Tech Firms Have An Obsession With 'Female' Digital Servants (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Alexa, Tay, Siri, Cortana, Xiaoice, and Google Now. These technologies all have one thing in common -- they are digital servants aimed at a mass-market audience that feature a "female" voice or persona. And it's not just the voice or persona of the digital persona we interact with that is biased. The results of those interactions also demonstrate male favoritism. It took Apple more than four years to fix Siri's responses to questions about abortion services, and yet the company didn't seem to have any problem programming Siri to search for prostitutes and Viagra. Here's the gender breakdown for the tech workforce of each company:
Microsoft: 83.0% male, 16.9% female
Google: 82.0% male, 18.0% female
Apple: 79.0% male, 22.0% female
Amazon: 61.0% male, 39.0% female

Comments

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[Sigvatr]

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[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine the shrill cries of favoritism if all these assistants were male voices. Offendatrons really like looking for things to be angry about.

Relax, tumblrinas. If there's one thing you can count on it's that these things will be configurable very soon and you can finally get that Macho Man Randy Savage voice telling you: "You've got mail... YEEEEEEEEAAAAH"

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[gl4ss]

bullshit article for bullshit times.

why? because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.

besides than that, you can change the voice - and the company men/women ratios seem pretty healthy considering that the tech university I went to had like 10 women per 100 men in the relevant to google/apple/ms fields.

oh and the irony that if they hire women assistants even if they have nothing for them to do then the numbers look "better"..

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually most automated voices are female because a female voice is easier to hear against background noise. Outside of the traditional tech area from this article I can think of two more I hear on a daily basis. The parking ticket machines where I park my car and the next station announcement on the public train that I catch. Male, deeper, voices would be much harder to hear against the background rumble of the city. This applies to any technology where a use case is mobile.

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[silentcoder]

That makes no sense. Higher pitched sounds penetrate less and travel shorter distances. Thats exactly why hunter-gatherer languages are full of high pitched tongue clicks: prey cant hear the hunters talk because the sound stops at the first tree.
Ever walk past a nightclub ? Notice how you can usually hear the bass drum through the walls but not the rest of the music ?

If you are going to attribute something to the laws of physics you should probably know what they are first.

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[dbIII]

bullshit article for bullshit times

It's not Friday so it's a different time to the usual bullshit article :)

The gender fight stories must be drawing a lot of people in to pump up the ad revenue.

and the company men/women ratios seem pretty healthy considering that the tech university I went to had like 10 women per 100 men in the relevant to google/apple/ms fields.

Probably because some have been there for a while before enrolements declined to the current level. In my day it was 51% women 49% men in the introductory CS subject despite the number of engineering students (around 90% male at the point) who were in the class as a soft option for easy credit.

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[wonkey_monkey]

That makes no sense. Higher pitched sounds penetrate less and travel shorter distances.

That doesn't contradict what the GP said.

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[sonamchauhan]

Its the use-case that matters. All these assistants are 'speak' close to your ears. Your ears also receive predominantly 'bassy' background noise, as you mentioned. A higher pitched sound is different enough to be more easily isolated from the background buzz.

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[stjobe]

Actually most automated voices are female because a female voice is easier to hear against background noise.

Nah:

Early human factors research in aircraft and other domains indicated that female voices were more authoritative to male pilots and crew members and were more likely to get their attention. Much of this research was based on pilot experiences, particularly in combat situations, where the pilots were being guided by female air traffic controllers. They reported being able to most easily pick out the female voice from amid the flurry of radio chatter.

More recent research, however, carried out since more females have been employed as pilots and air traffic controllers, indicates that the original popular hypothesis may be unreliable. General human factors wisdom now indicates largely that, either due to current culture or changing attitudes, an automated female voice is no more or less effective than a male voice.

