[SGVLUG] OT: Why aren't there more women in tech?

[Dustin Laurence]

On 03/24/2012 02:35 PM, Rae Yip wrote:

> I personally welcome supporting data when it is provided, but no
> rigorous statistical statements have been presented (at best a claim
> of "correlation").

Nitpicking Lad here again.

IIRC the conversation started with a claim about data in the general 
vein of "fewer women than men in Linux."  Nobody offered to quantify 
that, but then nobody questioned it either.  The tendentious issue tends 
to be what theories explain the data, or the assignment of value to 
various outcomes (which leads to a need for some action), a game that 
implicitly rests on a theory about the data (and an underlying 
world-view, since values don't come from data) in order to assign value.

For example, I claim that women are terribly underrepresented as 
customers in LA area strip clubs, and most drastically so in the 
nastiest, seediest dives.  I suspect no one will disagree and insist on 
statistics, even though that claim must be bald ipse dixit on my part 
because I've never read a study on the subject and have never been in a 
strip club.  Is this a cause for concern, a call to action (perhaps male 
stripper tables at job fairs, or tax credits for women visiting peeler 
joints)?  I'm going to guess everyone will answer no, but of course one 
must have a theory about the effect that produces the data in order to 
come to that conclusion.  That theory probably is defensible by a chain 
of argument beginning with the observation that female mammals have a 
much greater investment in reproduction, female humans most of all, and 
that female choice controls mate selection in humans.  If explained 
properly (i.e. without my quasi-academic language) I doubt anyone would 
functionally disagree with those premises either.  The matter of 
interest is the chain of logic leading from the premises to the data and 
whether it is valid, persuasive, illogical, unlikely, etc.

Here's another example: I don't believe I've ever met a female plumber, 
and I imagine the percentage is pretty low, yet there doesn't seem to be 
any movement to encourage little girls to consider a plumbing career. 
Why?  Not because of the data, but because of a low assignment of value 
to plumbing as a profession.  I'd be quite comfortable in making the 
same claim about slaughterhouse employees as well, without even 
anecdotal data.

The point is that the actual issue, though I agree it is better avoided, 
is really not about data--it's about explanations of data and the 
assignment of value to various statistical distributions.  It isn't to 
say that Linux clubs are as seedy as strip bars--well, not usually 
anyway.  Um...darn.  Well, anyway, at least our drinks are cheaper. :-)

Dustin

PS: Rae for prez