Feminism

[Valmy]

And it is cultural, I have the benefit of being able to observe a world-class Computer Science department. This is my observations only, but from what I can tell the disparity does not exist at all among East Asians and exist to a much lesser degree among South Asians and Eastern Europeans.

Wait so cultures who commit infanticide and selectively abort baby girls in vast numbers encourage the survivors to go into Computer Science?  Well I guess there is that.

[merithyn]

Wait so cultures who commit infanticide and selectively abort baby girls in vast numbers encourage the survivors to go into Computer Science?  Well I guess there is that.

That actually makes sense. If being female is a negative, it follows that those who allow their daughters to grow up are going to make them more male than female, culturally speaking. At least those women who succeed enough to escape to the US for an education would.

[derspiess]

Her mother's not a drama queen,

How the hell that happened with a South American chickadee, I'll never know. 

Most South American women I know are not what I would call drama queens.  A raging temper if you set them off, for sure.  But they don't necessarily go around looking for things to get pissed off about.

[Malthus]

  I think I know why this individual woman is not good with probability and statistics.  There is a very simple statistical explanation that fits everything that you've observed, but you have to be willing to accept an explanation that doesn't fit your "the way it is taught" preconceived notion.

What is it? I've asked in the past and not been given a decent answer beyond, "Well, women aren't good at it, and men are."

From my admittedly anecdotal experience I don't think the average man and women differ much in mathematical abilities, it appears more that fewer women have the exceptional (and often "difficult") personality traits that are associated with truly exceptional ability at math.

Though admittedly that wouldn't explain the computer science thing. 

[DGuller]

  I think I know why this individual woman is not good with probability and statistics.  There is a very simple statistical explanation that fits everything that you've observed, but you have to be willing to accept an explanation that doesn't fit your "the way it is taught" preconceived notion.

What is it? I've asked in the past and not been given a decent answer beyond, "Well, women aren't good at it, and men are."

Mathematical ability, like most things in nature, are distributed on a bell curve.  The mathematical abilities of men have their bell curve, and the mathematical ability of women have their bell curve, if we use Math SAT scores as a proxy for mathematical abilities.

On average, male and female performance on isn't too different.  The two bell curves do not overlap, but they're not too far apart from each other;  the difference is only a third of a standard deviation.  If you take two people at random, the odds are close to even as to who would be better at math.

However, such small differences on average tend to leverage themselves as you get to higher and higher math skill.  As you move into abilities many standard deviations above the mean, the ratio of males to females above the threshold can grow to infinity, and can easily be 10:1 at realistic levels.  That's the reason why on average, you won't see much difference in math abilities for males and females, but at the extremes, males dominate.

Here is a graph illustrating this leveraging effect:  http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sat23.jpg

[lustindarkness]

Equal does not mean same.

[merithyn]

Mathematical ability, like most things in nature, are distributed on a bell curve.  The mathematical abilities of men have their bell curve, and the mathematical ability of women have their bell curve, if we use Math SAT scores as a proxy for mathematical abilities.

On average, male and female performance on isn't too different.  The two bell curves do not overlap, but they're not too far apart from each other;  the difference is only a third of a standard deviation.  If you take two people at random, the odds are close to even as to who would be better at math.

However, such small differences on average tend to leverage themselves as you get to higher and higher math skill.  As you move into abilities many standard deviations above the mean, the ratio of males to females above the threshold can grow to infinity, and can easily be 10:1 at realistic levels.  That's the reason why on average, you won't see much difference in math abilities for males and females, but at the extremes, males dominate.

Here is a graph illustrating this leveraging effect:  http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sat23.jpg

I understand all of that. The question is why, not what.

[CountDeMoney]

Most South American women I know are not what I would call drama queens.  A raging temper if you set them off, for sure.  But they don't necessarily go around looking for things to get pissed off about.

Maybe it's just the farther one gets from the equator 

[DGuller]

I think he's getting out how probability and statistics aren't used to explain all cases but the more likely cases (or certain group of cases).

That's a good point as well.  Because most attributes in nature are distributed on a bell curve, anecdotal examples are an extremely bad counter-argument.  The existence of bell curves implies variability in the attributes.

[MadImmortalMan]

That actually makes sense. If being female is a negative, it follows that those who allow their daughters to grow up are going to make them more male than female, culturally speaking. At least those women who succeed enough to escape to the US for an education would.

I wouldn't go that way. The corollary would be that if Asian girls could do whatever they wanted, they'd be bad at math too. Seems flawed.

[Admiral Yi]

You must have missed my earlier posts where I said that I am for gender equality, not supremacy of one over another. I offered the CEO example as proof that we are nowhere near that, despite the assertion by several on here that we had reached it.

I did not miss it.  But you do seem to be confusing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

[derspiess]

Well wouldn't you ultimately rather have her pick the types of careers you think are suitable?

Yes.  And I'd rather have a Republican president right now.  And I'd rather my football teams not suck so bad.  But I realize there are things I ultimately can't control.

Exempting career choice from your "proper lady" training seems a little odd, no?

No.

I mean choice of career has a pretty big impact on a person's life.

Correct.  I'm not sure it's a parent's role to push particular careers on their kids, though.  I'm sure both my kids will decide their career path when the time is right. 

[MadImmortalMan]

I think he's getting out how probability and statistics aren't used to explain all cases but the more likely cases (or certain group of cases).

That's a good point as well.  Because most attributes in nature are distributed on a bell curve, anecdotal examples are an extremely bad counter-argument.  The existence of bell curves implies variability in the attributes.

Which is why using 500 CEOs in a population of 300 million is a bad way to measure gender equality.

[merithyn]

You must have missed my earlier posts where I said that I am for gender equality, not supremacy of one over another. I offered the CEO example as proof that we are nowhere near that, despite the assertion by several on here that we had reached it.

I did not miss it.  But you do seem to be confusing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

My argument is that there is not an equality of opportunity.

[DGuller]

Mathematical ability, like most things in nature, are distributed on a bell curve.  The mathematical abilities of men have their bell curve, and the mathematical ability of women have their bell curve, if we use Math SAT scores as a proxy for mathematical abilities.

On average, male and female performance on isn't too different.  The two bell curves do not overlap, but they're not too far apart from each other;  the difference is only a third of a standard deviation.  If you take two people at random, the odds are close to even as to who would be better at math.

However, such small differences on average tend to leverage themselves as you get to higher and higher math skill.  As you move into abilities many standard deviations above the mean, the ratio of males to females above the threshold can grow to infinity, and can easily be 10:1 at realistic levels.  That's the reason why on average, you won't see much difference in math abilities for males and females, but at the extremes, males dominate.

Here is a graph illustrating this leveraging effect:  http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sat23.jpg

I understand all of that. The question is why, not what.

If you understand all that, then why did you bring up all those points as if they were logically inconsistent with the notion than men are slightly better than women at math?  If you understood all that, then you would not be dumbfounded by things you claimed to be dumbfounded by.