UKC

I expect that many people at work are expected to engage with a "diversity" agenda that is based on the assumption that if the proportion of women is anything less than 50 per cent then that must be because they are being discriminated against and unfairly treated. 

I've never been convinced by this.  It may be that, on average, women and men tend to want different things.  That would mean that, in the best, most egalitarian and free-choice societies, with everyone pursuing their desired career path, that ratios would often be very different from 50:50. 

I thought this was a good essay: https://quillette.com/2018/06/19/why-women-dont-code/

"Our community must face the difficult truth that we aren’t likely to make further progress in attracting women to computer science. Women *can* code, but often they don’t *want* to. We will never reach gender parity. You can shame and fire all of the Damores you find, but that won’t change the underlying reality.

"It’s time for everyone to be honest, and my honest view is that having 20 percent women in tech is probably the best we are likely to achieve. Accepting that idea doesn’t mean that women should feel unwelcome. Recognizing that women will be in the minority makes me even more appreciative of the women who choose to join us."

Well that's his career down the pan......

He makes some good points but I struggle to accept his conclusion that an 80:20 balance in CS is inevitable.  Men and women aren't *that* different.  It would also imply that biological sciences are an area men don't wont to do and so on.  Given that certainly in some engineering subjects the male/female balance varies wildly between countries, and has changed hugely over time in say medicine and architecture, I'd say social factors are by far the most dominant.

I am so fundamentally bored of men with an agenda telling me that there is an agenda. 

Also, enough of the male "academics" lining up to tell us what women want, and using pop psychology, pseudo biology and social science to justify it when they are not psychologists, biologists or social scientists. 

UKC-The endless slew of these posts are why this forum is a hostile environment for women.  I'd like to be be member of a forum that talks about climbing, the outdoors and the things I love. Yes I can choose not to read them.  And from here on in I choose not to read them. Deleting my account.  I've been a member for 15 years. I'm done. 

Edit.  Seems UKC don't allow account deletion. I won't be back. 

I think your initial assumption may be wrong. The argument is somewhat more more nuanced.

I think there are two important questions:

1. Is an industry missing out because of a dominance of one gender? The answer will usually be yes.

2. Are there specific barriers to entry?

As MG points out, some of the “universal truths” about one gender not being interested in certain careers appear less universal and less true when you widen your search.

Totally agree. 

Don't worry your pretty little head about it. 

Will you be retiring to your safe space?

I'd suggest that nowadays the answer is "no" for most of the areas that get discussed.

The problem is it’s a chicken and egg situation. 

By the time children are 5 they have been imprinted with societies ‘norms’. Everything about our society reinforces norms and anyone who steps outside those norms is considered different. Which psychologically is very hard for a lot of people to deal with. 

I work in engineering. The blokes swear a lot, drink a lot, watch football and are fairly derogatory towards women. I don’t even want to work alongside people like that, why would a woman ‘want’ to? For a start we don’t bring our daughters up to behave like that but in a lot of cases that kind of behaviour is actively encouraged in our sons. 

Until it’s challenged and people actively try to change it from the top at his level, he’s right, it won’t change. 

He’s basically missing the point entirely. 

But it's not a matter of "men don't want to", it's a matter of "a smaller fraction of men want to" compared to women.  Which may well be true.  We can't just assume that the fractions are always the same.

True, over time and over a range of countries, because there indeed *have* been lots of times and places where there was direct and unfair discrimination, and major social pressures.

But, it may be that we're arriving at (or may at some point arrive at) a situation where unfairness has been removed, and people can freely pursue what interests them.  It's a valid question what the sex ratios would then likely be.

The strongest driver for choice of career is available role models.  These might be parents, or relatives, or public figures (e.g. Brian Cox).  If they aren't available in certain subjects for some groups, such as women,  this will result in fewer choosing that option.  So there is a strong element of self-reinforcement, which is a significant barrier.  

What happened to you?

jk

Nice flounce.

Our "diversity agenda" is based on the assumption that social factors dominate. So we are involved in long-term STEM and WISE outreach projects in schools.

interesting response.

I don't think he missed the point in the way you describe.  in fact i think he illustrated an issue with the quoted relative strengths of maths vs reading in boys vs girls. 

Surely the question is really? - why? (are there such massive differences)  I think it amounts to the same thing you are pointing at (aged 5 etc) but he doesn't follow that line of enquiry.

The point is there still are major social pressures.  It's not past tense.  Interestingly the data shows that in the UK, engineering female students and graduates do just as well as males even though they are well out of proportion to the population.  By contrast non-white students and graduates do less well than whites but are closer to the proportions in the population.  Which suggests to me the social pressure dominate women's choices early, while there is prejudice affecting non-whites.

I'm bored with people pursuing their (often foolish) agendas and taking offence that anyone might disagree with them.

Coel's link was a perfectly reasonable view on why one might might not expect equality of outcome in particular areas of human activity. Other views are also available and are hardly lacking in proponents. Do you think that people holding different views to you are intrinsically hostile to you as a person or your identity? I suspect that you don't.

Women invented computer programming, pioneered computer programming and dominated computer programming until the 80s, when it became a more lucrative (and respected) career and when computers and technology began to be aggressively marketed as toys for boys. An entire generation has grown up being told computers are for boys. Now we've got men shrugging their shoulders and saying "women don't seem to WANT to work in this field". Funny that.

Yes! This is where attention needs to be focused.

How do we know that? 

But "aren't available" is over-stating.   Let's say an area did have a "natural" sex ratio of one-third to two-thirds, and that the number of role models were in the same ratio.  Is that ok, or do we need 50:50 role models?

I am a software developer. In my company, we have a couple of female developers, but predominantly it's male. We did have a few more, a couple left on maternity leave and never came back, a couple of others were lost in company reshuffles (along with a couple of guys).

The ratio is completely reversed on the QA side, which is predominantly female.

I have 2 daughters and I work at home a couple of days a week - they come in to see what I'm doing and are vaguely interested in what I'm doing, but are of an age where they get bored after a few minutes and want to watch Peter Rabbit on YouTube instead.

I do quite a bit of DIY stuff at home and have never excluded them from helping, where possible. I have some very cute pictures of my eldest adjusting the hinges on a new bathroom cabinet, rollering walls with Grandad and helping build her new bedroom furniture - my youngest recently helped change the chain and sprockets on the motorbike.

The point is that they're not just interested in dollies, although they have plenty of them - they have their own (plastic) tool kit to play with and have used real tools with me. Anybody's guess what they'll want to do when they grow up, but inclusion from a young age won't be a problem for them. Spent much of the journey to drop them off this morning explaining how roads are built - maybe she'll be a civil engineer?

I don't see how you can conclude that it is "social pressure" as opposed to free choices.   And are you sure that non-whites do worse? I was under the impression that Asians generally do well. 

E.g. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2006.tb00195.x

You are not going to get an understanding of human decisions of this type by approaching them as a physics study!  I'd suggest doing some reading around the topic more broadly rather than latching on to one opinion piece that reinforces your prejudices.  I don't claim to be an expert but I am aware of some of the research in this area. Blundering in with a reductive hard-science type will just make you look rather foolish.

Is it ok to suggest that the fraction of men who like watching football is higher than the fraction of women who like watching football ...

... but not to suggest that the fraction of men who want a career in engineering just might be higher than the fraction of women who want the same? 

If so, what's the difference? 

When I started out in professional programming in the early 80s around half of my colleagues were women.  By the late 90s this was probably more like a quarter.  By late noughties maybe about 10%.  Last time I worked in a group (2015), there was one woman in a company of around 30 developers.  It's a real shame and something major has been lost in group dynamics as a result.

Do you think it is because men are inherently, genetically more prone to enjoying football or because of the social environment?

You're just assuming that the one piece I linked to is the only thing I've read on this topic?

By the way, the study you linked to only shows that role models have a significant effect on career choice, not that it's the "strongest driver" for career choice. 

There was better data I can't find, but see figure 4, for example.

https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/employment-outcomes-of-engine...

Or both? I'd say, yes, that men are -- on average -- "genetically prone" to being more competitive, certainly in a physical, competitive sports way. 

Groups of boys are more likely to want to play football than a group of similar-aged girls, and I think that would hold independently of socialisation.

And we shouldn't think of the "social environment" as something totally independent of our genetic nature, to a large extent it is the product of our genetic nature. 

You’re missing the point. 

More men want to watch football.

More men want a career in engineering. 

Both statements are true. What is false is the notion that it’s right for both statements to be true. It’s not right. There’s a reason for both of them to be true and it’s rooted deeply in society’s prejudices, it’s not something that exists naturally in our genes. We are now getting to a point in civilisation where a large proportion of people recognise that this is not the way to carry on and progress. 

There are still a few people who don’t get it though and when they speak their ‘honest opinion’ as truth, they get roundly rebuffed. The aim is to get them to understand why more men want to do certain things and why more women want to do other things. 

At the moment you get women who don’t choose to do things, not because they consciously don’t want to, but because society thinks they shouldn’t because it’s unusual for them to do it. It’s so ingrained in all our subconsciouses that most women don’t even realise that they’re dismissing roles that are traditionally male. 

People not like us might disagree.

No, and I don't totally reject the idea there may be some imbalance in career choices naturally.  However, I do reject the idea that 80:20, or whatever, is natural in CS, and believe that masses of social biases and structures have a much bigger effect of women's (and everyone else's) choices.  I also thinks this matters because you end up with people doing jobs they aren't best suited for and everyone loses as a results.

To add: I also agree that most formal structures in professional environments are now pretty "fair", even biased in some ways towards minority groups.  It's the informal and non-structured areas where these effects play out.

No. Football is actually a game for women. They’re much better at it.

But how do we know this?  Why can't it be the case that many of the on-average differences between male and female attitudes are indeed rooted in our genes? 

We know the social effect is strong because the proportions vary wildly between countries.  For example in the Netherlands 23% of science researchers are women while in Latvia it is over 50%.  Unless you believe Latvians have odd genes that make them choose science, you have to look to social factors.

http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs43-women-in-science-2...

Pity you insist on going. There's probably someone qualified in Conflict Resolution who could sort all this out for us.

Bye.  Nice hissy fit.

Well that escalated quickly..

Of course that is true, and I don't think anyone has argued otherwise, but it isn't the question that was asked!  It also doesn't address the direction in which social effects are working.  There is some evidence that social effects act in favour of gender equality rather than against it.  Indeed, the figures you link to suggest that the arab world is far more equal in science participation than western Europe.  That is paradoxical if you view these differences in career choice in terms of social conditioning.

I think it's great shame that Snoweider has decided UKC isn't a welcoming place for her. I don't think this is a 'flounce' or 'hissy fit', but, I suspect, the last straw, for something that's clearly been bothering her for some time.

Your responses here do you no credit, and only serve to demonstrate her point.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's exactly what Coel was querying.

That probably depends when and where you are.

