

There Is a Gender Gap in Tech Salaries - steveklabnik
http://danluu.com/gender-gap/

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vonmoltke
Dan is right to point out the sloppy analysis in the Quartz piece.
Unfortunately, I think he is also misreading that chart and the report[1]. The
chart in the post shows salaries by major; it ignores what these people _did_
with their major. Page 17 of the report shows salaries by occupation; that
chart shows no gap in "Math, computer, and physical science occupations" and
"Engineers".

I think the evidence shows that women who do go into the tech industry get
paid the same as men, but that either not as many women who get the degrees go
into the industry or some portion of the men who get them take them into one
of the occupations noted as having a significant gender salary gap.

[1] [http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-
th...](http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-the-earnings-
of-women-and-men-one-year-after-college-
graduation.pdf?_ga=1.7578036.722397424.1379578621)

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ThomPete
OP is kind of missing the point IMO.

The gender gap discussion is only relevant if we find out that women makes
less because they are women. I.e. if everything else is equal the pay-check is
determined by their gender. Now we might be able to show that but I don't
believe the OP shows that.

Instead what it shows (I believe) is that men are better at selling
themselves. Men "know" they are right (even when they aren't) and that
confidence transcend into how people perceive you and later to their paycheck.
The reason why men know they are right is a much more interesting question and
where the battle for the sexes really should be taking place.

Here is a good read on that.

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-
success/2011...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-
success/201101/the-trouble-bright-girls)

From that article _"...bright girls believe that their abilities are innate
and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability
through effort and practice. ..."_

Grades in this context have nothing to do with your income as no-one really
get a pay-check because they have good grades.

I have never when I have done job-interviews even looked at someones grades
and I don't think the industries in question do that really (unless you have
exceptional grades of course but very few do).

Sure my experience is anecdotal but I simply don't see the gap in salaries
having anything significant to do with the genders but rather with how guys
are able to sell themselves.

Another way to frame this discussion could be. Men makes more than the average
because they are better at selling themselves than women are. Not because they
are better at what they do.

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ThomPete
I hope there is a rebuttal accompanying that down vote :)

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GhotiFish
well it's not coming, and the downvote is a bit undeserved (so have an
upvote), but fair point: The article was attacking another article for
deliberately cherry-picking and misrepresenting data to cover an agenda.

The niggling details of the pay gap arn't relevant to the articles thrust of
exposing quartz's BS.

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ThomPete
Good point.

Although the purpose of the QZ article was to encourage women to get into
those "gender equal" industries not to taunt those who claim inequality.

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steveklabnik
Discussion of the blog post this is referring to:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7334659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7334659)

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batoure
The original article definitely had a feel of non-truth-yness that was widely
discussed in the comments. As a show me the numbers nerd it is nice to see a
supporting study that supports some of the priors discussed.

