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The Diversity Pipeline


zelticgar

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Thank you for the crocheting example! Brilliant. I would very much like to know the correlation between coding aptitude and attitude and crocheting!  

I so wish I was a social scientist, so as to pursue such ideas.

One correction to the chess debate above: Men absolutely suck at chess. Big time. So do women, by the way. Chess is hard and boring; a good example of something that most people absolutely detest.

In fact, my hunch is that random woman could beat random man in chess, if equally incentivised. (I’m happy to be corrected about that; I have not done my homework and entirely argue from intuition.) But nobody is interested in the performance of average men or women in chess, so these claims are irrelevant

It’s the same with math.

(Thus: Don’t make claims that sound like claims about group averages.)

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11 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

The first international chess tournament was held in 1851 in London.   19 players were invited, based on their fame as chess players of skill.  All were men.  Since they were chosen somewhat unscientifically, it is possible to speculate that some eligible woman was excluded.  But I am aware of no evidence that any such woman existed.  Nor would it be any different today.  If you were to invite the 20 best players in the world to a tournament today, all would be men.

It's possible. Especially considering they weren't eligible to vote for another 77 years. 

11 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

It is hard to imagine what such strong social reasons might be.

MF patriarchy? 

Are you being sarcastic in all this or deliberately obtuse?

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I think the chess angle is mainly a diversion.

But…

Chess, much like coding is characterised by offering a completely unsocialised learning and competition environment, thanks to computers. For a generation, children and teens have been able to train chess, with very gentle learning curve up to grandmaster level, from the comfort of their home. Alone. If you really need to play humans, you can do so anonymously. Many people do.

Thus, ff the argument from socialisation holds any water then chess should show uniquely low socialised gender bias. (Just like programming, unlike law or medicine or clerical professions, uniquely offers a professional avenue away from perceived gender stereotypes, harassment, bad attitudes, etc.)

There is no other game or sport in which perceived socialisation can have had less influence than in chess. A “private” way to play competitive chess is open for every single woman on the planet, just like every boy. It just doesn’t happen with girls. I can’t think of a worse argument than socialisation for this phenomenon. (That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. There could be a really surprising mechanism along which this works. I just can’t see it.)

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31 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

I think the chess angle is mainly a diversion.

But…

Chess, much like coding is characterised by offering a completely unsocialised learning and competition environment, thanks to computers. For a generation, children and teens have been able to train chess, with very gentle learning curve up to grandmaster level, from the comfort of their home. Alone. If you really need to play humans, you can do so anonymously. Many people do.

So...why would it be a surprise that if women are doing it anonymously, they don't show up in person to tournaments? 

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Thus, ff the argument from socialisation holds any water then chess should show uniquely low socialised gender bias. (Just like programming, unlike law or medicine or clerical professions, uniquely offers a professional avenue away from perceived gender stereotypes, harassment, bad attitudes, etc.)

If they're truly anonymous, how would you ever know? You're saying that because something can be anonymous, it's more likely that the people who choose to NOT be anonymous would do so? How does that fly?

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There is no other game or sport in which perceived socialisation can have had less influence than in chess.

A “private” way to play competitive chess is open for every single woman on the planet, just like every boy. It just doesn’t happen with girls. I can’t think of a worse argument than socialisation for this phenomenon. (That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. There could be a really surprising mechanism along which this works. I just can’t see it.)

Conversely, one of the arguments is that women are pushed away from chess at a young age, and at that point it isn't their choice alone to get into it or not; by the time they get older, chess's barrier to entry and interest are far higher than other things, and at that point chess is considered nerdy and boring. 

Another side note: the idea of the super high-performers in computer science  being men because most highest performers are men might be true, but it is utterly irrelevant as far as engineering goes. There are so many insanely incompetent programmers out there, and many of them have jobs in the industry. And yet at every single level, women are simply not there. Google seems to have a problem with senior level engineers and managers at the higher end, but that doesn't really speak to the complete lack of diversity at any area, at any level. Where are the shitty programmers that are women? Why are there so many shitty programmers that are men? 

