
Autism and gender imbalance in tech - imartin2k
http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2017/07/is-gender-inequality-in-technology-good.html
======
sudosteph
Weird blog post. He never really attempts to answer his own question of if
gender imbalance is a good thing. He just seems to be making the point that
autism is imbalanced in sex distribution, and engineering is appealing to
autistic people, so the imbalance in engineering is expected due to autism.

FWIW, as a woman on the autism spectrum myself, I actually kind of agree that
some level of imbalance is due to this. But people on the autism spectrum make
up such a small population of humans and software engineers (we are over-
represented compared to other industries, but in my experience we are still
very much a minority overall) that it cannot be nearly enough to account for
the sex-imbalance numbers we see today.

Anecdotally, I've convinced two NT (neurotypical) women to switch from
bio/chem degrees to CS (they are both software engineers now) and the reason
they hadn't considered before was b/c nobody ever talked to them about it.
Neither grew up playing video games (though one said she asked for a console
and the parents put it in her brother's room for them to "share") and there
weren't any mandatory programming classes, so they just were never exposed to
it as an option, even though they are both highly logical people (thus the
chem or bio degree paths before switching).

So I guess I'm still firmly in the "Its a pipeline problem" camp. Until we
account for cases like the ones above, tech is going to lose out on some
talented women, and some of those women will miss out on tech. I think
mandatory high school programming and networking classes are what will really
help.

~~~
graphitezepp
While the autism imbalance may play a factor, I 100% believe it is mostly
marketing driving the gender gap. Early on computers were marketed to men,
because they were tools which were a "man thing". And now still video games
are predominately marketed towards males, and I would be shocked if there
isn't a strong correlation between interest in video games and computers in
general. So if I understand correctly, I am with you, its a pipeline problem
due to historical factors which are rapidly fading.

~~~
sudosteph
That makes a lot of sense from my perspective as well.

Playing video games and having the desire to make my own was a huge factor for
me getting into tech personally. I had a subscription to "Nintendo Power"
magazine, and I still remember reading an article in there about a programming
school called "Digipen", and just being enthralled by the concept of going
there and building my own games.

In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't have the patience to stick with game
development. My career is probably better off for it. My real gateway into a
tech career was when I got put into a Cisco networking class by accident. I
learned there that Linux live-boot usbs were excellent for getting around
permissions restrictions on school computers. I also learned that the school
firewall could be bypassed by using IPs instead of hostnames. I never looked
back from there.

~~~
ufo
Like your friends, I started out focusing on the sciences before switching to
CS. But now that I think about it, if someone had told me that trick for
bypassing the school firewall I would probably have landed on CS much sooner
hahaha.

------
Mz
_But the big statistic is that autism in all of its forms is around four times
more common in males than females. In other words the genetic components have
a biologically sex-based component._

Does this account for the fact that women tend to be underdiagnosed? I have
read that female autistics are very often a) not diagnosed and b) pressured to
learn social skills anyway simply because they are girls.

PS: I am a girl. I could spot the bottom figure in the top, though it took me
a few seconds. I have an unusually strong math background for a girl (perhaps
especially a girl my age). I think it is ridiculous this is a test for autism.
Why on earth is this is a test for autism?

I am pretty darn sure I am not autistic. My ex husband and both our sons
probably all are and I taught all of them a lot of the social skills they
have. My ex husband once told me that he was good at the technical aspects of
his job, but his ability to manage people once he was promoted to that level
in the military was largely rooted in what he learned from being married to
me.

~~~
chillacy
Took me a few seconds too, but I didn't think to rationalize it as "though it
took me a few seconds", I thought "wow gee I got it in only a few seconds".

~~~
Mz
Assuming you are male, that may be the real sex difference: Girls aren't
supposed to be good at anything, they apologize for not being "good enough"
even when they perform as well as the guys and then if they are excellent, no
one believes them.

(I think this is literally true, but it is intended as sort of humorous
observation so maybe imagine there is a winky here and interpret that to mean
"look, this is an injoke of sorts!")

~~~
Grustaf
"Girls aren't supposed to be good at anything"

I don't think anyone at all is claiming that. At most people are claiming that
girls are better at verbal and emotional skills, while boys are better at
visio-spatial things.

~~~
ambivalents
Of course no one is going to claim that and expect to be taken seriously. But
as a fellow girl, in my years socializing in groups I have certainly
experienced this sentiment. There seems to a tacit agreement that girls that
are good at something traditionally male-dominated, like programming or math,
are an exception to the rule. In other words, there is a rebuttable
presumption of mediocrity in these areas. If you excel at them, good on you,
you must be a true whiz to do so in spite of your gender.

