If you’re wondering why half of the potential audience of the site seems to be conspicuously not here, this may have something to do with it.
I sincerely doubt it. This site is hugely less sexist than society at large. The comments at very high traffic sites are regularly flamed by many, many trolls who are explicitly, obnoxiously sexist, and yet these sites have a much larger percentage of women. As far as I can tell, the “misogynisitic comments” here are sincere, if somewhat indelicate questions or statements of opinion.
In fact “Roissy in DC” (a blog written by an openly misogynistic male “pick-up artist”) has a much larger percentage of female commenters than Less Wrong. If you are looking for a culprit for why there are more men than women here, I suggest you start here.
Its just a start, (and the poll is sort of old) but twice as many men believed in evolution without divine intervention. Combine that with the fact that less women spend less time on the internet and I think we have a good start when it comes to explaining the dearth of female commenters.
In fact “Roissy in DC” (a blog written by an openly misogynistic male “pick-up artist”) has a much larger percentage of female commenters than Less Wrong
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this is principally defensive or similarly self-interested. Women interested in not being duped by jackasses will benefit little from understanding why they should one-box Newcomb’s problem, compared to the benefit of understanding how to spot guys like Roissy.
Not that I’m implying every single woman who follows him has that motivation; his topic is admittedly much simpler and has virtually universal appeal than most LW content, at least to single people (not his take on the topic, just the topic generally).
I think my point still stands. The women aren’t always posting supportively, but they are posting. They post because they are interested in the subject matter: dating relationships, sex, etc. These are topics of broad appeal.
This site, however appeals to a group of self-identified rationalists who are interested in obscure topics like Newcomb’s problem and the possibility of strong AI. This mindspace cluster is small and overwhelmingly male. Obviously, this is not a criticism of women. Enjoying these topics (or not) is merely a matter of preference.
Women aren’t avoiding this site because of occasional comments alluding to the fact that men like having sex with attractive women.
This is what I’m talking about in my other comment. “Women” are interested in “dating, relationships, sex” and “self-identified rationalists” are interested in “newcomb’s problem, and the possibility of strong AI”. Do you know what most men are doing tonight? Not hanging out here.
I’m interested in the possibility of strong AI and am slowly but surely obtaining and reading the necessary foundational material (starting off with SIAI core reading). I’m perfectly able to love and understand Newcomb’s problem and similar. Whether you meant “the average woman” or what, it’s careless of you to say this.
Though I agree with you that it is unlikely that women are not participating because of perceived sexism.
Edit: I’d like to mention that I’ve tried my hardest to get my boyfriend to read this site more often, but he refuses, because he thinks some of the stuff we talk about is ridiculous and irrelevant to life.
Edit: deleted female anecdote, but leaving male anecdote, because it is still necessary to provide support for my point.
This is what I’m talking about in my other comment. “Women” are interested in “dating, relationships, sex” and “self-identified rationalists” are interested in “newcomb’s problem, and the possibility of strong AI”. Do you know what most men are doing tonight? Not hanging out here.
What part of my comment are you disagreeing with? You seem to think I was claiming “men like rationality topics” and “women like dating/relationship topics”. This is not at all what I was claiming.
I was stating that almost everyone, male and female, is interested in dating/relationship topics and there is only a tiny set of people interested in LW-style rationality topics. For whatever reason, this set is mostly male. I don’t know what your anecdote is supposed to demonstrate, except that there are some men who aren’t interested in LW and some women who are (which is totally compatible with my comment).
I know I’m late to this party but… I totally agree that mostly it’s the case that there is an initial low volume of women coming to this site.
However… given that there is already a low volume arriving at the site we should therefore be extra careful not to scare any away through total insensitivity.
I don’t mean we should be afraid to utter words that may be taken the wrong way, but that PUA is really a very hot topic… one that is not appreciated by a very large proportion of women (myself included).
