Why is the female crowd not attracted to STEM fields?

[physica]

A simple example has been laid out for you in the first three sentences of post 94 above. You appear to be concluding that unmarried women being paid more than unmarried men in some fields in the 1950s was evidence against sex discrimination in the workplace in the 1950s. That would be badly mistaken, of course. Could you explain more clearly just what you are actually arguing there?

 

Sexism can happen in other areas of society other than the work place. Variables like getting married can give background noise. Women may be expected to or choose to raise the children, not dedicate more time to work, not move for or go for a promotion in order to keep a home and raise the children. Because of this we exclude it marriage as these factors are hard to quantify. The fact that non married women earn't 6% more than non married men suggests that people in the workplace aren't simply promoting and paying women less than men for the same amount of work. It suggest that there are other areas that need to be looked into. This is the basics of any quality analysis. The fact that you're not comprehending it says more about your willingness to comprehend that what's being written.

 

 

Kindly please use the handy quote function afforded by this forum's software to share clearly where precisely I claimed there was only one side of the story.

I apologise for this. I know how frustrating it is when someone puts words in your mouth.

 

 

I recommend you share your concerns with the author of the article. I merely shared it here for another take on a prevalent theme. Along similar lines, here are similar examples of this unfortunate theme:

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429996.000-the-fight-back-against-rape-and-death-threats-online.html#.VMrZm92COK0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/the-point-of-online-haras_b_2931720.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/01/twitter-threats-against-women-force-debate-in-britain-about-limits-of-internet-freedrom-of-speech/

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-threats-of-sex-violence-online-women-20140121-story.html#page=1

 

Despite this, your replies consistently come across as: Nope. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just mind your business.

 

Translation: "I haven't bothered to read this yet, but I did need to be sure I took the time to post my dismissal of it."

Got it.

I have not said that there is nothing to see I'm saying that there is two sides to the story. Due to the anonymity of the internet it is hard to tell someone's gender. Sometimes the poster makes it clear like the females harassing the female game reviewer but how could we collect statistics on this? I just tread lightly when I come across a muddy area where data collection is hard and some of the high profile campaigners have been caught outright lying.

 

Translation: "I haven't bothered to read this yet, but I did need to be sure I took the time to post my dismissal of it."

Got it.

Don't put words in my mouth. I appreciate that sometimes we can get lost in the swing but it's a scary level of double standards when you complain about putting words in your mouth then put words in my mouth in the same post. I have a lot of work on and I already knew about the gaming so it didn't take much time. I'm reserving judgement of the rest because I haven't read into it. Judging by the snip on the games I'm predicting (not dismissing or claiming) that it's not going to be balanced.

 

I don't see how this changes anything. You don't "erase" threats by finding someone on "the other side" making them, and you can't extrapolate from "I discovered one lie" to "I can dismiss all claims as lie". (OK, technically you can — it obviously happens — but not if you have intellectual integrity)

 

Threats of violence are wrong.

I not saying that one cancels out the other. What I'm saying is that there are muddy waters. The "one lie" isn't just one lie. First of all it's a main campaigner and secondly there are loads more lies. When there are offences on both sides it's hard to point out which one is the victim. Instead of putting words in my mouth I will actually tell you where I'm coming from. The data is shoddy, there has been numerous offences from both sides. One of the main campaigners has been caught outright lying multiple times. I will reserve judgement and read more before I religiously bang the women victimhood drum.

 

 

That's not an apt comparison. To know if something happened, all you need is to find out that it happened. You would need statistics if you were trying to assert some statistical result, such as x% of women are threatened.

Yes I agree it's actually worse. People are making assumptions based on no data at all and accusing people of being dismissive because they wont make a judgement based of anecdotal evidence and a few tales. I'd actually say it mimics religious style reasoning.

 

 

Here's a compilation of tweets that Anita Sarkeesian got during one week http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-harassment-on-twitter

Come on.... another double standard. Would you accept this from me?.... maybe if I was claiming that women are victims. This woman has been caught outright lying. Despite raising 25 times more than she needed for her project ($160,000) she released 7 youtube videos and then uses the harassment she's received as a platform to ask for more money. How much of here harassment comes from her lying or simply attacking video games? When a high profile person outright lies they get negative attention on twitter. Google Jack Thompson, a white middle aged lawyer who campaigned against violence in games and he didn't focus on women. He also got multiple death threats and was driven out of his profession because his arguments were agenda driven. Now I'm not saying that one cancels out the other. I'm saying that it's hard to determine what level of harassment (if any) is sent her way because she's a woman. What you have done here is along the same lines as a religion. Like when priests look at an incident and then don't bother to look at the stats or other possible reasons as to why it happened then link it to their cause. You have done the same. I don't know if you have actually done this or if you're just being dishonest because you offer no analysis of the point you make.

