You apply for a job or you build a startup and you want to be a professional. You want to do awesome things. Then someone else comes around, whether from a position of power or not and displays romantic or sexual interest towards you. No matter how polite it is, it irreversibly changes the previously professional relationship in a very discomforting way.
It's a dick move and it's shit like this why many women shy away from participating in technology.
Do you believe that this "dick move" is absent in other fields with lots of women? Specifically, do you believe doctors and lawyers ask each other out less than techies?
If "shit like this" is present in every field, it's a poor explanation of why women avoid technology but no those other fields.
Now if you want to rescue this hypothesis, you could point out that doctors aren't a bunch of low status nerds. But that's a naughty hypothesis, so I'm sure you won't go there.
No, you haven't shown the explanation to be poor. You've implicitly invoked one possible reason why unprofessional behavior among men might create obstacles for women, rebutted it, and declared the debate over. If this was an argument over the right way to interpret statistics over a website optimization scheme, you'd laugh at you.
Considering only gender policy, what is the most significant difference between doctors and engineers? Obviously: distribution among genders in medicine is much more balanced than in technology.
Stipulate that romantic overtures are as common in medicine as in technology. What basis do you have for your implied claim that the impact of such an overture is the same in medicine as it is in technology? It seems straightforward and reasonable to presume that the impact of an unwanted overture is much more powerful for someone who is part of a small minority, for whom the overture comes from a member of the overwhelming majority.
Michael O. Church has conjured an entire ethos in which he's been oppressed not just by venture capitalists but the entire industry they fund. He believes it so strongly that he has advocated violence to address the problem. And he's a guy, who feels locked out of the industry not because of a gender bias that has persisted overtly through pretty much all of human history, but instead due to unfair performance reviews.
From your comment history, you strike me as someone who has in his life actually talked to a woman. But comments like this force me to remind myself of that. Have you not talked to one who was shaken by being hit on by a guy in a work setting? I am not the suave, athletic bachelor you obviously are, and I've managed to hear this story from actual women repeatedly. If you have heard this story before, how are you managing to handwave it away so easily?
The OP's explanation is indeed poor. You can possibly add additional hypothesis which rescue it (I suggested one in the post you just responded to), but that doesn't mean the original hypothesis by itself isn't poor.
what is the most significant difference between doctors and engineers? Obviously: distribution among genders in medicine is much more balanced than in technology.
The key word here is "is". This was not true in the past. Yet somehow, medicine attracted women but tech didn't. At this historical point, did boy doctors not ask out girl doctors, but boy programmers did ask out girl programmers? Same for law, etc? Your "minority + asked out" theory predicts women can never escape minority status, which is evidently false.
If you want an explanation it needs to be specific to computing.
Have you not talked to one who was shaken by being hit on by a guy in a work setting? I am not the suave, athletic bachelor you obviously are...
I've heard this story before. I've heard of women being hit on in church gatherings also, yet church is full of women. Thus it fails as an explanation of why women are underrepresented in technology but not other fields.
Also, can I suggest leaving Michael O. Church alone? It's not necessary to drag him into a random conversation on topic completely unrelated to VC-istan.
I'm confused. The M.O.C. point was very simple. As it turns out from this comment, you empathize with the struggles of a white male with an established career history getting a fair shake in VC-funded technology. But for reasons I have not yet managed to unearth, you do not empathize with women whose careers are impeded by gender bias --- or, in a distinction that makes no difference, you're unable to acknowledge that gender bias exists.
You seem like the kind of person who would be irritated by the knowledge that he's missing something. You don't have a gnawing feeling that maybe you're missing something in this conversation?
I said "don't pick on Michael O. Church" (something I've observed you do repeatedly). I didn't say "Michael O. Church's factual claims are correct." I get the impression that I'm discussing testable hypothesis about the world, whereas you are attempting to signal empathy and kindness.
My very specific claim: if you postulate a theory why tech lacks women, your theory must distinguish between technology and medicine/law/catholicism (catholicism has lots of gender bias and lots of women). "People ask other people out" does not make this distinction.
Incidentally, there is a third possibility which you seem to be glossing over. I believe gender bias exists but is not the cause of women being underrepresented in tech.