It goes a little beyond “occasional comments alluding to the fact that men like having sex with attractive women.”—which I definitely have no problem with. PUA is about manipulation—specifically, manipulation of the kinds of automatic processes that a woman can normally rely on to benefit her own safety and enjoyment—a manipulation of these processes that does not, in fact, benefit the woman, but the man doing the PU. This is why it’s a Dark Art.
I personally feel uncomfortable supporting a site that support the lesser forms of evil.
I would be equally pissed off if we talked supportively about the more manipulative advertising and marketing techniques…
I think that we should avoid these topics, because it scares people away—men as well as women, but the PUA one specifically scares women away… and given that there’s so few of us here already, we should try especially hard to not do that.
In fact “Roissy in DC” (a blog written by an openly misogynistic male “pick-up artist”) has a much larger percentage of female commenters than Less Wrong
Yes but they’re probably not the kind of intelligent women we are after.
There obviously are lots of very intelligent women in the world who could be great rationalists. But I don’t think that the strategy of censoring certain forms of speech every time the gender issue comes up would necessarily help to attract them. Many intelligent women would probably be rather pissed off with what Alicorn is saying and consider censoring uses of language that are perfectly standard within the world at large, and censoring forms of thought that produce accurate models because they hurt people’s feelings to be a mockery of rationality. Rationality is basically the art of not censoring thought because it hurts your feelings.
Roko, I’ve read through a lot of your comments and we agree on a lot. I think you’re bringing very important ideas to the table, including your politics comment down the page, which I upvoted.
I would never advocate the censorship of language, but I think that a lot of what is potentially offensive to females results from careless thinking about gender that could be corrected with the appropriate information. I don’t care about my feelings being hurt, I care because I think that their current perceptions about females that are showing through in the posts result from a lack of information which I have, and that they would probably appreciate receiving.
Anyways… no one is actually censoring anyone because no one is keeping anyone from saying anything, right? Someone is just calling to attention what I think most gender sensitive people (which would probably be the majority of the people here!) would avoid anyway if they considered it for a moment.
I would like to say again, that I can see why you would be concerned. We should continue to promote things based on scientific or rational merit and not take the easy way out using political-like appeals.
I sincerely doubt it. This site is hugely less sexist than society at large. The comments at very high traffic sites are regularly flamed by many, many trolls who are explicitly, obnoxiously sexist, and yet these sites have a much larger percentage of women. As far as I can tell, the “misogynisitic comments” here are sincere, if somewhat indelicate questions or statements of opinion.
In fact “Roissy in DC” (a blog written by an openly misogynistic male “pick-up artist”) has a much larger percentage of female commenters than Less Wrong. If you are looking for a culprit for why there are more men than women here, I suggest you start here.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
Its just a start, (and the poll is sort of old) but twice as many men believed in evolution without divine intervention. Combine that with the fact that less women spend less time on the internet and I think we have a good start when it comes to explaining the dearth of female commenters.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this is principally defensive or similarly self-interested. Women interested in not being duped by jackasses will benefit little from understanding why they should one-box Newcomb’s problem, compared to the benefit of understanding how to spot guys like Roissy.
Not that I’m implying every single woman who follows him has that motivation; his topic is admittedly much simpler and has virtually universal appeal than most LW content, at least to single people (not his take on the topic, just the topic generally).
I think my point still stands. The women aren’t always posting supportively, but they are posting. They post because they are interested in the subject matter: dating relationships, sex, etc. These are topics of broad appeal.
This site, however appeals to a group of self-identified rationalists who are interested in obscure topics like Newcomb’s problem and the possibility of strong AI. This mindspace cluster is small and overwhelmingly male. Obviously, this is not a criticism of women. Enjoying these topics (or not) is merely a matter of preference.
Women aren’t avoiding this site because of occasional comments alluding to the fact that men like having sex with attractive women.