How?  It suggests to me social pressure on arabs who go to university point in certain directions and these are different to those in western Europe.

I would make exactly the same comment to a man who posted something like that. If you want to go, go. If you post about going you seem exactly like a teenager not getting his (or her) own way. "and another thing..."

And if you come back to edit your post saying your going but UKC won't let you delete your account but you're going anyway just looks childish.

Do you think men are genetically prone to computer coding?

  This is simply unproven. It may be so, but but just because  you want to be true doesn't make it true.

My reading was that he was asking how you could know whether or not there were biological gender differences in career preference.  Demonstrating that there are large social effects does not really address this.  It does not even give you clues about whether (and the magnitude) of the difference that would be left if you removed social effects.

I think that that is a  reasonable interpretation.  However, if your thesis is that women are conditioned to see science as a male field, and that this explains differences in participation, then you would  predict that countries with higher equality indices would have lower differentials.  In fact, the opposite is true. 

One explanation is that there are different types of social pressures acting in different regions, another would be that it reflects innate differences.  It is important (and not just from an academic perspective) that we know which is true.  If someone claims to know, it is perfectly legitimate to ask them how (obviously not aimed at you btw).

That's not what I was saying. I was saying in some countries the social pressures are against women entering science (and CS specifically) such as the UK and USA, but in others these pressures push in different directions.  If you accept this, it seems to me proven that it is social pressures that dominate choices, not anything genetic.

Well I was querying whether the natural ratio (in a perfect, unbiased society) would be 50:50, as is often assumed. 

But, to expound on why I raised the issue.  University departments like mine (and likely other similar institutions) are nowadays obliged to have gender-equality audits and accreditation, which are predicated on the assumption that if the ratio is not 50:50 then something is wrong, and most likely that "something" is us, and that we need to root out all the "hidden biases" that are keeping us below 50:50, and that we need to make plans for and document our "progress towards" 50:50. 

And yet, taking my subject of physics, of those taking A-level physics in recent years, only 21.7% have been female. Which makes it near impossible for a physics dept to have a ratio near 50:50. 

So either that 21.7% reflects deep biases in society -- which could be true but if so is not something that university departments alone can do much about.

Or that 21.7% reflects natural choices and innate differences on average between men and women.  Or, perhaps most likely, it could be some mixture of both of these.  And it seems to me that, if we have uni depts and similar being accredited over such issues, then we really need to consider what the "natural" ratio actually would be. We can't just assume that it "should be" 50:50.

So some object to the issue being discussed at all, finding the topic tiresome. OK, that's understandable.  But equally this is an agenda being imposed on us by others, not something that we have any choice over. 

As it is, there's a good chance that depts like ours (and similar in chemistry, comp sci, maths, engineering) will spend the next few decades being routinely criticised for having "wrong" sex ratios, and writing ever-more detailed reports searching for more and more deeply hidden and unconscious biases to try to root out the "problem" -- and all the time the stats hardly budging. 

Really?  Who accredits you?  Here's the engineering accreditation guidelines.  They don't even mention gender, let alone 50:50.

https://www.engc.org.uk/engcdocuments/internet/Website/Accreditation%20of%2...

No mention I can see in the physics accreditation either

http://www.iop.org/education/higher_education/accreditation/file_43311.pdf

Interpreting the question as:

Do men tend, on average, to be more interested in "things", including machines, computers, maths, coding, IT, physics, chemistry; and ...

Do women tend, on average, to be more interested in "people", including social interactions, biology, medicine, etc,

... then I'd likely -- evaluating the evidence as best I can -- say "yes", and that yes this is likely genetic.    But, it's something that is hard to assess, so I could be wrong and the above biases could be due to social conditioning rather than being innate and genetic.

One thing I do think is that we should answer that question on the evidence, not on ideology or on how we want things to be. 

Athena SWAN principally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_SWAN

That's academic accreditation, which is a different thing. 

OK, that's fine, but earlier you pointed to the differences in gender ratios between countries as evidence that social pressures dominated.  Now you are saying that this reflects different social pressures acting in different regions.  However, this is indistinguishable (without additional evidence) from social pressures acting in one region and not in another.   In other words, you still have to justify your assertion that biological differences play only a very minor  role in gender inequality.

Athenaswan is about staff, not students. 

No, it's about all aspects of a dept.

It's not. From its website (oddly trans students are there) 

Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter covers women (and men where appropriate) in:

academic roles in STEMM and AHSSBL

professional and support staff

trans staff and students

There’s growing evidence that there’s not a lot of difference between male and female brains. Girls will grow up more caring because that’s how they see their mothers behaving. 

If it  is genetic, it’s a hangover that we don’t really need anymore and is possibly harming our development as a civilisation. 

Unfortunately this is an argument that is almost immediately destroyed by the simplest historical evidence.

In the 80s, 40% of the computing grad were women. Today it's down to 25/20%.

Unless female biology has changed within 40 years, it seems to me that this claim that women don't go into computing because of their biology is utter bollocks.

Great post.  I’ve done some work on taking computer science concepts to KS1 and this tentatively shows no geneder difference in either interest or aptitude.  

People can discuss all they want on blogs and social media, but unless they have robust quantitative evidence showing that young children have a significant gender difference in aptitude all they are doing is blathering noise.  One then has to ask “why are they doing this blathering?”.

I don’t have robust quantitative evidence either way, but I am working on it.  I strongly beleive that being evidence based is a key point to removing the perception that there is some “agenda” behind D&E initiatives other than being nice and fair to everyone.

I can smell my dislikes already.  Before you press the button, take a moment to think about your real reasons.

If you look at the accreditation forms, they ask questions about everyone, including undergrads and postgrads.

http://www.ecu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Department-Application-26.0...

No it isn't.  Evidence showing that biology is not the only factor is not the same as evidence that biology is not a factor at all. 

There is actually lots of evidence for gender differences in how young children play.

But then, the argument becomes, that's because of biased socialisation at even earlier ages.

Can you point us to this evidence?

I have not said otherwise so I suggest you read again.

In terms of  genetics, there is next to no difference between males and females, but I bet you can tell men and women apart at first sight in most cases; it just isn't a meaningful argument!

There is good evidence for large gender differences in personality traits and that these are more pronounced in more gender equal societies.  Now I'm not claiming that this is conclusive evidence that personality differences are biological, but it does present a challenge to somebody who asserts that these differences are entirely (or mainly) social.

I'm an engineer and have worked in the oil and gas industry for twenty years and while things are slowly improving in terms of women entering the industry we are a long way from parity. My company works closely with several local schools in terms of arranging work experience, attending career fairs or giving presentations to pupils in a bid to promote engineering as a career and to put it bluntly the phrase 'you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink' comes to mind when dealing with female pupils. The teachers I deal with are trying hard to promote engineering as a career to these girls but at the end of the day there is a general disinterest no matter how bright the girls may be. Generally speaking, the boys are the only interested ones when discussing big engineering projects, who ask plenty of questions, who get excited at the prospect of working overseas or domestically in challenging environments or dealing with cutting edge technology and its the girls who are generally glazing over with boredom while staring into their phones. The teaching staff I have dealt with over the years have seen repeatedly girls achieving top grades in physics and maths A levels only for them to go off and study languages or some other humanities degree at uni.

There were just four women on my course at uni out of an intake of about 60 undergraduates. Engineering departments are not exactly known for their bawdy macho sexist 'jock' culture and the stereotype of nerdy types still kind of holds true today, it is basically still seen by many as being a deeply uncool subject up there with computing (sorry). I also know from first hand experience such is the demand by companies to recruit more women engineers that if there two candidates of equal merit with one being female the latter would get the nod every time.

So long as there are no gender barriers to women pursuing a career in whatever discipline they desire maybe we should just leave them to it rather then trying to achieve 50/50 parity in every industry?

That said, I have noticed it is only when engineers started to command decent salaries that suddenly 'something must be done' to get more women into the profession, nobody gave a shite when we were all paid peanuts to freeze our arses off on construction sites in the middle of winter.

If yes, then surely that's evidence for Coel that the Intelligent Design types were right all along.

  The BBC's media show had a piece last week lamenting the fact that the ratio of male to female "experts" interviewed on mainstream news programmes was 2 to 1 last year (having fallen from 6:1 a few years ago and 4:1 two years ago). After a long discussion about what could be done about this one of the (female) experts eventually referenced an academic report which said that the ratio of male/female experts in general in areas like economics, politics, lawyers, culture etc (ie.potential interviewees)  is about 2.5:1 .

  So actually, the mainstream news programmes are already interviewing  a disproportionate number of female experts relative to the actual proportion amongst potential interviewees. This fact was kind of noted, glossed over, and they went back to discussing how the media should interview an even more disproportionate number of female experts (but at pains to emphasise that social engineering was not part of their brief).

There is an issue. It’s pointless looking for the issue in a University.  The issues are with children much younger. Girls are treated differently and respond to this.  FWIW I and another woman taught coding at a girls school in my previous job. No issues, the girls enjoyed it and some of them were extremely good at it.  

Its funny how in the past coding was considered women’s work.  Something the girls did while the men got on with their engineering.  Now it’s not and somehow we think women can’t do it.  

I don’t suppose you’ve seen Hidden Figures?  It’s a little dramatic, but the women are real.  I quite enjoyed it.  

Or take veterinary science. Being a vet is also pretty well paid these days, and in recent years about 78% of degrees in veterinary science have gone to women.  

If this regarded as a problem by anyone (any vets around to comment)?   It's not a problem to me if most vets are women, so long as any male wanting to be a vet is not told he can't.

http://www.vivala.com/womens-issues/study-parents-girls-more-cautious/3073

Having worked in the IT industry for 3-4 years .I have had two female colleagues and around 50+ men (to hazard a rough guess) I've also seen a lot of the applications coming through for jobs and heard about interviews conducted by my superiors. 

Woman just don't appear to actually be applying for jobs in IT, its not a sexism issue within the industry its that they aren't interested, based on my experience. 

Why this is ?, I'm not sure. To claim there is no  inherent difference between men and woman psychologically and that it is all a social construct is obviously false. My own feeling is that men are generally more interested in Inanimate "things" than they are people, and our career choices reflect that, and woman are generally the opposite Hence 92% of nurses are females (There are way more examples of this) 

This idea makes complete sense,  why would we evolve to be exactly the same when we have clearly performed different tasks in society for so long. Are people scared of this notion because it realizes the fact there are certain aspects of your personality than you cant control ? 

This whole notion seems really stupid to me. Why do we "need" to achieve a high ratio of women working in a particular industry. Is the goal not to have a free and open socitey where people can pick their own career choices, without prejudice. Does the out of balance ratio reflect the uncomfortable reality that men and woman are different which is threatening to modern day feminism and thus a false illusion of societal pressure and sexism is created?

It’s a very good example of what happens in a science based profession that doesn’t have any male/female bias. 

