[hagan_das]

Or the skewed gender ratios in various fields are due to innate biological differences.

Sexual dimorphism, which includes psychological traits, extends to humans as well. We are animals too after all.

What an age we live in. Nearly every animal on earth, including our closests primate relatives, have innate morphological and behavioural differences between male and female. Yet noticing that homo sapiens exhibit the same differences has become a thought-crime of the highest order.

These differences cause a tendency for men and women to gravitate towards certain fields. Skewed sex ratios in a profession do not necessarily indicate discrimination and its time to stop pointing and sputtering when not everything is 50/50.

[vinceguidry]

Gender ratios between fields aren't a huge huge problem, but it is something we could address and improve over time. We don't have to perpetuate the ratios by telling nerdier girls they're not good with computers and should really just be cheerleaders. Salary gaps, on the other hand, are clear evidence of discrimination. And there's plenty of those.

[geofft]

"Innate biological differences exist" isn't, by itself, a compelling argument. The closest argument you can make that's compelling is "Innate biological differences exist, linked with competence in computer science, and they are vast enough that the fraction of people who can make it skews heavily male." That's an actually-scientific hypothesis, which is great, because we can do some studies to determine whether it's true.

http://www.slideshare.net/terriko/how-does-biology-explain-t...

On the other hand, if you make non-scientific claims, it's pretty easy to push "innate biological differences" to mean whatever you want it to mean. Like that women are more naturally suited for programming than men, because it's just like prepping dinner.

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/researcher-reveals-how-...

[hagan_das]

The slide share only attempts to address difference in ability, not inclination. If women are just as capable programmers, but, on average, tend to have a natural inclination towards more social and nurturing roles (teacher, nurse, etc... fields with the highest % of women) then we would still expect the same gender ratio skew we see.

Most troubling, any mention that innate biological differences between the genders could play a role in the skewed gender ratios is not even considered in these diversity attack articles. It has become a thoughtcrime.