 

If anything I could actually claim that men have it hard. Jack Thompson got no support. Anita has got multiple support. Both said that games brainwash people when there is no evidence. The main difference is that she was playing the female victim card. I'm not going to have the same double standards as you and say this is the case or attack someone's personality of put words in their mouth because they don't agree with this as the evidence is shoddy. What I am demonstrating is that this whole area is a minefield and there's no real research. We'd be here all day trading tales if I stooped to your level of standards.

 

I am shocked that very reasonable people go into autopilot when female victim gets inserted into the subject.

Edited January 30, 2015 by physica

[swansont]

 

I am shocked that very reasonable people go into autopilot when female victim gets inserted into the subject.

 

I'm shocked at anyone who defends threats of violence as somehow being justified. The rank denialism, sadly, isn't shocking anymore.

[physica]

 

I'm shocked at anyone who defends threats of violence as somehow being justified. The rank denialism, sadly, isn't shocking anymore.

Come on I have not defended threats of violence. I have said it happens on both sides meaning we cant put the threats of violence down to because of female victimhood, that would be religious reasoning. It's interesting that my other points aren't addressed.

Edited January 30, 2015 by physica

[swansont]

I will look into the rest after my assignments are in...

It's interesting that my other points aren't addressed.

You aren't the only one who has other obligations on his/her time.

[iNow]

I'm reserving judgement of the rest because I haven't read into it. Judging by the snip on the games I'm predicting (not dismissing or claiming) that it's not going to be balanced.

Not all issues are balanced, my friend. Sometimes, what's actually happening in actual reality overwhelmingly favors one conclusion over others. While men are not immune from the types of biases and threats being described here, these issues we're discussing ARE very much asymmetric (aka: unbalanced) across the genders and treating "balance" as some sort of prerequisite or mandate will only unnecessarily distract us from having a reasonable discussion about this unreasonable and long-standing social problem.

[swansont]

Due to the anonymity of the internet it is hard to tell someone's gender.

Sometimes. But it's telling that accounts that are identifiably held by women see more harassment.

 

Perhaps a few of our members who are identifiable as women (via profile or posts) will share some stories. I've seen some of the exchanges myself. Not pretty. But I've not seen the equivalent going in the opposite direction.

 

 

How much of here harassment comes from her lying or simply attacking video games?

Why does it matter? How does this jibe with "I have not defended threats of violence"? because it sounds an awful lot like you are defending threats of violence; the implication here is that threats are OK if the person lied or attacked video games.

 

If anything I could actually claim that men have it hard.

Claiming things is easy. It's hard to tell if this particular claim is due to general cluelessness or some other pathology. I can understand not having an appreciation of the situation — I was there once, myself. I recall some occasions in grad school where a few of the women were talking about having to work late, and where to park, etc. in the context of feeling safe in the building and walking to their car. That's when I began to appreciate the issues involved here. If you're a man, how much time do you spend worrying about being sexually assaulted? I think for most men it's effectively zero. For women it's decidedly not.

 

Consider this a hypothetical, if need be. (What if) these descriptions you've been hearing about women being harasses are actually real. In that situation, wouldn't a systematic dismissal of concerns, and assumption that the stories are lies be seen as perpetuating the status quo, and would be seen as a problem by the people being harassed? Because that's where we are. Your immediate response to this situation was to invoke a conspiracy theory, and yet you tried to assert you had some sort of high ground by attacking others' integrity.

[physica]

Why does it matter? How does this jibe with "I have not defended threats of violence"? because it sounds an awful lot like you are defending threats of violence; the implication here is that threats are OK if the person lied or attacked video games.

This is very dishonest. Lets look at the sentence you quoted:

 

How much of here harassment comes from her lying or simply attacking video games?

Now lets look at this in context:

 

 

How much of here harassment comes from her lying or simply attacking video games? When a high profile person outright lies they get negative attention on twitter. Google Jack Thompson, a white middle aged lawyer who campaigned against violence in games and he didn't focus on women. He also got multiple death threats and was driven out of his profession because his arguments were agenda driven. Now I'm not saying that one cancels out the other. I'm saying that it's hard to determine what level of harassment (if any) is sent her way because she's a woman.

Now lets highlight the final part of what I've said:

 

Now I'm not saying that one cancels out the other. I'm saying that it's hard to determine what level of harassment (if any) is sent her way because she's a woman.

I'm making a point that it's hard to determine if she got the harassment because she's a woman or because she is lying, or because she is criticising the game industry. We can have a white male example who also got death threats because he criticised the game industry. Questioning why someone is receiving harassment is not defending it, especially when someone is claiming why to back up their point. You know this.

 

Claiming things is easy. It's hard to tell if this particular claim is due to general cluelessness or some other pathology.

I agree and if you actually read the rest of my paragraph instead of dishonestly quoting a snip you'd see that I say:

 

 

If anything I could actually claim that men have it hard. Jack Thompson got no support. Anita has got multiple support. Both said that games brainwash people when there is no evidence. The main difference is that she was playing the female victim card. I'm not going to have the same double standards as you and say this is the case or attack someone's personality of put words in their mouth because they don't agree with this as the evidence is shoddy. What I am demonstrating is that this whole area is a minefield and there's no real research. We'd be here all day trading tales if I stooped to your level of standards.

