Jordan Peterson

[Manfred Belheim]

Consider it a level you should aspire to attain!

Yeah I mean... given how "brilliant" your reply was, maybe you shouldn't throw stones here.

 

[Ryika]

It does exactly that. It sets out a list of things women are supposedly better at than men and then claims that tech jobs don't incorporate these things enough and that's why there aren't as many women in tech. It is no different than saying that (just as an example) black people are underrepresented among CEOs because they are biologically wired to be worse at the kinds of things CEOs do, and then pretending you "care" about the "problem" by suggesting some changes to the CEO working conditions that would make black people find the job easier.

Still complete nonsense. Here's the list of changes that he proposes, there is a single point that could possibly be seen as doing what you're accusing him of (marked in bold):

Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things

We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming
and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how
people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive
ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get
female students into coding might be doing this).


Women on average are more cooperative

Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may
be doing this to an extent, but maybe there's more we can do.
This doesn't mean that we should remove all competitiveness from Google.
Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn't
necessarily disadvantage those that have them, like what's been done in
education

Women on average are more prone to anxiety

Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its
many stress reduction courses and benefits.

Women on average look for more work-life balance
while men have a higher drive for status on average

Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative
careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them. Allowing and truly
endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work
though can keep more women in tech.

The male gender role is currently inflexible

Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender
role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society,
allow men to be more "feminine," then the gender gap will shrink, although
probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally "feminine"
roles

All the other points make no mention of women's abilities at all, his whole points is about making jobs more interesting for women by playing more into their PREFERENCES, not to make these jobs "easier, because duuuurrr women just can't handle it!" Even that one point where he does border on that a bit is entirely based in reality - women DO, on average, test higher for anxiety - and the solution he offers is absolutely reasonable.

I think ultimately this discussion is colored by the fact that I believe the gender-related differences in outcome we observe are almost entirely due to sexist discrimination (in case it's unclear, I mean something wider than simple hiring discrimination - I'm talking about the whole cultural apparatus of gender roles that creates different expectations for women) whereas you agree with Damore that some, perhaps even most, of the difference is due to innate biological difference.

That's a nice way of saying that your ideological lens clouds your vision so much that you have to angrily call a guy a sexist for making reasonable statements.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It does exactly that. It sets out a list of things women are supposedly better at than men and then claims that tech jobs don't incorporate these things enough and that's why there aren't as many women in tech. It is no different than saying that (just as an example) black people are underrepresented among CEOs because they are biologically wired to be worse at the kinds of things CEOs do, and then pretending you "care" about the "problem" by suggesting some changes to the CEO working conditions that would make black people find the job easier.

The problem is you're using something that most likely isn't true as an analogy for something that most likely is. That's why they're not the same. It's also noteworthy that whether or not either of them are true doesn't even seem to factor into your reasoning anyway, just that you don't like them.

 

[Lexicus]

That belief would need a lot of evidence to pay rent.

There is massive amounts of evidence. It's not recognized as such by sexist men. What a surprise, whether information constitutes evidence of some proposition depends upon one's initial assumptions.

It would be foolish to discard societal/environmental factors, and it would be foolish to discard genetic factors that impact someone directly, regardless of what those factors are. If you want to set policy that works with empirical reality, it's imprudent to ignore empirical reality.

I agree with this entirely. And frankly I think that figuring out social solutions to those problems should be a lot easier than going to the moon was.

That's a nice way of saying that your ideological lens clouds your vision so much that you have to angrily call a guy a sexist for making reasonable statements.

@Bootstoots, I want you to know that I was not angrily or otherwise calling you sexist. I'm pretty sure I was just paraphrasing your words from an earlier discussion we had on this subject back at you.

 

[Ryika]

There is massive amounts of evidence. It's not recognized as such by sexist men. What a surprise, whether information constitutes evidence of some proposition depends upon one's initial assumptions.

Evidence that you're wrong, yes. The Scandinavian Gender Equality Paradox is the most obvious answer her. Scandinavian countries are among the most progressive, open societies in the world, and yet they have some of the largest gender gaps in occupation. Clearly, discrimination is not the cause for this because here we see a reverse correlation between progressive views on gender roles, and women choosing professions that are traditionally associated with them. Your basic assumption is proven wrong by this.

