conflict between a man and a woman, we tend to want to identify the woman as a victim and "protect" her. The mere questioning of this by a straight male makes him a misogynist and subject to a ton of scrutiny, but if a woman or a gay male does the same it's somehow permissible and given more weight. This guy (a gay male) summed it up pretty well https://youtu.be/VCaEO6ue_io?t=3m36s (3:36-3:54).

My statement probably applies less to transexuals, so apologies for that.

[norea-armozel]

I was just trying to say that when there is a conflict between a man and a woman, we tend to want to identify the woman as a victim and "protect" her. The mere questioning of this by a straight male makes him a misogynist and subject to a ton of scrutiny, but if a woman or a gay male does the same it's somehow permissible and given more weight

-

But in reality feminists don't assume women are mere victim as many have illustrated how women reinforce the patriarchy sometimes to their own benefit. Consider the fact that folks like Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin exist. They're not just cold and calculating in their views as they genuinely believe in the patriarchal values they espouse. For them, it gets them votes and political power. The rest of us get screwed over.

[caseysoftware]

> Nobody in the mainstream media is talking about the low representation of women in positions that require lots of physical strength because we have evidence of such differences.

The hundreds of articles about lack of women in combat positions and in the special forces tend to disagree with you. In both of those areas, pure physical strength is one of the first requirements.

[rayiner]

The articles about women in combat positions are almost all about the military's removing explicit bans on women in combat positions and instituting gender neutral physical requirements.

[scottlocklin]

Which we all know means "lower physical requirements" -which is, as some people like to say, "problematic."

[aninhumer]

What paranoid nonsense is this?

Gender neutral physical requirements just means you change "men who can lift Xkg" into "people who can lift Xkg". If that still happens to exclude most women, so be it.

[daenz]

> The difference is not being willing to accept "oh it's just different preferences" as a reason for observed disparities without evidence.

Take a look at The Gender Equality Paradox. https://vimeo.com/19707588 Sweden, considered the most "gender equal" place in the world, has an extreme gender bias in certain professions like engineering and nursing. The documentary tries to uncover why that bias still exists, even though the genders have very little influence in terms society imposing gender roles. It's a fantastic watch.

[danharaj]

Such a peer reviewed source..

[daenz]

The host interviews many researchers who have published papers in peer-reviewed journals on both sides of the debate.

[danharaj]

That's well and good, but the composition of such interviews itself is a synthetic action, and the result has now interpreted its sources in some particular way. Is the video itself peer reviewed? I doubt it.

Interpretation is an important part of science and itself is subject to peer review.

[ap22213]

Maybe I'm missing a lot of the important media, but I haven't seen what you're describing. Which are the media outlets where you're seeing a fight and push for pretending that biological differences don't exist? Even the original article states that there are differences. Could you provide some examples so that I can see what you're seeing?

Most reasonable people that I know, of either gender, understand that the average man is physically stronger than the average woman. That's a clear distinction. But, lots of other traits are not clear at all, even though they are implied without good evidence. And, in most or all cases there is enough overlap in ability (e.g. the strongest woman is much stronger than the weakest man)

As others mention, the issue of gender rights that I see is one of opportunity and access. The question that's raised is whether the culture imposes biases, implicit restrictions and even punishments when there should be none.

[humanrebar]

> Which are the media outlets where you're seeing a fight and push for pretending that biological differences don't exist?

It started in academia, but quickly spread to media, but the Larry Summers kerfuffle at Harvard comes to mind. In an academic context, Summers decides to be provocative and asks if biological differences could account for some gender gaps. He later gets run out of town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_b...

[leereeves]

This kind of political opposition might explain why less research exists documenting the existence of sex differences.

[rayiner]

Funny, I was going to use his example to prove the opposite point. How many people in the mainstream media are talking about the underrepresention of women among Fields Medalists? The vast amount of attention is focused on jobs where the distribution of genius-level IQs,[1] is not relevant: programmers, CEOs, business executives, etc.

And speaking of Summers, it's hilarious how people will cite him while ignoring his underlying point about aptitude distribution. Almost 40% of kids who have a 700+ math SAT are girls. Using Summers' reasoning we should see a lot more women in programming and engineering.

