My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 16:40 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525)
In reply to: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) by JoeBuck
Parent article: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Differences between the genders on standardized tests tend to be smaller than the difference in height.

Yes, but that suggest we want standard males here. Do we? If we are looking for a top 0.5% rate of a gift that's asymmetrically distributed, you are so far out of the bell curve that small asymmetries at the center mean large asymmetries there. Also, deviation patterns often are different - even when the mean value is close, the standard deviation can be quite different. You often see this on the other end of the curve as well, e.g. take the number of male violent criminals compared to female violent criminals.

What I don't accept is that the testosterone-driven rudeness in this male-dominated world drives out women. How on earth do they get along well in the legal section, or as medics? All I know of this world is that it is male-dominated, very hierarchical, rude as it can get (medics not mobbed by their peers are happy - not mobbed by their boss don't exist), and still the percentage of young lawyers and medics is more than 50% female. This doesn't mean that our rudeness is ok, that it doesn't have an effect, or that we shouldn't change it, it just means there must be more important factors, as well. It could be that writing FOSS is only very indirectly rewarded - you don't immediately get tons of money for it, it just eats tons of time. It's not even sure that you'll get reputation from it, when the majority of the outside world doesn't understand what this is all about. Being a lawyer or a medic is directly rewarded by a big salary.

So if we want to motivate women to come here, we need to ask: Why would a woman do that? What would motivate her to come here? I don't know, all I know is that women typically end up at places and activities I hate (e.g. going shopping for hours and even enjoying it), and the other way round. We males are here because of this itch and scratching issue, and we scratch ourselves (I have that sort of thought even in my mail signature). We have to ask the females who are here if they are here for the same reason, and those females who aren't, if there was be something itching that scratching yourself would help, or if it is more female to approach somebody else for scratching, and therefore, this scratching yourself never will happen.

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