[ehnto]

> On average women find tech work grindingly boring.

No evidence of that.

> There's no evidence that adults are creating this bias. They are not.

Are you absolutely certain? It's the subject of quite a bit of research.

> Why is it a problem? It isn't. Just let people do what they want with their lives.

Kids don't know what they want to do with their lives, they get lead down various paths by their upbringing. Plenty of people end up in careers they don't like because it's what their parents wanted them to do, regardless of gender.

[realjhol]

>> On average women find tech work grindingly boring.

> No evidence of that

Are you for real? Have you ever tried to talk to any women about technology? With occasional exceptions, the response you will get is a face that has completely glazed over.

This is only a problem for people who believe in egalitarian ideology - where every group is supposed to be at all times "equal" in ways that are simply not bourne out in reality.

[defrost]

> Have you ever tried to talk to any women about technology?

All the time - they love technology.

Sue <redacted> runs all the books on the local family farm (which is a large multi million $ enterprise), she pulls in all the GPS logs to a NAS, databases the livestock tags, has bots watching the stock sales.

Robyn runs a super computing facility for the local SKA project (Square kilometre array) after being the Vice C. of the local university, after consolidating the Comp Sci, Math, Engineering Streams overlap into a specialised STEM course.

Danni next door hacks J.Deere software and runs an agronomy consulting group with web prescence.

Joy left running a heavy industry electrical contract company behind after selling it and now runs a GIS consulting group.

I'm guessing it's you and where you are - in this part of the world there are plenty of women into tech.

[realjhol]

This is so tedious. I said there were plenty of exceptions. As with many human traits it's a distribution with long tails at the extremities, and plenty of overlap between groups.

This doesn't in any way negate the existence of a mean difference between groups. In the real world innate sex differences are a fact of life.

That's the whole point of the paper attached to this thread.

Egalitarians believe that society would be better off if we made all efforts to flatten these differences out or ignore them. This is an article of faith, that is in no way reflected in the real world.

[defrost]

The interesting part here is that there are plenty of exceptions - and those exceptions tend be clustered in different societies and cultures.

I'm not advocating you change wherever you're at, I'm just delighted that where I am women drive road trains & haul paks, design ships, wire buildings, advance astrophyysics, etc (and, for that matter, so do the men).

It certainly makes your bemoaning "have you tried talking to women about tech?" a non issue hereabouts.

If you're happy with your bit of "the real world" (ie. a subset of the actual real world) then good on you, go forth and enjoy - and perhaps bemoan less.

[realjhol]

This is just more egalitarian cope.

Of course there are local differences which is why these need to be normalized with a population-wide sample. In that case, sex differences present themselves clearly.

As the article states, surprise surprise, on average compared to men, women are more interested in people than things.

[defrost]

> Of course there are local differences

Differences by country and culture - the reason why are the interesting questions.

> these need to be normalized with a population-wide sample.

Need to be?

The US (for example) has a large population ( ~360 mill ) with a poor system of government and an excess of hold over odd little religious groups (and home grown product like Mormons, etc).

Other countries have smaller populations (eg 25 million here), better more responsive system of government with better oversight, better education, better health, etc.

I see no benefit in being blended in with a bloated mass of objectively worse and dragged down to US levels.

[ehnto]

How could it be reflected in the real world if we're still encumbered by the status quo? That's like pointing to a lack of EVs and saying see, no EVs, people don't want them. (Talking specifically about women in STEM here)

[realjhol]

You have to prove that we're "encumbered" by anything, and that the status quo is not merely the reflection of people's natural preferences, and that it would be better for society to break the status quo.

You can't prove any of these things. They are dogmatic assertions

[ehnto]

You wanted evidence, not anecdotes. But if you want anecdotes then yes, I've even worked with a bunch of women in tech. You can't make generalizations based off your own experiences though, obviously I'll bump into women in tech while working in tech. But similarly, if the people you bump into aren't already in tech, then it shouldn't be too surprising that they're not as excited as you are about it. You believe they're not in tech because they are born without the ability to like it, I believe it's because more often than not they're guided away from it during their upbringing.

You can be right that it's common to see and still wrong that it's an innate part of being a woman.

[mpweiher]

> You can be right that it's common to see and still wrong that it's an innate part of being a woman.

