[aragot]

You see, this is saying "women are more social". You didn't say it, but the next step is "Women are equally good to men about programming, plus they have the advantage of being social". Which makes me wonder:

- As a man, am I just less clever?

- Where will my job go, if women are apt to take over all our management jobs since they're smarter in relationships and equally good at technical stuff?

- We all agree it's extremely bad when we hear: "Ah no, women aren't clever enough for programming", so what about the opposite?

- Personnaly I have a terrible lack of confidence when it comes to certain tasks. When women experience it, we help them overcome it. Can someone help me also, even though I'm a man?

Stereotyping women on being more social is just unfair, because while we think this way, we fail to see something positive in men.

Edit: You're allowed to downvote, yes, but it would work on excluding me. If you want to do something good to society and something inclusive, you could rather add a comment attaching positive stigma to men, because we rarely hear positive things about men, and that's probably a key cornerstone of the resistence to helping women more.

[rayiner]

Women are more social, men are more represented among both geniuses and criminals. I think even among progressives the resistance to accepting the veracity of both points is halfhearted.

[geofft]

> men are more represented among both geniuses and criminals.

Is there a reason for this that's more interesting than "Men have, historically and to some extent in the present, been more likely to have the freedom and the resources to accomplish what they set their minds on"? For instance, is there a study that investigates people's dispositions to genius-like behavior and criminal-like behavior, doing everything they can to control for social factors?

There are plenty of truths that aren't very meaningful. I'm totally willing to believe that this one is, I'd just like to see some research on it.

(In particular, if either of these are contingent on structural inequality, then we'd expect both of these to get less true if the arc of history keeps bending the same way, and long-term social designs should not expect these to be reliable.)

[harryh]

One theory is that intelligence is largely inherited by way of the X chromosome oh which men have one while women have two. So with women things are more likely to average out a bit more.

I know almost nothing about this subject and this theory could very will be bullshit. Just something I've read.

[pron]

> I think even among progressives the resistance to accepting the veracity of both points is halfhearted.

That's because when it comes to society, data can sometimes be dangerous. Data tells us how the world looks, but whereas in nature the laws are fixed (or so we hope), society is very fluid. This can confuse people. Any data about society is a snapshot of current conditions: it doesn't mean that things have never been different or won't be different, and it most certainly does not tell us that this is how things should be (the latter is the biggest difference between the natural and the social sciences -- in nature there's only "is" while in society there's "is" and "ought" and the two are rarely the same; also, we have at least some power over the structure of our society, while changing nature can be tricky).

This is why data means very different things in physics and sociology, and why -- at least by default, or until proven otherwise -- any sociological data should be understood as: this is how things currently are; should we try to change them?

[meric]

What society "ought" to be, as you say, are rarely the same, and varies over time.

At any point of time we're trying to force society to be something other than it is.

In 1700 we're assimilating natives. In 1800 we're converting slaves to Christianity. In 1900 we're banishing jews from countries. In 2000 we're enacting laws that favour some over others.

None of these attempts at societal change were ever complete.

Today we're sure changes society tried to make in 1700, 1800, 1900 were misguided and harmful.

I wouldn't be surprised if society in a hundred years will have a different again perspective to what we're doing now.

[pron]

> I wouldn't be surprised if society will have a different again perspective to what we're doing now.

I would, because the things are completely opposite. One is about subjugating the weak, and the other is about freeing them. I'm surprised you can compare the two! We're not "enacting laws that favor some over others", but laws intended to help communities or groups that have, for centuries or millennia been put down. If you think for one second that women or minorities are somehow "favored" in modern Western society, then you're either blind or delusional. They are still very much disfavored, and some laws are trying to ever-so-lightly tilt the scales a little bit in their favor, and a lot less than they deserve.

[meric]

> One is about subjugating the weak, and the other is about freeing them.

In 1700's, europeans thought they were raising the natives to their level. In 1900's, some germans thought they saw jews as having excess privileges and need to be brought down. In 2000's, feminists think men have an excess of privileges in society, and that they need to tilt the scales in women's favor.

> I would, because the things are completely opposite.

They're all instances of trying to pull society from what it is to what it thinks it ought to be.

Also, of all the ways women may be disadvantaged, I don't think freedom is one of them, at least in developed countries. Also, women were never put in chains. If they thought they were being put down, there were many opportunities for them to have thrown down the metaphorical chains and shackles men have placed on them, and overcome their male masters, in the past thousands of years, just like the various native aboriginals who fought against European invaders, as Jews having the tenacity to form dominant minorities in hostile nations and organising to form their own country, and as slaves had done throughout history in various rebellions since the Ancient Roman Empire as well as participating in the fight against American South in the Civil War. Instead all we have is a relatively benign tweaking of laws in their favour. Many of the new laws are definitely beneficial of course; I'd just thought I'd point out a comparison between todays and historical attempts to bridge the difference between what society is and ought to be.

