
Gender Bias: It Is Worse Than You Think - wglb
https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/gender-bias-it-is-worse-than-you-think/
======
tps5
> _One of my colleagues went on to ascribe the ‘horribleness’ of many computer
> systems in everyday use to the “brusque masculinism” of their creation._

The idea that males must be more "brusque" than females is the same thing as
saying that females are "attentive and caring" (in comparison to males). It's
just an old stereotype.

I didn't think this article said anything new, or well.

------
accountface
I believe gender bias is a huge issue, but I wonder if the riddle was worded
differently if the responses would be different:

>Here’s an old riddle. If you haven’t heard it, give yourself time to answer
before reading past this paragraph: a father and daughter are in a horrible
car crash that kills the dad. The daughter is rushed to the hospital; just as
she’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate—that
girl is my daughter!” Explain…

I'd also be curious to see what the results would be if it was a
mother/daughter crash — I suspect that most people would say the father is the
surgeon (rather than saying the girl has two moms), but I'd like to see at
what rate.

My answer in the original question was two dads, but I'm not entirely sure if
I misinterpreted "he's about to go under the knife" originally, or if I'm
biased (I also might want to think I misinterpreted it because I don't want to
be biased).

The article provides a lot of additional evidence of bias. I just found the
first riddle interesting.

~~~
macintux
My parents asked me that riddle after seeing it on (IIRC) "All in the Family"
when I was ~10. I failed miserably, disappointing my mother.

~~~
sushisource
The whole riddle is set up to be intentionally difficult. The way it primes
you with "father" and "son" as parent comment mentions. I think there's some
validity to it, but I think it's a clever linguistic trick more than anything.

~~~
whoyawn
I actually read the parent comment before going to the article and I still had
a hard time figuring out the answer. It may be because I was primed with the
fact it's a "riddle"; the entire time I was trying to come up with a clever
answer rather than thinking the surgeon was the mother. Father+daughter vs
father+son didn't have much of an effect, but bias was probably present,
nevertheless.

------
thomastjeffery
It took me a minute to get the riddle (if you haven't tried, go read it now),
but I don't believe that means I am biased. My first thought was that the
"surgeon" was the son's father, and the "father" was just someone who had
children. In a literal sense, that could be a valid answer, but the focus of
the riddle is whether I considered the surgeon to be the son's mother.

Does the fact that I consider a surgeon to be male when there is no gender
specified mean that I am biased? Of course not! I would not bat an eye to
learn that there are female surgeons. That is not where the ambiguity comes
from. My assumption that a character is male derives from both the fact that I
am male, and the fact that the majority of English writing, and indeed,
English grammar assume male gender.

When I read "To Kill a Mockingbird", I assumed the main character to be a boy
until several pages in, where, to my surprise, the gender was specified to be
a girl. Of course it was easier to read a first-person story from the
standpoint of my own gender. Did I have a problem that the main character was
female? No. That did not matter to me. Did I wish that gender was specified as
soon as the character was introduced? Yes. That would have made the writing
much easier to comprehend.

 __TL;DR __The fact that gender bias exists in language does not mean it
exists in the mind of the reader.

EDIT: To those that are downvoting, would you care to explain your complaint?
Just because I disagree with OP's argument does not mean I am not open to
discussion.

~~~
lgas
I didn't downvote but two possible reasons would be:

\- IIRC the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird was Atticus Finch, who is
male.

\- You make a lot of assertions ("Does [that] mean that I am biased? Of course
not!") but don't actually provide any evidence of that, and in fact your post
seems to contain some counter evidence.

For example, asserting that you would "not bat an eye to learn that there are
female surgeons" suggests that you currently believe there are no female
surgeons so hearing otherwise would be news to you, which of course would be
hugely biased.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> IIRC the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird was Atticus Finch, who is
> male.

The story is told from the perspective of his daughter Jean Louise Finch, who
ambiguously introduced herself by her nickname "scout".

> would "not bat an eye to learn that there are female surgeons"

I can see where I miswrote "learned". I meant that in the context of reading a
story, as in reading that in some particular context (like this riddle) that a
surgeon is female.

> hearing otherwise would be news to you, which of course would be hugely
> biased.

Of course that is not the case. I am well aware that there are totally
competent female surgeons. That is what I mean by saying "I would not bat an
eye". The context in which I would be surprised is the context of this riddle:
Since I am male, and since English grammar has historically assumed a male
descriptor, my first assumption in this riddle is that the surgeon is male. My
point is that that assertion does not stem from the word surgeon, and the
historically significant gender gap with surgeons. The assertion that the
surgeon is male stems from the ambiguity of "surgeon". The riddle does not
state, or even directly call into question the gender of the surgeon. In order
to answer the riddle, the gender must be assumed to be either male or female.
The answer to the riddle is the most likely conclusion, but because of the
grammar used, it is not my first conclusion. My first conclusion (that
"father" meant someone with children other than the "son"), was in fact not
incorrect, but was indeed less likely.

------
08-15
Here's an old riddle. Say "silk" five times in quick succession. Now spell
"silk". What does the cow drink?

