[MountainManMe]

> The author feels comfortable making the claim women are biologically more neurotic, in a professional setting, no less. His "citation" for this fact is Wikipedia. This is unimaginative sexist bullshit that everyone has heard before. That people feel the impulse to defend this is disgusting.

Wikipedia might not be the most credible source, but the differences in big 5 personality traits between men and women are well documented.

[Here's a study that finds the same, looking at > 17,000 people from 55 different countries.](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anu_Realo/publication/2...). There's plenty more on google scholar.

[wcummings]

And you believe those differences to be meaningful? To programming? And appropriate to discuss with coworkers?

[4bpp]

Apart from the clear goalpost-shifting occurring here ("this is unimaginative bullshit" [as in fictitious/incorrect?] -> "this is not meaningful to programming"), I can't help but be astonished at the last sentence. I know comparisons between Victorians and certain modern political movements are a slightly tired cliché by now, but it's difficult to not read it as something along the lines of "And appropriate to discuss in front of the children?".

[wcummings]

Grow up, it's a workplace. People go there to make a living, not to be subjected to your half-baked political opinions. It's unprofessional.

[TheLilHipster]

I'm currently reading your comment here, at work.

I find your defensiveness and inflammatory remarks more unprofessional and unproductive then anything else in this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lus5J4vYMNg

If you disagree with someone, be civil - debate with logic and rationality.

[mentat]

What happens with all the correct things that are now inappropriate to say in this brave new world?

[gozur88]

"When"? We're pretty much already there now.

Thank God I'm getting old and will be exiting the workplace (relatively) soon. Repeating lies out of fear for your job is corrosive to the soul.

[wutbrodo]

I feel you, but as someone who's in the earlier part of my career, it's honestly not that bad once you learn more about the contours of how it works. There are plenty of people like us who weren't stupid enough to buy into "ignore your capacity for rational thought, believe this by fiat"; they just know not to talk about it in case the person they're talking with is one of the dumb ones.

If anything, IME watching people fall into this trap is a pretty reliably useful indicator of someone's intelligence. I tried it the last few days with a handful of people with whom I'd never discussed politics: "Did you hear about that Google manifesto thing?". I tried it with 8 different people both at and outside of work, and every single time, the people who were uncritically outraged were the ones who I already knew were pretty stupid. Not a single person that I already knew was intelligent had this kind of wild-eyed negative reaction to a guy saying "maybe we shouldn't assume that differences in the employee population aren't due to differences in the input population".

FWIW, my personal best guess is that what biological differences there may be between men and women aren't sufficient to explain the tech gender gap. I just think that it's fucking insane to pretend that the science has conclusively shown that there are no such differences and to attack a guy who dares mention them. The notion that scientists can talk freely about something but laymen can't scares the shit out of me.