Edworthy and colleagues in 2003, based at Plymouth University in UK, for example, found that both acoustic and non-acoustic differences between male and female speakers were negligible. Therefore, they recommended, the choice of speaker should depend on the overlap of noise and speech spectra. Female voices did, however, appear to have an advantage in that they could portray a greater range of urgencies because of their usually higher pitch and pitch range. They reported an experiment showing that knowledge about the sex of a speaker has no effect on judgments of perceived urgency, with acoustic variables accounting for such differences.

Arrabito in 2009, however, at Defence Research and Development Canada in Toronto, found that with simulated cockpit background radio traffic, a male voice rather than a female voice, in a monotone or urgent annunciaton style, resulted in the largest proportion of correct and fastest identification response times to verbal warnings, regardless of the gender of the listener.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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[silentcoder]

>That doesn't contradict what the GP said.

Unless you live in a universe where a sound that is more easily drowned out and travels shorter distances are easier to hear against a background... yes, yes it does.

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[silentcoder]

That may be true of the assistants but he used the same reasoning to attribute it to public address systems and parking meters - both things which you need to hear from rather further away. In the case of the automated public address systems - often through a crowd of bodies and pillars and the furnishings of things like train stations. Logic dictates that, at least in that scenario, a male voice would be easier to hear - especially a deeper one.

I have excellent hearing and can hear pitches well above the average human limit (as far as superpowers go... it's pretty lame) and I often struggle to hear announcements at airports and trainstations because the physical presence of the crowd absorbs the high pitch sound. Now it's true the crowd murmer is low-pitched so it may be harder to distinguish a low-pitched voice - but at least the low-pitched voice would actually get as far as your ears, it's better to improve that by boosting the amplitude than the frequency.

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[Kartu]

It might be just me, but in the beginning I found (native English speaker) women were much harder to understand, than men. (they "sing" it a bit and also tend to speak faster than men)

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[Anonymous Coward]

Stand outside that nightclub with a thumping bass. Have someone near you play a bass guitar softly. Have someone near you play a triangle softly. Assuming you aren't drastically hearing impaired, which would you hear better over the background noise?

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[Anonymous Coward]

No, it still doesn't. Nobody needs to hear Siri from 3 fields away, so the fact that high pitched sounds don't propagate as far or round corners is irrelevant. Sounds are best masked by sounds with a similar frequency spectrum. If the prevailing background sounds are low frequency (urban hum, car engine noise, the rumble of crowds of feet) then a lower pitched male voice will be better masked by the background, whereas a higher pitched female voice will be better separated in the frequency domain and will therefore stand out more and be clearer.

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[Rockoon]

I know you mean well but your post illustrates why this is still an issue.

No it doesn't. You are just leaping to that conclusion, for obvious sjw reasons.

If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?

Sigh.. the ratio of men to women at his university is the opposite of what you think. There are surely far more women than men overall enrolled as students, they just didnt enroll in the classes that he is talking about. Now because you are a simpleton sjw alarmist you took what he said to mean the worst possible and most inclusive thing, rather than the best possible and least inclusive thing.

See, now you predent to care about knowledge.. after all, you ask "arent you interested to know why?" yet it is you that repeatedly demonstrates the least knowledge on these sjw subjects. Didn't you know that women enroll in colleges are far higher rates than men? You've been told before... so I guess your version of knowledge is highly selective, just like its supposed to be in a simpleton sjw alarmist..you are a tool of people that arent interested in knowledge.

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[silentcoder]

Definitely the bass because if I see someone with a triangle I am punching him in the face before he can play that abomination.

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[zeveroare]

Because they are all taking gender studies instead of STEM-field studies. So they can point out the fact that more women need to be employed in STEM without actually doing anything about it themselves. Obviously. And what Rockoon said. The worldwide trend is: The gender gap at universities: where are all the men? The other narrative is ofcourse far more popular.

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[butzwonker]

We generally hear higher pitched sounds better than lower pitch sounds, that's the way our ears work probably due to the acoustic reason you've just laid out. That's why the low end is boosted way up in audio engineering (by the mixing process), as you can see easily on the frequency spectrum.

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[johnsmithperson123]

There are more women than men at most universities but they seldom study anything useful (no offense). It's college for college's sake. If you want to get more women in 'STEM' you could start by killing Gender Studies.