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1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Or, to put it another way, men have dominated the sport for as long as there has been data to make an assessment of the issue.  But it is possible to speculate about the days for which we have no adequate data.

The first international chess tournament was held in 1851 in London.   19 players were invited, based on their fame as chess players of skill.  All were men.  Since they were chosen somewhat unscientifically, it is possible to speculate that some eligible woman was excluded.  But I am aware of no evidence that any such woman existed.  Nor would it be any different today.  If you were to invite the 20 best players in the world to a tournament today, all would be men.

It is hard to imagine what such strong social reasons might be.

You are happy to speculate about the why women were competitive in chess (in the 1850s, unable to vote, only just entering the workforce) from when there is no data -- but you see no need to deign to imagine any current social reasons why women aren't competitive in chess (as defined by a single tournament).

No, thanks. I can connect the dots that you've laid out here (to your chagrin (which I'll hear) I'm sure) -- especially when this entire discussion lacks relevance to the original topic. 

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I could not be any less interested in your further commentary on women in chess or, really, women at all. I'm done here thanks -- the topic has been thoroughly derailed.

Just now, Lew Theobald said:

I can't see it either.  Certainly, in a society as egalitarian as ours, the social factors would have to be very subtle, and could not be a full explanation for the disparities we see.

This is trolling, sarcasm, or blind ignorance. 

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47 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

No.  I was paraphrasing Mlle. Zabzie's position, not stating my own.  Mlle. Zabzie appeared to speculate that in the periods when we had no data, men and women were equal at chess.

In response, I merely observe that, in the periods for which we do have data (including today) men dominate the field.  Moreover, this appears to be true across all societies and cultures.

Actually, my point was that women were encouraged to play and that there is evidence of them being described as equally good players as men, and/or not being described as bad players as well (e.g., Ben Franklin, author of the Morals of Chess, is described as playing with Caroline Howe, Mme Brillon de Jouy, and the Duchess of Bourbon, who was described as at least a good player as he was by no less than Thomas Jefferson).  But chess was a diversion of the upper class.  And women of that class did not/could not/would not have competed publicly (a lady should have her name in the papers 3 times - birth, marriage and death, don't you know).  So actually, we have no data, other than anecdotal data, and since chess became competitive, I would argue that the social construct around that changed tremendously, discouraging women to play.      

13 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

If you were not interested, you did not have to respond.

You don't have to throw insults either.

In a world where law school enrollments are close to parity, the fact that only 1 in 20 registered chess players are women requires some explanation besides sexist oppression and patriarchy.  There are more women in Congress (~20%) than among registered chess players (about 5%). 

And enrollment in law school is a complete, utter, and ridiculous non sequitur, as is, frankly, chess, to the overall discussion.  For the record, women equity partners at big law firms hovers between 11-15%, which, admittedly is better than 1 and 20, but in certain practice areas (heavily transactional) your numbers are going to look more like 1 in 20, or worse.  I can count my own field as an example.  And I don't have a solution for the problem, or even a real appreciation as to why it happens.  If I (or we, frankly) did, we'd fix it, because we know there is a lot of talent being left on the table.

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3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

@Mlle. Zabzie  Interesting mention of crochet and knitting.  If she had not departed this past summer, my son's 5th grade math teacher had planned to use a knitting & quilting capstone project over a 2-3 month period.  I hated the idea (1st grade would be fine, not for 5th).  I know "everyday math" is supposed to increase perceived accessibility and reduce fear of "hard math", but the last thing the American education system needs is to lower the bar even further on math to make it less forbidding.  I'd really rather see them pursue a culture of "everyone can understand math if they work hard enough" rather than lowering the bar to where everyone can still retain maximal self-esteem with minimal effort.  

 

On chess, I noticed that my son's biggest hang-up in his early exposure to chess (around ages 8-9) was his anxiety about losing pieces.  He became almost paralyzed by risk aversion, fearing that any move would put a piece at risk.  He's far more empathetic than I was.  It took lots of reps for me to persuade him that any individual game or piece doesn't matter and that it's more important to play a lot and learn from patterns -- don't get attached to any single piece or any single game. 

