Alright, I'll bite. But, I've never heard of any research suggesting women have a different cognitive capacity than men. I read some research a number of years ago suggesting cross-culturally women had better language skills than men, but I don't know if this is still considered to be true.
I can't remember reading anything in the manifesto which suggested women are less capable as software engineers. The essay did suggest women were less interested in programming than men (obviously true - see enrolment figures) and that at least some of the effect size is due to biological factors (probably true - see below).
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None of these links suggest any capacity difference. Only that there is a biologically influenced gender difference in interests.
A summary of studies looking at big 5 personality distributions and other effects. Of note is the long section describing blindspots in current research:
"Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where and Why?"
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x
Here's a Dutch documentary where they send a camera crew around asking different researchers about gender differences:
https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=30m49s
The full documentary is great. Their conclusion is that biological factors result in an overlapping but different distribution of personalities between men and women. These differences result in statistically different career preferences.
A talk by researcher Steven Pinker on the subject, where he argues that biological differences result in at least some of the effect size in STEM interests:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw&t=1057s
This is part of a debate on the subject. (Not linked) Prof Elizabeth Spelke responds, but I found her argument to be much less convincing than Pinker. Watch both, make up your own mind.
> I can't remember reading anything in the manifesto which suggested women are less capable as software engineers.
It does suggest this:
> “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes,”
Preferences and abilities. If men are in the majority of leadership, senior, and CEO roles, what is the author suggesting about the abilities of women?
He is suggesting that it's a difficult problem in a complex system and that it's likely that we don't understand all the factors at play? And that we need different perspectives in order to engage in the kind of constructive skepticism which ultimately leads to better understanding?
Making assertions, on the other hand... that suggests that we already know the answers; and that further scrutiny is not required.
I can't remember reading anything in the manifesto which suggested women are less capable as software engineers. The essay did suggest women were less interested in programming than men (obviously true - see enrolment figures) and that at least some of the effect size is due to biological factors (probably true - see below).
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None of these links suggest any capacity difference. Only that there is a biologically influenced gender difference in interests.
Here's an essay contextualising and summarising the historical specifics of male and female gender roles in society: http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
Here's a study of how prenatal androgen effects psychological thing vs people orientation, and how it influences career choice: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/
A summary of studies looking at big 5 personality distributions and other effects. Of note is the long section describing blindspots in current research: "Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where and Why?" http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x
Here's a Dutch documentary where they send a camera crew around asking different researchers about gender differences: https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=30m49s The full documentary is great. Their conclusion is that biological factors result in an overlapping but different distribution of personalities between men and women. These differences result in statistically different career preferences.
A talk by researcher Steven Pinker on the subject, where he argues that biological differences result in at least some of the effect size in STEM interests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw&t=1057s This is part of a debate on the subject. (Not linked) Prof Elizabeth Spelke responds, but I found her argument to be much less convincing than Pinker. Watch both, make up your own mind.