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[Kartu]

If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?

Literally interested or "don't you feel urge to try to have 50/50 ratio"?

There are next to no men working in Kindergartens, aren't you interested to know why?
There are next to no women in construction industry, aren't you interested to know why?
There is monstrous wage disparity between genders in modelling industry, aren't you interested to know why?

The problem is, recalling your earlier comments, I think you are interested neither in items that I've listed, nor even in your own example.
Because, it seems that you have decided on "why" long ago, namely that it is because one gender is suppressing another in some way is the only explanation you have for such disparities
What makes things worse worse, you only care about certain gender, but not the other - which is actually quite inconsistent with the idea of equality.

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[Anonymous Coward]

There are next to no men working in Kindergartens, aren't you interested to know why?

I already know why. Because any man working in a kindergarten is automatically suspected of molesting children. Never mind that women are just as capable of molesting children, and such cases do exist. Just the thought of having an adult penis in the same room as a bunch of children...

In some places, a man working in a kindergarten is not even allowed to do his work without at least one woman present to make sure that he doesn't molest children.

No wonder that men avoid such jobs.

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[wonkey_monkey]

No, it doesn't.

What was said was "Actually most automated voices are female because a female voice is easier to hear against background noise."

Whether that's true or not, it has nothing to do with how higher pitched sounds travel differently to lower pitched sounds.

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[stealth_finger]

There are more women than men at most universities but they seldom study anything useful (no offense). It's college for college's sake. If you want to get more women in 'STEM' you could start by killing Gender Studies.

No one seems to mind Gender Studies is mostly filled with women though.

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[thinkwaitfast]

aren't you interested to know why?

No. That is what I spent seven years taking math classes instead of anthropology classes. I'm not saying it's not an interesting question, rather it's one that I'm not interested in.

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[Wycliffe]

I know you mean well but your post illustrates why this is still an issue. If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?

Yes, trying to fix it at the university (or lower) level makes sense but you can't fault the companies when they are hiring a higher percentage of women than are graduating from college with the degrees they need.
Even at the university level though you are fighting a uphill battle. Many women don't want to do that kind of work. It amazes me how many women I know working for low pay in NFP/NPO that always talk about wanting to help people but I'm not sure I've ever heard a single male make similar statements.

It would be nice if these voice assistances let you pick a voice.

They do. Most have the choice of male/female as well as several dialects but a female voice is generally more pleasant to listen to for both male listeners and female listeners which is why it is the default.

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[Wycliffe]

There are more women than men at most universities but they seldom study anything useful (no offense). It's college for college's sake. If you want to get more women in 'STEM' you could start by killing Gender Studies.

If by "nothing useful" you mean elementary education, early childhood development, nursing, and medicine then I would agree with you but otherwise you're full of it. I've never met anyone who majored in gender studies but I do know a ton of women that go into feel good majors that are vital to society and help people but unfortunately don't pay well.

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[whimmel]

Last I checked my phone does not have a 15" subwoofer. I can more easily hear the higher pitched voices simply because my phone is better at producing them.

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[jsh1972]

For those of us that destroyed their hearing on their youth with loud music and working around loud machinery i can assure you a higher pitched voice is much more intelligible in a typical outdoor urban environment. It's just easier to perceive the differing timbres and transients present in speech in a higher register, bassy voices just sound muddled.

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[AmiMoJo]

There are next to no men working in Kindergartens, aren't you interested to know why?

Indeed I am. Research suggests it is mostly due to negative stereotypes and only somewhat unfounded fears of being suspected of paedophilia.

There are next to no women in construction industry, aren't you interested to know why?

Indeed I am. I haven't had much time to look into this one though so I'll refrain from speculating.

There is monstrous wage disparity between genders in modelling industry, aren't you interested to know why?

Indeed I am. I'd say this one is less about employment and more about the portrayal of women in fashion and advertising, and the way much of it tries to make women feel inadequate as a way to get them to buy things.