Without wanting to fall into gender stereotypes, I wonder if some young girls might also be averse to a game that may initially feel like a personal attack.  I know my wife hates playing chess with me because she feels under attack as I mow down her pieces.

I think the sweet spot for knitting/crocheting/etc. is probably second or third grade because of the fine motor skills needed.  And, I think understanding how the knots fit together, how different stitches combine to make different shapes, etc. is really useful, if the teaching is done correctly.  There are some rudimentary algebra skills there, definitely a lot of geometry, and understanding how single inputs, if combined and slightly modified, change the overall picture.  Really useful.  Same with piecing a quilt, assuming again, it is done thoughtfully.  

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@Lew Theobald I think you've disappeared down a counterproductive rabbit hole with chess as "proof" of a biological sex difference in analytical cognitive ability and/or preference, which is how I read your posts and forgive me if I'm wrong.  

First, there is significant observation bias: you see more elite male chess players and therefore assume that men are biologically better or at least more engaged chess players.  That may be true but you cannot infer that conclusion because you cannot count all of the potentially excellent women chess players who were never interested in or exposed to chess due to gender roles.  We already see that girls have very low participation in junior chess -- which could be gender roles or biological ability/preference or a bit of both -- so of course they would be severely underrepresented at the elite level.  Observing the predictable conclusion of the process yielded no insight about the imbalance at the start of the process. 

Second, there is the problem with observing a small number of elite players as representative of a more general case. Since men have a documented wider dispersion of IQ, which arguably would correlate strongly with chess prowess, we would expect the extreme left and right tail of the chess population distribution to be over represented by men but the above-average chess players would still be 50:50 men:women and even very good chess players no more than 65:35 men:women (depending on the percentile selected as the threshold for very good). It's mathematically dishonest to measure the sex ratio in the right tail for chess and extrapolate a conclusion to a broader question like why are women underrepresented in computer programming.  The millions of people in programming and IT jobs represent a wider segment of the analytical ability/preference distribution than just the extreme right tail. 

My argument doesn't disprove that there may be biological difference in ability or preferences that result in skewed sex outcomes in chess and computer programming, just that pointing to chess grand masters won't support that conclusion. 

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It frustrates me that those you of who argue from gender roles seems disinclined to even acknowledge that the some of the aspects of chess or computer programming are highly interesting and challenge your position.

Chess ought to be more popular among girls than soccer. (Soccer is more strongly gendered, historically. Really macho, even violent. The physical differences between sexes are enormous, making it extremely discouraging for girls to even begin playing. Soccer stars are all males, and soccer history is male, computer games about soccer are male. Female soccer players are strongly sexualised, there are pin-up calendars. You cannot learn to play soccer anonymously on the internet.) Yet soccer has become super-popular among girls, having now become a predominantly female sport in the US! And the more gender-egalitarian a country is, the more girls play soccer (Sweden, US, Germany.) Thus, the argument from gender stereotypes has some heavy lifting to do.

The same phenomenon can looking at heavily gendered classically male professions (priest, lawyer, doctor, most sciences, even politician). They have all become increasingly female, to the point of majority female for some of them. And the more gender-egalitarian the country is, the more female have these professions become. Yet with computer programming (which displays all gender markers less than any of the other professions) the opposite is happening.

These observations are big fucking problems for the explanation from gender stereotypes. That does not in itself invalidate the explanation—it may still be true, just more subtle and therefore more interesting. But as a first hypothesis, the claims “Women just don’t find chess very interesting” or “Women just don’t find programming very interesting” explain the evidence very well (including the Nordic gender paradox).

I have a hard time conducting an earnest conversation with somebody who does not acknowledge these points, or finds them interesting or relevant. If there is a good explanation hidden here somewhere, then it is highly plausible that we will learn this explanation exactly by considering such corner cases. Chess vs. soccer allows us to become smarter about how women navigate gender stereotypes. So does programmer vs. lawyer. 

If the explanation from attitude is correct then it would be downright immoral to attract women to chess or programming. (Another way of saying that: The level of gender equality in a society is well measured by the absence of women in introductory programming classes. Or chess clubs. This may be false (I hope it is), but it is hard to refute.) And I think that is a big fucking deal, and something we need to talk about before we argue about policy.