What are the figures for GPs?

I remember seeing a tv program where people were lied to about the sex of a small child who was then encouraged to crawl on a sloping surface.  The adults were far more cautious with the “girls”than the “boys”. 

Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it to look it up.  

Wow.

Snoweider is "fundamentally bored of men with an agenda telling me that there is an agenda."

She doesn't have to listen to any of it if its that boring.  She can debate the idea, or ignore it entirely.

What is men's agenda?  I have no idea. 

But there is most certainly a diversity agenda.  It is written down in policy and paper by just about every employer and educational establishment in the UK.  It is in the news and discussed in parliament.  Every job advert I look at specifically states we "welcome female and BME applicants", there are diversity and inclusion officers, diversity and inclusion training seminars, person specification requirements stating employees must embody diversity and inclusion ethics, and I see countless scholarships specifically targeting these groups.  You'd have to have your head firmly in the sand not to be aware of a diversity agenda as it is something proudly proclaimed by nearly every institution in the country. 

If male academics "lining up to tell us what women want" are unacceptable then so be it.  From now on only females can comment on female issues......and only males get to comment on male issues.  See where that gets us.

Three posts, all entirely moderate in tone, preceded Snoweider's.  If that is a "toxic" environment and beyond allowable debate then perhaps she needs to look a little closer to home.   

Yes, that's saying the same thing.

So if I understand, you are saying that social pressures do indeed have a big effect, as evidenced by different gender balances in time and location, but that this doesn't show the "natural" balance is 50:50?  If so, that is correct but its a huge stretch to suggest that this "natural" balance is 80:20 in some areas.  If you are making this claim, or even a much smaller one of say 60:40, I think you have to provide the evidence for it that somehow controls for the social pressures, not expect others to find evidence against it.  As above, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some genetic effect but I don't believe it will be large.  

Also note that when it comes to choosing degree courses CS and engineering aren't commonly studied at school so children are making choices without really knowing whether they like these subjects or not, they have to base decisions on information from parents, role models and other sources that will naturally be heavily influenced by societal pressures.

It is not a reasonable point of view if it contradicts the available evidence.

In particular, the claim that we can't attract more women to work in computer science because of intrinsic biological differences between men and women looks particularly laughable when the share of women graduating in CS halved in 30 years.

This doesn't mean there aren't intrinsic difference, it's just that the claims that are being made are just complete speculations so far, which, I suspect, are more politically motivated than scientifically motivated.

Obviously, given my posting history, it should be clear I agree completely.

I saw this tweeted recently: 

https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/992019796685344768

Now obviously it isn't about CS or career-choice specifically, but it was an interesting graph and I think relevant to this discussion. 

As was noted, "For many, the bottom of this graph is evidence of systematic sexism; never mind the top...".

And as one of my old lecturers tweeted in response "has no one figured out you need to squeeze the tube at the top to get the paste to the bottom".

The diversity and inclusion agenda suffers from its narrow scope, and a failure (as Damore pointed out) to consider diversity beyond a few limited areas.

And, since the UK tends to ape trends in the US, it's worth noting that the University of Michigan currently employs 93 full time people (often on high salaries) to pursue its "diversity, equity and inclusion" agenda.  Yes, *93*.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/06/09/the-university-of-michi...

I’m disappointed that the graph isn’t in pink and blue. 

Indeed.  That would most definitely prove institutional sexism and the terrible depths of patriarchal oppression.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/597b/2daa8e2cb17dba9cb1806d4962e154189f9f....

It's an interesting article. I also remember reading something similar with kids who were presented as girls (regardless of actual gender) being perceived as making more eye contact and being more engaged with parents than the same children presented as boys. This kind of behaviour is then picked up and reinforced by positive feedbacks from parents.

Hi Coel, I would be one of those darned acredditors of which you speak... please don’t be alarmed, we come in peace

Athena Swan is a benchmarking excercise, and one where the department/ institution chooses the data to benchmark against. For example, if you were looking at gender balance among students, you’d probably compare male:female ratios against the same JACS code in other universities. If there was a 70:30 split across the sector, but a department had a 90:10 split, then that department would (should) need to understand and explain the reasons behind the difference. If an issue is found during this evaluation, then the department is free to propose any course of action that it can argue is appropriate. An award will be made, or not, on how effectively a department has evaluated its own position, and whether or not its action plan follows from the data.  There is no arbitrary figure attached to any form or representation. 

How is this even vaguely logical?

80/20 gender split in coding= V. bad

78/22 gender split in veterinary science= V. good???

Hi Pawthos,  thanks for your input, that's interesting.   What you say is not the impression that we sometimes get (OK, we may be wrong.) 

This suggests that we can achieve Athena Swan accreditation by being in line with national norms in our subject.  Is that true?  Certainly a "gold" award would seem to require approaching equality, not just being in line with national norms. 

From the website (added emphasis): "A Gold department award recognises significant and sustained progression and *achievement* by the department in promoting gender *equality* and to address challenges particular to the discipline. A well-established record of activity and *achievement* in working towards gender *equality* should be complemented by data demonstrating continued impact. Gold departments should be beacons of *achievement* in gender *equality* and should champion and promote good practice to the wider community."

Now it may be that a Bronze level award is indeed achievable by being in line with national norms, but it seems to require at least an aspiration and demonstrable effort towards 50:50 ratios, even if they're not achieved.  Or is this all a wrong impression?  

You mean about 1% of their annual budget. Not to mention their large endowment. Given the focus that US universities have on in-state students and the well known social problems within the state, it starts to look more reasonable. 

I think they must have done a version of that experiment.  

And if you had, I would have called 'shame', too.

A perfectly reasonable member of this community has decided to leave because of the perceived prevailing attitude, and this doesn't bother you?

It bothers me. It makes me think about my posts here, and what attitude I present to UKC (and the world), and what attitude UKC presents.

I'm no fan of enforced 'gender equality'; positive discrimination to one minority is negative discrimination to someone else. I work in a electronics, where males predominate. I would consider it unfair to modify our recruitment or promotion policies to be preferential. Unfair on everyone.

Coel's argument that the uptake of staff should be commensurate with A-level (or graduation) stats seems reasonable, but I would encourage STEM outreach to look at why uptake is lower.

I prefer equality of opportunity, which includes those STEM and outreach programmes I mentioned earlier.

What is an "intrinsic biological difference"?

An intrinsic property is one that manifests within, so I am referring to biological differences that are not caused by the environment. Or you could say "innate".

From my experience of working for D&E a bit, none of us are trying to achieve a 50/50 parity but to remove barriers that amplify disparity.  

If there was no difference between men and women there could not possibly be a deviation from 50/50 - that’s pure logic.  You need detectable differences to be able to treat people differently.

But there are differences - some genetic, some learned, some societal.  We have to recognise and understand those differences to understand how to remove factors that amplify those differences.  In my experience this almost always results in change that makes the workplace nicer for everyone.  

My growing feeling is that society as a whole is badly distorting right down to junior school - look at the targeting of girls by the fashion and cosmetic industries - two massive industries largely built on convincing especially one gender to depend on them by systematically attacking the core of their identity from their earliest years - without this you are ugly, you are not good enough, you don’t smell right, nobody will look twice at you, you won’t find love, you won’t succeed in the workplace.  You need us.  It’s a corrosive acid on society.

UK cosmetics is £10 Bn per year.  Each year I buy 4-5 bars of soap and one cheap bottle of shampoo...

But I do think that societal change involves every workplace and every school - all the work going on will spread and nudge society.  Returning to cosmetics, the problem is the industry has for the last decade been strategically expanding sales to men to grow their market, equality but not the better kind...

This kind of thing feels risky to me.

What if a department works towards full equality of opportunity and beyond, but persistently fails to reach close to a 50:50 split. 

Reaching true inequality of outcome (if a gold rating is the target) then only becomes possible by overshooting equal opportunity goals and introducing preferential placements for females.  Or if not preferential placements, creating an environment that is devoid of elements appealing to male interests.

Surely this is active discrimination against males, even if they do continue to constitute a majority?  Effectively a lack of gender equality because females would receive overtly preferential treatment.  Seems crazy.  Especially so if all we are doing is attempting to push a ball uphill with a piece of string.

In contrast to Snoweider, I think males surely have every right to feel entitled to an opinion if this is the case

Not that well paid (thread appropriate source)

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/worklife/careers/a33179/average-job-salarie...

I think the profession is pretty cool with the situation - we have had equality or female dominance for 20-30 years now. Some people do talk about widening participation for boys,  but no one is doing anything active about it AFAIK.  

Perceived barriers for male entry are that the profession does not pay that well and so boys are not as attracted to the degree, that being a vet is increasingly perceived as a female dominated job and that girls often outperform boys at school so are better placed to get the high grades required. 

All fair enough.

My concern is the case seems to be being made that the barriers to females entering certain sectors (due to lack of evidence of their existence, and only therefore assumed by outcomes) are subtle, insidious, and un-detectable.  That there may be no overt pressure against females but that the thousands of paper-cuts do have that impact.

There is a counter-argument here.  What about the males sitting in classes, or applying for positions, these days.  Already under-achieving.  Seeing tangible, specific, targetted efforts, from government down to careers advisors, to direct girls in to (ahem, well-paid) under-represented professions.  Massive investment that YOU are specifically wanted.

Might this have an effect of directly discouraging males?  We're not talking subtle here.  We're talking very unsubtle.  I've felt this to a degree when applying for jobs recently, where the job advert all but states "we really want BME/female" applicants.  

The issue at least seems worthy of discussion, and if we are going to have the perspectives of females given then also the perspectives of males would seem in order.  Just because one group happens to over-represented, doesn't mean their treatment is any better.

When you look at computing , for example, it's actually quite striking that there were lots of women, almost parity, in the field in its early years.

Many of them were in fact pioneers.

The share of women in computing fell drastically during the 80s coincidentally, with the boom of personal computing, and the marketing of computer as an expensive toy for men.

Within the enterprise as well, before the 80s operating a computer was seen as light industrial work or secretarial work "suitable" for women. As soon as it became clear that IT was actually a core strategic component that could provide for high status and high pay jobs, of course women were gently pushed out...

Now I'm not saying those who say biological differences play a role are wrong, I'm saying they probably need the look at quantifying how big a role it plays. Given that most of the variance across geography and time cannot be explained by biological factors, these claims are quite odd.

They give every indication of doing a good job too. 

http://diversity.umich.edu

How do we know if the different brain processes, chemistry,structures and activities of men and women are "innate" or are caused by the environment?

The simple fact that gender ratios vary widely by country makes your arguments nonsense. Why don't you do a simple search to see what the bulk of the research evidence out there says? It's all rather embarrassing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_disparity_in_computing

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/08/why-are-there-so-few-w...

I really hope Blank doesn't leave UKC.

I thought acids in cosmetics were banned,

This may be the nub of the issue.