Again more dishonesty. The fact that I say I'm not backing claim as the evidence is shoddy and I make the point that if I had this style we would be here all day trading tales shows your statement for what it is, a straw-man argument.

 

I was there once, myself. I recall some occasions in grad school where a few of the women were talking about having to work late, and where to park, etc. in the context of feeling safe in the building and walking to their car. That's when I began to appreciate the issues involved here. If you're a man, how much time do you spend worrying about being sexually assaulted? I think for most men it's effectively zero. For women it's decidedly not.

This is a science forum personal tales and feelings are not good evidence you know this.

 

 

Consider this a hypothetical, if need be. (What if) these descriptions you've been hearing about women being harasses are actually real. In that situation, wouldn't a systematic dismissal of concerns, and assumption that the stories are lies be seen as perpetuating the status quo, and would be seen as a problem by the people being harassed? Because that's where we are. Your immediate response to this situation was to invoke a conspiracy theory, and yet you tried to assert you had some sort of high ground by attacking others' integrity.

Invoke a conspiracy theory is rich. All I am saying is that we need to actually look at the stats to see where the problem lies. You're the one twisting what I'm saying and employing personal tales.

 

Sometimes. But it's telling that accounts that are identifiably held by women see more harassment.

Perhaps a few of our members who are identifiable as women (via profile or posts) will share some stories. I've seen some of the exchanges myself. Not pretty. But I've not seen the equivalent going in the opposite direction.

I don't doubt this is true, again you quote is missing what I'm saying. I'm making the point that because of this conducting research and collecting stats is hard.

 

and yet you tried to assert you had some sort of high ground by attacking others' integrity.

I've shown evidence and I've apologised when people have pointed out that I have put words in their mouth. You've given me anecdotal evidence, this post gives two examples where you have been dishonest when quoting me and you don't hold back when putting words in my mouth you even continue when I point it out.

 

Not all issues are balanced, my friend. Sometimes, what's actually happening in actual reality overwhelmingly favors one conclusion over others. While men are not immune from the types of biases and threats being described here, these issues we're discussing ARE very much asymmetric (aka: unbalanced) across the genders and treating "balance" as some sort of prerequisite or mandate will only unnecessarily distract us from having a reasonable discussion about this unreasonable and long-standing social problem.

I agree but science has shown us again and again that we are terrible at seeing the bigger picture. People of different categories are discriminated against for different reasons in different situations. Putting a blanket term on it is a very religious way of looking at it. For instance if we look at these two studies:

 

 

1. Cook, Phillip W. (1997). Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 43–91. ISBN 9780313356711.
2. Jump up^ Grady, Ann (2002). "Female-on-Male Domestic Violence: Uncommon or Ignored?". In Hoyle, Carolyn; Young, Richard. New Visions of Crime Victims. Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing. pp. 93–95. ISBN 9781841132808.

it potentially sheds a light onto why domestic violence against males is under declared. When women called police due to domestic violence 41% of men were ordered out the house, 28% were threatened with arrest, 10% got arrested later and overall 15% ended up arrested.

 

When a man called police due to domestic violence 0% of the women were ordered out of the house, 0%were threatened with arrest, 0% were arrested and 12% of men were arrested even though they called the police.

 

Now before the standard female victim crusade tactics come out accusing me of all sorts we can't draw full conclusions from this data. Percentages can only go so far as the arrests may actually be valid..... 0% of women could actually commit domestic violence. What this highlights (like the gender pay gap) is that the picture isn't all what it seems at face value. This is why stats and rational debate is needed. Just saying it's overwhelming doesn't really help anyone, even the women who are actually getting victimised as it misplaces the focus.

Edited January 30, 2015 by physica

[CharonY]

Aside from the gaming community issue, I still do not see any valid counterargument of why female CEOs or other high-value workers are underpaid. Or the other indication that female contributions are undervalued. The only argument so far is based on the video which does not compare equal jobs as SwansonT mentioned. Moreover various other data sources indicate that considering progression females have it harder, even when correcting for confounding factors.

Again, the fact that a single statistic from 1950 is used as a counterargument to all hitherto collected data is a bit weak, to say the least. Also, claiming that people. who are updating this thread with new statistics are on autopilot, while rehashing the same argument (and data) for the last couple of pages or so, is at best, a clumsy diversion.

 

Let us revisit an earlier argument, shall we? Physica claimed that women prefer to get into jobs where they can manipulate men and thus gain an advantage. It seemed to ridiculous of an argument so I kept away from that. But let me ask you this:

if that is an important factor, why are so many more women in biology and chemistry as compared to physics and engineering? Is there a way that women use their female wiles to manipulate matter and organisms?

[swansont]

 

I'm making a point that it's hard to determine if she got the harassment because she's a woman or because she is lying, or because she is criticising the game industry. We can have a white male example who also got death threats because he criticised the game industry. Questioning why someone is receiving harassment is not defending it, especially when someone is claiming why to back up their point. You know this.

