Follow-up post explaining research rationale

[Joe Duarte via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 9 May 2016 at 20:09:35 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

> I'd also be surprised if you find an empirical gender gap after 
> controlling for programming language syntax, too. Even if we 
> grant that PL syntax is suboptimal, why would that result in a 
> gender bias? But, hey, you never really know until you actually 
> collect the data...

I forgot to mention the math. You can run the model in your head. 
If group W has more career options than group M, W will be 
underrepresented in career domain A. The effect will be larger if 
A is less appealing than W's other options, ceteris paribus and 
with some starting assumptions. (But it doesn't need to be, if W 
has more options than M.)

If aspects of career domain A are *equally frustrating* for 
members of groups W and M, W will still be underrepresented (and 
M overrepresented) if people in W have more options. So we don't 
even need it to be the case that bizarre programming language 
design disproportionately annoys women for bizarre programming 
language design to result in the underrepresentation of women.

JD