> Is it sexist to even point out that men and women are different?
It may not be obvious to you, but there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the actual amount and severity of differences. One of the many problems with even ascertaining the nature of those differences is the inherent difficulty of separating culture from biology, and in biology interpreting the actual meaning of physical differences. Combine that with the fact that most studies conducted in these areas have a huge bias in one way or the other and are designed to mostly further the agendas of certain interest groups, or in the absence of that: to make for interesting headlines in popular magazines.
The "pointing out of differences" is mostly an act of voicing a certain kind of opinion at best, sometimes this opinion is disguised as fact-like by meaningless cave-dweller analogies and other unscientific bullshit that is usually trotted out to support the status quo of gender separation. But even if, by some miracle, you could obtain absolutely untainted data on this, it would still be a matter of statistics and there are still way too many variables involved.
The insidious nature of differences between men and women is that they become whatever society says they should be. In this way the expectation that CS is uncool and unsuited for women becomes fact simply by virtue of being declared a fact. Social expectations and feedback statistically play a huge role in people's choices.
> I think my wife is pretty awesome and capable of things I would not be able to do.
This isn't about your wife, but since you brought it up: not all women are good at the things your wife is good at. Conversely, not all men are like you. You are both a product of not only genetics, but also social pressures and expectations, internal mental states, and subject to different kinds of support for capabilities your environment deems appropriate for your roles in society. Even things where you might be convinced they are down to gender differences might conceivably be very different if you had grown up in a different culture.
> Am I sexist for talking about it?
You are certainly someone with strong opinions about what traits are linked to which gender, so yes, you are sexist in a way that you impose an artificial segregation unto the world that lines up with your values. It seems (although implicitly) that you are more likely to support people doing things you deem to be gender-appropriate and more likely to discourage people from doing something which you judge to be not a good fit because of your sex.
If you look at cultures of segregation historically, they often did attribute certain core skills even to the out-group. It was judged that non-whites, non-arians, females, homosexuals, or whatever group was defined as "different" did in fact have certain hard-wired capabilities (although not always good ones).
> I think in the source PG even says that women are good (maybe better) than men at business focused startups.
It may not sound problematic to have this view, unless you are a woman hacker standing in front of a VC who is predisposed against accepting your company into the program on account of judging you unfit to program. But meeting someone with the power to make decisions about your future who explicitly declared these views beforehand is not even the worst case. The worst case would be meeting someone who holds these views but isn't conscious of them.
But, to make sure, this is not a comment intended to be about Paul Graham specifically. I think as far as that interview is concerned, this whole discussion is a huge waste of time.
> Or will the world not be balanced until just as many women are making hot or not for XYZ in the off hours
It's not just a matter of balance. It's about two things mainly. First, many people (including me) would prefer a world where certain voices and talents are not missing or even actively silenced. Could a world without women hackers succeed? Certainly. By the same token, so could a world without black hackers, gay hackers, or non-american hackers. It's just not the world I'd like to live in, and I do believe such a segregated world would miss out on a lot of important developments.
Secondly, taking up the point from above, even in a world where a myriad cultural factors are stacked against them, sometimes women hackers emerge and do make it to critical junctions. At these points it's hugely disappointing to be turned back because they don't fit the profile for some superficial reason.
>> It may not be obvious to you, but there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the actual amount and severity of differences.
Is severity the right word here? It seems like you entered the conversation with this implication that heterogeneity was a bad thing - but I can't tell whether this was accidental.
>> Combine that with the fact that most studies conducted in these areas have a huge bias in one way or the other and are designed to mostly further the agendas of certain interest groups, or in the absence of that: to make for interesting headlines in popular magazines.
That's interesting if it's true. However, it's the sort of allegation that reminds me of this acquired derogatory meaning which the term "conspiracy theory" took on. May you expand? Is this just a feeling you have, or do you have concrete samples from the scientific world, or even somebody that shares this view who may be trusted on matters such as this?
Probably not. You can replace it with "amplitude" or "magnitude" if you like.
Speaking of poor word choices, I strongly disagree with your usage of heterogeneity ;)
> Is this just a feeling you have, or do you have concrete samples from the scientific world, or even somebody that shares this view who may be trusted on matters such as this?