[1] This is leaving aside findings subsequent to Summers' comments that over time the disparity between men and women in IQ scores is narrowing.

[LanceH]

He proposed a scientific approach to finding the differences. The search for truth was rejected.

veritas indeed.

[ll123]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/women-m...

[001sky]

every article that compares people who hold job 'x' with the percentage of the population with trait 'z' makes the very assumption you are blind too. the issue is like wondering why sprinters and endurance athletes are no evenly distributed at the olympics in the various events. (eg, a marathoner is not a crap athlete because they cannot sprint).

xx and xy simply puts different brain chemistry at work. it doesn't mean that the variation disqualifies anyone from anything. the issue is much, much more subtle (like fast twitch vs slow twich muscles in athletes).

oversimplyin it simply makes a mockery of understanding & analysis.

the fact that you use 'brute strength' as an obvious irrelevant characteristic seems to play into this ignorance. ('brute strentgh' doesn't even matter amongst most athletes in most endeavors, at best its a gating criteria, but again what about endurance vs speed vs hand-eye co-ordination vs tactial application of effort?).

...and there's loads of science if you are bored

[Retric]

The biological differences between genders are fairly small in comparison to the standard deviation. Consider on average men may have 20% more upper body strength than the average women. But, some men have 1/2 the upper body strength of the average women, and some women have twice the upper body strength than the average man.

Further there are lot's of trends that run counter to the biology, for example on average women make better snipers than men.

[TeMPOraL]

That's all good. In the case you described, in a perfect egalitarian, meritocratic society you would expect to find more men than women in the army in general, but maybe more women than men doing sniper duty. That's how averages will play out with zero gender discrimination.

In other words - just because an industry is not 50/50 men/women, doesn't mean there's sexual discrimination going on.

Even if the differences themselves are small, the very fact that they're there mean that women have comparative advantage over men in some areas, while men have that advantage over women in other. We exploit that concept in international trade, and yet many find it wrong to exploit it at the society level.

The question we should be asking is: which "social biases" arise from comparative advantage of sexes? Maybe they're ok and we should leave those biases be, while removing those that don't give any utility? Hard-equalizing everything (by e.g. pushing for 50/50 ration of genders in every industry) seems to be an outcome worse for everybody.

[aianus]

Even a small difference in the mean or sd for a given attribute will result in enormous gender imbalances for jobs requiring an extreme value of that attribute.

If you select people totally at random (no discrimination!) from the population of people with >130 IQ to work at Facebook and the sd for men in the general population is 11 IQ points instead of 10 for women, you'll wind up with a 70% male workforce at Facebook.

Similarly if men had a mean IQ of 101 instead of 99 for women, Facebook would have a 66% male workforce.

From R:

women <- pnorm(130, mean = 100, sd = 10, lower.tail = FALSE)

men <- pnorm(130, mean = 100, sd = 11, lower.tail = FALSE)

scaling <- 100/(women+men)

men * scaling

[1] 70.28561

women * scaling

[1] 29.71439

women <- pnorm(130, mean = 99, sd = 10, lower.tail = FALSE)

men <- pnorm(130, mean = 101, sd = 10, lower.tail = FALSE)

scaling <- 100/(women+men)

men * scaling

[1] 65.8503

women * scaling

[1] 34.1497

[osipov]

Bravo! You are a gentleman and a scholar! This comment if packaged a Jupyter notebook could move the world!

[Retric]

The centeral problem with that line of thinking is it's really hard to both set aside "social biases" and it's really hard to seperate what's useful for getting a job done and how we currently measure thinks. Consider, in an 100% egalitarian society the NBA might end up with 1-5 women. However, a similar game in an egalitarian society might be much closer to 50-50 if the rules focused on slightly different gameplay. Ex: does making the basket 5% higher change the gender balance.

Granted, the NBA is entertainment which complicates things, but the same line of thinking probably applies to the Navy Seals. IMO, whenever you see a biased rule you need to deside if it's useful before you can view it as egalitarian.

[Lawtonfogle]

Even if the averages are the same, differences in deviations could still result in differences in outcomes.