Actual evidence for your position? It does not exist. To prove this, you would need to show causality, you literally cannot do that, because to do that, you would need to factor out everything else, which is impossible. So instead you've adopted a world view that is not based on actual evidence, but purely based on speculation that you've accepted as true, because you want it to be true, because that fits your world view. That's why people do not recognize your "evidence" as "evidence", because it is, in fact, not evidence, and that you declare the people who point that out to be sexists, just shows that you have no argument, and must resort to moral shaming and namecalling.

 

[inthesomeday]

Have you got any other countries to enforce your reverse correlation, or just the 3?

 

[Bootstoots]

@Bootstoots, I want you to know that I was not angrily or otherwise calling you sexist. I'm pretty sure I was just paraphrasing your words from an earlier discussion we had on this subject back at you.

Of course not - I didn't think you had done that at all.

 

[Ryika]

Have you got any other countries to enforce your reverse correlation, or just the 3?

I don't want to "enforce my reverse correlation", doing so would be just as wrong as enforcing the correlation that Lexicus wants to construct.

I'm not sure whether data on occupational segregation exists, but data on the wage gap certainly does for all of Europe (which isn't the same, but seems to have a strong correlation to occupational segregation between the genders), and you simply don't get a consistent picture. There are rich, progressive countries that have high gender pay gaps, there are rich, progressive countries that have low gender pay gaps, and the same is true for poor nations, although the correlation there is stronger (which is not surprising, as poor countries tend to be traditional, so they're generally strong at actually enforcing gender roles).

So my point is not to show a consistent reverse correlation, like I said, I think the data shows that such a thing does not exist, my point is just to show that the reason Lexicus names - discrimination as the main cause of "most" of the unequal outcome - is simply incorrect. If it were correct, then we would see a consistent picture of progressive countries having low wage gaps and low occupational segregation. The three Scandinavian countries are simply the easiest way of showing that his theory cannot be right, because the outcome is exactly the opposite of what his theory predicts.

 

[Hygro]

This would be a more persuasive argument if
1) Peterson hadn't invited the journalist into his house, and
2) if there was any omitted context that could make those things he said acceptable. Like if he had been saying "just kidding" after all of them but the reporter neglected to mention it. But somehow I doubt that's the case...

You have it completely backward.

 

[inthesomeday]

I don't want to "enforce my reverse correlation", doing so would be just as wrong as enforcing the correlation that Lexicus wants to construct.

I'm not sure whether data on occupational segregation exists, but data on the wage gap certainly does for all of Europe (which isn't the same, but seems to have a strong correlation to occupational segregation between the genders), and you simply don't get a consistent picture. There are rich, progressive countries that have high gender pay gaps, there are rich, progressive countries that have low gender pay gaps, and the same is true for poor nations, although the correlation there is stronger (which is not surprising, as poor countries tend to be traditional, so they're generally strong at actually enforcing gender roles).

So my point is not to show a consistent reverse correlation, like I said, I think the data shows that such a thing does not exist, my point is just to show that the reason Lexicus names - discrimination as the main cause of "most" of the unequal outcome - is simply incorrect. If it were correct, then we would see a consistent picture of progressive countries having low wage gaps and low occupational segregation. The three Scandinavian countries are simply the easiest way of showing that his theory cannot be right, because the outcome is exactly the opposite of what his theory predicts.

But then you absolutely can’t rule out what Lex was talking about, because he wasn’t talking about just some guy not hiring women, he was talking about a broader cultural discrimination— women being excluded from STEM and other circles from birth, and being groomed for domestic life. Scandinavian countries, while perhaps hosting more vibrant welfare states than other parts of the West, can hardly be categorically considered any more culturally progressive or cosmopolitan than any other Western country. They still have quite a bit of cultural and institutional sexism. If you demand proof that women experience this— all of which you’ll surely dismiss— I demand proof that Scandinavia is so much more socially progressive towards women than other countries. In fact I may well consider large employment gaps to be contrary evidence.

 

[Traitorfish]

You have it completely backward.

Is this a teaser for an actual response to Lex or are we just trading Zen koans? Cos, I've got a great one about a water buffalo.

 

[Hygro]

Let's hear it.

 

[Ryika]

But then you absolutely can’t rule out what Lex was talking about, because he wasn’t talking about just some guy not hiring women, he was talking about a broader cultural discrimination— women being excluded from STEM and other circles from birth, and being groomed for domestic life. Scandinavian countries, while perhaps hosting more vibrant welfare states than other parts of the West, can hardly be categorically considered any more culturally progressive or cosmopolitan than any other Western country. They still have quite a bit of cultural and institutional sexism. If you demand proof that women experience this— all of which you’ll surely dismiss— I demand proof that Scandinavia is so much more socially progressive towards women than other countries. In fact I may well consider large employment gaps to be contrary evidence.

