Across the calculus sections, women outperformed men on grades.

Several recent studies have suggested that the gender gap in STEM fields is caused not by bias, but simply by different choices made by men and women. What the new research shows, Dasgupta said, is choice isn’t as simple as people think. “People assume that these choices are free choices, based on talent and interest and motivation,” Dasgupta said. “But these data suggest that the meaning of choices, of what it means to choose math or science, is more complicated. Even talented people may not choose math or science not because they don’t like it or are not good at it, but because they feel that they don’t belong.”

—Inoculation Against Stereotype by Scott Jaschik (Inside Higher Ed)

There is a common belief among some computer geek communities that women are underrepresented in STEM because we just don’t like it, and so we should celebrate differences instead of making women “miserable” by “forcing” us into careers we “don’t like”. This study would debunk that myth, if only most men in tech who discuss the topic of women in tech actually did some research on it, instead of leaving comments that make male geeks feel good about themselves and rationalize the gender imbalance in “their” field.

For other male geeks who insist that there are hard-wired brain differences in men and women, and argue that women’s brains are hard-wired against understanding math and science as well as men (instead of hard-wired against enjoying math and science), this part of the article should be emphasized:

Skeptics might wonder if some of the [gender] differences [in engagement] among students relate to how well the students know the material. The researchers checked for that and found that, across sections, women outperformed men on grades. So the data point to women losing confidence with male instructors — even if female students know the material as well as or better than their male counterparts.

Link: Inoculation Against Stereotype (Inside Higher Ed)

Rock Star Programmer: The Charlie Sheen Guide To Passing a Job Interview

In The Charlie Sheen Guide To Passing A Job Interview, John P. Lopez provides a very compelling case that answering interview questions exactly like Charlie Sheen would get you hired. I argue that job seekers applying for the position of a “rock star programmer” at a tech startup would do especially well if they had the aura of Charlie Sheen.

Lopez writes:

Seriously, if you didn’t know the back-story — you didn’t know the trainwreck that Charlie Sheen’s life has become, and the history of drug use and decadence — wouldn’t Sheen’s recent quotes be impressive?

Let’s say you were an employer, looking to add to your sales staff? Wanna play? Here are some typical job interview questions and REAL Charlie Sheen answers.

Admit it, you’d hire the guy if you didn’t know any better:

What is your greatest strength?

“I’m bi-winning. I win here. I win there.”

Describe a typical work week.

”I’m proud of what I created. It was radical. I exposed people to magic. I exposed them to something they’re never going to see in their boring normal lives.”

How many hours do you normally work?

“Sometimes sleep is for infants. I don’t sleep. I wait. When I can’t sleep I don’t fight it. I just figure that there’s a higher calling.”

What is your greatest weakness?

“I am on a drug. It’s called ‘Charlie Sheen!’ It’s not available because if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”

[…]

What are your salary expectations?

“I’m not [broke] but I was kind of counting on some of that money to get me through the summer. Now I’ve got to like work. But that’s alright. Work’s good. Work fuels the soul.”

[…]

What do people most often criticize about you?

“You borrow my brain for five seconds and just be like dude, can’t handle it, unplug this bastard. It fires in a way that is, I don’t know, maybe not from this terrestrial realm.

Seriously, there is something very wrong with a culture in which programmers’ outrageous self-descriptions are taken at face value.

Men tend to over-estimate their abilities and self-promote more than women when it comes to math and coding ability. Instead of hiring programmers who act like Charlie Sheen, recruiters and interviewers should take imposter syndrome into account.

If tech discussion was really about tech, it wouldn’t be sexist.

Cross-posted at Geek Feminism

There is sexism in tech culture. However, I continue to love tech, because I think of the sexism as a separate, unnecessary appendage to pure tech. I cannot think of sexism as intrinsic to or inevitable in tech, because then I would be either self-hating, or I would have to give up my love for technology. Maybe my personal ontology is compartmentalized thinking in order to survive as a woman in tech, but I think it’s also true.

Some people argue that for tech to “attract” women, the culture needs to be broadened to include humanistic aspects. However, this proposal may derive from the implicit sexist assumption that men really are better at tech, and women really are better at the humanities.

Actually, what I hate most about tech news sites is that when I go there for technology news, there are off-topic comments about love and relationships. It’s typically men discussing being single; having trouble with women; being Nice Guys^TM; giving advice about what women really want; talking about how women have it easier; bragging about how even their grandmother/mother/wife can use technology X; and other sexist generalizations about women. In other words, the idea that pure tech scares away women, that tech culture is currently free of human influence, is a product of male privilege and the inability to recognize that the state of being male is not the state of being neutral.

If you value sexual consent, then you should accept rejection.

gauche writes:

Swiftly and graciously accepting rejection is a cornerstone of radical consent. It hurts, but if you really believe in sexual autonomy, you just have to suck it up — without pleading or wheedling or demanding answers. You need a reason to be with someone, not to reject them.

Link: On rejection by gauche

---

Related post:

• The ethical corollary of “sex is a basic human need” is that rape is justified. by Restructure!

The ethical corollary of “sex is a basic human need” is that rape is justified.

(Trigger Warning: This post discusses rapist logic and rape.)

Some men argue that when women “withhold sex” from men, we are depriving men of their basic needs:

A sense of entitlement? That’s what you want to call the basic human need for love, companionship, approval, and sex? […] And then you wonder why guys perceive hostility from women. Gee, I wonder.

— unapproved comment from a Geek Feminism post

If a woman declines to have sex with a man, is she violating the man’s human rights, his alleged “right to sex”, or is the man’s experience of being deprived of his rights actually evidence of his sense of “entitlement” over women’s bodies?

This visual representation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs puts “sex” at the bottom base of the pyramid (falling under the category “Physiological” needs, which are the most basic needs), but “sexual intimacy” is also at the third rung from the bottom, falling under the category of “Love/belonging” needs. “Security of body” is at the at the second rung from the bottom of the pyramid, falling under the category of “Safety” needs, which is above “Physiological” needs but below “Love/belonging” needs.

If the “right to be not raped” falls under “Safety” and “security of body”, then is the alleged “right” to obtain sex a more basic need than the “right to be not raped”? Or does “Safety”/”security of body”/the “right to be not raped” have higher priority than fulfilling everyone’s alleged “need” for sex?

Of course, if one assumes that sex is a more basic need than security of body, then the ethical corollary would be that rape is justified. If you accept “rape is wrong” as an axiom, then you should agree that a person’s security of body/the right to be not raped has a higher priority than a person’s “need” for sex.