Say that men and women were, on average, completely identical at programming computers (average of 50). But say that men had greater deviation. So you had more men with a 10 and more men with a 90. But there were more women with a 40 and a 60. 75 and 25 are the break even points.

But, software development companies don't want average programmers, they want good programmers. So they only hire those who are a 80 or better. End result: more men hired as programmers even though men and women are equal on average.

[norea-armozel]

Nothing personal, but I'm calling bs on that statement of companies hiring the "best" in any position. The reality is that companies hire what they can afford and are willing to take a hit on productivity in the short term if it means getting a service or product out of the door. You can always make something better later but you can't make something if you have no one you can hire to get it done. As for women in programming, I would argue that I know more women programmers that are far better than me at the job despite my knack for teasing out oddities in bugs. My own talent doesn't always make up for solid performance. So that Cowboy Programmer schtick doesn't work when you're trying to get hired at any company that most of the Valley would consider boring.

[Lawtonfogle]

First consider that I was initially talking about all people. The average person probably can't even get hello world to run (also depend if we mean mean, median, or more).

>The reality is that companies hire what they can afford and are willing to take a hit on productivity in the short term if it means getting a service or product out of the door.

Redefine best to be a more complex variable that depends upon what the individual is willing to work for, how good they are, and set limits on the max they can pay.

For example, perhaps best is defined as highest skill for those willing to work for no more than 50k. Anyone who isn't willing to work for it is eliminated. You still have a remaining group, that when divided by gender, has both male half and female half each with an average and a standard deviation, and which the company is wanting to hire from the top.

>You can always make something better later but you can't make something if you have no one you can hire to get it done.

Perhaps best is defined not by who can make the most perfect program given infinite time, but who can make the program that best fits the business needs for a minimally viable product in the least amount of time. Once again, best can be redefined as you want. My argument doesn't depend upon any given implementation of best.

>So that Cowboy Programmer schtick doesn't work when you're trying to get hired at any company that most of the Valley would consider boring.

Once again (again), I never defined best. Best may mean a cowboy to some group who only needs one or two individuals, and it may mean a great team player to a far larger organization.

[mratzloff]

20% more upper body strength? Try 2-3x.

[Retric]

At similar body sizes it's ~20%, women are also generally shorter and often significantly less fit in the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_w...

At unlimited weight it's 151kg vs 212kg, but far more men get into weight lifting so there is bias in those numbers.

[mratzloff]

How many women are comparable to a 6', 185 lb man? And we're talking averages, not Olympic competitors.

[Retric]

Average man in the US is 5' 10" and out of shape. Which is my point the average is a low bar.

Now, 0.1% of females might be at the fit 6' male standard but that's over 150,000 in the US. And there are sub 6' NBA players which suggests is an unreasonably high bar for the vast majority of things.

[mark_integerdsv]

I am not a smart man.

It is slowly dawning on me that I am missing some not so subtle sarcasm.

[rorykoehler]

If you were a woman however....

[mjevans]

Speaking of gender equality, neither he/she nor she/he (though I've been told by those who've focused on that in college that both are correct) is equal. True equality is the use of singular they; though they is really a set of any (unspecified) size.

[humanrebar]

> True equality is the use of singular they

I find rigid rules for language to be Orwellian, and I've always found the singular 'they' to be at least as awkward as the gender-neutral 'he'.

An alternate "true equality" would be to generously extend the benefit of the doubt to everyone. And to teach our children to be strong enough to deal with inaccurate pronouns, on occasion. I'd rather my daughter get her strength from better sources than offense and identity politics.

[yarrel]

I find "they" to only be awkward where it's ambiguous (the same as "he"). It's more Shakespearean than Orwellian. ;-)

[TeMPOraL]

I try to use singular "they" whenever it doesn't sound utterly awkward or doesn't make sentence ambiguous (e.g. "OP went to see the group but they're late"). But singular they is a relatively new concept for me (I haven't heard of it when I was first learning English), so I sometimes default to he/she when writing quickly.

[pron]

> However, the gender equality being fought for and pushed in the media is the one of conveniently pretending there's no biological differences between genders when it suits you, and then complaining that different results must surely be a result of conspiracy of one gender against the other.