Because, it seems that you have decided on "why" long ago, namely that it is because one gender is suppressing another in some way is the only explanation you have for such disparities

Incorrect. It's more of an institutional problem. There isn't some giant conspiracy where men actively seek to keep women down (MRAs and neomasculine devotees don't have that kind of power or popularity), it's just a legacy of millennia of history. There are individual people who have problematic behaviour, but they rarely operate in a vacuum and it's more important to look at the reasons why.

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[pla]

why? because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.

Worse than that. Most (all? Honestly never heard of "Xiaoice") of those services let you change the voice, with several male options available - And even when people do change them, they still pick a female voice.

You can debate the societal implications of that, but don't blame Apple/Amazon/Microsoft/etc for supplying exactly what their market asked for.

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[NotDrWho]

because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.

When dealing with SJW's, the only winning move is not to play.

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[RedK]

So you know better than gl4ss

Man, the simple mindness continues.

To make it 100% clear, gl4ss said :

"In this particular field, I see 10 women for 100 men"

Amimojo said :

"The overall ratio of men and women at your university".

This is how things like the Wage Gap myth get started. Someone makes an observation about a niche or specific field, Internet Slacktivists blow it up into a "Applies to everyone, all the time" scenario.

In STEM, the ratio of women to men advantages MEN. In University in GENERAL, there are more women enrolled than there are men. There are more women graduating than men do.

It can be BOTH. And to answer Amimojo : No, we don't particularly care to know why women don't enroll in STEM, we assume it's because they aren't interested. The ones that are interested enroll and that's good enough for us.

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[110010001000]

Hate to break it to you: but women outnumber men at attending University.

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[0xdeadbeef]

If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?

We already know why, women experience stereotype threat and they're more sensitive to the social stigma society attaches to nerdy pursuits.

It's not a problem for most of us, so we don't care, and we shouldn't have to. Only women can fix themselves.

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[rhazz]

I have trouble hearing low frequency voices in my car. I listen to a particular local radio station on my commute that has two male hosts and a female host. I have trouble hearing the male hosts with the radio at a modest volume, but I can always hear the female host. The point is you don't need a nav assistant's voice to travel far, you just need it to be heard above other noise at close proximity.

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[Ol Olsoc]

If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why? Didn't you see the previous articles about Google et. al. trying to help more women to study those things?

It was apparently a tech college, not a university.

But to the side foray here, after doing a fair bit of work while at a university aimed at increasing the number of women in tech fields, I've become convinced that the real answer is that women tend to be attracted to other fields. And there isn't much more to it than that. Sexism exists in all fields, whether it is business, or whether it is in nursing, or public schools. It just does. It would be really really good to get rid of it, but many of the voices today declaring it don't really want to get rid of it.

In the meantime, if we want a perfect gender mix in all fields, it will take government intervention of deciding what field a person will go into, in order to acheive that goal. Once you are chosen by your aptitudes, that is your future.

But it is interesting that the patriarchy has now put a stranglhold on computer personal assistants.

Having one of the assistants mentioned in the article, Siri, let's look at it to se if I need to check my priveliges.

Language choices: Quite a few I chose English, because that is my base language.

Voice: I can choose between Accents - American, Australian, or British.

hmm, that's a little interesting. As a 'murrican, there are many accents here. And certainly a lot of British accents.

Gender: Male or Female - What the hell? So what's the problem here?

By the way, I chose female because I found it more legible. I don't even think of Siri as male or female. I have no desire to have sex with my phone, so I don't assign it gender based on that.

Battles should always be chosen carefully. In the case of my multiple option phone personal assistant as a symbol of male privilege, it is a battle of such stupidity, such baseless inanity, that it ends up having the exact opposite effect than intended. When I can control the language, accent and gender of my assistant, how do I check my patriarchy privileges?

Oh, please, please take this one on - I really want your view.

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[Ol Olsoc]

I've never met anyone who majored in gender studies but I do know a ton of women that go into feel good majors that are vital to society and help people but unfortunately don't pay well.