I just made the distinction. Being asked out when you're the one woman among ten men is a different and more alienating experience than being asked out when you're one of four women along with six men.
Let me repeat: women were a minority in medicine and law at one point. Why did getting asked out not prevent them from achieving parity in those fields?
Because entry into medicine is neither entrepreneurial nor social. You apply and you get in.
The medical professions evaluate gender trends by the number of women who go to medical school. Once you graduate medical school, you're on a track that leads straightforwardly to gainful employment. That allowed schools to be a focal point for policy changes to improve representation of women in the field. The same thing goes for law. My sister graduated UChicago law and got a lucrative, high-status biglaw job immediately based, as I understand it, pretty much on her track record in school.
No similar track exists for software, and, obviously, even less of a path exists in entrepreneurial technology, which is largely controlled by wealthy male gatekeepers.
Tangentially: a law or medical professor could be fired for aggressively propositioning a student. A successful investor can't be "fired".
But also: you dodged my question instead of addressing it. Do you actually believe that the experience of being targeted by sexual advances is the same if you're one women surrounded by men as it is if you're one of many women surrounded by an almost equal number of men?
Neither is entry into tech. Only entry into the extremely narrow "Sand Hill Road" style VC funded tech is entrepreneurial and social. There is a rigid heirarchical track for software much like law: stanford -> google, or MIT -> apple, or rutgers -> morgan stanley. Most of technology fits a track like this, in fact.
I didn't dodge your question, I pointed out why the answer was irrelevant. There are two ways to debunk a theory: directly (by showing a premise is false) and by contradiction (showing it implies a false conclusion). I'm doing the latter.
As for how women feel about being asked out, in my experience the primary determinant is how attractive she finds the asker. To relate a real life experience, if a woman is surrounded by firefighters and one of them asks her out, she probably won't mind. Not that the anecdotes really matter (see the point above about argument by contradiction).
This is demonstrably incorrect. All you have to do is read a few years of Patrick McKenzie's advice to underemployed tech workers to see how different the character of tech jobs is from medical jobs. Scoring by "status" or by compensation, the variance among tech jobs in the first 5 years of a tech career dwarfs those of a medical doctor. Some people with CS degrees end up working helpdesk or patch management. Some of them wind up writing J2EE LOB applications wiring up form fields to SQL columns over and over again. And some of them work in challenging roles that offer opportunities to build a career.
The difference between the high-status roles and the low-status ones isn't school, excepting possibly that an absurdly small subset of the industry (Stanford and MIT grads) have easier time avoiding helpdesk jobs.
The "rigid hierarchical track" you suggest exists for tech also doesn't exist. I have a single semester of university. If you want to make the pot rich enough, we can bet on whether I can get a full time job at Google or Apple. I'd warn you that I've got an information advantage on this bet.
Hiring in technology is warped and driven by bogus apocrypha. A tiny component of the overall demand is fed by truly credentialing universities. But the majority of the demand is fed by a pool of candidates not distinguished by the particulars of their degree. Instead, they're distinguished by ability to navigate hazing rituals.
Your last paragraph isn't an argument. It's what you'd like to believe is true. It doesn't even fit the anecdotal evidence we have here. Have you met a lot of VCs? I have. As a group, they tend to be attractive: fit, the product of school, career, and social tracks that build social (and athletic) skills. They're well dressed, which comes of having large amounts of disposable income. And yet, strangely: women founders appear not to be comfortable being propositioned by them. The only way your last graf works is if we assume that those women are simply lying.
Scoring by "status" or by compensation, the variance among tech jobs in the first 5 years of a tech career dwarfs those of a medical doctor.
The variance among law jobs in the first 5 years dwarfs those of a medical doctor. You cite your sister who got a biglaw job, which is more or less the legal equivalent of stanford -> google. Most lawyers don't get to biglaw just as most engineers don't work at google.
You've done a great job explaining why medicine has women, while law and computing don't.
But the majority of the demand is fed by a pool of candidates not distinguished by the particulars of their degree. Instead, they're distinguished by ability to navigate hazing rituals.
