Perhaps the issue isn't the posters statement, but the prevailing wisdom that there are absolutely no difference between genders in practical functionality.
Differences should never lead to inequality - women are better at some things, conversely so are men, but you need to treat (and pay) people equally - and this next part is the most important part - you also need to ensure that you have positions for all kinds of people in your organization - and that culturally, you allow for diversity, and have an organization that allows people from diverse backgrounds an experiences thrive.
The latter part is a key flaw of geek culture (most often seen in engineering organizations) - we often fail at inclusivity, because we've spent our whole lives being left on the outside, so we develop a fundamental distrust of people unlike us (look at the interplay between sales and engineering in most old line companies), and have not learned the skills to create an inclusive environment.
Because of this we tend to create 'old boys clubs' that are full of people who are remarkably like us.
But, we can do better, and should - however shutting down the discussion is not how you solve these problems, it just makes them worse in the long term by creating a new culture even more intolerant of dissent.
Yeah, amazing what can happen when you make an argument poorly and without thought to how your audience will react.
Oh but citations. Good for you, that's a good bit of research. Sure the facts seem cherry picked and don't necessarily support your conclusions. You also presented them in an entirely tone deaf manner, you seem to imply a number of negative things, you perpetuated stereotypes, and you didn't explore any possible alternative explanations, but you definitely cited some research papers. B+ for effort, F for execution.
That's fine. But you need to use the site as intended. That means remaining scrupulously respectful of others, not using the site for flamewar or ideological battle, and the other things at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I work at a traditional enterprise. My (non radical) opinions don’t get me fired (versus the greater tech community).
It’s amusing to see these comments fluctuate wrt karma so quickly for the simple thesis that women might have traits that allow them to be better managers. I even come with study citations!
My condolences to those of you who might work somewhere where your livelihood is threatened for freedom of thought. The job market is great right now FYI.
I don't get it: do comments get downvoted on HN whenever there's any mention of or opinion on difference between genders? Disagreement shouldn't lead to downvote.
Thanks for sharing the threads. I always think that downvoting is for discouraging bad arguments from DH0 to DH3 [1] (for discussion quality as you mentioned). Now I realize that even convincing arguments at DH6 can be downvoted as long as one disagrees with it.