 

Your mention of Jack Thompson is, of course, simply an anecdote. I see no scientific analysis of how many threats he got, or anything like that, the very sort of thing you are complaining about. How about some consistency in your approach?

 

It's not something I would have brought up, other than the double standard, because to the larger point, it doesn't matter. If one is merely establishing the existence of something, a personal story is not anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is a problem because you haven't done a proper sampling to compare to random occurrence or some baseline. So drop the complaint or toe the line.

 

[Aisha]

Below is a video showing an award winning gaming critic was outright lying. She then disabled her comments on youtube as the criticism was valid and then hid behind the victim card. As there is always fringes threats of violence have been made to her and to her critics.

 

 

The guy who made that video has been on a crusade against feminism and Anita Sarkeesean for some time now.

A quick search on him showed he's either a flat-out liar, or such a poor researcher that anything he says can't be trusted.

Excuse Me While I Dismantle Thunderf00t's Anti-Sarkeesian Video With One Screenshot

There are plenty of gameplay videos out there featuring people killing the dancers in Hitman (with plenty of approving comments), and there have been for literally years before Sarkeesian's video discussing and depicting it. The screenshot of one YouTube video at that link (which you can watch

, for example, charmingly titled "Fun with Strippers", considering that the description reads "In which we Enjoy Talking a Lot and Killing Strippers a Lot. We strangle and kill many strippers, then make piles out of them and watch them ragdoll and roll around the floor.") shows it was uploaded on December 4, 2012. Just right now, as I was typing this post, I did my own YouTube search using the exact same search terms - "Hitman game strippers" - and found

more videos just like that one, one right below the above video on the first page of results, the second the video at the top of the "related videos" section on the right hand side of that one. Both of them were uploaded in the middle of 2013. Sarkeesian's video, "Women as Background Decoration: Part 1", wasn't uploaded until June 2014.

So, either thunderf00t couldn't be arsed to do two seconds of research before he spouted his bull about how Sarkeesian was totally making that whole thing up and no one would even think about doing such a thing in Hitman (much less make videos about it) before she did it, or he was directly and blatantly lying about it.

 

Edited January 30, 2015 by Aisha

[iNow]

I'm making a point that it's hard to determine if she got the harassment because she's a woman or because she is lying, or because she is criticising the game industry.

I might give a shit about this point you're making if she were the only one, or one of a handful, to whom this was happening. She's not, so I don't.

[StringJunky]

 

Women in Academic Science

 

A Changing Landscape

 

Abstract

Much has been written in the past two decades about women in academic science careers, but this literature is contradictory. Many analyses have revealed a level playing field, with men and women faring equally, whereas other analyses have suggested numerous areas in which the playing field is not level. The only widely-agreed-upon conclusion is that women are underrepresented in college majors, graduate school programs, and the professoriate in those fields that are the most mathematically intensive, such as geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics/computer science, and the physical sciences. In other scientific fields (psychology, life science, social science), women are found in much higher percentages.

 

In this monograph, we undertake extensive life-course analyses comparing the trajectories of women and men in math-intensive fields with those of their counterparts in non-math-intensive fields in which women are close to parity with or even exceed the number of men. We begin by examining early-childhood differences in spatial processing and follow this through quantitative performance in middle childhood and adolescence, including high school coursework. We then focus on the transition of the sexes from high school to college major, then to graduate school, and, finally, to careers in academic science.

 

The results of our myriad analyses reveal that early sex differences in spatial and mathematical reasoning need not stem from biological bases, that the gap between average female and male math ability is narrowing (suggesting strong environmental influences), and that sex differences in math ability at the right tail show variation over time and across nationalities, ethnicities, and other factors, indicating that the ratio of males to females at the right tail can and does change. We find that gender differences in attitudes toward and expectations about math careers and ability (controlling for actual ability) are evident by kindergarten and increase thereafter, leading to lower female propensities to major in math-intensive subjects in college but higher female propensities to major in non-math-intensive sciences, with overall science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at 50% female for more than a decade. Post-college, although men with majors in math-intensive subjects have historically chosen and completed PhDs in these fields more often than women, the gap has recently narrowed by two thirds; among non-math-intensive STEM majors, women are more likely than men to go into health and other people-related occupations instead of pursuing PhDs.

 

Importantly, of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates—with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, social science) than in the math-intensive fields in which they are underrepresented but in which the number of females holding assistant professorships is at least commensurate with (if not greater than) that of males. That is, invitations to interview for tenure-track positions in math-intensive fields—as well as actual employment offers—reveal that female PhD applicants fare at least as well as their male counterparts in math-intensive fields.

 

Along these same lines, our analyses reveal that manuscript reviewing and grant funding are gender neutral: Male and female authors and principal investigators are equally likely to have their manuscripts accepted by journal editors and their grants funded, with only very occasional exceptions. There are no compelling sex differences in hours worked or average citations per publication, but there is an overall male advantage in productivity. We attempt to reconcile these results amid the disparate claims made regarding their causes, examining sex differences in citations, hours worked, and interests.