How does this differ from most other fields? Do you think HR, lawyers, accountants or management consultants don't have hazing rituals?
As for my last paragraph, it's simply an anecdotal observation. I'm not pushing it . I'm not accusing anyone of lying or disagreeing with their experience. I'm just pointing out that your theory predicts incorrect facts.
No: the overwhelming majority of law school graduates end up in established legal practices that employ many attorneys. It's possible that not even a plurality of CS graduates end up as software developers at software firms; a huge number of CS graduates end up writing line of business software for insurance companies, or on their QA teams.
Law schools can exert pressure on law firms in ways that CS programs can't exert pressure on technology firms.
Do law firm hires endure hazing rituals like those in technology? I don't know. I doubt it. First-year associate hires aren't high-stakes the way tech hires are; the legal profession is structured around an "up or out" process that admits entrants to the profession mechanically. The technology profession as a rule does not, and relies intensely on status indicators.
You've agreed with me on that last point in the past, so I'd be surprised to hear you contest it now.
Here it's worth noting: the law profession does have gender equality issues; they just take place at a tier of the profession higher than where they happen in technology. But consider the implication of law forestalling the gender reckoning and tech front-loading it: entrants to the law field start amongst a relatively balanced cohort of coworkers. They get a foothold. They get experience working on real projects for partners. They get a track record. They have a different experience than minority entrants to technology.
Once again: the feeling of being singled out by your gender when you represent a tiny minority is different than being approached when you have a solid peer group of the same gender.
Hey: while I'm at it: I consult for F500 companies that build LOB apps. You can imagine that banks and hedge funds are more concerned about security than cat-sharing startups. Women are in my experience over the last ~9 years better represented in software jobs at non-software companies than they are in startups. Tech employees at banks and insurance companies are hired more mechanically and with less rubber-chicken voodoo than they are at startups. I don't think this is a coincidence.
No: the overwhelming majority of law school graduates end up in established legal practices that employ many attorneys. It's possible that not even a plurality of CS graduates end up as software developers at software firms; a huge number of CS graduates end up writing line of business software for insurance companies, or on their QA teams.
I don't think I fully understand the preconditions for your theory, so let me try to carefully state it. Being asked out + diversity of work situations + mostly internal department rather than external firm + non-rigorous interview process => women won't go from 0 to 50%.
Did I miss any preconditions? If I did, could you carefully list them?
Fun fact: HR (lots of women) satisfies these properties, near as I can tell. HR drones certainly ask me stupid non-rigorous interview questions, I'm sure they ask the same of each other. So there should be a dearth of women in HR?
Incidentally, the process I'm doing here was described by Scott Alexander yesterday. Basically I'm "feynmaning" you - finding examples which satisfy your preconditions but not your conclusion. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-cu...
You've agreed with me on that last point in the past, so I'd be surprised to hear you contest it now.
Let me repeat myself one more time. I don't disagree with you on this. I also don't disagree with your claims about people's subjective feelings. I don't think it's unique to tech, which makes it a poor explanation of a tech-specific phenomenon. Finance certainly uses similar interview techniques, and mid-office finance (besides IT) has no shortage of women.
Incidentally, if your observations about banks/f500 vs startups are correct and generalizeable, then your theory explains part of the discrepancy. Specifically, it explains the delta between startups and f500, but not the delta between f500 tech and f500 HR. It's not the only explanation that part of the discrepancy - risk aversion also works, and to me seems simpler. But I can't immediately reject your theory for that portion of the discrepancy.
I was not making an hypothesis, I was describing how situations like this make people feel and then I described how that makes me feel.
The irony is that even though you believed that you made a rational counter-argument what you really did is describing your very own feelings with a comment that is betraying your insecurities.
...it's shit like this why many women shy away from participating in technology.
That's a hypothesis, a claim about how the world works. That's the point I'm questioning.
I don't much care about your feelings, nor was I commenting on them. You can feel whatever you like. If you want to make status lowering comments ("betraying your insecurities"), have at it. I'm well aware that personal attacks and the like are one of the results of questioning the orthodoxy.
It's a dick move and it's shit like this why many women shy away from participating in technology.