Many would debate this. At my company our new grads hired last year were 39% women while ~20% of graduates in computing related fields were women. The percentage of applicants were even lower than that.
Some disagree that continuing to apply affirmative action in spite of a proportional overrepresentation of nearly 2x is equality. Granted others view things in terms of relationship with the total population, so it's not like there's one right answer here.
Many might debate it in those terms, but generally I won't because using statistics such as you've provided cannot produce a definitive argument for either side. If 20% of graduates are women, is that because of subconscious bias favoring men in admissions or grading? Or because of subconscious bias favoring boys in elementary school towards STEM? Or because of subconscious bias in society saying boys work and girls take care of the home? Etc. Unless the answer is "No" to all of these, then 39% women in a workplace cannot be considered evidence of either equality or inequality. However, until we have some means of determining that women are genetically predisposed to disfavor STEM (and these genetics are clearly not confused with the impact of societal child rearing), we do have a statistic we can use: roughly 50% of humans are women.
Get back to me after 100 more years of progress towards equalizing race and gender through actions designed to fight subconscious bias, and then we can look at what your hiring percentages are vs. graduate percentages, and whether those actions are still necessary or sufficient.
> If 20% of graduates are women, is that because of subconscious bias favoring men in admissions or grading?
I'm not sure I follow. At most American universities students don't declare their major until after they are admitted. Usually not until their second year. Women already outnumber men in university by a substantial margin. Women make up 60% of students in American universities.
There are some Universities focused explicitly on engineering, but many of those actually favor women substantially. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and CalTech for instance admit women at over twice the rate of men: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/1...
I really don't see the much support for the argument that universities are discriminating against women. In fact, there's substantial evidence of the opposite.
> You missed my point, which is that none of those statistics are meaningful one way or the other
I'm not sure I follow. You alleged that there may be discrimination against women in university education. I pointed out that women are already over represented in university, and that engineering universities display clear disparities in their admissions rates that favor women by large margin. How are these statistics not relevant to your claim that women are disadvantaged in admissions?
Those are not the things I said. I specifically said that this statistic approach is an impossible debate because fundamentally it assumes everything down the chain (elementary school, parenting, society) is not prone to similar gender bias. In reality, all of those things are prone to gender bias. There is no debate here. If there is a genetic difference between genders that demonstrates aptitude/proclivity towards STEM, then statistics can be leveraged as pointers towards the result of actions taken to equalize gender opportunity. If or until such a time as that genetic evidence is discovered, I see no reason to believe that women, by nature, are inherently less capable or interested in STEM - therefore, the only useful statistic in a debate on hiring results (i.e. 38% are women) is that 50% of humans are women.
You're saying that there is discrimination of some kind down the line, but the person you're responding to is pointing out that, even if that discrimination does in fact exist, women are still over-represented in university education, including at engineering focused schools. How is that not strong evidence against your position?
> You're saying that there is discrimination of some kind down the line, but the person you're responding to is pointing out that, even if that discrimination does in fact exist, women are still over-represented in university education, including at engineering focused schools. How is that not strong evidence against your position?
So that's a few years old - there's a bunch of statistics there. Do those statistics mean that women get hired more than men? No. They mean the rate of women hires in STEM is increasing over time. They also mean that specific to computer science they have more recently decreased. So should we assume that affirmative action policies and general pressure on society over the last 40 years has had zero contribution towards the increase in women hires? Or should we assume that there is no possibility that the more recent decrease in women in computer science could partially be a result of workplace culture or limited advancement due to bias? Considering there is no evidence that women are less capable or interested in STEM or computer science, I can't think of any rational reason we should jump towards the conclusion that "women just don't do it well or like it". Bias existed before, it exists now, it is likely decreasing (though all we can say for certain is that over time the effect of bias has decreased - it may continue to exist at it's earlier levels while the effect is being mitigated by actions such as diversity hiring).
> If 20% of graduates are women, is that because of subconscious bias favoring men in admissions or grading?
This is definitely proposing that the disparity in computing graduates could be due to bias in admissions. This is very explicit.
> I specifically said that this statistic approach is an impossible debate because fundamentally it assumes everything down the chain (elementary school, parenting, society) is not prone to similar gender bias. In reality, all of those things are prone to gender bias.
The onus is on you to prove that bias exists. Otherwise, this entire chain of reasoning boils down to the a priori assumption that any disparity is the result of bias. We conclude that disparity exists because of bias. We also conclude that bias exists because of disparity. This is circular logic.
> If or until such a time as that genetic evidence is discovered, I see no reason to believe that women, by nature, are inherently less capable or interested in STEM - therefore, the only useful statistic in a debate on hiring results (i.e. 38% are women) is that 50% of humans are women.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is the case:
* Contrary to your earlier suggestion that women are less prevalent in stem due to being steered towards housework, the countries where women and men have the closest participation in housework actually have some of the lowest percentages of women in stem [1].