Not at all. The idea is that the sexes (and the races) be treated similarly in society, and not have their choices limited -- not just by laws but by hidden biases which translate to social pressure.

Most of what you call "gender equality being fought for and pushed in the media" is actually the ideology of gender equality which was formed after studying the results of decades of research. OTOH, most of its opponents base their opposition on nothing but their personal perception of the world, which is, of course, skewed and very inaccurate. Like in some other issues, there's a huge knowledge gap between both opposing sides.

[TeMPOraL]

> by hidden biases which translate to social pressure

There are two kinds of biases here. Those which are just accidents of history and those which arise from the observable biological differences between sexes. If you deny the existence of the second group, you also have to deny that there are biological differences between sexes (apart from reproductive organs), at which point I'd suggest going outside and taking a look around.

Conversely, if you accept that different sexes have different strengths and weaknesses, you should expect nonequal representation of genders in various occupations even in the most perfect, utopian, egalitarian and meritocratic society.

My issue with the way gender equality is currently discussed is that people deny the existence of biological differences and their consequences, treating everything as baseless cultural bias that needs to be conquered.

(Actually, my real issue is with people who are being assholes about promoting their side. Which happens equally on both sides of the issue, and that makes the whole topic toxic.)

And whatever results are of those "decades of research" (I've never personally seen being invoked, by either side), they have to agree with observable reality - otherwise, they're just results of crap research. Given the state of psychology and social sciences, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest (and no, I don't approve or criticize research based on wich side it supports, I view all soft science research with very strong suspicion).

[Ntrails]

It's really not difficult to recognise that two statements can be true.

On average men are better at x than women

Given a requirement for someone who is at least k good at x, one cannot make assumptions about an applicants abilities based on gender

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, but if you accept those two statements as true, then it follows that:

Given x-skill is uniformly distributed among all people, you'll expect more men than women in fields which require candidates at least k good at x.

A lot of people seem to have trouble with accepting that last thing.

[pron]

> If you deny the existence of the second group, you also have to deny that there are biological differences between sexes (apart from reproductive organs), at which point I'd suggest going outside and taking a look around.

I don't deny the existence of the second group, but you'd have to prove that those biases are somehow justified, which is a hard task because there are very few completely universal and immutable biases (or at least biases that change at the same temporal and spatial pace as biology). So, in short, that seems to comprise of a very small, very insignificant, set of social biases.

> My issue with the way gender equality is currently discussed is that people deny the existence of biological differences and their consequences, treating everything as baseless cultural bias that needs to be conquered.

That's not how it's discussed. It's just that there is very little evidence that biological differences are a significant cause of the great power inequality we see in society between the sexes and among the races, and a lot of evidence to suggest that mutable social biases are by far the dominant cause. So there's very little reason to talk about the biological differences if so far they've not been shown to be too pertinent to the discussion of inequality.

> Which happens equally on both sides of the issue, and that makes the whole topic toxic.

But there is a big knowledge gap. Those in favor of feminism, while not immune from assholishness -- at least have decades of study to at least support the premise of their position, while those against have just their own personal feelings on the matter.

> they have to agree with observable reality - otherwise, they're just results of crap research.

They do.

> I've never personally seen being invoked, by either side

They're invoked often by the only side that has them. Most government policy choices refer at some point in their inception to academic studies.

> Given the state of psychology and social sciences, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest (and no, I don't approve or criticize research based on wich side it supports, I view all soft science research with very strong suspicion).

Suspicion is good, and it is quite probable that many specific findings are questionable, but when you're confronted with such a huge body of evidence -- from history, sociology, anthropology and psychology -- you must admit that it accounts to much more than a gut feeling (which is what the other side base their arguments on).

[Singletoned]

I'm quite suspicious about your statement that your side is supported by "such a huge body of evidence", whereas "the other side base their arguments on [...] a gut feeling".

I think from that we can safely assume that you (at best) massively overstate your position and massively understate your opponents.

[leereeves]

I agree, particularly when pron claims that history is part of the huge body of evidence against gender biases.

pron, what is the evidence from history against traditional gender biases?

[generic_user]

> not just by laws but by hidden biases which translate to social pressure.