 

ETA: Online poker could play the same role as Chess in the above argument.

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12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

It frustrates me that those you of who argue from gender roles seems disinclined to even acknowledge that the some of the aspects of chess or computer programming are highly interesting and challenge your position.

Chess ought to be more popular among girls than soccer. (Soccer is more strongly gendered, historically. Really macho, even violent. The physical differences between sexes are enormous, making it extremely discouraging for girls to even begin playing. Soccer stars are all males, and soccer history is male, computer games about soccer are male. Female soccer players are strongly sexualised, there are pin-up calendars. You cannot learn to play soccer anonymously on the internet.) Yet soccer has become super-popular among girls, having now become a predominantly female sport in the US! And the more gender-egalitarian a country is, the more girls play soccer (Sweden, US, Germany.) Thus, the argument from gender stereotypes has some heavy lifting to do.

But you're ignoring all the other gender stereotypes there, and weirdly so. Again, parents encourage girls to play soccer in the US at a very early age. It's a socially acceptable thing to do for girls and for parents of girls, to the point where we even have 'soccer mom' as a typical term for a suburban mother. Soccer became popular at a higher level among girls after it became popular at a lower level. This is really key; the US women's soccer team being one of the best in the world as well as one of the more popular ones to watch happened long after girls started playing soccer at early ages. 

And in the US, that happened because of things like the AYSO, which encouraged both sexes to start playing earlier and earlier, and that happened in the 70s. Before that it was heavily dominated by boys and only was for boys. This should be illustrative of something that you're scared about - which is that if it is attitude that is the barrier, changing the attitude can easily happen. 

So yes, you're right that there are a lot of barriers to gender stereotypes for soccer that aren't there for chess, but you're conveniently ignoring the biggest barrier to entry of them all - that parents think it's acceptable for boys to be playing chess early. 

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

The same phenomenon can looking at heavily gendered classically male professions (priest, lawyer, doctor, most sciences, even politician). They have all become increasingly female, to the point of majority female for some of them. And the more gender-egalitarian the country is, the more female have these professions become. Yet with computer programming (which displays all gender markers less than any of the other professions) the opposite is happening.

These observations are big fucking problems for the explanation from gender stereotypes. That does not in itself invalidate the explanation—it may still be true, just more subtle and therefore more interesting. But as a first hypothesis, the claims “Women just don’t find chess very interesting” or “Women just don’t find programming very interesting” explain the evidence very well (including the Nordic gender paradox).

What is confusing about the programming one (other than the 'where are all the bad female programmers' one) is that the gender balance was heavily in favor of women until the 1980s. What happened then? The rise of PCs, targeted heavily and exclusively towards boys via advertisements. Which led to boys going into computer camps, boys getting commodore 64s and apples, boys learning to code.

There's another study that supports this pretty well, which is that boys and girls naturally gravitate towards gendered toys even if the toys themselves are not gendered in the least. They quickly pick up that toy X is for boys, toy Y is for girls, solely on social and parental cues and independent of the toys involved. (I'll see if I can find the article if you're interested). 

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

I have a hard time conducting an earnest conversation with somebody who does not acknowledge these points, or finds them interesting or relevant. If there is a good explanation hidden here somewhere, then it is highly plausible that we will learn this explanation exactly by considering such corner cases. Chess vs. soccer allows us to become smarter about how women navigate gender stereotypes. So does programmer vs. lawyer. 

Can you explain why gymnastics is so popular with women and almost entirely not popular with men, but Parkour is popular with men? Both of these require virtually the same skills, exercises and practices. (literally, the Parkour gym and the gymnastics gym are the same gym and run by almost the same people). Yet there are easily 10 times as many girls as there are boys in gymnastics. 

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

If the explanation from attitude is correct then it would be downright immoral to attract women to chess or programming. (Another way of saying that: The level of gender equality in a society is well measured by the absence of women in introductory programming classes. Or chess clubs. This may be false (I hope it is), but it is hard to refute.) And I think that is a big fucking deal, and something we need to talk about before we argue about policy.