A surprising majority of people says "milk", when the correct answer is
"water". This is obviously because of some sort of bias against water. Any
other explanation is absolutely inconceivable.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is
> rushed to the hospital; just as he's about to go under the knife, the
> surgeon says, "I can’t operate—that boy is my son!" Explain.

Well, so "silk" is priming your mind to think of similar words. Here are
possible hypotheses about the doctor riddle:

1) The presence of a father in the story is priming the listener to think
about fathers and not mothers.

2) The tone of a riddle implies there is a paradox, which suggests to the
listener that the doctor is the father.

3) We are biased to think doctors are men.

And you're saying that the author thinks it's inconceivable that #1 or #2
could be complete explanations? I think she admitted such... she believes that
the bias exists and is merely looking for evidence.

I don't think she is saying the study is conclusive though. Taken alone it
doesn't prove anything. But there are lots of other studies showing similar
effects. You can run the tests on yourself:
[https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)

I wish you would say a little more about what, specifically you are accusing
the author of.

~~~
never-question
I didn't see anything resembling an accusation in the parent, just a quick
demonstration of the linguistic tricks our minds can play on us and some
sarcasm.

What is it about pushing diversity that puts people in a near-constant
defensive/attack posture? I understand that adoring surface-level diversity is
not a universally accepted stance despite leagues of loudly fervent believers,
but it seems unlikely that anyone thinks this posture is actually helpful. Or
at least from the outside, it's pretty clear it isn't, maybe when you're in
it, it feels right. I wish I got it.

~~~
apostacy
> What is it about _pushing_ diversity that puts people in a near-constant
> defensive/attack posture? (emphasis mine)

I think your answer is embedded in your question. It is human nature to
respond with hostility to things being "pushed" on us. Are you really that
surprised? You would do the very same thing, if I pushed what I thought was
right on you. I would at least understand where the hostility came from.

Before I go on, let me first say that I'm a minority (sadly, that fact will
carry more weight with you), and you would probably ruffle a lot of feathers
trying to "push" me into your workplace. And I would not want to be there. Do
you understand how patronizing it is to shove people aside at the grown ups
table and bring a high chair for us to sit at?? I'm sick of being fetishized.

Look, sometimes change needs to happen. But your shock that there would be any
pushback indicates that you can't even conceive of why, because, in your mind,
you are so righteous that nobody could be justified in disagreeing with you.
That's a really pigheaded attitude. When you must make changes, it's helpful
to at least understand why people would push back, even if you think you're
100% correct.

------
socialconstruct
What is the likelihood that even a minute's consideration is given that this
represents some sort of natural thought pattern that we can just learn to
ignore, like other forms of tribalism?

My guess would be no chance at all. There's a real dedication to the idea that
this sort of thing is all socially constructed despite literal decades of no
progress at all in any way you would expect if such an idea were true.

------
gnicholas
> _But why only choose to study all-white groups and groups of two whites and
> one black? What about the other two possibilities: all black and two blacks
> and one white? Did this not even occur to the researchers? I could imagine
> that all-black do the best, or that two black and one white do the worst.
> Who knows. The sin here seems to be not even considering all the four
> combinations._

The author fails to consider the possibility that there were not enough black
students to do a study of this format. The university where the study was done
is (currently) roughly 5% black and 44% white [1]. Given this breakdown, it is
likely that the dearth of black students resulted in the study's design.

1:
[https://oiir.illinois.edu/about/demographics](https://oiir.illinois.edu/about/demographics)

~~~
gdix
That doesn't make the study any less flawed. I'm questioning whether we should
even accept this study if there wasn't a big enough pool of black people to
actually run the experiment properly.

Isn't anyone at least a bit curious how an all black team would have
performed? If the all black team performs as badly as the all white team, it
would only bolster the argument that diversity is important. Which is a good
result, because you've made a more convincing study.

But what if the all black team performs the best? It would cause you to look
at the study completely different, wouldn't it? Maybe for cultural reasons,
black people are better at these kinds of puzzles.

We'll never know because it seems like they have already decided this study in
its current form is enough to conclude that "diversity=good".

~~~
gnicholas
I'm not saying that one can't imagine a better study. I'm saying that the
notion that the researchers committed a "sin" and that it did "not even occur
to the researchers" to use a different design is unsupported.

The author has no idea what was or was not considered by the researchers, but
she is happy to impugn their motives.

Given the choice between (1) run the study they ran, and have a large enough
sample to get a statistically significant result and (2) don't run a study at
all, which would you have preferred? With a population that is 5% black, it is
likely that this is the practical choice the researchers faced.

