Book Review: Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley, by Emily Chang

[inverarity]

Revulsion of the Nerds.

Comments

[ext_2137784]

Huh. I started reading this blog in 2013 so I never saw your review of Cordelia Fine's book before now. I'm not sure but it kind of looks like you might have re-positioned on a some of the issues since then? For instance some of what you mention in the old review about the effects of socialization sound a lot like stereotype threat- which as you mention here has since been largely debunked- and in the old review you question whether a small biological difference in mathematical skills between men and women could ever have any use for public policy, but it would seem that the Damore memo which you cite mostly favorably here offers a pretty clear case that, if these differences exist, it would be relevant as a counter-argument against mandatory-equality-of-outcome policies that are now assumed to be the only equitable option in many circles

[inverarity]

I wouldn't say I've repositioned, but I am less sympathetic to "blank slate" and "gender is 100% socially constructed" arguments. To be fair, as I pointed out back then, Fine doesn't actually claim this is the case, only that there isn't sufficient evidence to claim it's not the case.

The Damore memo has annoyed me, because it was reported all over as "Google engineer says women are neurotic and biologically unsuited to work in tech" and when I actually read his memo it.... wasn't that.

[vielerseits]

I remember a friend who wrote a paper on the history of women in IT, and she said that it only became a predominantly male field after it became more lucrative, ergo a "bread-winning" job. At that time the image of whether the job was more of a "male" job changed. The beginnings of computer related jobs that were actually seizable in number she said were during the 2nd world war, which also explains why it was more female then, as many men were in war. I haven't bothered varify her claims, though they sound reasonable. But to be fair, the kind of work you do with computers has completely changed and is hardly comparable to the 40s-60s.

[ext_2137784]

My understanding is that the initial female-tilted gender balance in infotech fields (i.e. in the 50s-70s) was due to three main factors 1) Computer Science was initially thought of as an extension of secretarial work so it was considered a natural female occupation 2) related to 1, some of the basic job skills (most obviously, typing) were at the time near-exclusively female skills and 3) at the time most other professions were, to a greater or lesser degree, closed to women so that for a talented young woman choosing her career who didn't want to be a teacher or nurse Infotech was a much more attractive option than it might be today when she can just as easily choose medicine, law or biology if that is where her interests lie.