And that is not even bad. If the accumulation of money is the measure of happiness or success, perhaps, but if having an actual purpose to help others is the measure, who has done better?

Anyone should be able to go into any field they wish. This doesn't mena that there will be no gender differences in the fields.

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[0100010001010011]

Can we also see the breakdown of gender for:

• RNs
• Primary school teachers

What will we be doing to address this disparity?

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[jedidiah]

Then why all of the whining about "wage gaps"? If women are majoring in genuinely useful things, then there should be no "wage gap". If there is such a thing, perhaps it points to some attempt by SJWs to over value certain professions despite clear market forces that indicate otherwise.

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[RedK]

People call you a SJW not because they disagree with you, but because you're an Internet Slacktivists who uses Social Justice to do Virtue Signaling, while constantly responding in an attempt at damage control in all these Gender/Race baiting article comment sections.

SJW is a pejorative for a bunch of blowhards who talk a lot of smack online, but don't do much IRL about Social Justice. And the posturing they do online is more sexist and racist (Color blindness, learn it, stop asking for seggration of "minorities" in "Safe spaces") than the "bigots" they are attacking.

Make a reasoned argument, not just concern trolling, and people will stop calling you a SJW. BTW : you'll have to accept meritocracy and human agency, so you'll have to accept that not everything needs to respect population quotas. STEM having 90% male is not wrong, as long as it's a choice made by all involved parties.

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[Wycliffe]

Then why all of the whining about "wage gaps"? If women are majoring in genuinely useful things, then there should be no "wage gap". If there is such a thing, perhaps it points to some attempt by SJWs to over value certain professions despite clear market forces that indicate otherwise.

Women are majoring in genuinely useful things but when men primarily optimizes for money while women optimizes for things like happiness, family time, helping others, and group cohesion then there will always be a wage gap. My kids are a perfect example. They share the same box of legos and watch all the same movies but my daughter has a small village of doctors and nurses taking care of animals while my son has spaceships and weapons. My son also wants to build legos in a room by himself with no interaction with other people while my daughter wants it to be a social event where everyone builds something together. My daughter is more geeky than my son and loves programming, fishing, and chess but there is still a very social aspect to all her activities that is missing from my son. We are dealing with thousands of years of evolution where men were competing with each other and women were working together for the common good.

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[lgw]

Of all of Slashdots user base (UIDs are up to, what, 3 million now?) you are one of about 3 who I'd call an SJW. There's a reason people keep calling you that - you in particular.

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[Rockoon]

Mea culpa, I should have said the ratio of men to women in CS, not in university in general.

Finally stand tall?

The rest of my point stands.

No, it doesn't. Your point devolves into cherry picking the smaller disparity in spite of the larger one. Don't you want to know why so many more women are in college? Why do you only care about a rather small subset of this where you can call foul on the opposite disparity?

(see my sig for what I think of that)

You've already proven the value of your thought processes. The next sjw story you will again be there waving your hands, making the exact same mistakes. Today isnt the first time you've made these. Hell its not even the second time.

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[Archangel Michael]

Indeed I am. Research suggests it is mostly due to negative stereotypes and only somewhat unfounded fears of being suspected of paedophilia.

We call that Male Privileged. Nobody cares about that side of things, even you.

Indeed I am. I haven't had much time to look into this

Mutually exclusive statement, rendering the excuse false. If you were interested, you would have ALREADY looked into it. You haven't, so I can presume that you're not that interested.

Indeed I am. I'd say this one is less about employment and more about the portrayal of women in fashion and advertisin

I'd say you don't have a clue what you're talking about so you're winging the answer based upon your own biases.

Incorrect. It's more of an institutional problem. ... it's just a legacy of millennia of history.

Actually, it isn't an institutional problem. It is a Gender difference problem. It is why girls tend to prefer dolls to trucks, and boys tend to prefer trucks to dolls. It doesn't have to do with social norms and other bullshit ideas. The fact is, boys/men are different from girls/women. While there are exceptions to gender preferences, we see those show up in these stats, girls/women don't prefer STEM courses, and boys/men do not prefer teaching kindergarten, but there are some who do.