We appear to want to convince ourselves otherwise, but I suspect, even if only subliminally, the following is still the case:

Boys are aware that the best predictor of their appeal to the opposite sex is status, and that this largely comes from their employment, within which is defined by seniority and income. 

They probably don't care if that profession is as an engineer or as a vet.  Whichever sectors allow them to exercise the skills they have to their maximum advantage (hence why unskilled male workers target dangerous, dirty or otherwise high paid manual labour) allowing for progression in status, and for income maximisation, they are likely to be especially driven to fill.

So long as women have wombs; will therefore leave professions for months, years, or permanently, to have children; and will rely on either their partner or the state to provide for their income during those periods; it strikes me that non-womb-bearers will continue to feel additional pressure (a pressure that women may be wholly unaware of) to secure jobs that provide status and income above all else. 

There may be intrinsic aptitude or interest differences between males and females.  But these are either minor, or likely to only play out at the exceptional ends of the bell curves.  Given employment choices between males and females appear to vary substantially over place and time, this might simply represent the different statuses or incomes those professions offer in those different eras or countries.  With males and females self-selecting in to those roles.  Males and females might simply, for the most part, have different drivers propelling them towards whichever sector best serves their interests.

I don't think we actually have much of a  clue about it.

It's actually worse : it's not even clear that abilities are generally normally distributed. It's just an assumption.

So even at the tails of the distribution it's not even clear that this would actually have an impact.

To sum it up : those who makes those claims actually have no f*cking clue.

My 22 year old daughter Had a 1st class degree in computer science. Works in London. In charge of a software integration team for the next few weeks. 

Her only experience of sexism sexism was in the university sector from students and professors. 

And neither do those who make claims females are discriminated against, denied entry, or generally the victims of malign influences preventing them from attaining placements into STEM.  There is no evidence to show that the barriers to their entry are higher than men's either.

The "those" you refer to should include people from both sides of the argument.  Though apparently, the researchers who focus on gender-difference and traits probably have a better idea than anyone here.

My arguments are basically that I don't think we should automatically accept that a "natural" sex balance in a particular profession would always be 50:50, and thus that we shouldn't necessarily aim for that.      

That is not refuted by the fact that ratios vary widely by country. I've never asserted that social factors are negligible.

Indeed, it's the people who discount underlying biology who think they know the relative importance of biology vs socialisation in such things. 

These things are often used as a stick to beat academics with - in which case, I am genuinely sad to hear it.  

I can't give you a straight/concise answer... it all depends on context (sorry).  For example, that department with the 90:10 split might be in a university that recruits students only from say a 50 mile radius where feeder schools/colleges have only 5% of female students enrolled on STEM subjects.  In this instance, a 10% female UG population might evidence a department working really hard with schools and being very successful in promoting STEM - excellent work, have a bronze!   

Silver and Gold are much more difficult and are tied to the performance of both the institution AND the other departments (that quote also refers to the numbers of departments holding which award and for how long plus the level of the institutional award).

I entirely agree with comments on this thread that 50:50 isn't realistic, nor aspirational.  A CS department with a 50:50 gender split, but demoralised and disenfranchised male staff wouldn't achieve anything, least of all an Athena Swan award. What is important is that the department and institution can demonstrate a sustained programme of work that removes artificial barriers wherever they are found, that this work has had measurable positive impacts for everyone, and that no-one was left behind during the process.  

Would Athena swan give an award to a vet school that managed to increase the proportion of boys recruited?

As an expert in this area, would you say that there still are artificial barriers in many fields, preventing fair access?

I've recently read our department's submission, written by a team who are fully on-board with this agenda, and thus trying hard to identify and remove such barriers.   On my reading, not one "action item" identified any real or actual "barrier", nearly all the action items were vague aspirational talk along the lines of "try harder to promote ...". 

So where in Coel's link did the writer attribute the gender disparity in CS to "innate biological differences"?

In my experience, the majority of men in tech are not sexist. There are a few dickheads of course but not the norm.

However, group behaviour can often be sexist without even being intentional.

If the environnement is male dominated, it's quite easy for the men to shut out the women without even realising they are doing it.

Brilliant film, and at least according to Wikipedia, true to the real story. 

Second time this year I’ve agreed with you on something Rom.  Good gods.

To clarify though:

In my post I was alluding to those differences affecting the course different people take through our education - junior, senior, further and higher, and to their different routes through industry.  This clearly has a much larger effect than any gender bias on intrinsic interest or ability, as evidenced by countless statistics comparing between different countries or single and mixed sex environments etc.

We aren't discussing those sorts of hard barriers here.  It's the softer ones, like the myriad assumptions, hints and omissions made well before career choices are even made that affect children's perceptions and ideas about different subjects.  Universities, companies, and professions have a duty, I think, to influence this environment by communicating better what subjects with large gender (or other) imbalances are about so children can make better and more informed choices.

More generally the shouty sides of these discussions on both sides are really annoying.  Ridiculous claims such as 80:20 being the natural state of affairs in CS on one side, and seeing absolutely everything through the lens of gender on the other, are entirely counter-productive.

But this in Norway, not the UK 

looks societal to meunless there's a genetic barrier at about 31E. 

His claim that "we will never reach gender parity" in tech, and that "Having 20 percent women in tech is probably the best we are likely to achieve" imply a fundamental impossibility linked to a difference between genders that we cannot change.

Well frankly I don't see how he comes up with those claims, which are in fact, easily rebutted with historical evidence of the contrary.

She would disagree  with you at Uni level.

In a work environment she finds it more balanced.

Where do their teachers do their first degree and then their PGCE?  I think there is a “memory cycle” that loops around schools and universities with influence drawn from the wider world.  Every part of that cycle is a chance to change things for the better.

I actually think of it more as a cyclical set of stochastic differential equations with several stable solutions across their parameter space.  To change the stable solution all equations need their parameters changing.

  I'll repeat my question.

 He cites potential explanations for his 20% estimate. Which one refers to "innate biological factors" (as opposed to you inferring innate biological factors)?

I've explained above. It's the necessary implication of his claim. 

I've not seen any clear explanation of his claim in the article.

  So, you've just inferred it. I see.

Yes, exactly, I've deducted it from reasoning.

But if you have another explanation as to why reaching parity would be impossible, I'm all ears.

The problem is by the time people reach the age where they will encounter these measures they've often been pre conditioned. Boys and girls school uniforms differ, separate sports lessons, hours of stereotypical roles in movies & tv programmes... friends, family and teachers who still live in middle ages... most kids career paths will start steering towards a given track when they pick their exams subjects aged 13 or so. 

Because you are more likely to be somewhere on the autism or aspergers spectrum, even if just by a small amount, as a boy than a girl. That's not to say everyone in IT has it to some level, but it is much more prevalent in males and some of these traits do lend themselves to very specific employment sectors? Wonder if there are any studies or genuine correlation & causation.

Adopted twin studies in the last 20 years put intellect down to 50% genetic, 50% environment. So why can't the kind of work you are drawn to be at least 50% genetic influence too? 

  Where does he say that it is "impossible", rather than that it won't be achieved?

   Maybe sees no likelihood of the biological differences changing in the foreseeable future, or maybe ever? There could be lots of reasons for that.

Recently it’s becoming clear that autism is massively under diagnosed in women and girls, and that actually it seems likely that as this is addressed it will be an even split.  

Do you think your department is ahead of the curve on equality, or are your Athens Swan team behind?

I ask as astronomy in the UK and internationally isn’t exactly a beacon of best practice in terms of working environments.

There have been several high profile cases of people in senior positions across the field significantly abusing those positions and junior staff - disproportionately women.  There’s been a lot of social media activity on the subject as well.  One doesn’t have to speak with many early career researchers in the field to hear of this institution or that failing to tackle professor XYZ.   

Geoffry Marcy wasn’t a one off lapse of judgment kind of a problem.  He was an example of decade long failings at multiple levels of an institution to tackle someone harassing female students and covering their arse instead.   The ETH Zurich example is insane - the whole institute shut down in relation to bullying by senior management; both male and female.

I’m curious - are you hoping to make a positive contribution to your departments team based on the views sought in this thread?

Perhaps. Only going on what I've read. I see no why reason why it might not be, time for better testing and studies. 

I think parents and nursery staff looking after tiny pre school children is a good place to start.  But obviously you are right, it needs change all around.  

Im not sure what happened in the 1980s.  I was at school then, and stereotypes seem to have got worse and not better.  Things which were unfashionable then are back in fashion, including the idea that girls are pretty and not clever and like pink shiny stuff.  

Some good stuff happening here - mostly in primary schools

http://www.fascinate.manchester.ac.uk/

I don't disagree that conditioning is pervasive and starts at birth. But there's not much I can do about that, except try to counter it where I can; trying to encourage my nieces, and support my company's outreach programme. We start as early as we can; pre secondary school.

Disappointingly, the daughter of one of my friends came home from school with a 'match the jobs to the sex' sheet. To her credit, she answered 'either' to every job. Sadly, there seemed to be no follow up discussion, so the point of the work seemed confused at best, or, at worst, promoting retrogressive attitudes.

Of course you can only influence the elements you control. 

My sister in law, a teacher, when her child was born said "I am so glad I had a boy so we will be able to do outdoor things together". I just bit my tongue a little and pointed out that she was a girl, the point seemed lost on her. I despair.

It's the same thing. If can't be achieved then by definition, it's impossible.

Well that is exactly what I am saying, the only explanation for his claims is that somehow these fundamentals, irremovable differences are putting a lower bound on the gap.

It seems to be a compeltely substantiated claim, and moreover, an slightly odd one, given that we observe a large historical and geographical variance, suggesting that large changes are perfectly possible.
 

 Where did he say it "can't" be achieved?

  He might believe that that there societal reasons why the biological differences will not change, maybe ever, or more likely within his career or his lifespan.

you got any references on that, I've seen a few articles from 2011 (eg Gould &Ashton-Smith) but nothing much newer or follow ups / developments of their ideas/proposals. 

Whenever people try to put women and men into categories they tie themselves in knots. Its complicated but not that difficult to understand.

This equality and diversity thing. People should just check who has the power. It generally ain't women. Maybe a more equal society might reduce the number of equality and diversity agendas. Maybe if people shared the money round more, people would be less unhappy. 

It ain't rocket science. 

I don't really know how astronomy rates compared to other fields.  It's hard to go by the number of publicised scandals unless one is confident that all such things are known about.

No, not really, just discussing the issues. 

He claims: "We will never reach gender parity".  If gender parity in tech is unreachable , then, by definition, it can't be achieved (and vice versa)

Sure, fine, he might, but I really don't see how this is relevant at all to his point or mine.

   You are unaware of the difference between "cannot" and "will not"?

   So you agree that if the biological differences are the result of environment they may never change? Good, you agree.