ETA: Online poker could play the same role as Chess in the above argument.

It would only be immoral if the explanation of 'from attitude' implies a biological difference. If instead it implies a societal difference (as it did with soccer), and your society wants to make something more egalitarian, it is immoral not to attract women to chess or programming. 

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13 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Are you suggesting that parents think it is NOT acceptable for girls to be playing chess early?  What parents are these?  

Most parents, honestly. Again, anecdotal experience suggests that the kids that go into chess club early are overwhelmingly boys, and that isn't a decision made by the kids for the most part. 

Again, above chess was described as nerdy and dorky, and it is still not socially acceptable for girls or women to be nerdy or dorky in the way that it is for boys. 

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5 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Why do you assume the kids are not making the decisions?  

Because kids typically don't. Overwhelmingly study after study has shown that what kids do after school and in free time is heavily influenced by their parents, and their parents at an early age are what makes those decisions. Later on as pre-teen and teenagers it starts becoming what your social groups are doing. 

 

5 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

I never had much success at getting family members to play against me, and if there had been a chess club at my school, I would have asked to join.  And of course, my parents would have been fine with that.

So, based on my own experience, your assumption is not the same assumption I would make.  

Anecdotes are anecdotes. Especially with the premise that your parents being fine is not contrary to the notion that they are making the decision. If they were not fine, would you have done it anyway? My suspicion is not. 

5 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Those are just words to me.  I am aware of no evidence that it is less socially acceptable for girls to be play chess, than it is for boys. 

Unrelated, this study shows how having so many more male players leads to so many more top male players, statistically. 

Then there's the stereotype threat - where girls play worse at chess after being reminded that girls are supposed to be worse at chess. And another cool experiment, where if women didn't know they were playing against men they played fine, but played worse against men

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12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So yes, you're right that there are a lot of barriers to gender stereotypes for soccer that aren't there for chess, but you're conveniently ignoring the biggest barrier to entry of them all - that parents think it's acceptable for boys to be playing chess early. 

Yet one generation ago they found it acceptable for boys to play soccer. This had zero effect on the popularity of soccer for girls.

And I have never, ever seen anybody react with anything else than enthusiasm when a girl plays chess. They get extremely positive feedback, make the local paper, are trotted out as role models, and are insanely popular at the local club. Parents will brag about them. Boys on the other hand, largely, are just written off as awkward nerds when they play chess and encouraged (by parents, teachers, peers) to do something more social. Chessism is encouraged in girls and builds social capital, in particular among adults. Chessism in boys makes you a social outcast, in particular among your peers.

So, no, I can’t follow this line of reasoning. I’m sure the truth is here somewhere, and encourage you to keep trying, but your examples are just as true as their opposites. And in particular: the more girls-in-chess-encouraging a society is (say, Sweden, where parents would love to brag to their peers about their chess-playing daughter), the less do they play chess.

Also: children don’t do what their parents tell them, so it’s a red herring anyway. Children copy the attitudes of their peer group, and always have. In particular, we would expect girls care about how their peers react. It is plausible that girl-playing-chess leads to social ostracisation. This would sadden me (and is not something I observe among my children, but that’s a relatively worthless anecdote). Boy-playing-chess certainly leads to social ostracisation (from peers) and negative feedback from society (i.e., from adults). It is possible that boys care less, or have no other options for status anyway.

Arguments along those lines I would consider worth pursuing.

This angle would mirror programming in the 80s and 90s. Back then, programming-as-a-hobby led to extreme social stigma, and a clear evolutionary dead-end. Programming-as-a-hobby required high levels of ignorance about social cues from your peer group, and was something you did not bring up in conversation. Your parents were just alienated by it, there certainly was no positive feedback from society, expect maybe the nerdy physics teacher (association with whom was another social faux pas.) 

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12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Yet one generation ago they found it acceptable for boys to play soccer. This had zero effect on the popularity of soccer for girls.

I really don't understand what this is in reference to. Who is 'they' in this sentence, are you implying that people find it unacceptable for boys to play soccer now?