 

We conclude by suggesting that although in the past, gender discrimination was an important cause of women’s underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields. Consequently, current barriers to women’s full participation in mathematically intensive academic science fields are rooted in pre-college factors and the subsequent likelihood of majoring in these fields, and future research should focus on these barriers rather than misdirecting attention toward historical barriers that no longer account for women’s underrepresentation in academic science.

 

http://psi.sagepub.com/content/15/3/75.full?ijkey=/rLBbJMggBVeg&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi%2520

 

The following is from a review of that paper:

 

 

...The authors have not hesitated to challenge some popular beliefs, most notably the idea that sex discrimi- nation in hiring and promotion in the academic commu- nity can explain a reasonably large portion of the gender gap in academic careers. Their conclusion is likely to be met with criticism and denial because it is a central theme in research on gender gaps in scientific careers. It is important to note that the authors do not deny that dis- crimination exists, but it is more likely to occur earlier in the career paths of women and men, not at the time they enter (or attempt to enter) academic careers. If this find- ing holds up over time, researchers will have to move their focus on discriminatory practices down to younger ages, when children are developing their academic and career interests. If this pending controversy leads to the collection of better data, it will help to move our under- standing of the gender gap forward.

 

http://psi.sagepub.com/content/15/3/72.full.pdf+html?ijkey=BnBBpfFFX10gw&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi%2520 (PDF download)

Edited January 30, 2015 by StringJunky

[physica]

@Aisha: I realise that this is your first post, welcome to the forum hope you enjoy. After looking back myself it is clear that he is bias. However, this doesn't glaze over the point that Anita did lie. She said that the player is encouraged to kill the dancers. The fact that you lose points for killing innocent people goes against this. It's like saying, there's some drink drivers out there, therefore the drink driving laws encourage drink driving. As swansont has said a few times it doesn't cancel out the other. This doesn't shake my stance at all. My stance is that there is so much mess and not enough good quality data to really understand what's going on.

 

Anecdotal evidence is a problem because you haven't done a proper sampling to compare to random occurrence or some baseline. So drop the complaint or toe the line.

My stance is that we don't know enough to make certain statements. Therefore I have no line to actually toe when it comes to providing evidence.

 

Also, claiming that people. who are updating this thread with new statistics are on autopilot, while rehashing the same argument (and data) for the last couple of pages or so, is at best, a clumsy diversion.

I have to repeat myself because people keep being dishonest when quoting me and twisting what I said. Others asked me to clarify which in turn I have to repeat a fair bit. It's unfair to have ago at me for smelling of urine because someone else has pissed on me.

 

 

Is there a way that women use their female wiles to manipulate matter and organisms?

We all know I'm not suggesting this.

 

 

Let us revisit an earlier argument, shall we? Physica claimed that women prefer to get into jobs where they can manipulate men and thus gain an advantage. It seemed to ridiculous of an argument so I kept away from that. But let me ask you this: if that is an important factor, why are so many more women in biology and chemistry as compared to physics and engineering?

Yes we can visit this. If we look at the study: aggression among university employees (link provided below) it does say that women felt more victimised but we have to remember that this is subjective. In the conclusion it openly states we can't know for sure the degree of which victims overestimated their victimisation. One thing you can categorise is the method of aggression. The study shows that men were more confrontational like gunning for quality of work where as women tended to use social manipulation more. Attacking ones image, spreading rumours etc.

 

http://www.vasa.abo.fi/svf/up/articles/Aggr_Among_University_Employees.PDF

 

Now if your method is social manipulation then it makes sense to go for a less mathematically orientated field as social manipulation will give you more of an edge. Social manipulation doesn't have much stock when trying to disprove maths. Now you're allowed to disagree. I hope some of you do otherwise I wouldn't have spent my time typing this up on a forum for people to reply to but I think it's a little unfair to class it as ridiculous. I'm going to preempt the religious style attack: I don't think this is the only factor I think it's one of many factors. I have no idea about the prevalence just like we have to idea how to quantify the extent to which getting married holds a woman back in the job market. I don't think it's the main point but as reader must realise I'm simply replying to posts. I haven't really led the conversation.

 

 

I might give a shit about this point you're making if she were the only one, or one of a handful, to whom this was happening. She's not, so I don't.

I think your anger is misplaced here. Somebody else brought the example into the thread. I pointed out that the example wasn't a good one and it actually highlights the messiness of the situation. I only went back to it a few times because someone was using it to falsely accuse me of defending violence.

[overtone]

Because of this we exclude it marriage as these factors are hard to quantify.

Excluding married people who hold jobs does not exclude those other factors. It may in fact amplify them.

 

 

The fact that non married women earn't 6% more than non married men suggests that people in the workplace aren't simply promoting and paying women less than men for the same amount of work.

No, it doesn't. Because you haver biased your subgroup by the very factors you wished to study, It has no clear bearing on that question - almost any interpretation is possible.

