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Comment by themagician | Hacker News Reader

See, I'm inclined to believe it. If for no other reason than it just seems intuitive. Women who go into technology know it's an uphill battle. They work that much harder and honestly I'd expect their work to be better, on average, particularly for open source projects because they are genuinely interested in improving the code. They always have to contend with the thought, "Will people reject this because I'm a woman? Better make sure it's as good as it possibly can be so they can't reject it based on that."

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It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't think I agree. The selection pool for women is smaller in STEM, therefore less women means less exceptional women.

> particularly for open source projects because they are genuinely interested in improving the code

I reject this on the grounds that there's no reason why women would be more interested in improving the code than men.

> "Will people reject this because I'm a woman? Better make sure it's as good as it possibly can be so they can't reject it based on that."

I'd be surprised to learn that this was the thought process of the majority of women, let alone most of them.

> selection pool for women is smaller in STEM, therefore less women means less exceptional women

This is only true if you assume women in STEM are a random sampling. If you consider survivorship bias, it's quite possible that the cohort of women who persist are better, despite being fewer in number.

The same is also true for men, unless you start with the belief that the misogyny is a baseline factor that women have to deal with. But that's what this analysis is trying to figure out. Chicken and egg maybe?

> See, I'm inclined to believe it. If for no other reason than it just seems intuitive. Women who go into technology know it's an uphill battle.

Or at least they've been told repeatedly that it's an uphill battle, by news media and activists with an ideology to push and clicks to farm.

Not sure I understand. So men in OSS are not genuinely interested in improving the code?

The argument seems to be mathematical, not categorical, this is what I think is being claimed -- "there are many more men on github than women, thus there is stronger selection pressures on the women who are on github. Whether men are more or less competent than women IN GENERAL is a separate question from which is, on average the more competent sub-population on github."

I was trying to find a way to articulate this and failing. This was my intended meaning.

Of course they are. But if there is significant discrimination against women, maybe women either get really good or leave OSS/programming altogether. Leading to the remaining women (the sample) being "more competent".

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