[nuclearburrito]

This is why I hate identity politics and why I believe all jobs for a given role should pay identically. Men/women are created equal but different. Praise people for their merit, not their sex. I know women who can run circles around men in coding and sysadmin work. I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm working with a woman when we're sat together working on something. I just tend to notice that this person is smart, often smarter than me in a given area, and I can learn. One of my favorite team leads is a woman from Ethiopia. Smart, pretty, funny, able to handle the BS some of the guys give her. The guys quickly realize she's better than most of them and they defer to her where her knowledge exceeds their own. Let's be honest, it's refreshing to see women excel in an area where men are usually dominant, and let's not forget, programming in the beginning years was mostly women.

I'm attempting to teach my own teenage daughter some programming basics, not to get her into the industry, but to show her cause and effect, abstract thinking, building something from nothing, critical thinking, etc.

[BadDebug]

Why do you say "attempting to teach my daughter programming" and not "I am teaching my daughter programming"? You make it seem like she's not interested.

[solipsism]

This article is about how professional women are described, and it takes as a premise the fact that women are equals with respect to merit.

Given that, your comment seems off topic. No one is talking about whether women can hang in our industry. Is it necessary to derail this discussion by opening up that can of worms?

[rayiner]

> Men/women are created equal but different.

Identity politics is a reaction to people who say stuff like that.

[viridian]

It's not society and nurture stopping a woman from deadlifting 800lbs, or a man from breastfeeding. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

My girlfriend and I were just talking about how it's pretty unfortunate that there are basically no top level female smash players, but the fact is that reaction time is such a huge advantage that only a fraction of a percent of men can perform at the top level, and the female bell curve just doesn't stretch that far. The opposite is true for some traits as well, like top percentile flexibility.

[tptacek]

Well, what's stopping men from deadlifting 800lbs? Because only a tiny fraction of men can deadlift 600lbs (the women's deadlift record), let alone 800lbs.

Will a man hold the deadlift record? Most assuredly. Does this in any way matter? It sure doesn't seem like it does.

[viridian]

>Well, what's stopping men from deadlifting 800lbs?

In a lot of cases, time and value. My brother has a squat of 500 and some change, and a 405 DL, but it's not worth it to him to improve those much further. He's foremost a football player and second a wrestler, and lifting is a means to those ends. He could likely hit an 800 DL if he focused on it, and heck, I might even be able to bump my shoddy 315x5 to 800 if I really worked at it, but that's flat out not an option for any woman.

The main reason I get so annoyed by this argument that "women can do basically anything a man does, if they weren't held back by socialization etc" is because I used to be a huge proponent of it, myself. Engaging in almost any type of sport or competitive activity quickly dispels you of that notion. While a female comp black belt could delete me from the face of the earth, I'd be very surprised if there's a female black belt alive who could beat even the best black belt in Columbus Ohio, and it's not like Cbus is a jiu jitsu mecca. We split sports by sex for a lot of reasons.

[moduspol]

It matters when the 800lb deadlifting community is accused of rampant sexism, and counter-productive policies are put in place to correct this perceived injustice.

[subjectsigma]

People's lives literally depend on whether or not you believe in physical and mental differences between men and women.

https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/blog/2012/07/05/get-over...

https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2014/09/why-women-do-not...

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-special-...

[tptacek]

Oh come off it. If it mattered to the actual discussion, women serve along men in the IDF infantry. But it doesn't matter; it simply begs the question. Nobody is debating whether peak male lifting performance is better than peak female lifting performance. Women are also much better at giving birth than men! The issue is: why does that matter?

[subjectsigma]

I'm not sure if you're intentionally being dense or we're talking past each other about different things.

1. Progressive and liberal-minded individuals think that promoting the idea that there is no functional difference between men and women will help fight gender inequality but this is not only untrue, it is dangerous. See the linked articles in my comment; people absolutely are debating this, these people are driving real policy changes, and you misrepresent them saying they are not.

2. Part of this agenda is shaming people for treating men and women differently, like in the OP. In this case they're right to do this, it's not productive or fair to write science articles about women differently than ones about men. But in other ways there is definitely a culture being created where it is taboo to treat men and women differently in any capacity and maybe that's not entirely a good idea. That's why it 'matters'.

[nuclearburrito]

Hardly. God created men and women different, but equal. There is equal value in both. We should never attempt to dismantle the differences, but embrace them within the roles both sexes play. My wife is smarter than I am by far, gorgeous, and is a doctor. I'm a nerdy guy with glasses and a buzz cut. We compliment each other, but we are at the same time equal and different.

Women are more nurturing, more patient, better at handling conflict. Men are stronger, better at ending conflict should it arise (soldiers, police due to size and strength), and better at protecting families. There are exceptions. Neither sex is smarter. There are physical limitations for both. When I served in the military, for example, men had to do 20 dead hang pull ups. Women had to do a 70-second dead hang from the same pull up bar. Very few men could do the dead hang because women's muscles are different in their core. Maybe 1 out of 100 women could do the pull ups. It takes tremendous upper body strength to do 20 dead hang pull ups.

The desire to wipe away the differences between the sexes is wrong. I see beauty in the feminine and embrace it in its proper context. My wife cannot do some of the things I can do, and I certainly cannot perform as a doctor for women's health care in the same way she can. I'm at a loss, hence my wife and I both agree that men and women are better than the other in certain roles, but certainly equal.

[moduspol]

I think it stems from a world view that presumes any difference in outcomes must be the result of oppression, and that no other contributor could be notably relevant.

[notadoc]

> Men/women are created equal but different. Praise people for their merit, not their sex.

Many people will find those mere statements to be offensive and inflammatory. You must know that we have reached a point where large segments of society find acknowledging achievement and/or biology to be a cultural faux pas and highly controversial.

[nuclearburrito]

I can appreciate your comment, but I respectfully disagree. So many high-profile people and groups want to completely eradicate any differences between the sexes. This is wrong. Women should be praised for who and what they are. Being smart,feminine, caring, and nurturing are virtues for women, much as strength and physical performance is for men. Notice I didn't mention fashion, physical possessions, or the ability to acquire them.

I appreciate the everyday woman and man far more than those who exist to toot their own horns. There is something to be said for the woman that can juggle a coding job and then be a mom at 5 PM. Kudos to her. Ditto, men should be praised for their abilities to hold down a good job, provide for and protect their wives and children should they have them. Yes, I am a social conservative, but I'm not misogynist or blind to the modern world. Every family has a different dynamic. Everyone has to work things out for their own situation. I'm old school enough to realize what identity politics is, can spot it a mile off, and reject it. But... we can never erase the differences as they are innate. Women should be celebrated as feminine and men as masculine. To do anything else is disingenuous. This is not to say women are sex objects, for example. They are not. Nor are men to be idolized for their prowess on the field. This crap can be taken too far and injures both sexes and compartmentalizes them.

In a nutshell, I tend to embrace sci-fi author, Robert Heinlein's, famous quote in life:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."