There is some material that can be googled with terms like "gender bias in research" on similar terms. For a popularized take on a part of the dynamic, start here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/421746.article
But an even better method would be to simply engage in critical observation. The next time a big study announces (and most likely confirms already expected) gender differences, look at who is doing the study. Check whether the methodology is even half-way sound, if there were enough test subjects and look at how they were recruited. Especially in psychological studies, search for ways the study might have been primed. Also, what's the track record of the researchers themselves, is this a study to follow up on previously uttered extreme claims? Look for cultural bias. Look for warning signs such as the invocation of fictitious prehistorical "facts". Look at the assumptions behind the study, and at the way the media spins the results to conform with accepted stereotypes.
In the end, no, you will probably choose to trust people and researchers who already agree with you. But it's worth a shot taking a look behind the scenes of these big "scientific explanations" that seem to be evolutionary (=pop) psychological justifications for convenient cultural norms.
I am somewhat pessimistic about finding common ground if you self-identify as a religious or conservative person, however, this is a point where we might start:
Discard science and evidence, discard models and reasoning, discard culture. Let's just talk about people. In the parent post I already talked about female programmers being saddled with additional hurdles. Obviously we can agree that this is a bad thing. The only other thing we should probably agree on is the idea that female voices are somewhat missing in our hacker culture, based on the assertion it'd be a richer and more prolific culture if we worked even a little bit on seizing the incessant discouragement of women to enter this profession. That's really it, the whole thing. I'm not even talking about this controversial notion of active encouragement, let's just stop the discouragement.
It may not be obvious to you, but there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the actual amount and severity of differences. One of the many problems with even ascertaining the nature of those differences is the inherent difficulty of separating culture from biology, and in biology interpreting the actual meaning of physical differences. Combine that with the fact that most studies conducted in these areas have a huge bias in one way or the other and are designed to mostly further the agendas of certain interest groups, or in the absence of that: to make for interesting headlines in popular magazines.
The "pointing out of differences" is mostly an act of voicing a certain kind of opinion at best, sometimes this opinion is disguised as fact-like by meaningless cave-dweller analogies and other unscientific bullshit that is usually trotted out to support the status quo of gender separation. But even if, by some miracle, you could obtain absolutely untainted data on this, it would still be a matter of statistics and there are still way too many variables involved.
The insidious nature of differences between men and women is that they become whatever society says they should be. In this way the expectation that CS is uncool and unsuited for women becomes fact simply by virtue of being declared a fact. Social expectations and feedback statistically play a huge role in people's choices.
> I think my wife is pretty awesome and capable of things I would not be able to do.
This isn't about your wife, but since you brought it up: not all women are good at the things your wife is good at. Conversely, not all men are like you. You are both a product of not only genetics, but also social pressures and expectations, internal mental states, and subject to different kinds of support for capabilities your environment deems appropriate for your roles in society. Even things where you might be convinced they are down to gender differences might conceivably be very different if you had grown up in a different culture.
> Am I sexist for talking about it?
You are certainly someone with strong opinions about what traits are linked to which gender, so yes, you are sexist in a way that you impose an artificial segregation unto the world that lines up with your values. It seems (although implicitly) that you are more likely to support people doing things you deem to be gender-appropriate and more likely to discourage people from doing something which you judge to be not a good fit because of your sex.
If you look at cultures of segregation historically, they often did attribute certain core skills even to the out-group. It was judged that non-whites, non-arians, females, homosexuals, or whatever group was defined as "different" did in fact have certain hard-wired capabilities (although not always good ones).
> I think in the source PG even says that women are good (maybe better) than men at business focused startups.
It may not sound problematic to have this view, unless you are a woman hacker standing in front of a VC who is predisposed against accepting your company into the program on account of judging you unfit to program. But meeting someone with the power to make decisions about your future who explicitly declared these views beforehand is not even the worst case. The worst case would be meeting someone who holds these views but isn't conscious of them.
But, to make sure, this is not a comment intended to be about Paul Graham specifically. I think as far as that interview is concerned, this whole discussion is a huge waste of time.
> Or will the world not be balanced until just as many women are making hot or not for XYZ in the off hours
It's not just a matter of balance. It's about two things mainly. First, many people (including me) would prefer a world where certain voices and talents are not missing or even actively silenced. Could a world without women hackers succeed? Certainly. By the same token, so could a world without black hackers, gay hackers, or non-american hackers. It's just not the world I'd like to live in, and I do believe such a segregated world would miss out on a lot of important developments.
Secondly, taking up the point from above, even in a world where a myriad cultural factors are stacked against them, sometimes women hackers emerge and do make it to critical junctions. At these points it's hugely disappointing to be turned back because they don't fit the profile for some superficial reason.