The other ironclad rule of gender-related studies is that they must always demonstrate that women are superior in some way or another. For example, a few days ago, a study demonstrated that women produce better computer code than men, but it is perceived as worse if the reviewer knew the coder was a female.
The article notes how the women made "riskier" changes to code, and weren't "playing it safe," yet they "dominated the men in every single coding language, from Java to C++." Knowing this, why would anyone hire a man to write a single line of code, ever?
Anyway, the Times discovered a study that showed that male sellers on eBay have an edge over women.
Female sellers who offered new items received, on average, $0.80 for each dollar that men received. I wonder if their methodology actually yielded 77 cents on the dollar, but that sounded too hackneyed. The sellers reputations were equal, although "women tended to have better reputations as sellers." So they controlled for seller reputations and the women had better reputations?
Tamar Kricheli-Katz, who conducted the study, made the following conclusion about apparent bias. "We actually think that most of it is unconscious." The bias of eBay buyers would have to be, because eBay doesn't require sellers to disclose their gender. eBay vendors have usernames like scuttlebutt3355, and pacificbeach.comber. Determining the gender is pure guesswork.
Maybe female sellers earning $0.80 on the dollar has something to do with how women conduct their auctions. Female sellers received fewer bids for comparable items, 0.88. Perhaps female sellers start their auctions with an unrealistically high price. That would help explain fewer bids and lower selling prices.
Because "unconscious sexism" is not a scientific conclusion.
Gender Discrimination: Buy It Now!
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