The fallacy with this line of thinking is that the 'hidden bias' is being determined by someone with 'hidden bias' which translates to 'social pressure'. Its completely subjective. Its an accusation based on a belief not a set of external facts. You can not be free of 'hidden bias' any more then you can be free of self conciousness. You are protected from certain forms of 'discrimination' under the law. The burden of proof for 'hidden bias' is simply not attainable by any standard of law.

[pron]

It's quite simple:

1. We don't wish to eliminate personal biases (like your preference for blue over green), but social biases (like that Africans are sub-human)

2. We don't wish to eliminate all social biases (like murder is bad and fairness is good), but only those that increase power inequality (like that Africans are sub-human or that women belong in the home)

So there is a subjective ideology here (preference for fairness), but it makes recognizing incompatible biases rather objective and very much based on a set of external facts.

> The burden of proof for 'hidden bias' is simply not attainable by any standard of law.

No one has said that this change is to be done by changing the law alone. It is mostly educational.

[TeMPOraL]

I'm going out on a limb here, but did anyone consider that some of those "social biases" you want to eliminate arise naturally from society exploiting comparative advantage of sexes?

When women are on average better at doing X and men are on average better at doing Y, even if the advantage is very slight, it's beneficial to let women focus on X and men on Y. I think some of the customs may have arisen there. I'm not saying that they haven't become twisted or outdated and shouldn't be pruned - just that we should take a closer look before deciding to get rid of them.

[pron]

I think that the near universality of many of those biases, and the fact that civilization arose pretty much independently around the world, it's pretty clear that that is the case. I don't think saying that is even controversial.

However, you must be careful with your history, because many biases (such as the place of women in the workplace) have actually changed considerably through history and across different cultures, and many of them actually peaked in Victorian times, and it is mostly the Victorian biases that we in the West are left with.

Nevertheless, the origin of the biases says nothing about their benefit. Obviously, beneficial behavior in pre-historical times was very different from what benefitted it in classical times, medieval times, the early-modern period, and certainly after the industrial revolution.

Finally, it is very hard to define what you mean by "a benefit to society" by any objective means. For simple organisms, increasing the population count is beneficial (although even that is not clear because that's assigning a value judgment to a mere fact). But what does it mean for human society? Obviously many people thought for a long time that slavery is very beneficial, although the slaves obviously disagreed. So the basic ideology of feminism basically has one tenet -- that of fairness -- and says that power should be more-or-less equally distributed among social categories that are determined at birth (except for individual misfortunes etc., which is another matter).

[PeterisP]

I would be very, very wary of a statement like "we wish to eliminate only those social biases that increase power inequality".

Yes, there untrue and unfair biases that increase power inequality, and those should be eliminated.

But what about preferences which, after careful deliberation, turn out to be actually objective to the best of our knowledge? If I understand your statements correctly, then they would imply that in this case, the if that bias/belief/preference/opinion would benefit the socially dominant group (thus increase power inequality), then then it should be eliminated; and if/when that same bias would benefit the socially disadvantaged group (this increasing power equality) then the exact same thing should be praised... which feels not okay to me.

I mean, people are different, and groups of people are also pretty different. For pretty much any useful property, when we split people in groups (e.g. by genders, by ager, or "all the current USA citizens with X ethnical background") we see examples where one of the group will have (on average) a significant objective advantage over another group in that property. Most likely it's not because of something they did or deserve, it's some effect of past generations of socioeconomic situations, ingrained cultural practices that favoured different attitudes to e.g. directions of education, or simple genetics - but there differences are real.

If you would achieve perfect equality of opportunity for each individual - you would still have a significant inequality of results and power between such groups.

If you would achieve perfect equality of results or power equality - that could only be done through very significant inequality of opportunities for individuals, significantly aiding or hampering them depending on which social groups they belong to. This does not seem acceptable to me at all; the goal is nice, but it definitely doesn't justify such (IMHO horrible) means.

[pron]

> but there differences are real.

But those differences aren't the laws of physics. We can change them, and we do change them all the time. The only question is in which direction? Saying "leave things alone" simply means let the existing dynamics continue and is as much of an ideology as "let's figure out what change would be in accordance with our values and do that".

> you would still have a significant inequality of results and power between such groups.