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

And I have never, ever seen anybody react with anything else than enthusiasm when a girl plays chess. They get extremely positive feedback, make the local paper, are trotted out as role models, and are insanely popular at the local club. Parents will brag about them. Boys on the other hand, largely, are just written off as awkward nerds when they play chess and encouraged (by parents, teachers, peers) to do something more social. Chessism is encouraged in girls and builds social capital, in particular among adults. Chessism in boys makes you a social outcast, in particular among your peers.

My anecdotes differ greatly from yours. Cultural bias?

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

So, no, I can’t follow this line of reasoning. I’m sure the truth is here somewhere, and encourage you to keep trying, but your examples are just as true as their opposites. And in particular: the more girls-in-chess-encouraging a society is (say, Sweden, where parents would love to brag to their peers about their chess-playing daughter), the less do they play chess.

I've provided more than just examples - I've provided studies. 

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Also: children don’t do what their parents tell them, so it’s a red herring anyway. Children copy the attitudes of their peer group, and always have. In particular, we would expect girls care about how their peers react. It is plausible that girl-playing-chess leads to social ostracisation. This would sadden me (and is not something I observe among my children, but that’s a relatively worthless anecdote). Boy-playing-chess certainly leads to social ostracisation (from peers) and negative feedback from society (i.e., from adults). It is possible that boys care less, or have no other options for status anyway.

Depends on the peer group; I think this is one place where your Scandinavian area fails comparisons to the US. In the US, a lot of a certain type of kid is pushed to play chess, just like they are pushed to play musical instruments. 

And while children don't always do what their parents tell them to do, they certainly don't get to do things like join clubs, join afterschool programs, hang out with other kids without parental consent - again, in the US. Ultimately the child is not going to be the one who gets the final say. 

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Arguments along those lines I would consider worth pursuing.

This angle would mirror programming in the 80s and 90s. Back then, programming-as-a-hobby led to extreme social stigma, and a clear evolutionary dead-end. Programming-as-a-hobby required high levels of ignorance about social cues from your peer group, and was something you did not bring up in conversation. Your parents were just alienated by it, there certainly was no positive feedback from society, expect maybe the nerdy physics teacher (association with whom was another social faux pas.) 

And this was precisely what playing soccer was like as a girl in the 60s. In the 50s and 60s, if you played soccer as a woman you did it informally, at college (usually all-girls colleges) or in intramural games. It was incredibly unusual and quite ostracizing for women to play anything, and it caused a lot of furor for the few groups that did it. This was true for girls playing almost any sport at all save recreational, casual, solo ones like tennis. One of the biggest things that changed things in the US was that colleges were forced to have the same number of scholarship athletes for men and women if they offered scholarships; this exploded college participation, and that in turn led to major increases in soccer and basketball for women, as well as bigger chunks for things like swimming. 

 

6 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

LOL.  Next you'll be telling me that the only possible reason kids don't like broccoli is because their evil parents are telling them not to eat it.

No, but I will tell you that unless the parents provide broccoli they aren't going to eat it. 

6 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

Sure, in early years, influence of parents outweighs influence of peers, and in later years influence of peers exceeds influence of parents.  But in neither of these circumstances does the kid not have a mind of his/her own.  You just cannot simply exclude the child's preference as a possible determining factor, merely because ideological presuppositions demand rejection of such a possibility.

I don't exclude it, I simply don't weigh it particularly highly, and parental considerations of what to do have a pretty giant effect on what kids end up doing. 

6 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

I've played lots board games with 8-year olds.  They are more than capable of letting me know what they like and what they don't like.  

I didn't say they couldn't. That being said, I suspect that as much as they'd enjoy playing Cards Against Humanity whether or not they get to do so is not up to them. 

6 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

I'll address your unscientific studies, later.

Could you do it by possibly providing any of your own? That'd be neat.

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13 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

 

This angle would mirror programming in the 80s and 90s. Back then, programming-as-a-hobby led to extreme social stigma, and a clear evolutionary dead-end. Programming-as-a-hobby required high levels of ignorance about social cues from your peer group, and was something you did not bring up in conversation. Your parents were just alienated by it, there certainly was no positive feedback from society, expect maybe the nerdy physics teacher (association with whom was another social faux pas.) 

