(1) I agree with Nanani, and think it would be awful to actively try to “recruit” females, or even really do anything to entice them to come/stay. Though I appreciate the spirit of the post nonetheless because I think it’s a very interesting and important issue, and I think it’s okay to acknowledge it and question it. If anything, efforts to even out the male/female imbalance would have to be made on a much greater scale to start to see change.
(2) Do people really think that it’s an issue of females frequenting Less Wrong and then LEAVING? I doubt it. I suspect that a much lower proportion of females even happen upon the blog in the first place. This would eliminate a number of the explanations.
(3) This is an issue that deeply intrigues me. I have some fairly simple theories. Unfortunately, I am not well-versed enough in evol. psych., gender studies, history, sociology, etc. to feel like I have enough background to really get at the heart of the matter. So most of my ideas are purely anecdotal.
I believe that females on a whole are less interested in intellectual pursuits. Particularly intellectual pursuits that are HARD and take a higher amount of mental horsepower to grasp. Period. The question is: Why?
From my own experience, I’ve found myself to be less INNATELY CURIOUS than many of my male counterparts. Once I get onto a topic, I can puzzle over it for hours at a high level, but if the topic is not in front of me, my brain can be content to space out and think trivial things. Once I realized this was the case, I started to actively work to be more curious and to think more. When I’m sitting around spacing out, I will actually tell myself that I should start thinking about a problem. My brain does not do this automatically.
Now, I don’t know if this is purely a messed up issue that I have to deal with, or if it extends across the female gender. From observing other females, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that others would face the same lack of intellectual curiosity.
My big question is where does this come from? It’s either biological or social. I used to think it was biological (this helped me reconcile the fact that I had to work overtime and be more aware so that I could become more interested in things in the first place). Now I think it’s entirely possible that the explanation is social and that females, through media/peer groups/etc. simply are not encouraged to be as curious about intellectual issues and by the time they are older, they’ve simply stopped thinking. (This is all pertaining to females as a group, not particular individuals).
(4) I don’t think the atmosphere (meanness) of this site is the problem. Enough females are thick-skinned. I think it’s simply the subject matter. Though I agree that it’s possible that the ratio of females is slightly higher than what is apparent because of their relative silence. I personally have a much higher fear of rejection to comments, etc. This extends to in-person interactions, and upon the slightest rejection, I will quickly shut up.
From my own experience, I’ve found myself to be less INNATELY CURIOUS than many of my male counterparts.
I distinctly remember my first meeting with one of my female friends, she was staring at a poster on the wall which explained why e^(i pi)=-1, copying down each step, and clearly trying to understand it. This was not in connection to any class, she was just interested. And I remember being immediately, strongly attracted to her simply for that reason, because of that demonstrated, genuine curiosity. Which indicates that on some level, I perceived that trait as being remarkable, though I’m not sure that that’s specifically because she was a girl.
(For those looking for the end of the story, my best friend was already actively pursuing her (which is why we were being introduced), and I chose to respect the friendship.)
From my own experience, I’ve found myself to be less INNATELY CURIOUS than many of my male counterparts. Once I get onto a topic, I can puzzle over it for hours at a high level, but if the topic is not in front of me, my brain can be content to space out and think trivial things. Once I realized this was the case, I started to actively work to be more curious and to think more. When I’m sitting around spacing out, I will actually tell myself that I should start thinking about a problem. My brain does not do this automatically.
Fascinating. I can somewhat emphasise with that having as I do the exact reverse experience. I haven’t managed to create a habit of telling myself to think about trivial things while spacing out but I have done so with regards to (at least an acceptable fraction of) social encounters. It seems that thinking up trivial things is a distinctly non-trivial task! How ever do you manage it?
I don’t think the atmosphere (meanness) of this site is the problem.
This site is full of cute fluffy puppies.
Enough females are thick-skinned.