 

One could for example take it as evidence that since women who are paid and promoted as much or more than men tend to be unmarried, and most women are married, that most women are being paid less than men for equivalent work - the exact opposite of your deduction.

 

But thank you for clarifying. I didn't want to simply assume you were making such basic errors in reasoning.

Edited January 30, 2015 by overtone

[Aisha]

@Aisha: I realise that this is your first post, welcome to the forum hope you enjoy.

 

Thank you

 

this doesn't glaze over the point that Anita did lie. She said that the player is encouraged to kill the dancers. The fact that you lose points for killing innocent people goes against this. It's like saying, there's some drink drivers out there, therefore the drink driving laws encourage drink driving.

 

 

I think that's an uncharitable reading.

 

When I was a young, I loved playing Warcraft II. When you clicked on a moving character in your army, or an animal, they would make a sound or utter a little phrase. If you clicked again, it may utter a different phrase, I believe they were randomized.

 

If you clicked on a sheep enough times, it would explode.

 

This wouldn't gain you any tactical advantage or any useful points, it was just a little fun sadistic bonus.

 

Even though it didn't help in any core game objectives or outcomes, it was encouraged in the sense that they gave you a reward, a fun novel experience for doing it. The reward is novelty.

 

Sarkesian was not talking about the game scoring when she talked about the way the game rewards players, she was talking about the mechanics of the game as a designed experience. They built a trunk and set the physics and designed the level so that an option that exists is stuffing dead prostitutes into a trunk. They did this knowing that an adolescent audience would contain a lot of people who would find this entertaining the way I found making sheep explode entertaining. Creating the mechanics and novelty of that experience is reward and encouragement, even if it doesn't positively impact game score.

 

I think a lot of animosity around this issue comes from equivocation, either intentional or not, where people fail to read things as they are intended.

[physica]

Hi I'm back again on this thread. I'll address Overtone's quote first. Slightly depressing that no one else has pointed this out. I'm not going to name names but I have had a private message from another member who has a high rep that is disappointed in the lack of objectivity from some of the other posters.

Excluding married people who hold jobs does not exclude those other factors. It may in fact amplify them.

So you are saying that if you get married and have kids that you're more likely to dedicate more time to work and go for promotion and not take time out???? Where is the extra time coming from??? Does everyone else agree with this?? For that matter does anyone have anything to say on the StringJunky's post??.... maybe not because it goes against their religion.

 

When I was a young, I loved playing Warcraft II. When you clicked on a moving character in your army, or an animal, they would make a sound or utter a little phrase. If you clicked again, it may utter a different phrase, I believe they were randomized.

You're basing your argument on anecdotal evidence

 

Even though it didn't help in any core game objectives or outcomes, it was encouraged in the sense that they gave you a reward, a fun novel experience for doing it. The reward is novelty.

Hitman Actually lowers the score if you kill innocent people so there is a difference.

 

They built a trunk and set the physics and designed the level so that an option that exists is stuffing dead prostitutes into a trunk.

They build trunks around the place to hide bodies. You have to sneak. If someone sees you they raise the alarm and you lose points by killing them and hiding the body. This is just as true with countless males in the game. Some places that sell alcohol have roads leading up to them and carparks. The option exists that someone can drive up to the place. Drink alcohol and drive away. Despite there being a disincentive by the law to drink and drive we can gloss over it all and say that the drink drivers are generally encouraged. I'm not saying that what you're saying is ridiculous. What I'm saying is that the level of evidence needs to be stepped up. I clearly don't have the same view as you I am not going to be swayed by anecdotal evidence and a subjective interpretation.

 

Sarkesian was not talking about the game scoring when she talked about the way the game rewards players, she was talking about the mechanics of the game as a designed experience.

This is subjective. There may be some credible critics out there and I urge you to look at them not Sarkesian. This woman's "analysis" offers no stats, cherry picks and then states her own subjective opinion as if it's fact. A lovely example is when Christopher Hitchens died she tweeted that he was a sexiest, racist warmonger.

 

Now the next part isn't my point of view but it's a display of the style of reasoning that's being depressingly sported.I'm going to start with some anecdotal evidence, then I'm going to focus on one game, then I'm going to focus on a particular part of that game.

 

I remember once being hit by a woman but I daren't hit her back because I knew of the backlash I'd get from society if I did. This female aggression against men is present in society. If we look at the game series Tomb Raider which sold 42 million copies (5 times more than the Hitman series which only sold 8 million copies) the woman kills countless faceless males who are completely disposable throughout the game. Players are rewarded and encouraged to kill these males. One example is where the male butler who follows you around and is depicted as your servant tolerates getting shot as as much as your desire. There is also a mechanism in which you can lure him into the walk in freezer and lock him in there. The fact that this mechanism is in place means that you are encouraged to treat your male servant as a piece of meat. This aggression against males is so rife that the series even got to release a couple of blockbuster films in the cinema pushing it's aggression against men to non gamers.