Between what groups? Struggle over power never stops. It's not a problem that can be solved once and for all, and people fight over it all the time. Even the most powerful fight to stay in power and even increase their power. All I'm saying is, find out what your values are and fight for those, rather than believe that the current state of affairs is "natural". It isn't. It is simply a recent snapshot of the situation after all previous struggles. Not fighting for your values is simply yielding to those who do.

> If you would achieve perfect equality of results or power equality - that could only be done through very significant inequality of opportunities for individuals, significantly aiding or hampering them depending on which social groups they belong to. This does not seem acceptable to me at all; the goal is nice, but it definitely doesn't justify such (IMHO horrible) means.

I said nothing of the means, and all of those fears are completely unfounded. Decades of research show us that people are being "aided or hampered them depending on which social groups they belong to" right now. All we want is to people to study and be aware of the state of affairs, and the goal is not to achieve perfect equality among all individuals, but to exactly remove the existing pressures on social groups -- that's all.

[leereeves]

Where does that definition of personal bias come from?

It seems to me that the dictionary definition and common understanding of personal bias is "a bias held by a particular person".

I've often seen social engineering redefine terms to redirect or derail discussions and find that very Orwellian.

[pron]

> It seems to me that the dictionary definition and common understanding of personal bias is "a bias held by a particular person".

Yes, and some biases are shared by many and propagate through social mechanisms. Those are called social biases.

> I've often seen social engineering redefine terms to redirect or derail discussions and find that very Orwellian.

Much of it is no more than a more careful, organized terminology designed to assist academic study. I find that many people who find stuff like that to be Orwellian are simply not interested to learn what it's really all about. If they did, they's find a fascinating field for research, and a clearer understanding of human society. Instead, many of them dismiss the study of human society because it eludes simple mathematical models (as all complex systems do), and may require a re-examination of things they take for granted.

Comments like this sounds to someone with a social sciences education as the statement "I feel this messing about with particles angers the gods, and, in particular, Zeus" would sound to anyone with a science education.

[omonra]

"'Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal rights. Am I not getting this?"

You're so 10 years behind the ball. Equality now means equality of results.

Since everybody [important] knows that women have the same skills & work the same jobs & the same hours as men, their being paid less is only result of misogyny & sexism on part of their employers.

[ewzimm]

I think the dangerous part is taking something biological and trying to make a direct association with something as vaguely defined as emotional intelligence. This kind of thing is extremely dependent on culture. If you take an American with high emotional intelligence and plant them in Finland, they aren't necessarily going to be able to read people the same way. It's hard to imagine a case where this kind of thing isn't a learned ability.

It's like saying men are better at Algebra. Most people are capable of being perfect at Algebra with the right training and focus. It's just a matter of moving numbers around in a very predictable way. Responding to people's emotional cues is similarly something trainable, but because it's cultural and more difficult to define precisely (and what isn't less precise than math?), it tends to acquire a more mystical aura and lends itself to being defined as something gender specific when that might not really be the case at all. Maybe it really is, but we have no hard evidence either way, and any statistics about it have a high probability of being culturally biased.

In the long run, I don't think that training new generations of people to respond to emotions will be any more effective than recording successful interactions and using the data to train computers to do the same thing. With a large enough data set, a good enough algorithm that can vary tone of voice in response to emotional cues is going to be more consistent than a large workforce doing the same thing. With humans, you'll get more exceptional talents, but you'll also get more really awful people, and with the state of the Internet, just one awful customer service experience can go viral and ruin a company's reputation. Even if computers aren't as good as the most exceptional people at responding to emotions, I think the jobs will tend toward the computers there too for the sake of protecting against those few employees who aren't good, don't care, or are just having a bad day and take it out on customers. There will still be high-end services where people care about being served by people, but for commodity customer service, computers will win within a few decades (and this applies to managing employees too, particularly in situations like scheduling, but I think middle management will be slower to switch for cultural reasons, since managers actually have some control over keeping their jobs).

[Lawtonfogle]

>'Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal rights.

Equality in rights without regard for equality in duties will result in inequality.

[pron]

> Does anyone truly believe that this is not the case?