[pron]

> In 1700's, europeans thought they were raising the natives to their level.

They really didn't. They might have thought they were raising them a bit but never up to their level.

> In 1900's, some germans thought they saw jews as having excess privileges and need to be brought down.

They really didn't. Such propaganda was simply used to make people feel better about the hatred they felt, and to channel it wherever the Nazis wanted.

> In 2000's, feminists think men have an excess of privileges in society, and that they need to tilt the scales in women's favor.

They don't think it; they know it because that's scientifically proven. If you want to put it another way, women have a dearth of privilege.

> They're all instances of trying to pull society from what it is to what it thinks it ought to be.

Yes, in opposite directions.

> Also, women were never put in chains.

Seriously?

> If they thought they were being put down

They don't think, they know.

> there were many opportunities for them to have thrown down the metaphorical chains and shackles men have placed on them

And that's exactly what they're trying to, and have been doing at least since 1848, but it's slow work -- just like those other examples. Have blacks achieved parity with whites in America yet?

> Instead all we have is a relatively benign tweaking of laws in their favour.

First, it's not in their favor, but a little less against it. Second -- the problem of sexism is very different from racism in that women, while subjugated, have never been considered "foreign", and so the power struggle wears a different shape in either direction.

> ... historical attempts to bridge the difference between what society is and ought to be.

Of course it's everyone's duty to help shape society in the form they think it should take, but that doesn't mean the content of those attempts can be compared -- at least not so haphazardly.

[UrMomReadsHN]

>If they thought they were being put down, there were many opportunities for them to have thrown down the metaphorical chains and shackles

The problem with that thinking is it ignores the way women are socialize by society and culture. The way people view themselves is influenced by the culture they grew up in and how society views them in their formative years and the influences they have from the media. These are subtle and not intentional.

You are only looking through your cultural lense.

[alukima]

Men and women are socialized in different ways. You're using an awful lot of conjecture to make points I wasn't touching and never intended to. When either gender does something out of their 'roles' it's harder.

Men are socialized to 'be smart', competitive, ect. Being a social, caregiver is what women are socialized to do. I never said that either gender, men included, can't do things outside of their roles.

[ripb]

>Stereotyping women on being more social is just unfair, because while we think this way, we fail to see something positive in men.

Worse yet. We claim women are social in a positive manner, and then claim men being social are promoting a negative "bro" culture, something that isn't inclusive of women or has an explicit agenda if it is.

[tptacek]

Wrongs are wrong regardless of whether we cajole or entice the wrongdoers into stopping.

[anologwintermut]

People being more social doesn't necessarily mean it was because the women were more social. It could simply be people were more social because it was a more diverse environment ( I at least can get bored of talking to the same people all the time or even the same type of people).

[e12e]

This is exactly how I read the comment: a) there were more women (but not only women), b) the group as a whole was more social, possibly due to being more diverse -- and/or simply more inclusive.

[geofft]

You're conflating two different comparisons: comparing the aggregate experience of two groups, which we use as an efficiency mechanism to see if we can make things better for lots of people, and comparing the personal experience of one person against a group.

With various spherical-cow-in-a-vaccum-ish assumptions, if women and men are equally qualified, then, by logical implication fully half of all women are below-average, and there are millions of women who are more qualified than every single software engineer at several companies. Neither of these facts are really the point of comparing women and men as an aggregate group.

As a man, as a person on Hacker News, as a person with whatever hair color you have, how clever you are is just how clever you are. That's it. (And this is exactly why we wish to reduce subconscious discrimination: unless there's an actual statistical difference, nobody should be thinking you're more or less clever knowing just your gender, any more than knowing just your hair color.)

Your job is yours, and up to your ambition and capability. The existence of millions of qualified people who don't have your hair color -- and, frankly, millions of qualified, more social people who don't have your hair color -- isn't keeping you out of your job today.

It's bad to hear "Women aren't clever enough for programming" because years of research have failed to find rational basis for this belief. If there is rational basis for a belief (and if the belief is stated in a way that doesn't cause most people to react to it irrationally), then sure, let's say it.

I'd be thrilled to help you with lack of confidence in anything I'm qualified to help with. I'm not particularly likely to do so in a subgroup situation, since this is something you yourself say is "personally" yours, but yes. I'm also happy to support organizations that do help groups where the group is relevant, and definitely happy to support all people with confidence in group situations where there isn't any definition of the group.

[geofft]

I missed your edit in my first reply, but I just want to point out that if you are supportive of resisting equality unless you're being flattered, you are showing selfishness and rudeness of the highest order, and if you somehow think this is representative of your gender, it's certainly not inclining me to a positive stigma. I hope I am greatly misunderstanding you, or you're speaking out of anger instead of thought.