~~~
Grustaf
"good at something traditionally male-dominated"

Yeah but that's different, I was replying to someone saying that the general
opinion was that girls are not good at anything at all. That is simply not
true, almost nobody believes that.

~~~
ambivalents
I interpreted Mz's comment as a somewhat facetious internal monologue I myself
am all too familiar with. I agree with you, most people don't believe that,
but it is nonetheless a belief that some women internalize after years of the
socialization I described above. Yes it's not true that we're not good at
anything, but there are subtle and pervasive forces at work in groups that
cause women to believe this about themselves.

------
cbhl
This is a false dichotomy, and derailing from the conversations about women in
tech. Even the most generous estimates of autism prevalence put it at 1-3% of
children -- you could hire every man _and_ woman with autism and it would have
an entirely negligible effect on gender diversity in the tech workforce at
large.

On top of that, if you take ten people with autism spectrum disorder, not all
of them will end up getting jobs at Google and SAP. And of the ones that do,
the women with autism have to deal with both the barriers introduced by their
autism _and_ the barriers of sexist treatment from their peers.

~~~
smitherfield
1\. _" Even the most generous estimates of autism prevalence put it at 1-3% of
children -- you could hire every man and woman with autism and it would have
an entirely negligible effect on gender diversity in the tech workforce at
large."_

You need to check your math here; on the order of 1% of the US population
works in software development.

2\. It's called the "autism spectrum" because it's a _spectrum,_ not a binary.
People can share some autistic traits without their rising to the level of a
diagnosable disorder. If a person is described as nerdy, introverted and
eccentric, they probably are further along on the autistic spectrum than most,
while not necessarily having full-blown autism.

~~~
dghf
> It's called the "autism spectrum" because it's a spectrum, not a binary.
> People can share some autistic traits without their rising to the level of a
> diagnosable disorder. If a person is described as nerdy, introverted and
> eccentric, they probably are further along on the autistic spectrum than
> most, while not necessarily having full-blown autism.

I thought it was called a spectrum because of the variation in severity and
symptoms among people _with_ diagnosable autistic disorders. As I understood
it, if you don't have such a disorder, you're not on the spectrum.

~~~
wbl
The disorders do not cleanly cleave away from non-autistic. It really can be a
judgement call at times.

~~~
dghf
Absolutely. But that's not, as I understand it, why it's called a spectrum.
It's called a spectrum because it covers conditions as different as Asperger
syndrome (which often isn't diagnosed until adulthood, and may never get
diagnosed at all) and childhood disintegrative disorder, where the onset of
symptoms is so sudden and dramatic that the child themselves may notice and
ask what is happening to them.

Being "nerdy, introverted and eccentric" doesn't necessarily mean you are on
the spectrum. It may do: you may have an ASD, diagnosed or undiagnosed. But it
may just mean you are nerdy, introverted or eccentric.

------
bem94
I don't understand why so many discussions about this in the context of
engineering / software jump to the idea that diversity is just have 50:50 of
characteristic X and characteristic Y. Or why everyone makes assertions about
what we know to be a very important and divisive issue without first stating
what our own understanding of the words we are using actually is.

I think I have a very different idea of what equality and diversity means to
this person (or that soon to be ex-googler), so I'd like the opportunity to
talk about it with them, reach the same page of understanding, then talk some
more.

In my view, it isn't as simple as 50:50 men and women in the room. It's about
removing all barriers to that being a possibility that we can. Specifically,
making sure we all have the same equality of opportunity, burdens of
expectation and freedom of expression. Recognising some groups lack one or
more of those things is a good start. Recognising some groups (deliberately or
accidentally) monopolize those things to the detriment of others is a better
start.

I guess people will bend further to justify the status quo than they will to
better it.

~~~
MichaelGG
Why do people jump to 50/50? Because that seems to be the goal of people
pushing diversity: desirable fields like software should reflect the
population at large [1]. I think the assumption that 50/50 is desirable is
wrong, too. So far I haven't heard of any compelling reason that genders are
equal in all jobs - only the opposite (in both directions - some jobs have way
more women). In fact, how do these folks even know 50/50 is fair to women?
What if it turns out that women are actually better at software engineering,
and the ratio should be 2:1 in favour of women? How are they determining these
numbers? Or are they just making them up?

He's also challenging the point that identity=diversity. Getting a man and a
woman that were born in the same area, had similar wealth growing up, went to
the same schools, have same "political" views, etc. is not nearly as diverse
as getting two men from different parts of the country with different
political views, differ in wealth, etc.

