Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due To Offensive Attitudes

[Flagged at top as mostly superseded by the more thorough 'Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences'.] Argues gender imbalances in libertarianism/STEM are mostly NOT caused by sexism/offensive attitudes. Evidence against the sexism-explanation: Trump voters were more gender-balanced (47% female) than libertarians; churchgoing Catholics skew ~20% more female despite anti-feminism; r/libertarian is 5.5% female vs r/mensrights ~10%. Locates the real driver in Lippa's 'people vs things' interest dimension (d=1.18, 'very large' — one of the largest known sex differences), plus systematizing-empathizing (d=0.5) and a utilitarianism skew, which feed political-attitude differences ('more liberal in social compassion, more conservative in traditional morality' = 'not libertarian'). Part III warns the 'poor gender balance = sexist jerks' premise hands humanities-types a permanent hammer against STEM-types and breeds 'circular firing chambers'; notes that dectupling the male:female ratio multiplies each woman's harassment exposure, so imbalance is more cause than effect.

Quality 70 · Strong. 70 — high-Strong. A sharp, influential, well-marshaled case resting on the robust people-things finding; the 'circular firing chamber' framing is memorable. On-merit ~73, DOCKED ~3 because Scott himself flags it as superseded by the more thorough Contra-Grant (the definitive version of this argument), and it's the more polemical draft.

Claude’s paradigm shift 52 · Moderate. 52 — Moderate. Turning the well-replicated people-things dimension against the sexism-explanation for gender gaps was a fresh, non-obvious synthesis in the 2017 discourse, though the underlying finding is Lippa's.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. 3 — a widely-discussed entry in the gender-in-tech debate (published around the Damore-memo moment); influential within that discourse, no material effect.