Well, I’ve never seen an application quite like that... but some of the best ones I’ve seen are where the department finds a different issue to the one they expected and moved to address it - for example, white males underperforming in assessments and being disproportionately more likely to drop out than females of any ethnicity. I think it was in a successful silver application and under the old principles too. 

Because both subjects are science based. So saying women aren’t interested in science is clearly nonsense. 

QED

Feck me!!  Didn't know about that.

Has anyone on this thread said that?    

There does seem to be a difference in sex balance between things like chemistry, physics, engineering and comp sci, on the one hand, and things like biology, veterinary science, medicine and social science on the other.  All of these are science based. 

You said...

What I don't understand is why you'd think a degree subject with no gender bias ends up with a massive gender imbalance of 78% female graduates and how on Earth this would reflect equality of opportunity let alone outcome.

If we should decry the fact that computer sciences attract far more men than women then why should the reverse in another field be celebrated?

Edit: typo.

it's something we consider in our submissions (Psychology not Vets)

i really shouldn’t go around pretending to be an expert in anything  

But I will say an application that is vague in the way you suggest probably won’t go down very well with the committee. I wonder if the SAT have found a ‘critical freind’ to review the application? 

PS - thank you for such an interesting and thought provoking post too! There’s a lot of food for thought on this thread.

Because women are clearly interested in science. So something is going on that is steering them into one field of science instead of another.

Yawn.  I have said the same thing to other posters that announce their departure previously.

The OP has generated quite an interesting discussion - which the departed's post looks a little odd within now.

That's got a shocking male bias too.

I am aware thanks.
But if something will never happen, it also cannot happen, and vice versa. They don't mean the same thing but one implies the other. 

You can keep splitting hairs if you like, but I don't see what is it you gain from this.

It's a possibility, I don't see the relevance to the point though.

I'll restate it simply since it seems to be difficult :

His claims is that we will never reach parity, and that at best we will probably do about 20%.
I don't see even a glimpse of scientific evidence backing up this claim.

Simply not true.

  If the environmentally based biological differences may never change then their possible outcomes ie.gender disparities may never change. Therefore, his argument that the disparities won't change is not contingent upon the biological differences being innate. It's not difficult and you have already agreed that the premise is possible.

Is anybody saying that the reverse should be celebrated ? If yes that strikes me a quite dumb. I think the main point here is that there is strong evidence that diversity in the workplace (in gender but also in cultural background) generates better returns. In fact it is a well studied phenomenon, diverse groups tend to outperform homogeneous groups, even homogeneous groups of high ability individual. The focus on diversity in the workplace is therefore, by and large, the result of cold calculation. If hiring 10 engineers at the top of their game, all male, white and British is more expensive and produce less revenue that hiring a more diverse group of engineers, simply because the diverse group can leverage synergies that emerge out of their differences, then positive discrimination makes sense.

The irony is that this argument actually doesn't deny that there are differences between people and gender (innate or otherwise) on the contrary, it highlights their value.

I can see how this change we are going through can feel threatening for white males, but overall, they are in fact likely to increase their own productivity as result of this increased diversity, and gain as well.

You are going to have to explain to us how something that will never happen can happen.

I'll let you mull that one !

Ok, sure, but given that it's unclear whether that premise is true, it's a moot point, and either way, doesn't address the problem with his claim.

That's depressing, isn't it?

Dear Blank

I don't think we have ever conversed directly, but you are/have been nevertheless one of my favourite posters. You never show off, you are supportive and generous, always intelligent and with significant insight in some areas. Despite provocation and opportunity I have never seen you stoop to snide mocking - as some on this thread have done - remaining unfailingly courteous, honest and sensible. In short, you are bloody great. 

But for me your chief characteristic is courage, and I applaud the courage in this, your final post, even as I regret it. This forum desperately needs more posters like you, not fewer, and I wish you would stay as a role model for others less courageous than you. 

Best wishes.

Thank you for this post.

xxx

It is. Especially a teacher. But I blame her parents, her mother never worked(through choice), dad was the bread winner etc.. conditioned. 

Maybe because of observable genetic, chemical and hormonal differences in men and women, women on average have less desire for power and money etc... ? Even if every country in the world had equal availability, you would never have equal up take in every profession, every board of directors, every ftse CEO? But that does not mean that society shouldn't strive for equal chances for all, just not get hung up on specific results. 

Average differences between groups do not necessarily drive average differences between individuals, and vice versa.

A common fallacy, unfortunately.

Of course... But men and women are different genetically, physically, hormonally..  you don't think this has any difference on our traits and desires? 

Around 2 million years of our species evolution where women gave birth and raised children etc... in a small tribal setting, might just have a greater influence than less than 100 of relatively equal rights to vote, work and education. 

As I said above, we should strive for giving everyone equal chances, but not be disappointed when up take varies. No one uses column inches complaining about the lower numbers of men in nurseries, dental nurses, hair salons, mid wifes etc.. 

Interesting thanks, I’ve always perceived Athena Swan as purely a female equality orientated exercise but clearly not - the example of focusing on poorly performing white males is a good one and a pressing societal challenge in some communities, occasionally brought up on threads like these.

Well, both are science based, but the job you might expect to go into at the start of the degree is quite different - fluffy kittens and so on vs long hours in spent of a VDU.  Perhaps people are interested in the career first and the science second?

The underperformance at secondary  school of white English boys from working class areas is a massive issue and one that all teachers should be aware of.  It's the other side of the coin.  

It's anecdotal I'm afraid.  As a late diagnosed female I've met lots of others in the same position and as a teacher I see an equal split.  I can have a look for anything official later.  

That comment reminds me of the Harry Enfield sketch. 

Yes that it's probably true, but this doesn't mean this explains the gender balance deviation in the workplace. It's flawed reasoning to just assume that it does.

Maybe, maybe not, either way, it shows how large and varied the variation in the role of women in society can be. This suggests that transitory factors are far more important than permanent ones.

And my guess is that such large imbalance is probably damaging for these traditionally female occupations. As I've explained in another post there are good scientific reason to think that diverse groups perform better.

I agree with you. My post was in response to this:

Which was a comment on 78% of veterinary grads being women.

If there isn't a male/female bias the split would be closer to 50/50, no?

Pretty much by definition, yes.

No, not by definition.  That would presume that the natural ratio is always 50:50, such that deviation from that must be caused by bias in the profession. 

Where have your ideas on this come from? What makes you think that any difference is genetic, rather than environmental? 

One thing that I've noticed is that when women are on their own, they are far more competitive, assertive and aggressive. I think part of this is that women are taught from an early age that these things are threatening and unattractive to men, and the second reason is that people get more competitive when they are closely matched in the chance that they might win. If you know you will win, you can be quite relaxed about it, if you know you will lose, you don't really try. When you *might* win, you get more fired up.

Why (on earth???) do you think this would hold true independently of socialisation? Most of the football seen is men playing football. Most famous footballers are male. Girls are encouraged from an early age to be quiet, to play nicely, to be careful.

Another clue that the social effect (rather than genetics) is strong is when ratios change over time, for example with the number of women politicians.

Dr Sarcasm says “yes, you are clearly right, as one can tell by the high level of similarity between different social cultures world wide.”

So your contention is that one gender is more suited to veterinary science than the other? Really?

I'm not suggesting that it's entirely genetic, of course environmental influences are important. 

But things like twin studies tell us that, as a rule, genetic factors are important -- much more so than commonly supposed.  As a rule of thumb, both genetic and environmental factors have large and significant roles. 

Which is true.  There is indeed a lot of similarly between how human society operates across the world and across time.   Generally, a person can go and live in another culture and find a lot of similarity in how people think, feel, interact, etc.  They don't feel they are amongst an alien species, they can fit in fairly readily. 

No, my contention is that a higher fraction of one sex thinks that healing sick animals as a career attracts them.

Perhaps certain traits suit certain jobs. A lone working engineer versus say a nurse on an intensive care ward team, both have a technical or scientific academic level, but also require different personal traits? Overall are all traits equal across the sexes? 

There is a slightly frustrating way these conversations tend to go:

A) Adopts general presumption that everything is social, and that genetics are irrelevant.

B) But genetics are likely to be equally important.

A) But the evidence for social effects is strong, how can you say that everything is genetic and that there are no social effects?

B) I'm not, I'm saying that both are important.

A) But what makes you think genetics are important; the evidence that social effects are important is strong!

B) No-one is denying that social effects are strong, but we shouldn't automatically discount genetics.

A) But why are you dismissing social effects, they are clearly strong!

Presumably following on from the assumption that women are genetically programmed to be more nurturing than men.

There has been a huge shift in the typical Dads engagement with their children over a very short period of time. There has been no corresponding shift in genetics, these changes are purely societal. For me this really calls into question many of the old assumptions about genetically assigned roles.

So it’s not the science that they don’t want to do. It’s the environment that they don’t want to be in. 

I know lots of women in marketing; building websites and coding apps.

I don’t spend all day in front of an LCD programming. That’s just one aspect of my job.

The environment is heavily influenced and pretty much created by the people who inhabit it. Mainly men in a male dominated environment and women in a female dominated environment. 

The link between behaviour, personality and genetics is something that is studied quite a bit by psychologists.

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201509/what-behavio...

the main thing is that as sentient beings we can recognise and alter our behaviour. 

Did anyone claim we can't?

No, I'm not assuming anything, I'm just trying to *interpret* the fact that lots of women with good grades opt for veterinary science whereas fewer women with good grades opt for engineering. 

Now it could be biases in those professions; or it could be what tends to interest women (or a mixture of both). 

Yep. The original OP claimed we can never get better than 20% women in CS. 

In that article he said it was not *likely*, and in the context of the article -- written from the point of view of a comp sci dept -- it was assuming that wider society would be much as now. 

To a large extent, the article was asking what a comp sci dept can do and how well a comp sci dept can do, given wider society (which an individual university dept can't do much to change on its own). After all, that is the question that such depts get asked and that is what things like Athena SWAN are all about.

I'd agree that men and women are different it's just that I believe that by far the greater proportion of those differences stem from societal influence over innate behavioural programming. 

An 80/20 gender split in areas such as career or degree choice seems wholly artificial.

I would hope that Univerisities don’t exisit in isolation to the local community at large. That they’re creating links with local businesses and schools. 

Sitting back, shrugging shoulders and saying “it’s a fair cop, guv, society’s to blame” won’t change anything. 

  Have you actually read the link? An excerpt,

"I have been a champion of using undergraduate TAs in introductory programming classes. I set up undergraduate TA programs at Stanford and Arizona that continue to this day and we have a thriving program at UW. I was co-author of an IEEE article entitled, “Broadening Participation: The Why and the How.” My work with introductory courses and undergraduate TAs factored into the selection in 2015 of UW as the inaugural winner of the Excellence in Promoting Women in Undergraduate Computing prize awarded by NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology)."

Agreed, and most university depts put efforts into that.  But, it doesn't really help an individual department, since only about 15% of students stay local in their choice of university.  Most students see it as an opportunity to fly the nest and live somewhere else for a while.