Sweden in particular has the broadest anti-discrimination laws in all of Europe, and was an early adopter as well. They have the second-highest amount of mothers in the workplace (only beat by Denmark, another Scandinavian country), and they are no 1 in full-time occupations. Surveys consistently find that both, Swedish men and women think that women should be able to follow whatever path they want more than any other European country, as this article for example summarizes, but google will offer a lot more surveys if that's not enough. They have equal parental leave, IIRC they have penalties for companies that do not have a certain amount of females on their board (or at least planned to implement those a few years ago), etc. etc. etc. Of course it's not perfect, but it's certainly among the most gender-equal countries in Europe no matter what statistics you look at.

If that's not enough, then I don't know what could possibly convince you, because I don't think you can get a much clearer picture than by looking at the laws, the employment trends, and to listen to what the people tell you about their beliefs. Sweden is, in all of these factors, among the top countries in Europe, and so are the other big three in Scandinavia. Just randomly assuming that despite all of these "There are probably some totally outdated ideas about gender hidden somewhere that make women go into jobs that are traditionally associated with their gender!" would, in my opinion, pretty much be a "God of the Gaps"-argument. There's absolutely no evidence that would point into that direction, and it's much more likely that there are other factors in play.

 

[Traitorfish]

Let's hear it.

Well now you're put me right on the spot.

 

[inthesomeday]

Sweden in particular has the broadest anti-discrimination laws in all of Europe, and was an early adopter as well. They have the second-highest amount of mothers in the workplace (only beat by Denmark, another Scandinavian country), and they are no 1 in full-time occupations. Surveys consistently find that both, Swedish men and women think that women should be able to follow whatever path they want more than any other European country, as this article for example summarizes, but google will offer a lot more surveys if that's not enough. They have equal parental leave, IIRC they have penalties for companies that do not have a certain amount of females on their board (or at least planned to implement those a few years ago), etc. etc. etc. Of course it's not perfect, but it's certainly among the most gender-equal countries in Europe no matter what statistics you look at.

Nice statistics. Very few of them are relevant to a discussion of cultural discrimination, though, most have to do with law, which is mostly irrelevant to our discussion here. The most compelling evidence is this survey you’ve posted from Eurobarometer. It looks like Swedes indeed lead many European countries in terms of opinion. However, surveyed opinion is not always the most valuable measure of actual cultural tendency.

Anyway, more importantly, none of this really contests the idea that it’s cultural discrimination— meaning the way the children are raised, the way women are portrayed in the media, the interactions between social circles— that pushes women to pursue careers constructed as feminine.

If that's not enough, then I don't know what could possibly convince you, because I don't think you can get a much clearer picture than by looking at the laws, the employment trends, and to listen to what the people tell you about their beliefs.

But don’t the employment trends show women are more likely to move into these careers? Which, as I said, is evidence to me of cultural discrimination. Until it is proven, I will not accept that something intrinsic to biology motivates social decisions like this. (Hint: I think this is the real source of disagreement. I consider it generally a non-claim that social decisions are influenced by social constructs, and a claim that they are influenced by biology, meaning the burden of proof falls to the latter proposition.)

Sweden is, in all of these factors, among the top countries in Europe, and so are the other big three in Scandinavia. Just randomly assuming that despite all of these "There are probably some totally outdated ideas about gender hidden somewhere that make women go into jobs that are traditionally associated with their gender!" would, in my opinion, pretty much be a "God of the Gaps"-argument. There's absolutely no evidence that would point into that direction, and it's much more likely that there are other factors in play.

Describe other factors. Do you mean to say biological factors? If so, what biological factors? Have you got proof? If not, then stop.

 

[Lexicus]

Let's hear it.

The field mouse is fast, but the owl sees at night.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The field mouse is fast, but the owl sees at night.

But the Radioactive Squirrel both sees at night and shoots lasers from its eyes!

 

[Bootstoots]

Because I'm not doing anything better with my life, I dived into the rabbit hole that is the psychological literature on gender differences. Gotta make use of my university access to papers before they cut me off for having graduated! Hopefully most of them are open-access, but you might hit paywalls on some of the links I provide.

The overall gist of it is that differences between men and women are mostly small, but a few larger ones exist that may drive skewed gender ratios in tech. Of course, it will never be clear to what extent the differences are cultural and what biological differences may drive interest differences.