 

Or course I don't believe this it's a demonstration of how we can be here all day trading anecdotal tales and subjective interpretations. What's depressing is the positive rep that your last post got. I'm not saying that what you are saying is insane or that it deserves negative rep (notice I'm not voting it down) but I don't think that the positive rep is a testament to the reasoning you displayed but more of a demonstration of the religious zelot attitude that encompasses female victimhood. Don't get me wrong I enjoy conversing with you. You're being respectful, you're not being dishonest in what I'm saying. Don't get the impression that your post has fallen on deaf ears. After reading it I realised that I've stated my subjective opinion as fact:

 

 

that Anita did lie.

 

I of course recall that statement but we have to agree there hasn't been any progression yet. I hope you're enjoying this. If you are a woman who was encouraged to join after reading this thread to have your say then that's great. Personally I think we don't have enough women on this forum.

[ajb]

...what the outcome would be if the inbalance was 'corrected'.

This question people do not dare ask, nor has anyone yet answered it.

 

For example, I have not come across the claim that the Riemann hypothesis would been have been solved by now if there was 50-50 male to female ratio of mathematics professors. Nor have I come across the claim that the existence of Yang–Mills theory and mass gap problem would be solved with if we have 50% female professors working in mathematical physics. Nor that we would have a cure for cancer and aids by now if we had 50% female medical scientists. etc...

 

So that is not the reason why...

 

(I am playing devils advocate here so don't automatically think I am sexist!)

Edited February 3, 2015 by ajb

[swansont]

This question people do not dare ask, nor has anyone yet answered it.

 

For example, I have not come across the claim that the Riemann hypothesis would been have been solved by now if there was 50-50 male to female ratio of mathematics professors. Nor have I come across the claim that the existence of Yang–Mills theory and mass gap problem would be solved with if we have 50% female professors working in mathematical physics. Nor that we would have a cure for cancer and aids by now if we had 50% female medical scientists. etc...

 

So that is not the reason why...

 

(I am playing devils advocate here so don't automatically think I am sexist!)

 

But would you make the argument that problems (though not necessarily these) would be solved faster if we increased the number of STEM people at the upper talent levels by some fraction?

[StringJunky]

This question people do not dare ask, nor has anyone yet answered it.

 

For example, I have not come across the claim that the Riemann hypothesis would been have been solved by now if there was 50-50 male to female ratio of mathematics professors. Nor have I come across the claim that the existence of Yang–Mills theory and mass gap problem would be solved with if we have 50% female professors working in mathematical physics. Nor that we would have a cure for cancer and aids by now if we had 50% female medical scientists. etc...

 

So that is not the reason why...

 

(I am playing devils advocate here so don't automatically think I am sexist!)

I don't think so, because at that level a person is going to be so innately-driven and talented mathematically that they will solve them regardless of their sex and perceived social disadvantage. You can make people better at maths but you can't make them geniuses at i t and that's what's required.

 

If society wants more girls doing STEM subjects and if it wants more boys to aspire to the caring professions, such as nursing, it needs to start on it's children pre-school. It needs to remove such socially-ingrained taboos as boys playing with doll-figures and tailor them more to fit in with them and not just promoted as a purely feminine pursuit; how else are they to have the desire as a young adult if they've never practised it through play?. You can train the shape of a seedling but you can't train the shape of a fully-grown tree ...bloody difficult anyway.

Edited February 3, 2015 by StringJunky

[Aisha]

You're basing your argument on anecdotal evidence

 

I'm using an anecdote to explain what should be an uncontroversial phenomenon, that games creators build things into games which make them enjoyable that may be tangential if not deleterious to the game's central goal.

 

That's not anecdotal evidence. That clicking sheep makes them explode is a fact. I just happened to describe my own experience with it.

 

This is subjective.

 

I apologize, but based on your response, I'm not sure you understood my point. Here's the sentence you were responding to.

 

Sarkesian was not talking about the game scoring when she talked about the way the game rewards players, she was talking about the mechanics of the game as a designed experience.

The context was Anita's claim that Hitman encouraged the player to kill these strippers. That's the claim branded as a lie that I'm addressing. here's the claim in her own words.

 

I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn't always mandatory; often it's player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.

 

 

The charge again is that this statement is a lie because the game penalizes players for killing civilians therefore it can't be implicitly encouraging them.

 

The one I deem uncharitable is a meaning of "encourage" which is incompatible with a loss of points. Let's imagine she could have equally plausibly meant either. (I don't think that's the case, but it would be a long argument for a bit of minutia) It's not at all reasonable to brand her a liar because one interpretation of a sentence would be false when another, valid interpretation is available. That's not the sort of approach that leads to civil discourse.

 

In fact if you'd watched the entire 2-part video, you'd see she explicitly addresses the penalties in similar games to make the same point. in fact, she goes on quite a bit about the kind of encouragement she means in other parts of the video.

 

The question is whether her statement is a lie. It can only be interpreted as a lie if one imagines a meaning for "encouraging" which is inconsistent with the way she otherwise talks about the idea.

 

This is not about whether it can be argued that her points are incorrect or about what happened when a girl hit you or about trends in society at large.