So, if a department puts efforts into science workshops for 13-yr-old girls in local schools, it might be a good thing to do in its own right, but it doesn't really budge the stats for intake sex ratio at *that* department.  

Agreed, but is anyone advocating that?  If you read the article linked to in the OP, he's active and fully supportive of outreach efforts. 

Twin studies tells us that, as a rule of thumb, the variation in such traits is typically 50:50.  Both environmental/social and genetic factors are roughly equally important. 

Yes, this is counter to common opinion, which does tend to discount the role of genetics, but the hard evidence is that common opinion is wrong on this. 

Are you saying difference in between twins preferences and personalities are 50:50?  If so, fine, but that is very different from suggesting any difference in male/female preferences is also like this.  

You seem to be completely ignoring the repeatedly made point that CS has historically not been 80:20 but much more equal, even biased towards women.

Not only is this counter to common opinion, it's counter to common sense and common place observations on gender changes in the workplace. 50 years ago women doctors and lawyers were a rarity, now slightly more women graduate in both fields and yet you insist environmental/social and genetic share equal responsibility for career choices? To put it bluntly ...My Arse!

Link to the studies?

In the early 80s I was at an all boys school. Probably 4 of us could type. The computer geeks. Typing was for girls. 

I wonder what the percentage of men v women can type now...

You're assuming that roughly equal -- on average -- influences from environment and genes leads to outcomes that have the same proportion.  That's not true.    Of course there are examples where social factors dominate.  If society has a rule "women can't do X" and another doesn't, then of course that rule is then the biggest factor. 

But, that's not really what I'm discussing.  All along I'm discussing what would happen in a hypothetical, perfect, un-baised society, where career choices then came down to people's free choice about what interests them.   I suspect that genetic differences would play a large role in how someone chose. 

  Well, one possibility is that this is because other choices have become more available to women which may play better to their relative skills. As the article points out, womens' aptitude for STEM subjects is equal or better than mens'. However, they seem to do better at verbal (and caring).

  So, as options such as medicine became more available more women opted for them?

Not at all.  I've never denied that societal factors can be hugely influential.  Again, I'm asking about what the *natural* ratio would be in a hypothetical unbiased society. 

And again, why is is that the claim "both environment and genetics have strong roles" always gets interpreted as "only genetics has a strong role"?

Why is it that "in this situation, environment is clearly important" gets presented as a refutation of "both environment and genetics have strong roles"? 

In this instance because the essay you linked is obviously bollocks.  It is entirely possible to have more than 20% females in CS.  We know this because it used to be the case.

As society has become less gender biased we're starting to find out. Many fields that were once regarded as entirely unsuited to women are turning out to be emminently suitable.

That isn't my interpretation. I just think that the role of genetics (outside of careers demanding physical strength) has long been massively overstated and is nowhere near your suggestion of 50/50.

Because the huge expansion of women into traditionally male dominated spheres over a very recent time period would indicate that the importance of genetics has long been overstated.

Edit:typo.

By the way, on conceptual fallacies.  The statement:

"The difference in the sex ratio being 20:80 in Country A in 2005 and being 50:50 in Country B in 1985 is clearly down to social factors"

... is quite obviously true (there will be little difference in genetics in those two comparisons). 

But, from that, it simply does not follow that:

"The 20:80 disparity between the sexes in Country A in 2005 is clearly down to social factors".  

That's an entirely separate question and needs to be considered afresh.  After all, there *are* systematic genetic differences between the two groups being considered, whereas in the previous comparison there weren't. 

What is the purpose of looking at a ‘hypothetical unbiased society’?

Of course if the society was unbiased then nothing would be biased by societal pressures. 

Society is not biased and so you can’t separate the two  

Talk about taking the least charitable interpretation possible of what he said! 

In saying what he thought was *likely* (he didn't say not possible) he was of course making assumptions about how society would be.

Of course it's possible to have 50:50 parity in CS admissions. All you need is a government that passes a law telling CS depts not to admit more men than women!  Easy!

But the suggestion by Reges was that -- in Western countries where people have an open and wide choice of life-style and career options, and can pursue what interests them and can be confident of the financial security to do that -- that we are unlikely to have parity.    That middle bit is crucial to what he was saying.

I'm asking whether we should "aim for" sex ratios of 50:50 in everything. Or, should we aim instead for an unbiased society (with not necessarily taking departure from 50:50 as indicative of bias).

There seems to be a mix of the use of genetics and gender in this thread from all parties. There seems to be a lot of "boys like this/girls like that" style comments that point to a binary situation, whereas preferences/abilities across a gender are variable and as societal pressures change, we might be seeing people able to follow their own preferences, as opposed to the preferences assigned to them by society.

I find it a fascinating topic and agree that the splitting of genetic, gender and societal influences in any research is problematic. As the father of two daughters, both who looked reasonably gender neutral as babies/toddlers (lack of hair, we aren't really into pink and blue etc), they were treated very differently depending which gender they were assumed to be.

If you added, "in which society explicitly and implicitly implies what you should aspire to be in life throughout your formative years" I think you might be on to something......

Really? There's a hell of a lot in that essay. Even if 80/20 is incorrect, to simply say the essay is bollocks points to how (and I can find no better way of putting this) f*cked up the diversity and equality debate is. 

Yes, you can use that to predict outcomes at an individual level and that's very powerful. But at group level it breaks down and is not stastically significant.

The problem is that twin studies can only explain the variation between individuals, not between groups. 

For example, a properly run twin study can tell you with a high degree of confidence, for ex, that people born with gene A are more likely to go in profession B. 

However, it is simply incorrect to use that as an explanatory statement about the prevalence of gene A in profession B. And even more incorrect to deduce causal relationship.

Unfortunately this is a very common mistake to make.

The reality is there there isn't any evidence as to how much of the gender gap at group level is nature vs nurture on things like job/career outcomes. the sample sizes required to test it are too big.

However on a case by case basis it can be easy to disprove the influence of genes above a threshold. It's on of those thing where proving something is false is much easier than proving it's true.

Twin studies are a method for partitioning variance, normally for the purpose of estimating heritability.  They are used to describe population level characteristics and are nothing do do with trying to identify causal genes or differences between groups (or individuals).

They are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion as you cannot separate the shared environment effects of gender from the biological differences.  I'm not sure if 'genetic' is even the correct term to use when referring to 'innate' gender differences.

Well yes but the premise of his question is that there isn't any bias.

Well exactly, but believe it or not the internet is full of people who claim that twin studies explain outcomes differences between men/women...

Or, from a slightly different perspective, adopts the general presumption "men are bad and women are weak", a profoundly anti-human position. 

I'm not sure that anyone here has done that explicitly.  There is, however, a tendency for people to dismiss genetic variance when discussing behavioural or personality trait variation in a way that they are much less likely to do with morphological differences. In that sense it is worth making the point that these traits often have very high heritabilities, even if that doesn't directly relate to gender.

It is also worth making the converse point.  i.e. that all of the problems that make identifying innate gender differences difficult, make it just as hard to identify environmental differences.  That is probably a lesson that some people here could do with acknowledging.  Simply pointing to variation in gender differences in different populations is not adequate.

Some overall comment in an attempt to clarify:

There are of course huge social affects on sex ratios, and these often dominate. In a society that says "women may not do X" any genetic variation is pretty irrelevant.

But the whole question is, what happens as we move towards a better, unbiased society?  (Which is what we all want, and which is the direction we're surely headed, even if one thinks that we've a long way to go.)

If you think that genetics plays no role then, as societal bias is progressively removed, the outcome will head towards 50:50 parity. 

But, this "genetics plays no role" idea is wrong.  And, as we progressively remove societal bias, genetics will become a bigger part of what is left, and so will come to dominate the resulting ratio. 

That's a necessary conclusion. Even if you think that genetic effects are much less than societal ones, if we do manage to even out all societal biases, such that societal effects on sex ratios become zero, then sex ratios deriving from people's choices will become dominated by any systematic genetic differences. 

That's inevitable unless either (1) genetic effects are always negligible (which is refuted by twin studies), or (2) we don't aim for an unbiased society, we aim for a societal bias that exactly counters any systematic genetic differences (some might want to do that).

So, as we progressively make society fairer and better, innate, genetic and natural differences between different groups will come to the fore. (That conclusion is perhaps counter-intuitive, but it's basic logic.) That's why it's legitimate to ask, as I am doing, what effects such innate differences have. 

Strikes me as a fair question to ask, but it does beg the question of how do the somewhat arbitrary course/career sector boundaries align with genetic differences ?  So you could postulate, for instance, that empathy is a genetic trait where women are stronger than men - but the need for empathy spans most activities.  So establishing genetic difference (say empathy) still doesn't establish a reason for disparity in specific courses/careers.

The impact of empathy as a trait is likely to be too infinitely debatable.  I'd expect pregnancy, and all the drivers that go with it, would have a more profound and measurable effect on career and life interests in women.

One of the criticisms of modern feminism has been its desire to disregard aspects of motherhood, presumably as traditional parenting roles are seen as conservative values and oppressive.  Strikes me that in wanting to eliminate possible prejudices we intentionally try to ignore some pretty self-evident differences between males and females.

Which is a shame in my opinion. These debates always seem to focus on how to get women into traditionally male dominated jobs - why is that? Why are we not worrying about getting men into female dominated fields? There seems to be an inherent sexism within society where we still consider jobs that are mostly done by women to be low status, whereas traditionally male jobs are considered to be higher status.

What is the % of female primary school teachers to male primary school teachers? Primary school teacher not exactly a "low status".

It is odd, as you say public perception..  But then you have celebrity status male hairdressers or chefs.. who are lauded etc.. 

If more men found employment in predominantly female sectors, it would free up jobs for the opposite too. Everyone gets the job they enjoy, not the one society perceived they should take. 

Rare to make the news, but I saved this one from a while back.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44117542

That is not necessarily true, this will be the case only of those genetic differences actually have any sort of significant impact on the group differences of social outcomes. Which is compeltely unproven in most of the cases discussed here (you can't show that with a twin study)

The problem lies is proving causation, I could probably show that there is a smaller proportion of people with small feet working in tech, than of people with big feet (given that there are less women in tech, and, on average, they have smaller feet).

But it would be ridiculous to go on claiming that I have statistical evidence that women don't go to tech jobs simply because they are born, on average, with smaller feet

A lot of these claims rest on exactly the same spurious correlations (women are on average better at caring so they prefer this or prefer that, therefore it explains a natural gap etc etc, you get the gist), it just sounds more credible than my feet story because it runs along a familiar trope, but it is just as unscientific and fallacious.

I agree with what you have said here. However, it's pretty much impossible to sort out the genetic component from the social component. And of course, as a scientist, you know that being humans, of course we can't know how our views are affected by our own biases. So your own ideas about what a 'natural' ration might be, or how much of the issue is caused by genetics v. social issues is not something that you can trust without robust evidence.