Not true at all from my experience.  We had bulletin boards that functioned much like this place.  Our spheres were smaller because my parents would have KILLED me if I had run up the phone bill calling boards long distance.  I had lots of friends I met on the old BBS.  It's one of the reasons this place appeals to me so much.  

On 9/18/2017 at 0:07 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

@Mlle. Zabzie  Interesting mention of crochet and knitting.  If she had not departed this past summer, my son's 5th grade math teacher had planned to use a knitting & quilting capstone project over a 2-3 month period.  I hated the idea (1st grade would be fine, not for 5th).  I know "everyday math" is supposed to increase perceived accessibility and reduce fear of "hard math", but the last thing the American education system needs is to lower the bar even further on math to make it less forbidding.  I'd really rather see them pursue a culture of "everyone can understand math if they work hard enough" rather than lowering the bar to where everyone can still retain maximal self-esteem with minimal effort.  

This right here reinforces Zabz's point.  What is the reason you think that the mathematics tasks that would have been associated knit / crochet are "low bar"?  Fifth grade is when advanced students start doing matrix math.  Matrices and arrays are the foundations of all linear operators and much of computer science data manipulation. Specific to computer science would be to use the different types of stitches to define different types of variables. Crochet and knitting would be a great hands on tool for introducing a very frustrating mathematical concept.  You may not have meant it, but I see your reaction as another example of "girl stuff" being seen as less valuable.  

As an aside, my son eats broccoli because I told him they were tiny trees.  He was a T-Rex that day and he has loved it since then.

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How a thread about increasing the participation of women and minorities in certain male-dominated fields ended up on a frolic and detour about chess, I can't quite figure out, but whatever.  But back to the topic at hand.  Hypothesis:  There are probably women and minorities who have native talent and develop-able skill-sets that would be useful to, and improve the performance of, companies in various historical male dominated industries, but are not entering and remaining in (just as important) these industries for social, rather than performance reasons.  Hypothesis 2:  It is in companies' best interest to devote resources to identifying and retaining that talent, because currently it is being underutilized in the economy.  Hypothesis 3:  Merely increasing the number of women/minorities at the school and entry levels (e.g., the pipeline) does not and will not by itself cultivate and retain that talent (going back to an industry I know well and that people in this thread have used as a poster child for pipeline success, law school numbers have been close to 50/50 for 15-20 years or more; unsurprisingly to me at least, there has not been a correlative improvement in the number of law firm partners (track is 8-10 years).  Hypothesis 4:  There is some data that suggest that when a critical mass of women is reached in an industry, men flee it and pay goes down.  Hypothesis 5:  As a corollary to something that Isk said above, thinking of this issue as a binary "men v. women" issue (e.g., some kind of zero sum game) leads to unhelpful discussions about native IQs and interests as a gender in particularly type of work; this is not a helpful way to approach widening a talent pool, particularly when you are lumping over 50% of the population into a single category.  DISCUSS. 

 

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41 minutes ago, Lily Valley said:

Not true at all from my experience.  We had bulletin boards that functioned much like this place.  Our spheres were smaller because my parents would have KILLED me if I had run up the phone bill calling boards long distance.  I had lots of friends I met on the old BBS.  It's one of the reasons this place appeals to me so much.  

This right here reinforces Zabz's point.  What is the reason you think that the mathematics tasks that would have been associated knit / crochet are "low bar"?  Fifth grade is when advanced students start doing matrix math.  Matrices and arrays are the foundations of all linear operators and much of computer science data manipulation. Specific to computer science would be to use the different types of stitches to define different types of variables. Crochet and knitting would be a great hands on tool for introducing a very frustrating mathematical concept.  You may not have meant it, but I see your reaction as another example of "girl stuff" being seen as less valuable.  

As an aside, my son eats broccoli because I told him they were tiny trees.  He was a T-Rex that day and he has loved it since then.

... Your son doesn't understand the T-rex at all.

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