None of this should detract from trying to eliminate bias. Blind reviewing
sounds great, for instance - perhaps they should do that for the first pass
where it's feasible to hide the candidate's details. Or provide transcripts of
phone interviews then have people rate them and see how biased things are.
There's ways to do research on this issue, but it seems that even suggesting
there might be differences is a way to provoke "outrage".

1: I see less outrage about low female representation in mining and hunting,
for instance, or people demanding dentists stop employing so many females as
dental assistants.

~~~
weberc2
Interestingly, there is also no outrage that men die on the job twelve times
more frequently than women, nor that they're underrepresented in higher
education. Note that men are overwhelmingly more likely to be homeless, commit
suicide, be victims of almost every kind of violence (women are slightly more
likely to be victims of sexism violence, but men also underreport, so who
knows?), die a decade younger, receive far fewer social services, etc. But
hey, as long as tech companies are 50/50, the gender problems are solved.

~~~
jazoom
All good points. Too bad it's not trendy to fight for those things at the
moment. Sorry.

------
dna_polymerase
> What this implies is that to expect a 50:50 outcome is hopelessly utopian.

And why exactly do we need a 50:50 ratio of women to men in IT? I don't care
who writes my code as long as it does what I want it to do.

~~~
whiddershins
A friend of mine makes a great point about this:

Regardless of the reasons for the differential, tech has so much impact on
society - think about the cultural impact of video games just as one vector -
it is meaningfully problematic if a non representative slice of society
creates almost all of it.

~~~
alva
> it is meaningfully problematic if a non representative slice of society
> creates almost all of it

this can take you down some socially controversial paths. if you apply the
same judgements to other identity groups who dominate other extremely
influential sectors, you are going to run into serious trouble.

~~~
MichaelGG
You mean like mentioning that Facebook and Google are owned/led by minorities?
Or?

~~~
Buge
Antisemites complaining about how Jews control Hollywood, the banking system,
have 22% of nobel prizes while only being 0.2% of world population etc.

------
PlugTunin
FWIW, the diagram wasn't intended to be a TEST to determine if one is
autistic. It was a test to indicate one's inclination for noticing certain
detail.

Indeed, as another comment states, girls have historically been under
diagnosed with autism, for a variety of reasons. (That's not to say males
aren't more likely to have the condition.)

Simply put, employers need to do a better job of ensuring that those with
talents (some female, some autistic, some minority, etc.)-- who are under
represented in IT, are given fair opportunity to put their talents to use. I
wouldn't get too caught up in worrying about how giving opportunities to one
group takes away from another. We're all on the same team. It's not too
different from how Affirmative Action (which I support) has its place in
society.

Also, I was confused by the constellation bit. The spectrum descriptor is
quite apt and just as generally accepted in the community as the idea that
it's genetic in basis...well, unless you're an anti-vax kook. I've only heard
the term constellation in the sense of describing the various symptoms. (As
the adage goes, if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person
with autism...no two are alike.) I'm actually in the middle of reading Steve
Silberman's Neurotribes, which I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to
know more about autism.

(Contrary to what the article says, Sasha Baron-Cohen (of Borat fame) is the
cousin, not brother, of famed autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen.)

\- Guy w/ Asperger's

~~~
projektir
> We're all on the same team.

I don't think this will go over well for as long as we're in a highly
competitive society.

------
stared
While autism spectrum traits are correlated with STEM
([http://crastina.se/autistic-traits-science-and-the-nerd-
ster...](http://crastina.se/autistic-traits-science-and-the-nerd-
stereotype/)), I don't think it explains shortage of women in programming
(there isn't in biology or medicine; these departments are places with many
nerdy girls).

1\. Not all engineers or scientists are even remotely autistic (think: Richard
Feynman).

2\. There are some big suggestions that women are underdiagnosed with Asperger
Syndrome / High-Functioning Autism (due causing less problems for others, and
their socialization giving them at least "passable" social skills).

------
hibbelig
> _Try to spot the bottom figure within the coloured diagram._

So if I spot it then what does it tell me about the spectrum?