It's not "an innate part of being a woman".

It's an innate part of being human.

Last I checked, around 2% of people go into tech. That means that 98% of all people prefer something else.

Is there something wrong with them that needs explaining? Don't think so.

Is there something wrong with society because these 98% of people enjoy something else more? I don't think so.

Who made the 2% of people who like being in tech the standard? So that any deviation from this standard must be explained by ... evil forces? Genetics?

Is there something wrong with the 2% of people who do enjoy going into tech because 98% of people do not? I don't think so.

Now the genders skew slightly differently, for men it's more like 97% prefer to do something else, and with women it's 99% who prefer to do something else. So what? Let people do what they want to do.

[ehnto]

> It's an innate part of being human.

That's the point I am making. My point is not that everyone should be in tech, my point is that there is a disparity and if we assume everyone is equal then there shouldn't be.

> Now the genders skew slightly differently, for men it's more like 97% prefer to do something else, and with women it's 99% who prefer to do something else. So what? Let people do what they want to do.

That is exactly what I want, for people do to what they want, but one group is systemically discouraged from taking on tech even if they want to. I am frankly disappointed that this has to be spelled out, that is surprising for this forum.

[mpweiher]

> if we assume everyone is equal then there shouldn't be

Incorrect assumption. Everyone is obviously not equal.

For example: 2% of people like tech enough to work there, 98% do not. These two groups are obviously not equal.

> but one group is systemically discouraged from taking on tech even if they want to

What evidence do you have for this "systematic discouragement"? Of the 98% of people who do not go into tech? How so?

[ehnto]

>> if we assume everyone is equal then there shouldn't be > Incorrect assumption. Everyone is obviously not equal.

I was quoting you. There are some practical differences obviously, but I don't believe any of them should mean women are less inclined to enjoy technical jobs.

> What evidence do you have for this "systematic discouragement"? Of the 98% of people who do not go into tech? How so?

Speak to women who are in tech, ask them what their experience was like. I haven't got any studies for you I'm afraid, it would seem we're debating in experiences so I don't think this will be constructive.

[realjhol]

> my point is that there is a disparity and if we assume everyone is equal then there shouldn't be.

Yes but why do you assume that? What if your assumption is wrong, as the above study shows? Then the disparity would be explained simply by the natural proclivities of different groups of people.

> one group is systemically discouraged from taking on tech even if they want to

Again this in another article of faith.

Notice how feminists always use the passive voice: women are "discouraged", not "these specific people are conspiring to discourage women for this specific reason".

It's a motte-and-bailey trick to prevent anyone being able to call out their nonsense claims.

Why does anyone want to discourage women from going into tech? My own daughter shows some interest in these things. Perhaps she will enter the field - or perhaps she'd prefer something else. I don't mind. She should do whatever would make her happy.

It just turns out that women on average are slightly more likely to choose something else than man are.

[mpweiher]

> Notice how feminists always use the passive voice

Yeah, that one took me a while to figure out, but once you notice it you see how pervasive this trick is.

For me, it was the thing about women doing more housework in relationships. Or rather "women are required to do more housework". But it wasn't actually their partners requiring this. Men generally don't give a crap, and this doesn't really change whether they are in a relationship or not.

"But women are held to a higher standard". Ah, the passive to the rescue! But by who? Again, men don't give a crap. Well, it turns out that it is women holding each other to higher standards, more or less exclusively. But "women are oppressing each other" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

> "these specific people are conspiring to discourage women for this specific reason".

Turns out there actually are people making that claim. Can't find the actual text right now (it was a PhD thesis turned into a book, IIRC), and it claimed that the move to make CS more like engineering was a cabal of men in CS trying to kick the women out.

The mind boggles.

> Why does anyone want to discourage women from going into tech?

Exactly. No one, that's who. And in fact, if you look around, you see tons and tons of encouragement, special events, special courses, special bootcamps etc. A recruiter here in Europe recently told me she has to get approval from US headquarters if she wants to suggest a straight white male for a role (although that was senior executive recruiting, not tech).

[realjhol]

> I believe it's because more often than not they're guided away from it during their upbringing.

That is indeed an article faith - one that is disproven in reality

Sex differences manifest more strongly in more egalitarian countries:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30206941/