* Women form the minority in STEM in almost every country.[2] All across Europe, North America, Asia, South America, and Africa women make up the minority of STEM graduates. In every country in the study outside of Africa and the Middle East (which, to reiterate, are counter intuitively some of the most misogynistic countries in the world) women made up less than 1/3rd of STEM graduates. When the same pattern is consistent across widely varying societies and cultures then it's extremely difficult to attribute the disparity in STEM to culture.
* There is ample evidence to suggest that girls are inherently more social than boys. Newborn girls direct more attention towards human faces than boys, and newborn boys direct more attention towards mechanical objects than newborn girls [3].
Here's some additional reading from psychology publications:
> This absolutely is suggesting that the disparity in computing graduates could be due to bias in admissions. This is explicit, I'm not sure how any reasonable person can attempt to deny this.
Suggesting a thing as a possible factor and explicitly stating a thing is a factor are two different actions. I also suggested 3 or 4 other things that may be factors. And I left out 1,000 things that may be factors. It seems like a reasonable person would understand this concept - that statistics at one level are not evidence of an argument, in either direction. The questions I posed were rhetorical representations of the endless path you initial argument goes down: 38% of hires were women but only 20% of graduates were women. That doesn't mean anything on it's face.
> The onus is on you to prove that bias exists.
Numerous studies have shown that bias exists. This is not generally argued by anyone but the most ardently privileged. I mean, you do agree that bias did exist, right? Like, slavery, women disenfranchised. Those things happened and bias was the cause, right? So if it did exist, when exactly did it cease to exist? And the onus is on you to provide the widely accepted evidence that bias has ceased to exist.
> There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is the case:
No, there is literally zero evidence. Your interpretation of various cultures and evidence that men are not genetically identical to women is not evidence that men have a genetic aptitude/predilection towards STEM.
> No, there is literally zero evidence. Your interpretation of various cultures and evidence that men are not genetically identical to women is not evidence that men have a genetic aptitude/predilection towards STEM.
It's pretty rich to claim that the other person's argument has "literally zero evidence" supporting it when they provided 7 high quality citations to back up their claims.
But it's even more rich to then go on to refer to "numerous studies" without actually linking to anything:
> Numerous studies have shown that bias exists. This is not generally argued by anyone but the most ardently privileged.
> Suggesting a thing as a possible factor and explicitly stating a thing is a factor are two different actions.
I wrote that you "alleged that there may be discrimination against women in university education". Saying instead that you "suggested [discrimination against women in admissions] as a possible factor" is just rephrasing the same thing. I posted evidence that refutes your suggestion, which absolutely is relevant to this conversation.
> It seems like a reasonable person would understand this concept - that statistics at one level are not evidence of an argument, in either direction
So you're saying you also have no evidence that bias works against women, because "statistics at one level are not evidence of an argument, in either direction"? If we have no evidence of bias against women, then why is it justified to explicitly discriminate in favor of women? Almost every justification for affirmative action in hiring women I've heard has been that discrimination is necessary to counteract bias against women.
How is someone going to prove that women face bias when statistical arguments are invalid? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if we continue down this line of reasoning (or lack thereof) it's going to boil down to statistics magically becoming relevant again when they indicate bias against women.
> Numerous studies have shown that bias exists. This is not generally argued by anyone but the most ardently privileged.
These studies better not rely on statistics... :)
> I mean, you do agree that bias did exist, right? Like, slavery, women disenfranchised. Those things happened and bias was the cause, right? So if it did exist, when exactly did it cease to exist?
Slavery did exist, but that is overwhelmingly on the basis of race. This comment chain has so far been about women. This smells like whataboutsim.
Women's disenfranchisement ended a century ago. By now women make up the majority of university graduates. Premiere technology universities like MIT, Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech, and Carnegie Mellon admit women at significantly higher rates than men - often more than 2x. At my company, we hire female tech graduates at over twice the rate of men. We're setting a quota (despite this being probably illegal) to make our company's tech workforce 33% women even though women make up 20% of Does this sound like bias against women?
> No, there is literally zero evidence.
I'm sorry but if you really did read through all the sources I posted, then at this point I really do feel that you're being willfully ignorant in writing this. I can respect people who don't find the evidence convincing, but to say that "there is literally zero evidence" immediately after being presented several pieces of evidence is a very strong indicator that you're not participating in this discussion with good faith. But to give you the benefit of the doubt I'll assume you are and will address your last point:
> Your interpretation of various cultures and evidence that men are not genetically identical to women is not evidence that men have a genetic aptitude/predilection towards STEM.
You're right, showing that all cultures and societies have disproportionately larger male graduates in STEM does not, in and of itself, prove that men have any sort of genetic predisposition. But it does prove that society and culture is not a strong factor regarding the low representation of women in STEM. Every society has a lower percentage of women in STEM. From the North America, to Europe, to Asia, to Africa, to South America. Rich countries and poor countries. Secular countries and religious countries. So culture and society does not have a strong effect of women in STEM. There is some correlation between gender equality and women's participation in STEM - but it's the opposite of the prevailing narrative; the data suggest that more women go into STEM when countries are misogynistic. So, I guess we could roll back women's rights to boost female participation in STEM but that's probably not a good idea.