Of course! Especially with the "naturally" part. Biological differences in pertinent cognitive abilities, while they certainly exist, have never been shown to be too big (certainly not big enough to be the major cause for observed differences in representation). It is certainly logical to believe that most observed differences are mostly explained by social causes.

> 'Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal rights.

Not exactly. Equal rights implies legal rights, and gender equality (as well as racial equality) goes beyond that. The idea is that the sexes (and the races) be treated similarly in society, and not have their choices limited -- not just by laws but by hidden biases which translate to social pressure. The desired result is equal power not equal rights (but, as you correctly note, not "sameness"), as rights alone are a necessary but insufficient condition in the change of the power distribution.

[douche]

It's demonstrably true that, while men and women are, on average, about the same in cognitive abilities, it's also true that the distributions are not the same. There are much bigger "tails" for men[2] - you've got more men at the top end of the spectrum, and also more men at the absolute bottom of the spectrum[1].

[1] http://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/80s/82/82-PMR-ARC.pdf [2] https://www.aei.org/publication/are-there-more-girl-geniuses...

[pron]

I really don't think that the prevalence of geniuses or mentally retarded among any social group has any significant effect on the overall distribution of power. You are speaking of people who are, by definition, outliers.

But even more theoretically, I don't see your point, though. History has proven beyond a doubt that society can and does change in rather extreme ways. In terms of changes to the power distribution in society, we are still far from hitting any biological limitations (and when we do, we often find technological solutions to them). So just because there are some biological limitations we should stop way short of them?

And we can take it further. Suppose (this is not the case, but suppose) that some large population is biologically significantly stupider than other groups (they're not idiots, just far from smart), and as a result, that group is constantly subservient to other groups, and has far less power to advance its interests. Don't you think we should actively help them? I mean, people can't fly, yet we've gone to great lengths to overcome that biological barrier through technology. We also go to great lengths (though that depends also on who suffers, but never mind) to overcome physical medical conditions. Shouldn't we also make some effort to fight social problems, or should we say, "let nature run its course" even though we never do that for anything else?

Finally -- and I'll repeat that because it's a relevant historical fact -- for centuries people (men and sometimes women, too) honestly believed -- they were certain, really -- that women are too stupid to be doctors and lawyers (although they put it gently with phrases like, "their wisdom lies elsewhere"). Then they said that regardless of intelligence, no one would put their life in the hands of a woman (or a black) doctor. But guess what? They were wrong and we got used to it. So while this is not a very scientific argument, history shows that -- so far -- if you base your arguments on what you believe are biological limitations or the persistence of social customs, you'd be on the wrong side of history.

[cryoshon]

I was thinking about this concept abstractly (deviations from the norm evolutionarily). I'm not trying to dispute the data you have here, but rather play the devil's advocate to propose an alternative theory which might contradict the data. I'll preface this by saying I already know the (correct and definitive) rebuttal to this line of thought, but it's fruitful to mention the problem nonetheless.

Men are the risky sex, relative to the propagation of the gene lineage. Men have a higher chance of not reproducing either as a result of sexual competition or death, but also the capability of reproducing many times in the proper scenario. Why does it make sense for men to be more variable? Why aren't women the variable sex?

Females get a huge advantage in reproduction of their genes: they are the gatekeeper of the gene line. An undesirable female will probably still reproduce, whereas an undesirable male probably won't. Why aren't females extremely variable instead of males? Females could biologically "get away" with extreme (but viable) variation because they're practically guaranteed to reproduce anyway. Males being extremely variable merely results in a lot of detritus at the edges-- wasted energy from the perspective of the parents / gene line. Isn't there an evolutionary pressure against wasteful reproduction?

[mark_integerdsv]

> Of course! Especially with the "naturally" part. Biological differences in pertinent cognitive abilities, while they certainly exist, have never been shown to be too big (certainly not big enough to be the major cause for observed differences in representation). It is certainly logical to believe that most observed differences are mostly explained by social causes.

Huh?

Are you saying that you truly believe that everyone is the best at everything?

Are you being sarcastic?

[pron]

I meant between the sexes and racial groups -- not between individuals. I thought that was abundantly clear from the context.

[polymatter]

I read him as saying that while men and women are different they are not _that_ different and that social causes is probably a bigger factor than any biological one.