I agree and obvserve that projecting the apearance of thin skin is a somewhat more effective gambit for females than males.
I’m the most intellectually curious person I know (in non-Less Wrong circles, anyway), but of course I could be an exception.
And that serves to remind me that my default image of posters is skewed slightly too far in the male direction. It takes a kick in the face by an unambiguous implication in the post body to make me even consider that the author isn’t a relatively young male with a science, engineering or programming background. I had finished Alicorn’s post and got up to (2) in Michelle’s before I was prompted to check the author’s name for gender association.
Considering that an alicorn is a unicorn’s horn, I think mine is a fairly girly username. Unless there is a unicorn-loving male element I should be aware of.
Interesting… all the places I’ve seen the word, it meant a winged unicorn*. But reading this post drove me to look it up, and I did find both definitions. Less Wrong: raising new interest in definitions of mythological creature parts! :)
*Speaking of mythological definitions, I learned somewhere to distinguish between an alicorn, which has the goat-like body, lion’s tail, beard, etc. of a unicorn, vs a horned pegasus, which has horse-like features. Not sure where that came from, but it’s firmly implanted in my stores of useless knowledge.
The downvote suggests I need to elaborate. Alicorn thought she was fairly clearly signaling her gender by using a feminine username. I had seen her username in previous comments and did not know the word so it did not signal her gender effectively to me. Perhaps my vocabulary is just inadequate but if I’m at all representative then I think the misunderstanding is worth noting as one small way in which male and female posters may fail to communicate due to hidden assumptions.
Sorry alicorn… I thought you were a guy too
The nick isn’t girly enough for this girl to pick up on. May be a cultural reference that’s not common enough?
If high intellectual curiosity is a rare trait in males and a very rare one in females, then given that you are here this doesn’t surprise me. You are more intellectually curious than most of the men I have met, which is itself a high intellectual curiosity sample.
I would not describe myself as curious, but my brain automatically creates a few absurd theories per day, and I go nuts if I don’t test them all. (which generally means I spend half an hour on wikipedia, and then repeat the process tomorrow with the new data)
A few thoughts:
(1) I agree with Nanani, and think it would be awful to actively try to “recruit” females, or even really do anything to entice them to come/stay. Though I appreciate the spirit of the post nonetheless because I think it’s a very interesting and important issue, and I think it’s okay to acknowledge it and question it. If anything, efforts to even out the male/female imbalance would have to be made on a much greater scale to start to see change.
(2) Do people really think that it’s an issue of females frequenting Less Wrong and then LEAVING? I doubt it. I suspect that a much lower proportion of females even happen upon the blog in the first place. This would eliminate a number of the explanations.
(3) This is an issue that deeply intrigues me. I have some fairly simple theories. Unfortunately, I am not well-versed enough in evol. psych., gender studies, history, sociology, etc. to feel like I have enough background to really get at the heart of the matter. So most of my ideas are purely anecdotal.
I believe that females on a whole are less interested in intellectual pursuits. Particularly intellectual pursuits that are HARD and take a higher amount of mental horsepower to grasp. Period. The question is: Why?
From my own experience, I’ve found myself to be less INNATELY CURIOUS than many of my male counterparts. Once I get onto a topic, I can puzzle over it for hours at a high level, but if the topic is not in front of me, my brain can be content to space out and think trivial things. Once I realized this was the case, I started to actively work to be more curious and to think more. When I’m sitting around spacing out, I will actually tell myself that I should start thinking about a problem. My brain does not do this automatically.
Now, I don’t know if this is purely a messed up issue that I have to deal with, or if it extends across the female gender. From observing other females, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that others would face the same lack of intellectual curiosity.
My big question is where does this come from? It’s either biological or social. I used to think it was biological (this helped me reconcile the fact that I had to work overtime and be more aware so that I could become more interested in things in the first place). Now I think it’s entirely possible that the explanation is social and that females, through media/peer groups/etc. simply are not encouraged to be as curious about intellectual issues and by the time they are older, they’ve simply stopped thinking. (This is all pertaining to females as a group, not particular individuals).