Now, we've ruled out culture as a determining factor in why women have low participation rates in STEM so what else could it be? There's really only a couple ways to explain population-wide differences, the proverbial "nature vs. nurture" question. And we've ruled out nurture, so that leaves nature as a feasible cause. And again, I posted several other pieces of evidence including evidence that shows that men and women have different predilection towards people vs. things immediately after birth.
> Slavery did exist, but that is overwhelmingly on the basis of race. This comment chain has so far been about women. This smells like whataboutsim.
Nonsense. This comment chain is about diversity hiring practices, which involves gender and race.
> Women's disenfranchisement ended a century ago.
So was it the day after that women made up an equal share of university graduates? Or was it a progression over time, picking up more recently in the last few decades? And is that coincidental with the increase in affirmative action policies. Interesting. I suppose you could argue that women's genes have evolved towards an interest in STEM in the past few decades. I bet you could even find a link or two to share as "evidence".
> Nonsense. This comment chain is about diversity hiring practices, which involves gender and race.
My original response to your comment, and every single comment in the subsequent chain, referenced diversity in terms of gender. Every discussion in terms of the share of women in STEM in different countries has been on the basis of gender. All the sources you asked for (and I provided) were in relation to gender.
> So was it the day after that women made up an equal share of university graduates? Or was it a progression over time, picking up more recently in the last few decades?
Women's disenfranchisement ended on August 18, 1920. The date when the 19th amendment was passed. That's where the reference of a century ago comes from, though if you want to be pedantic it is 99 years and 6 months ago. That's what I thought you were referring to with disenfranchisement. You have consistently rejected statistics as evidence of bias, so it seemed to me you were basing this claim of bias on de-jure discrimination against women in the past.
If you're referring to women's disadvantaged position in society, then there's really no answer to that question as it's a subjective judgement. Women long faced restrictions in education and employment. Men long faced (and continue to face) disparities in incarceration, violent death, suicide, workplace injuries and illnesses. How many instances of harassment of equate to one murder of a man? How much of a pay gap are men entitled to if they make up >90% of workplace injuries and deaths? There's no right answer to these questions as these are subjective value judgments.
As far as when women broadly became more or less equal to men, the consensus is that this occurred a few decades after the civil rights movement. At this point women born after the civil rights movement were reaching adulthood. Around the 1990s and 2000s is when women became a majority in university, and reached parity (and eventually became a majority) in workplace participation.
> And is that coincidental with the increase in affirmative action policies. Interesting.
Most of the affirmative actions policies in tech are more recent than that. My company enacted it's aggressive affirmative hiring policies in the early to mid 2010s. By comparison the percentage of women in tech was higher before they experienced large advancements towards equality in the 90s. Women's share of computer science degrees peaked in the early 1980s [1]. So the answer to your question is no. There was no increase in women in computer science that coincided with the affirmative hiring policies.
This is not surprising. When companies discriminate to hire more women, it doesn't change the percentage of women in computer science. The impact of these policies it that companies which discriminate hire a larger portion of the women that choose to go into computer science. The number of women in compute science remains relatively flat, but companies expect to increase their percentages of female tech workers. Every company is competing for the same limited pool of women in tech, so many employ discrimination to try and get an edge over the others.
> I suppose you could argue that women's genes have evolved towards an interest in STEM in the past few decades. I bet you could even find a link or two to share as "evidence".
I have no idea why you think I would claim that women "genes have evolved towards an interest in stem". This is ridiculous. Evolution takes place over millennia, at least. Usually over tens of millennia or millions of years for substantial evolutionary changes.
Not to mention, the idea that women's interest in computing has increased over time is counterfactual. At least I think this is your line of reasoning - you're being awfully ambiguous as to why you'd think that I would claim that "women's genes have evolved towards an interest in STEM over the past few decades. In truth, women's interest in computing has seen some spikes (and these spikes also coincided with spikes in men's participation) but has otherwise been pretty flat over time: https://i0.wp.com/d24fkeqntp1r7r.cloudfront.net/wp-content/u... The source is the National Center for Education Statistics.
These closing statements strike me as argumentum ad hominem.
The person you’re responding to is clearly
motivated by ideology rather than truth. They just happen to be good at generating paragraphs of text which, if you don’t look too closely, resemble a logical argument.
Many would debate this. At my company our new grads hired last year were 39% women while ~20% of graduates in computing related fields were women. The percentage of applicants were even lower than that.
Some disagree that continuing to apply affirmative action in spite of a proportional overrepresentation of nearly 2x is equality. Granted others view things in terms of relationship with the total population, so it's not like there's one right answer here.