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Comment by annexrichmond | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Having trouble reconciling it with my reasoning though, which is: if some group of people are overrepresented in some category, it is less likely to be a coincidence; i.e., I doubt it's because the people there are just less sexist than everyone else

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I understand your point. I guess I am trying to highlight the fact that most sexism/racism these days are systematic. The people aren't probably less/more sexist than everyone else. But, they can build a culture that is less sexist.

> if some group of people are overrepresented in some category, it is less likely to be a coincidence; i.e., I doubt it's because the people there are just less sexist

You have simply defined “overrepresentation” in a sexist manner (50% women).

overrepresented given some pool.

Do you have data that suggests said pool is 50%, instead of replying to all my comments and calling me sexist?

“In 1970, only 7.6% of physicians were female. Today, approximately 30% of full time physicians are women and about 50% of medical school students are female. The vast improvement in statistics is not only promising but also inspiring for other divisions of the workforce that have not seen that quick of an improvement. However, upon diving deeper into statistics, it’s clear that gender still plays an unfair role in the success of a doctor. Between 80 to 90 percent of leadership roles in medicine, like medical school deans, are filled by men...”[1]

Your concept of a “pool” is as sexist as thinking that a hospital with more than 7.6% women physicians in 1970 was a result of discrimination against men.

The advance of women in medicine is not an “over representation”. It is closing the gap on underrepresentation due to systemic sexism (with still more work to do). This is beginning to happening in CS and other high wage fields traditionally reserved as men’s work. Your argument merely seeks to bastardize and turn the very terminology of sexism against this effort.

[1] https://sites.psu.edu/civic/2017/02/14/gender-discrimination...

In Sweden during 2012, over 99% of professional stone layers where males. This is professionals that install bathrooms, construct kitchen walls and stone floor. Similar, two other profession during same year had over 99% gender segregation and that was dentist nurses and midwifes with females being the dominating gender.

Then there were additional 3-4 professions with exactly 99% gender segregation. Mechanics (male), nurse secretary (female), but I don't remember the names of the other. All those professions existed where for every minority gender there where hundred or hundreds employed of the majority.

Is this proof of systemic sexism, and if so, what conclusion can we draw? Remember that in Sweden the number of employed women and men is only off by less than 1%, and only 12.5% of the population work in a profession where the majority gender is lesser than 150% to the minority. Of those 12.5%, men was that year slightly more likely to work in a gender equal profession.

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