(4) I don’t think the atmosphere (meanness) of this site is the problem. Enough females are thick-skinned. I think it’s simply the subject matter. Though I agree that it’s possible that the ratio of females is slightly higher than what is apparent because of their relative silence. I personally have a much higher fear of rejection to comments, etc. This extends to in-person interactions, and upon the slightest rejection, I will quickly shut up.
I distinctly remember my first meeting with one of my female friends, she was staring at a poster on the wall which explained why e^(i pi)=-1, copying down each step, and clearly trying to understand it. This was not in connection to any class, she was just interested. And I remember being immediately, strongly attracted to her simply for that reason, because of that demonstrated, genuine curiosity. Which indicates that on some level, I perceived that trait as being remarkable, though I’m not sure that that’s specifically because she was a girl.
(For those looking for the end of the story, my best friend was already actively pursuing her (which is why we were being introduced), and I chose to respect the friendship.)
Fascinating. I can somewhat emphasise with that having as I do the exact reverse experience. I haven’t managed to create a habit of telling myself to think about trivial things while spacing out but I have done so with regards to (at least an acceptable fraction of) social encounters. It seems that thinking up trivial things is a distinctly non-trivial task! How ever do you manage it?
This site is full of cute fluffy puppies.
I agree and obvserve that projecting the apearance of thin skin is a somewhat more effective gambit for females than males.
I’m the most intellectually curious person I know (in non-Less Wrong circles, anyway), but of course I could be an exception.
And that serves to remind me that my default image of posters is skewed slightly too far in the male direction. It takes a kick in the face by an unambiguous implication in the post body to make me even consider that the author isn’t a relatively young male with a science, engineering or programming background. I had finished Alicorn’s post and got up to (2) in Michelle’s before I was prompted to check the author’s name for gender association.
Considering that an alicorn is a unicorn’s horn, I think mine is a fairly girly username. Unless there is a unicorn-loving male element I should be aware of.
Interesting… all the places I’ve seen the word, it meant a winged unicorn*. But reading this post drove me to look it up, and I did find both definitions. Less Wrong: raising new interest in definitions of mythological creature parts! :)
*Speaking of mythological definitions, I learned somewhere to distinguish between an alicorn, which has the goat-like body, lion’s tail, beard, etc. of a unicorn, vs a horned pegasus, which has horse-like features. Not sure where that came from, but it’s firmly implanted in my stores of useless knowledge.
So, unicorn pegasus actually is a meaning of alicorn? I always thought that was limited to the My Little Pony community.
Fantasy authors are not as a general rule inclined to adhere so rigidly to your taxonomy ;)
Apparently sufficiently girly that I didn’t even know that’s what it was...
The downvote suggests I need to elaborate. Alicorn thought she was fairly clearly signaling her gender by using a feminine username. I had seen her username in previous comments and did not know the word so it did not signal her gender effectively to me. Perhaps my vocabulary is just inadequate but if I’m at all representative then I think the misunderstanding is worth noting as one small way in which male and female posters may fail to communicate due to hidden assumptions.
Wacky theory: it sounds masculine because it ends in a consonant.
Sorry alicorn… I thought you were a guy too The nick isn’t girly enough for this girl to pick up on. May be a cultural reference that’s not common enough?
If high intellectual curiosity is a rare trait in males and a very rare one in females, then given that you are here this doesn’t surprise me. You are more intellectually curious than most of the men I have met, which is itself a high intellectual curiosity sample.
I don’t think you’re the only one. I’m one of the most curious people I know (and I’m a girl)...
I would not describe myself as curious, but my brain automatically creates a few absurd theories per day, and I go nuts if I don’t test them all. (which generally means I spend half an hour on wikipedia, and then repeat the process tomorrow with the new data)