And like you have already said, both are more or less outside of the power of your department to do anything about.

I don't think it is actually about ever getting a 50:50 ration, but rather a political agenda of being seen to do the 'right' thing. So that within your department, it is seen that the different ratio is noticed, and that strategies to address it are documented. In some ways, it simply doesn't matter if the ratio *isn't* 50:50, as long as politically, the department can show all the things that it has done to change this. What they actually want is a list of actions that they can use to be blameless, that they can point to whenever the ratio comes up.

Did you ever read that interesting thing about the orchestra auditions? http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind...

Perhaps low status was the wrong phasing but I wouldn't describe primary school teaching as a high status job.

I think I've read that before but it's really interesting. I've never been sure why there isn't more gender and name blind recruitment generally, at least at the application/CV stage. Seems like an easy way to reduce at least a little unconscious (or conscious) bias.

You’re not wrong - that’s how it started. The self evaluation documents seemed to consistently flag up issues with other groups (for example, working class males, Muslims of any gender and so on ) so the principles were expanded.

I would argue it is low status for a graduate (post-graduate) profession. Lower status than secondary, which tends to have considerably more opportunities for advancement and isn’t female dominated in the way that primary is.

Are we not missing something fundamentally here?

 I honestly do not know a single person who wouldn’t attempt to lead the career they want rather than the career society perceives they should take. I have two daughters, one is about to start studying to be an Astro-physicist and then wants to join the army as a captain and the other wants to join the army as a captain and choose a discipline then. 

Does anybody know of anyone who wanted to do something but didn’t because of “society’s perception “?

I think that the converse point is actually a lot easier to evidence, that is because you can compare the same variable.
Say for example I'm studying the gender gap between 2010 and 2018, and I find a 10% difference between the two samples.
The chance that this variation is the result of innate differences being distributed unequally between my two samples by pure chance is extremely small (provided you have done a proper job with the sample of course)

However to work your way up from statistical evidence of gender specific traits, to proving causation of group differences, that's a lot harder to do.

I think it is highly likely that many women who were brought up more traditionally wouldn't believe they were capable of becoming a computer programmer (for example).  Many men who were brought up in an old fashioned way might not choose a female dominated job because other men would call them sissy and similar.  

I can think of 3 different examples of cultural reference to boys/men doing ballet and the name calling they suffered.  

I would suggest that going into the military for a woman is reasonably main stream.

Far more so than CS which is what these topics tend to focus on, where women are clearly underrepresented .

I think that pretty much describes all the career advice we had at school. Aim low and don't push above your station was the message we were given. I know people who were flat out told that their aspirations to be doctors, lawyers or start their own business etc were ridiculous. It took a hard nosed attitude to push against the expectations.

That's the problem; what people 'want' is strongly influenced by social pressures. 

You might want to look up the percentage of female officers then

You had some pretty shit career advisors then! That certainly isn’t the case now.

You’re deliberately missing my point I think. 

There’s nothing “untraditional” about the way we brought up our kids! Society has influenced them into believing they can do whatever they choose for a career.

Which is all very well if you are interested in what factors caused the differences between 2010 and 2018.  What you cannot do (from that data)  is conclude anything from this about the magnitude (or indeed existence) of any innate differences separated from social effects.  We are generally interested in whether or not we are presenting a level playing field here and now, and if not, what we should change.

For example, if you were to study gender ratios in the presidential bodyguard of the Libyan president in 1970 compared to 1990, you would probably notice that there were strong and opposing biases.  You would (correctly) conclude from that that variation in social factors between the two periods likely explained  most or all of the observed biases.  It would be a fallacy to further conclude that this meant that in the absence of these factors, males and females are equally likely to want to be bodyguards.  It may be true, but you haven't shown it.

How many school kids are influenced by dark age teachers on their exam options choice? The same for family and parents? 

Then add in peer pressure, for A levels, Uni. Yes some do it their own way, I'm sure many follow the crowd too. 

I'm sure many think they are deciding for themselves, but they've had their view point conditioned through 11 or 13 years of education, where boys and girls are treated differently. 

I doubt it.

Hardly look at UK school uniform obsession. Boys trousers and rugged shoes, girls a skirt and dainty shoes... separate sports lesson for boys and girls and so forth. They have been treated differently since they were 5. 

I think that might very well depend upon the school one goes too

From my Comp. in the 80s less than 10% went for A levels and absolutely no mention of university. There were no staff who inspired children to achieve, it was basically churning out factory workers fodder. Fortunately I left and did A levels at college instead, but sadly thousands of kids had any motivation sucked out of them.

A few questions on the OP. When did the balance of female coders to male coders change was it in the early eighties? This was the time when the likes of ZX spectrums, Commodores etc became popular for gaming and many young men became amateur coders and hence went on to be professionals - i.e. it was the birth of home computers that made the change. Were females as interested in these early home computers and gaming as their male counterparts? Is initial interest in CS today stimulated through gaming?

CS is a relatively new science subject, but also a rapidly changing one and perhaps the employment ratios and fluctuations may partially due to the above. Some would say this was due to social conditioning on the males but some might suggest more males are genetically more switched on to competivity and hence gaming. May the nature/nurture argument rumble on,

Yes, but you can use that to dismiss claims that parity can never be achieved because of fundamental innate difference when the data shows large historical or geographical variations caused by the environment.

Although you are addressing something that wasn't mentionned, this is absolutely  correct, but I am not making any such conclusion, on the contrary.

OK, but again, I don't think that anyone has claimed otherwise.  As Coel pointed out earlier achieving gender parity in any field could be achieved instantaneously with the appropriate intervention.  The important question is whether parity can be achieved equitably and whether it is something that we should be aiming to achieve.

Well yes, Coel says there is evidence from twin studies that this is 50:50, he quotes an article that says we can't do better than 20%, Postmanpat says there are less women in tech because they are better at "verbal" and "caring", etc etc etc ...

All of this is fallacies, bad reasoning, and familiar tropes.

Science = statistically significant.

Well I think it has to be again evidence based, there is strong evidence that diverse groups, generally speaking, tend to outperform homogenous groups.

In that regards maximising diversity seem to be a good idea. And I suspect the main driver behind the diversity agenda is in fact economic.

Of course if you are in the majority group this may seem unfair at first as essentially the minority group will be prioritised. However this may be short sighted, as even the groups currently in the majority could potentially benefit from the opportunistic  effect of a more varied workforce.

My argument in favour of the diversity agenda is therefore not based on a political  claim that everybody is equal and should be treated the same.

On the contrary, it recognises that we are quite different, for various unquantifiable reasons (innate or environmental), and that we can create value out of these, and eventually benefit from it. It's a self interested argument of sorts .

In other words, you are are anti equality, but pro diversity.

I am pro equality in rights. "All human are born free and equal in rights" I think Jefferson and Lafayette got it right with that one. The equality warriors would be better off focusing on that.

For the rest, I don't really care, if equality occurs, fine, if not, never mind.

And yes, pro-diversity purely for pragmatic reasons. 

That can only be true if there are systematic differences between how men and women tend to think and the attitudes they tend to have.  If there weren't, then having male/female diversity would not affect outcomes.  

And anyone arguing that must hold that men and women tend to have different attitudes.   Which means that anyone arguing that would not expect that free choice in an unbiased society would lead to gender parity in all professions. 

That doesn't follow at all. The benefits of diversity could well (probably do to a large extent) stem from different social effects such as upbringing, education, culture etc. 

Out of interest what is it? I would put the military down as being pretty diverse compared with alot of other areas.

I have 2 daughters. One did CS- about 5% of students were women. Other daughter will be doing a Maths degree - seems to be about about a 50/50 split.

As an outside observer CS does appear have an issue. And from what I know its got less diverse in the last 5 years.

And if Maths can get almost a 50/50 split, I can see no reason for CS not being in the same category.

Well maybe, but if that were the underlying attitude then people would be just as concerned with class diversity, economic-status diversity and viewpoint diversity.  But they're not, indeed viewpoint diversity is one thing that is definitely *not* wanted, and indeed actively deplored.

Rubbish. There are extensive "outreach" efforts to get those who might not attend university because of background to go.

Only 10% according to recent stats. Yet the Army is in the top 50 female employers!

I suppose the advantage is that it is changing and women have always been in the military from all sorts of backgrounds and with a variety of options.

But any male who does become a primary school teacher is more likely to have it inferred that he is either "girly" or a pervert - and that suggestion is more likely to come from the children's mothers or women in general.

When I was at primary school the mix was roughly 50:50, but now it's gone majorly female - end result; young boys think education is a "girls thing", so boys are doing less well in education.

A major reason that males and females tend to isolate into different occupations is down to their parents views, and a lot of this comes from their MOTHERS.

I'm amazed people are continuing to talk about James Damore as if he has anything useful to say. Not only does he have some very outdated views about gender in general, but he has a very narrow view of what being a software engineer is really about. The posted article seems to share that as well.

Are you sure you read the same memo?

The notable thing about the Damore affair isn't so much what he said, it's the fact that a good-faith attempt to discuss the issues was treated as so heretical as to be unacceptable and a sacking offence.

Rather incongruous to say that in a comment explaining how much you value viewpoint diversity? 

I agree fully. I just don't attempt to make a claims about the origin of those differences.

Yes, I agree, as I've said, it's a position that fully recognises there are differences, but without making frankly fallacious/spurious/unscientific claims about their origin.

What I really disagree with conceptually is that there is some sort of "natural" ratio we would converge to as society becomes "unbiased". It doesn't make sense to me because there isn't such a thing, almost by definition, as an unbiased society. Any kind of society or even just culture, is a form of "bias". 

So you don't think we can have a society in which there is no bias pushing women versus men towards or away from certain professions? 

Well, maybe not, but it's what things like Athena SWAN ask us to aim for, and it seems worthwhile to consider the concept as a thought experiment and to ask what the outcome would then be.

I don't know, I am just pointing out that there is no society without group behaviour, and group behaviour by definition is a bias from the "natural" individual behaviour (if there even is such a thing).

So this idea that society can be "unbiased" seems illogical to me, society, by its very definition, will be biased, the question is how.  

Is it ? It seems to me their aim is just to increase gender diversity, because, presumably, they have worked out that this is in the public interest.

Whether they are correct in that assessment is the real interesting question, if they are, I don't see what's the problem.

Well no, that's not how they operate. Their "accreditation"  methodology is about getting a department to examine itself, look for overt or hidden bases that might act against one sex or another, and then root out those biases. 

In other words, their accreditation process asks us to aim for the sort of unbiased institution that you doubt can exist.

If you don't like my "thought experiment" of an unbiased society, I can phrase the question in a different way.  Suppose we engaged properly and repeatedly with Athena SWAN accreditation, and over successive cycles did do our best to produce a level playing field and unbiased institution, what would the sex ratio then likely be?

