
Barriers to Equality in Academia: Women in Computer Science at MIT (1983) - eaguyhn
https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lazowska/mit/
======
gumby
I remember this report when it was issued (I was at MIT at the time) and feel
that things haven't changed a lot.

This is despite the fact that it was well received by the people around me
(see "reactions" in the paper). But I don't feel it changed much.

~~~
carver
That's terrible news. I was undergrad there in mid 2000s, and perceived that
some, but not all, of these issues had improved. Being a man, and less
attentive to the issues at the time, it doesn't surprise me that I missed it.
It could also be that the undergrad experience is better than the research
staff experience.

Is there anything on the list that has improved?

Could you explain more about where your feelings come from?

------
SolaceQuantum
It looks like it's from 1983. How relevant are these points today?

~~~
mcguire
Possibly somewhat, given that the same issues seem to be mentioned often
recently.

" _The principal conclusions of this report are:_

" _Although not a generally accepted fact, the women here are as qualified as
the men._

" _In order to realize their potential, women must be given the same
opportunities as men to participate in and benefit from all aspects of the
professional community._

" _Many individuals in the community, either consciously or subconsciously,
have expectations of women that are different from their expectations of men._

" _Pervasive subtle discrimination can do as much damage as, if not more
damage than, isolated incidents of overt discrimination._

" _An uncomfortable social atmosphere interferes with a woman’s ability to
work productively._

" _Responsibility for change rests with the entire community, not just with
the women._

" _Many problems would be alleviated by increasing the number of women._ "

~~~
weberc2
I think a lot of people would challenge the applicability of many of those
statements to the modern incarnation of the industry.

~~~
Jtsummers
Can you be specific about which of those statements you think don't apply
anymore?

~~~
weberc2
I'm skeptical that there is a significant part of the industry that considers
women less capable than men; I'm also skeptical that women have fewer
opportunities than men. I believe there are a few bad apple companies, but
mostly I see companies tripping over themselves to hire and retain as many
women as they can. I simply haven't seen any compelling evidence, and I know
that there is a large group of powerful people spreading misinformation about
discrimination against women (e.g., wage gap myth). Lastly, the different-
interests hypothesis seems to better explain the various gender/tech gaps and
it fits pretty perfectly with my experiences. I'm happy to be persuaded
otherwise, however.

~~~
tarsinge
There is also a large group trying to hide the issue under some "different-
interests hypothesis" but it's in fact the core problem. Just look at other
cultures to see that there is nothing inherent to women not interested in CS.

The debate would be more honest if the "different-interests" group were just
saying that they don't want our culture to change. As for me like I said there
is no evidence that there may be some genetic predisposition other than
cultural ones.

An interesting talk that gave me some perspective (not sjw, just someone's
experiences):
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeTLopLkEo](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeTLopLkEo)

Edit: clarified second paragraph

~~~
weberc2
I don't think the different interests group is being remotely dishonest. Their
started claims are pretty consistent with what you would expect from someone
who is skeptical of the discrimination hypothesis. Namely if discrimination
isn't the primary driver of gaps in tech, pushing for equal representation is
going to pressure some women into jobs they don't really want and prevent some
men from getting jobs they want. As for dishonesty, the discrimination
hypothesis group can't even seem to debate the issue without misrepresenting
their critics and accusing them of bigotry (for example, the reporting and
comments here regarding the Google memo). I don't want to get into a tit-for-
tat, because I'm sure discrimination skeptics have some pretty silly or
dishonesty arguments as well, but dishonesty seems like the rule for
discrimination hypothesis folks, not the exception. I'm happy to agree to
disagree on this point since it's not likely to go anywhere productive.

Regarding the "just look at other cultures" point; that actually supports the
different-interests hypothesis, because those other cultures are almost always
those cultures with the least gender equality. The countries with the greatest
score on the gender equity index have _larger_ gender occupation gaps. The
discrimination hypothesis actually fails to explain this, while the different
interests hypothesis does a pretty good job.

Lastly, given that women achieved parity with men in law and medecine in the
80s and 90s (fields during a time that were far more hostile to women than
now); women didn't need special programs, diversity officers, scouting
programs, pipeline investment, etc, none of which are significantly helping
tech now. The discrimination hypothesis fails to address this as well.

Hopefully this at least makes it clear that there are legitimate reasons to be
skeptical of discrimination. At worst I'm simply wrong, not dishonest.

Sorry for typos, sending from phone.

~~~
tarsinge
I didn't talk about the discrimination hypothesis group, let's not fall into
the trap of a false dichotomy. Did you watch the video I linked? It's a long
time since I did but I don't remember the word discrimination being even
pronounced.

I specifically presented a third hypothesis, that the primary driver is
cultural (in the sense opposed to natural, not the "tech culture") i.e women
having internalized since childhood "it's not for me", and men internalized
"women have a different brain", like stated in the sibling comment. Different
interests is not wrong but it's a symptom, same as discriminations exists but
they are more of a symptom reinforcing the cause for me.

I don't think the different-interests hypothesis group is dishonest, my
opinion is that they are wrong and that some might instead switch to "my
culture and gender roles are fine, don't want to mix things up with feminized
men and women having boy's center of interests etc..." (and that's often what
comes out when I start digging when debating this topic). I disagree with this
opinion but at leat it's debatable (vs some pseudo-scientific genetic
predisposition).

Edit: for the other cultures point, I didn't say the gender equity was good,
just that more women were interested tech in some.