The great thing about America, which the SJW can't seem to wrap their heads around, is that we are Free to choose, rather be imposed upon by SJW ideals. At least for now. The fact is, "Norms" are that way for a reason, something that obviously offends SJWs to no end.

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[butchersong]

A big part of the problem with public education is people getting degrees in "education". This isn't necessarily the teacher's fault since from what I understand it is a requirement but you have no business teaching a subject if you are not an authority of some sort on the subject. A math teacher should have a strong background and love of mathematics... not "education" or "early childhood development". Same for English, Biology, Chemistry, Rhetoric etc.

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[Archangel Michael]

How about a higher pitched "cow bell" ??

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[butchersong]

It only makes sense to use female voices. Women are generally better suited to roles where it is important to feel empathized with and not threatened. Think about it this way, a woman can see that you are tense and give your shoulders a rub and you don't see it as necessarily sexual or intrusive. If your male coworker does this, regardless of if you are a man or a woman, it is shit just got weird.

This is only an issue for people that want to pretend that there is no difference between men and women.

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[AmiMoJo]

We call that Male Privileged. Nobody cares about that side of things, even you.

Um, no, it's the exact opposite of male privilege. In fact this is an example of female privilege, because women are rarely though ill of for wanting to work with children.

That's actually a pretty good example. It's not that women have some advantage, it's just that they are mostly free from a disadvantage that men have. I might use that.

If you were interested, you would have ALREADY looked into it.

I own quite a few books I have not read yet. My time is limited, that doesn't mean I don't want to read them. You are just being pedantic now.

It is why girls tend to prefer dolls to trucks, and boys tend to prefer trucks to dolls.

This is still an unresolved debate. I'd point out that pink used to be a boy's colour about 150 years ago, and blue a girl's colour. At some point it flipped around, as did many other things. Basket ball is more popular with girls in Japan, but not in other countries. Some countries don't play it at all. Many boys like "action figures", which is just another name for dolls.

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[RedK]

but there is actually a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Citation Needed.

I'm trying to make a reasoned argument, but you make absolute statements

False, I made a reasoned argument. You are the one making absolute statements. You made the statement it was because one gender is being institutionally repressed, and that it is due to systemic problems and social pressure. And we are supposed to accept that as FACT from you.

There is no reasoning with you, you are the same way on all these discussions. You literally bring the rageposts everywhere you go.

I don't know where the rage comes from exactly.

Look in the mirror. It comes from your polarizing language and you constant demeaning and assault on the current crop of IT/CS engineers, calling them "a problem" (aka, Brogrammer culture idiocy). Stop calling everyone who disagrees there even is a problem "part of the problem", and maybe you'll get more open mindedness.

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[Shortguy881]

I'm all for studying the other gender. The homework is great.

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[Dixie_Flatline]

Oh come on, I think we can do better than that. It takes virtually zero effort for people like us to be encouraging when a friend is interested in a thing. Or, at my age, when a friend's kid is interested in a thing. We're supposed to be a society, not just an agglomeration of individuals that have no care for the well being of others.

You don't have to go out and protest, but a few kind words and a bit of enthusiasm takes little and gives a lot. (And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're probably already like that--the fact that you know that women experience any social stigma at all and are a nerd yourself says to me that you're more likely to be encouraging if a female friend approaches you with an interest in nerdy pursuits.)

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[alva_edison]

They do. Most have the choice of male/female as well as several dialects but a female voice is generally more pleasant to listen to for both male listeners and female listeners which is why it is the default.

I had assumed it was partly cultural. In Star Trek, the voice of the computer is Marina Sirtis. In order to contrast, alien computers tend to be voiced by men. This seems to be true in other franchises as well. Culturally, Americans seem to expect that our computers will have feminine voices.

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[sexconker]

It's like you're stupid or something.
It's not about penetrating objects and going further, it's about standing out from other frequencies that have penetrated objects to get to where you and your audience are.