This is what I’m talking about in my other comment. “Women” are interested in “dating, relationships, sex” and “self-identified rationalists” are interested in “newcomb’s problem, and the possibility of strong AI”. Do you know what most men are doing tonight? Not hanging out here.
I’m interested in the possibility of strong AI and am slowly but surely obtaining and reading the necessary foundational material (starting off with SIAI core reading). I’m perfectly able to love and understand Newcomb’s problem and similar. Whether you meant “the average woman” or what, it’s careless of you to say this.
Though I agree with you that it is unlikely that women are not participating because of perceived sexism.
Edit: I’d like to mention that I’ve tried my hardest to get my boyfriend to read this site more often, but he refuses, because he thinks some of the stuff we talk about is ridiculous and irrelevant to life.
Edit: deleted female anecdote, but leaving male anecdote, because it is still necessary to provide support for my point.
What part of my comment are you disagreeing with? You seem to think I was claiming “men like rationality topics” and “women like dating/relationship topics”. This is not at all what I was claiming.
I was stating that almost everyone, male and female, is interested in dating/relationship topics and there is only a tiny set of people interested in LW-style rationality topics. For whatever reason, this set is mostly male. I don’t know what your anecdote is supposed to demonstrate, except that there are some men who aren’t interested in LW and some women who are (which is totally compatible with my comment).
With the new information from your second comment, I read your original comment in a different way. We have no disagreements.
I know I’m late to this party but… I totally agree that mostly it’s the case that there is an initial low volume of women coming to this site.
However… given that there is already a low volume arriving at the site we should therefore be extra careful not to scare any away through total insensitivity.
I don’t mean we should be afraid to utter words that may be taken the wrong way, but that PUA is really a very hot topic… one that is not appreciated by a very large proportion of women (myself included).
It goes a little beyond “occasional comments alluding to the fact that men like having sex with attractive women.”—which I definitely have no problem with. PUA is about manipulation—specifically, manipulation of the kinds of automatic processes that a woman can normally rely on to benefit her own safety and enjoyment—a manipulation of these processes that does not, in fact, benefit the woman, but the man doing the PU. This is why it’s a Dark Art.
I personally feel uncomfortable supporting a site that support the lesser forms of evil. I would be equally pissed off if we talked supportively about the more manipulative advertising and marketing techniques…
I think that we should avoid these topics, because it scares people away—men as well as women, but the PUA one specifically scares women away… and given that there’s so few of us here already, we should try especially hard to not do that.
Yes but they’re probably not the kind of intelligent women we are after.
There obviously are lots of very intelligent women in the world who could be great rationalists. But I don’t think that the strategy of censoring certain forms of speech every time the gender issue comes up would necessarily help to attract them. Many intelligent women would probably be rather pissed off with what Alicorn is saying and consider censoring uses of language that are perfectly standard within the world at large, and censoring forms of thought that produce accurate models because they hurt people’s feelings to be a mockery of rationality. Rationality is basically the art of not censoring thought because it hurts your feelings.
“Rationality is basically the art of not censoring thought because it hurts your feelings.”
And driving is basically the art of turning a wheel back and forth.
Roko, I’ve read through a lot of your comments and we agree on a lot. I think you’re bringing very important ideas to the table, including your politics comment down the page, which I upvoted.
I would never advocate the censorship of language, but I think that a lot of what is potentially offensive to females results from careless thinking about gender that could be corrected with the appropriate information. I don’t care about my feelings being hurt, I care because I think that their current perceptions about females that are showing through in the posts result from a lack of information which I have, and that they would probably appreciate receiving.
Anyways… no one is actually censoring anyone because no one is keeping anyone from saying anything, right? Someone is just calling to attention what I think most gender sensitive people (which would probably be the majority of the people here!) would avoid anyway if they considered it for a moment.
I would like to say again, that I can see why you would be concerned. We should continue to promote things based on scientific or rational merit and not take the easy way out using political-like appeals.