 

I am making a very small, very simple argument about a very specific claim.

[swansont]

 

I'm using an anecdote to explain what should be an uncontroversial phenomenon, that games creators build things into games which make them enjoyable that may be tangential if not deleterious to the game's central goal.

 

That's not anecdotal evidence. That clicking sheep makes them explode is a fact. I just happened to describe my own experience with it.

 

And that you enjoyed it is also a fact, which nobody else is in a position to question. It also serves as a rebuttal to the implied claim that the only reason someone would play a game is to maximize their score, which IMO is a very narrow view, and (as we see here) is false.

[ajb]

 

But would you make the argument that problems (though not necessarily these) would be solved faster if we increased the number of STEM people at the upper talent levels by some fraction?

 

 

I would assume that the more people in STEM subjects more science would get done. Increasing science departments of universities by 50% irrespective of the gender would serve science well. But this is not what people are discussing.

If society wants more girls doing STEM subjects and if it wants more boys to aspire to the caring professions, such as nursing, it needs to start on it's children pre-school.

You have made the good point that it is society that wants more women in science. Rightly or wrongly, I have not come across anyone carefully explaining why. (Now I am sounding sexist!)

[Aisha]

I'd like to elaborate a little.

 

I would say that any establishment where people are meant to be able to drive there in order to drink alcohol there, meets the exact same sort of standard of 'encouragement' as Anita's statement, and I do not disagree with it. You're encouraged to do it in that it's both possible to end up driving drunk within the completely normal parameters of the experience, and that one needs to be at least a little mindful/careful and keep one's 'score' in mind in order to drive to the bar for a drink and not end up driving drunk afterward. In order for an alcohol-serving establishment to be able to say it does not in any way encourage drunk driving, it would have to, for example, refuse to serve enough alcohol to cause impairment, demand the guest stay long enough after drinking for impairment to wear off, require a clearly labelled designated driver for all parties, or fail to have a car park and insist guests arrive only by foot or taxi etc.

 

And likewise for Hitman to be able to say it does not in any way encourage players to kill the dancers, it would have to, for example, fail to make them killable (perhaps there's an alarm you can't help tripping that allows them to escape before you have an opportunity to kill them, or perhaps they can't be reached, or are not in the game at all).

 

(ETA: The argument for whether the game ought to encourage it or not is a different one. I'm strictly talking about whether it does encourage it.)

 

As for your hypothetical criticism of Tomb Raider:

 

I remember once being hit by a woman but I daren't hit her back because I knew of the backlash I'd get from society if I did. This female aggression against men is present in society. If we look at the game series Tomb Raider which sold 42 million copies (5 times more than the Hitman series which only sold 8 million copies) the woman kills countless faceless males who are completely disposable throughout the game. Players are rewarded and encouraged to kill these males. One example is where the male butler who follows you around and is depicted as your servant tolerates getting shot as as much as your desire. There is also a mechanism in which you can lure him into the walk in freezer and lock him in there. The fact that this mechanism is in place means that you are encouraged to treat your male servant as a piece of meat. This aggression against males is so rife that the series even got to release a couple of blockbuster films in the cinema pushing it's aggression against men to non gamers.

You do realize there's nothing actually wrong with any of that, that it's not actually a wrong or ridiculous opinion to have or interpretation to make? All of those points could be debated and wider contexts could be brought in to evaluate them and see if they lead anywhere or not. I'm certainly not so throw-hands-up-disgusted at the very ideas that I wouldn't be interested in unpacking them a bit and having a conversation around the issues.

 

OF COURSE we could be here all day trading anecdotal tales and subjective interpretations! Is it your implication that that's a totally worthless and ridiculous thing to do? If so, that's fine, but I'd think the best thing to do for anyone who feels that way would be to maybe roll their eyes and ignore it?

 

What's depressing is the positive rep that your last post got. I'm not saying that what you are saying is insane or that it deserves negative rep (notice I'm not voting it down) but I don't think that the positive rep is a testament to the reasoning you displayed but more of a demonstration of the religious zelot attitude that encompasses female victimhood.

I don't understand why complaining about things you don't like because of how they relate to a group you are a member of, and striking a chord with your audience, is zealotry and victimhood. If it is, why isn't the entirety of Gamergate a colossal example of zealotry and victimhood?

[swansont]

 

 

 

I would assume that the more people in STEM subjects more science would get done. Increasing science departments of universities by 50% irrespective of the gender would serve science well. But this is not what people are discussing.

 

You have made the good point that it is society that wants more women in science. Rightly or wrongly, I have not come across anyone carefully explaining why. (Now I am sounding sexist!)

 

 

More qualified women, even if the total number of jobs remained the same, would result in an overall higher talent level.

 

Also, I suspect that an improved environment would improve the job satisfaction of those already in the field, as with any of us. There's BS we put up with because we like other aspects of the job. Some of that BS is disproportionately directed at women.

[ajb]

More qualified women, even if the total number of jobs remained the same, would result in an overall higher talent level.

This is the question.