Differences are measured by Cohen's effect size, which is the number of standard deviations that separate the averages of two groups. So d = 1.0 (a large effect by psych standards) means that the average for one group is 1 standard deviation above the other group, resulting in 83% of Group A being above the average for Group B. That's a lot larger than most social science effects; a d = 0.4 would have 66% of Group A above the Group B mean. Here is a slider that lets you translate effect sizes into ratios above the other group's mean along with other stats.

Here is a study that compared Big Five personality trait differences between men and women across 55 countries, summarized in Table 1 of the paper. The differences were relatively small on average except for neuroticism (which really should be called susceptibility to anxiety or something), on which women were on average 0.4 standard deviations above the male average - which is what we expect given that women make up a little under 2/3 of all depression and anxiety patients.

More interesting than the global averages is the trend by wealth and egalitarian social norms. With a few exceptions, richer and more egalitarian countries had somewhat higher gender differences than poorer and less egalitarian ones. The top countries for personality differences were France, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic; the bottom does include Finland but also Congo, Indonesia, Botswana, and Fiji. The authors suggest that this is driven mostly by men becoming less agreeable in richer and/or more egalitarian societies.

For a much larger review of gender differences, see this study. Most traits are similar (d < 0.2) but some larger effects do pop out. Two studies both found that spatial reasoning is higher in men by d = 0.44, and tests of mechanical reasoning reveal differences as high as d = 0.76 in favor of men. Mathematical ability is approximately even, but a later paper showed self-efficacy (belief in ability to succeed) was lower in women by about d = 0.33. That could be caused by systemic sexism, although higher neuroticism may contribute as well. On the flip side, women do somewhat better in most measures of verbal comprehension. Overall, though, not a whole lot of difference here.

In this meta-analysis, a large difference (d = 0.93) in interest (not ability) was found along a Things-People axis; men were on average more interested in how things work and less interested in interacting with people. They found engineering interest was higher in men by a lot (d = 1.10) and science interest was higher by d = 0.36. But they seem to have aggregated a bunch of studies, a few going back to the 1970s. They use some kind of interest model to aggregate them all. I think this study may be showing some real ballpark results but I wouldn't trust the numbers that much.

In terms of women in tech, gender ratios are (counterintuitively) more skewed towards men in more gender-egalitarian cultures. This paper is kind of dated (2002) but still rather telling. The proportion of women who received undergrad degrees in CS or related fields was above 50% in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Guyana, and it was 41% in Iran. In the US, it was only 27%; it was 19% in the UK, and only 11% in Germany. The percentage for the US has since declined to 18% (link). This trend has actually been going on for a pretty long time.

So this raises an awkward problem: attempting to level the playing field may actually result in more people following their interests and skewing gender ratios even further. In Southeast Asia in the late 1990s (around the time of the Asian economic crisis), it's likely that everyone felt they simply had to go to fields that paid the most, resulting in the percentage of women CS majors being similar to their fraction of all college students. But in places where people are freer to follow their interests, we see large and increasing gender gaps in employment. This effect drowns out any attempts at increasing diversity. Unlike Damore, I think those are laudable, but they don't have much effect.

 

[inthesomeday]

Interesting that all these surveys somehow managed to gather this information on newborn babies with no cultural influence

 

[Bootstoots]

Interesting that all these surveys somehow managed to gather this information on newborn babies with no cultural influence

I didn't say that, nor do any of those authors. People are a composite of genetics and cultural influence, and it's virtually impossible to untangle them. We know enough to know that people are not "blank slates", and that men and women have substantially different hormone levels and slightly different average patterns of brain activity, which might result in different average interest levels. But exactly what differences we should expect from biology vs. social/cultural pressures is unknown and probably mostly unknowable.

It is interesting, though, that fields like biology, medicine, and all of the social sciences used to be entirely male-dominated, but women now make up over half of all new biology and social science PhDs and 48% of new MDs. Chemistry is now at 38% and growing slowly; it's over 50% at the undergrad level. I don't know of any evidence that engineering, physics, and computer science have unusually sexist departments vis a vis biology and the social sciences at the time that their fraction of women was in the 20% range.

But of course society exerts subtle and not-so-subtle pressures on women throughout their lives before college, and this has some unquantifiable but probably quite substantial effect. Maybe social pressures are somehow larger for engineering, CS, and physics than it was for the fields that women have broken into. The weird and troubling thing is that in some fields, especially CS, the fraction of women is declining; furthermore, places that we consider to have especially level playing fields actually have the largest gender gaps.