~~~
bradknowles
And what if I can't find it, yet I know that I'm in that spectrum?

~~~
celticninja
Know that a simplistic test is not good enough to diagnose such a complex area
of neuroscience.

------
projektir
Interesting assumptions that always seem to be present:

\- autism is good for fields related to technology;

\- other differences are not as good for fields related to technology;

\- fields related to technology are the most valuable.

------
geofft
> _Why are there so few women in IT?_

...

> _This is because they are good at localised skills, especially attention to
> detail. This is very useful in lab work, coding and IT._

IT is not the entirety of tech by any means. And if we're going to make large
stereotypes, a bulk of IT work is about empathizing with users at least as
much as attention to detail.

Coding is not the entirety of tech, either. Knowing what to code is more
important than knowing how to code it. It may not have been, decades ago, but
a significant amount of the code that people need has already been written and
the challenge is to find it and deploy it / integrate the library / fork the
open-source project / etc. An engineer that prefers to write code for the sake
of writing code is generally not productive for the business (and probably
counterproductive, by generating what will soon be _legacy_ code).

I'm not sure what "lab work" means here but I've never seen that term applied
to software engineering.

Also, autism is not the only way to be detail-oriented. The article is trying
to claim that there's gender imbalance in autism, and autistic people are
detail-oriented, and detail-oriented people are good at IT, and therefore
there should be gender imbalance in IT. This is simply fallacious and
illogical.

Autistic people are not your shield.

------
rosstex
Am I supposed to see the shape or not? If I take the shapes separately yeah I
can tell the shape exists, but my mind can't really "see" a 3D object there.

~~~
hackinthebochs
The 3D shape is there

------
iagovar
So... what is the proposal? Every time I read one of this articles about
gender in IT I feel that I didn't get to anything new.

This guy tell us that it is because companies look for certain profiles more
common in men. Ok, cool, I'm totally fine with it, but I don't think that will
be appealing to all this people that is talking about discrimination against
women.

~~~
jdoliner
> True diversity may be the recognition of the fact that all of us are not
> equal.

The proposal is that we recognize this fact, and realize that the mindset in
which there must always be "the proposal," to fix "the problem," is misguided.
Particularly when you have ideals like diversity, and equality which, the
author argues, are at odds with one another. The rest of the essay is an
argument that the two are, indeed, at odds with one another.

------
Animats
The funny thing is that programming has become more male-dominated as it has
become more social. Programmers once worked alone, in their own offices,
coding quietly with occasional references to manuals. Now programmers are
expected to work on laptops alongside other workers, constantly interact with
others both on line and off line, and be active on at least LinkedIn, GitHub,
and Slack.

We're missing something here.

------
OtterCoder
So, autism diagnosis is based on whether or not you can parse an optical
illusion? What kind of over-diagnosis fad-medicine quackery is this? When did
personality types become diseases? Sure, there are some people with real
mental illness who need help to function in society, but I think it's actively
harmful to slap a pathology on someone who's not as sociable as others in a
moderate way.

------
gweinberg
"This was followed by an altogether different talk by Professor Simon Baron-
Cohen (yes – brother of)"

No he isn't. They're cousins, not brothers.

------
prophesi
Tip for the diagram in the article: Look for just one of the shapes that
comprises the bottom figure in the top figure, and you've found it. The front
face is the easiest to spot.

~~~
greenyoda
That's how I found it too, and that suggests to me that this is more of a test
of problem-solving heuristics than of perception at the neurological level.
Someone who has solved a lot of math problems in geometry would seem to have a
distinct advantage in finding that hidden shape.

------
mempko
Programming is about people not code. Great software helps people and
communities. Knowing how to write code is a tiny part of the job.

~~~
habitue
Saying programming isn't about code is ... insane? Maybe you can be a
programming manager without knowing how to code, kind of? You'll likely be a
bad one.

This is the kind of thing you say after you've been coding for such a long
time that you've forgotten how challenging it is to learn to code for most
people. Sure, once coding is not the main challenge, you move onto new
challenges like coordination, collaboration etc. But if you can't code, then
you aren't a programmer.

More concretely: Managing communities and collaboration is neither necessary
nor sufficient to be a programmer. Coding is necessary to be a programmer.

~~~
mempko
I agree. Don't misunderstand me, all great artist know how to use a
paintbrush. Very few will tell you it's all about the paintbrush. Focussing on
people who know how to sling code is like focusing on the carpenters who have
great hammering skills. Knowing how to code great is necessary but not
sufficient to make great software.

------
chrismealy
90% of graduates from law schools and medical schools are also men, so it's
safe to assume there are some fundamental biological sex differences at work
here. Oh wait, it's not 1970 anymore, and law and med grads are half women
nowadays. Golly humans evolve quickly.

------
nebulous1
Well, at least he gave equal time to both of the viewpoints.

------
wcr3
Why share this? It's minimal-effort baiting; a few paragraphs of vague
opinions and a "once you see it..." gimmick to boot. Not a good start to an
important conversation.

~~~
tonto
The hackernews re-titling of the article is pretty horrendous too. The title
is "Is gender inequality in technology a good thing?" is considerably more
controversial than "autism and gender imbalance in tech"