Note that (1) doesn't mean we get all the answers to everything we might
wonder about, but it would give an answer that could help direct future
research. That in and of itself is a useful step to take, IMO.

~~~
gdix
The obvious answer is (2) don't run a study at all (assuming the methodology
is truly flawed). Or (3) run the study but take the results with a grain of
salt and don't draw broad conclusions from it. And (4) we can comment on
hacker news about how "wouldn't it be nice if they tested this or that because
that would have convinced me, personally."

I think that we're kind of saying the same thing. It's an thought-provoking
study and I agree that it is a useful step. But I also agree that further
research is required to really draw a conclusion.

------
jbmorgado
_" When [Tracy] Chou discovered a significant flaw in [her] company’s code and
pointed it out, her engineering team dismissed her concerns, saying that they
had been using the code for long enough that any problems would have been
discovered. Chou persisted, saying she could demonstrate the conditions under
which the bug was triggered. Finally, a male co-worker saw that she was right
and raised the alarm, whereupon people in the office began to listen. Chou
told her team that she knew how to fix the flaw; skeptical, they told her to
have two other engineers review the changes and sign off on them, an unusual
precaution."_

This would happen to any junior dev. As the article doesn't actually tell if
Tracy was a junior or senior dev, this doesn't demonstrate any kind of gender
bias by itself.

~~~
gdix
Or it's as simple as "1 person bringing up a subtle problem doesn't cause
people to become alarmed in this particular situation, but if more people are
saying it's a problem, then others become more convinced". It's possible that
age/race/gender have absolutely nothing to do with it. But those with an ax to
grind against "the patriarchy" will look at this situation only through that
lens. You might say she's biased into assuming that everything that happens to
her is because of sexism.

------
onuralp
Here is the modern version of the riddle: if you are to analyze your e-mail
responses (e.g., tone, wording), do you notice any gender bias?

I was intrigued with the story[0] where the colleagues of opposite gender
swapped their names when signing their client e-mails, and the responses they
received were heavily gender biased. While this may be anecdotal, I would not
be surprised if this is more prevalent than (hopefully) appreciated.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/i/moments/839950218099576832](https://twitter.com/i/moments/839950218099576832)

~~~
gdix
I think the TLDR of the original article can be summed by "there is bias even
in the interpretation of bias-measuring studies".

The fact that people read this story and conclude "well the only variable at
play here is gender, therefore: sexism".

1\. This is anecdote. One event. 2\. The story-teller is introducing his own
bias. 3\. The reader has certain preconceptions about gender and bias.

While this is an interesting anecdote, a skeptic should take this whole
situation with a grain of salt.

------
Mz
"The sky is falling. The sky is falling."

When are we ever going to hear about how to solve this instead of more
investigating evidence into its existence?

Oh, wait. We aren't. People don't actually want to talk about solutions.

~~~
ahartman00
Not sure if you did this on purpose, but I really appreciated that you didnt
mention the problem's name in your comment. You could copy paste this exact
comment into any number of threads and be spot on. Climate change, political
division, etc.

Personally I think it is like any other bias, or maybe a combination. People
are doing it subconsciously, which means it is going to be hard to get them to
stop.

Confirmation bias kicks in when we see a person of $group acting in a way that
confirms our existing beliefs. Also when a person who feels that
discrimination is rampant feels they have been discriminated against.
Fundamental attribution error might explain why some people feel like they are
the victims of intentional malice, rather than a mistake. Self serving bias
might explain why members of $group are unwilling to admit that they
discriminate against $group2. Or why we dont hear about how $group2 is a
minority in other professions. Framing might explain why a story about one
person, which might be missing details(such as seniority); is used to
demonstrate the problem.

Unfortunately this would mean the solution is for everyone to behave
rationally...

~~~
Mz
No, not really doing that particular thing on purpose.

Just trying to tread lightly because I seem to be the highest ranked woman on
HN and (among other things) I blog about gender issues and how to address it
more effectively. So, what I really want to bitch about is a lack of attention
for my writing while people focus on this shit, as usual. But I also get tired
of the fact that anything I say about gender issues tends to get vastly more
attention than anything else I do on HN in a manner that simultaneously
belittles me and pigeonholes me.

Meanwhile, if I ask a question like this -- which is me, a woman, trying to
develop a business idea and stop being a total fucking loser in life --
crickets chirp and no one replies at all because, no, no one wants to actually
do anything constructive at all about such problems:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14000346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14000346)

(Throws hands up in air. Grumpily stomps off.)

~~~
ahartman00
Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I have been to your blog more than a
few times. But people like their buttons pushed :(

~~~
Mz
Eh, that's true, but it's also a little more complicated than that.

But, thank you.

------
wink
I really wonder how this result translates to non-native speakers, especially
with native tongues that have gendered nouns (but then there's often the male
form as the default).

So am I more likely to assume the surgeon as male because there is no single
word for "female surgeon" but in my native language it would be or doesn't
that matter for the experiment?

------
ar15saveslives
> The importance of diversity is beyond reasonable doubt, isn’t it?

Why?

~~~
7952
It could give a greater range of insight and experience to a problem.

Also, it is easy to optimise for diversity, and fiendishly difficult to
optimise for other more subtle aspects of human behaviour.

~~~
metaphorm
> it is easy to optimise for diversity

only in the most crude, ham-fisted way though.

it's extremely hard to find people who actually break the groupthink. it's
extremely hard to even identify your own groupthink blind spots, let alone
cover them with people with genuinely different perspectives. the crude
diversity solution seems highly likely to select for people with superficial
differences but core similarities.

~~~
7952
Yes it is extremely hard, which may make the ham-fisted way more practical.