It's not them who work out whether or not this is in the public interest, the agenda is set by the funding providers.

Some women are a pain in the rear when it comes to equality  

It's bizarre that certain women scupper girls ambitions and as you say are suspicious of men in "womens" jobs.  

I don't understand it, but I've certainly observed it.  

Ok, fine, but I fail to see where is the harm in that ?

How would I know ? And why does it even matter ? If there is evidence to show that having a more balanced ratio of men/women in an university or company is good for productivity and produces better result, then it makes sense to to take steps to try to reach that ideal mix.

That is the thing that gets me about the Damore case.  Not so much what he said (of which I see nothing wrong either in content or in tone, at the very least given it was a document for discussion), but the reaction to it.  He lost his job.  He is rendered unemployable.  He is labelled an outright sexist dinosaur.  All for providing feedback (which was requested) and then seeking comment on his feedback.

The reaction, and the view that all which happened to him subsequently is justified, appears to be based entirely on an ideological viewpoint that those holding his viewpoints should be sacked.  

You don't need the government to censor speech if you can render someone economically unviable on account of what they say.  

I'm sure those so critical of Damore would be horrified if protected minorities were rendered unemployable for their stances or characteristics.

Did anyone say there was harm in that?  The possible "harm" is if one gets judged against a preferred sex ratio 50:50, if that ratio is inappropriate.

And is there?

So what is the idea mix, and what is the evidence for that? And how much societal engineering, over-ruling free choice, are you willing to do to attain that ideal mix?

This, by the way, is something one can argue about at length, and on which there are conflicting opinions (as well as many ideology-based opinions).  E.g.:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/will-gender-diversity-boards-rea...

"Many commentators suggest that gender diversity in the corporate boardroom improves company performance because of the different points of view and experience it offers. However, rigorous, peer-reviewed academic research paints a different picture. Despite the intuitive appeal of the argument that gender diversity on the board improves company performance, research suggests otherwise. 

"Results of numerous academic studies of the topic suggest that the presence of more female board members does not much improve — or worsen — a firm’s performance. In this opinion piece, Wharton management professor Katherine Klein summarizes academic research on the topic and discusses the possible reasons and implications for these surprising findings. Klein is also the vice dean of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative."

What is the evidence for that?  And more importantly, at what point do you decide bias has been sufficiently eradicated when the benchmark of success seems to be an equality in outcome?  Or at what point would you accept that nature is actually decisive in unequal outcomes (ie. being a labourer) and that diversity and inclusion strategies to "fix" this are not only ineffective or inefficient but are active reverse discrimination?

Which then raises a potentially thornier point:

If we view behavioural differences between males and females as primarily learned differences, doesn't this poke a hole in using sex and gender's unique status as "protected characteristics" to support D&I programmes to ensure greater representation of female viewpoints in the workplace?  

Put bluntly, it surely isn't more ovaries or testicles (innate characteristics) that D&I programme seek in the workplace, as we seem to be in universal agreement that they are not guides of workplace suitability.  What we apparently need is a better balance of female and male mental characteristics. 

If those mental characteristics are malleable, then surely they don't qualify as protected (unlike race, gender, or orientation).  They are not innate. 

Which means they deserve no more preferential treatment than viewpoint or political diversity. 

Basically, we appear to be using gender as a poor proxy for something quite different, while extending its innate-ness to something which isn't innate - especially so if you really consider men and women to be equally capable.

Would it not be prudent to seek diversity in, say, the social sciences?  Almost 90% of which is progressive/liberal/left-leaning, especially given their central role in producing the evidence and policy that drives diversity and inclusion?  Given the feedback loop this creates, surely this is EXACTLY the kind of area that is not only hugely lacking in diversity, but dangerously in need of it, and which appears to have ZERO efforts placed in resolving this disparity.

This is I think why many bristle at the "agenda" of diversity and inclusion.  It's entire narrative is dictated by the sector that is hugely lacking in diversity.  The terms of reference have been created by itself.  Anything which pushes for diversity but conveniently ignores viewpoint diversity (essentially self-criticism) is quite rightly viewed with suspicion.  This was exactly the point that Damore was trying to make, which he was hounded out of his job for.

I am not saying there systematically is, I am saying, if there is, then that makes sense.

 > And more importantly, at what point do you decide bias has been sufficiently eradicated when the benchmark of success seems to be an equality in outcome?  

What is this obsession about "eradicating bias". A company of university may have an objective to have a more gender balanced staff, because they think (rightly or wrongly) that it will improve things. They may take steps to encourage women to join and remove toxic behaviour that may put them off.

What is exactly the effing problem with that ?

I am not answering the rest of your post because it is mostly intellectual masturbation on stuff we have no clue about.

While on the topic of viewpoint diversity, here's someone who is refusing to present their views about Brexit on a radio station because that radio station also gives air time to Farage.  She thinks it's wrong that he gets such a platform, so wants everyone to boycott it.

OK, but roughly half the nation sided with Farage in the referendum. So this is a call for the Brexit debate to be won by refusing to give the other half of the nation any airplay.

https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1009875261519745024

https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1009875272852819968

My question exists whether it is systemic or not.  If an even balance of men/women is beneficial for a workplace (how you'd measure this I don't know) then I would have little issue with making this an element of recruitment policy.  

But if you are going to do so, then you need evidence to support it.  Otherwise you are doing little more than implementing institutional bias, that may be no more supported than saying we need more old, white, conservative men in the workplace.

See answer above. 

Seemed to me as being a fundamental issue actually.  

We specifically exclude "viewpoint" diversity in diversity and inclusion policy.

Yet we actively pursue more staff with "female viewpoints" (under another name of course) by seeking more female staff.  This is despite having concluded there is either no such thing (as gender/sex has no impact on thinking) or that such viewpoints are shared equally between males and females. 

Perhaps you could answer a more straight-forward question:

What attributes are we specifically seeking when we seek "female" applicants for a role?  

From what I can see, all we are recruiting for is vaginas ultimately.

There is strong theoretical grounding on why, he really soaking, more diverse groups perform better.

But, I agree, it may be  that gender is a relevant characteristic at all. I am not claiming either way. I don't know.

But at the end of the day leaders/companies/organisation have to do what they think is best.

I think many have recognised that sexist / toxic environment is bad for them, both in terms of reputation and talent retention, and are taking steps to remedy this.

Also many have recognised that the only way to break that mould is to artificially incentivise / prioritise women. In my own experience, this is often true.

I don't really see the problem any way or how it harms me or you.

Beyond that, It may well be that having a better gender balance doesn't actually make any difference, but it may well be that it does. Either way, if a company leadership wants to pursue a 50:50 policy that's their choice and I don't mind.

Well suppose a company has 8 males and 1 female, and thinks it would do better if it was more balanced. It advertises for a 10th employee. 

As I understand employment law (I'm open to correction) it would still be illegal to prefer a woman over a better-qualified man in appointing that person.

So the only strategy it can adopt is "eradicating bias" that may be causing the imbalance. 

You might just try it and see if it works.

No, but of course things have to done sensibly, lawfully,  and without discriminating on protected characteristics, that much everybody agrees (I hope !). But fundamentally if a company wants to attract more white conservative males then I don't have a problem with it, let them be.

Of course, and rightly so. But they can advertise the role differently, be open to different career profiles, etc etc.

For I example, a lot of the time I needed to hire someone, I just went with references. But if 90% of your staff is male, who mostly network/ hang out with males, you end up just hiring more males. And without realising  you are shutting yourself out of 50% of the market. Which is bad.

Sure, so they may do that, and it may well be that it won't be enough to achieve that objective, and that's fine.

 In reply to Coel Hellier:

Not surprised by this at all.

It seems to be a substantial human failing, notably now on the left, that alternative viewpoints cannot even be debated.  They need silencing and eradication and that those who hold them are in some way lesser humans.  

I think this falls in to a point that Zizek made, which I've mentioned here before.  That a neo-liberal/market-based economic hegemony (usually associated with the Right) does and can co-exist with a social-progressive hegemony (associated with the Left).  There doesn't need to a be a clean left/right split between them, or that the socio-political need align with the economic. 

A hegemony naturally (out of momentum, power, or simply as power corrupts) seeks to dominate further.  Once it was the Right/conservatism that dominated the social sphere.    

Now the Left has social dominance.  But maybe because it lacks economic dominance,  or perhaps out of historically being in a weaker position, or perhaps because this trait is simply innate to Left thinking (power always seen as malign and belonging to someone else seems central to leftism) it fails to see that it is being hegemonic.  

We seem to be ending up with a sort of tyranny of the majority (or near majority).  Alternative viewpoints aren't to be debated.  They are innately wrong, dangerous, morally indefensible and outside the bounds of what free-speech and debate allows.

I find this terrifying.  The self-belief in censorship, in policing language, in codes of allowable (potentially state-enforced) debate.  Again, we seemed to see this in the Damore case - he essentially said the emperor wears no clothes, and all the systems which are supposedly in place to protect the child who shouts that out, which he was pointing to, turned against him 

Ffs go back to masturbating to your guru Jordan Peterson on YouTube.

Only if you promise to read "451 Fehrenheit" or some Orwell for me.

Or in lieu of that, at least answer my previous question:

"What attributes are we specifically seeking when we seek "female" applicants for a role?  "

A size D ? Sorry I couldn't resist... go back to YouTube now.

Man or Ball there Rom? I can’t quite see why Pan Rom has raised your hackles so much - but I can see how the descent of an interesting thread into this sort of stuff might generate the ‘hostile environment’ which we are trying to avoid.

The man. Definitely. He has an history of peddling his radicalisation agenda on these forums. I have no patience with fanatics. Sorry

Believe me Rom, I'm anything but a fanatic.  But as a self-identifying lefty, and keen to apply the same levels of criticism to my own side as I am to the right, I do have an interest in any discussion where contentious issues like this come up.  It's interesting that the closing down of discussion always seems to come from one side. Tha's a concern.

If we're critiquing diversity and inclusion agendas you have to accept that you can't examine it without also looking at the Left.  They are the one's pushing this and all its associated codes of "acceptable behaviour".  The nearest equivalent I can come up with on the right that carries the same restrictive doctrine is perhaps the church.  But fortunately they don't get to have their say on schools, universities and the workplace these days.  And these days I find the Christians more open to debate.

You and a few others on UKC like to tell me that the crap I get uptight about on the left is confined to the fringe left.  Yet the treatment of those who question D&I (and that is JUST question....not even anything more strenuous), and the likes of James Damore, is both extreme and comes from far more than fringe activists.  It is mainstream left opinion that this discussion can only question certain things.

Claiming I'm fanatical and peddling radicalisation does nothing I'm afraid to reassure me that claims of "bias" and "discrimination" are valid and accurate.  

Yes, yes yes you are right I have been now seen the light thank you.

Now, back to YouTube.