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[Alypius]

I would pay actual money for a digital assistant that talked like Mr. Torgue.

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[Archangel Michael]

Unfortunately you've been bitten by the progressive non-scientific but called Gender Neutrality which views both genders as being the same in all areas, and blaming of culture for corrupting them into gender stereotypes. Here is some scientific articles that you won't read that explain why you are not correct.

http://www.livescience.com/226...

http://www.bustle.com/articles...

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5879647...

The problem is, that we tend to take the outlier as the rule, when trying to break norms. We should accept that norms are those for a reason, while not excluding those that are outside those norms. There will be girls who like trucks, and boys that like dolls. Blaming stereotypes solves nothing and doesn't actually progress understanding.

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[rochrist]

You're an idiot.

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[rochrist]

You're an idiot. Just how many people do you think major in 'Gender Studies'? Be specific.

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[rochrist]

People who use SJW un-ironically as a pejorative can be dismissed out of hand as nitwits.

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[thoromyr]

question i have is *why* must women be interested in STEM? *why* is it a problem when -- despite all of the many incentives they are supplied -- they *still* prefer other work?

You know what, women are *massively* underrepresented in dangerous work fields (try diving and fishing industries) and yet there doesn't seem to be any hue-and-cry to increase their numbers there.

The university I went to really did have something like a 10% female representation. I think they are higher now, maybe 20% or even 25%. So what? Another factoid, *many* of the ones who attended dropped out before or during the sophomore year having obtained their goal, an "Mrs degree". Those who were interested in the field did well in their coursework and were highly sought after by industry.

Before someone takes issue with the "Mrs degree" consider this: what I described is a symptom -- if you don't like it you need to find the causes and address them. For example, a woman from a middle class family who wants to have a family. Marrying an engineer is a good way to be sure of a high income to support her goals. And she gets her pick from a lot of bright guys, all of whom have different personalities and interests. The odds are pretty good she can find "Mr. Right" and who are you to deny her desire? Should those women be sent to a re-education camp to deny their reproductive desires?

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[religionofpeas]

No one seems to mind Gender Studies is mostly filled with women though.

If they all switched to CS instead of complaining about it, their problem would be solved.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Darth Twon]

Don't forget the MRS degree.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[religionofpeas]

I do know a ton of women that go into feel good majors that are vital to society and help people but unfortunately don't pay well.

Yes, if only they could be paid as well as a garbage man.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[SvnLyrBrto]

They do let you pick a voice. Looking at the Siri settings on my iPhone, I not only have the choice between male or female, but between American, Australian, or British english, with both genders available for all three. What would you people have Apple do to not be "oppressive"? Not set a default, and pick one of the six at random every time an iPhone is set up?

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[ncc74656]

http://i.imgur.com/MoAQjf7.gif?noredirect

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Dixie_Flatline]

Not only did I read them, I read them well enough to pick out the parts that contradict you.

"Wallen approaches the data more cautiously. "It's hard to interpret what the looking data mean because we don't know why people are attracted to specific things. Clearly children recognize that certain objects in their environment are appropriate for certain activities. They could be looking at a certain toy because it facilitates an activity they like," he said."

"And just because you play with a particular toy doesn't mean you only interact with it in a certain way. Dolls can be made to race, and trucks can be cuddled and carried around. Toy preference alone doesn't tell the whole story. So when it comes to girls, boys and the toys that want to play with, any generalizations are murky at best."

"Also, the researchers suggested a social rather than biological basis for the behavior. Because regular stick-carrying hasn't been reported in other wild chimpanzee communities, they proposed that that young Kanyawara chimpanzees may be learning the behavior from each other as a way of practicing for adult roles – a form of social tradition passed between juveniles previously described only in humans."

Oh no! It seems that the science isn't quite settled here! It seems that socialization DOES have an effect! It seems that while NATURE ISN'T NOTHING, NUTURE HAS MORE OF AN AFFECT THAN YOU GIVE IT CREDIT FOR. See, that's the thing I said before.

Keep it up, chum. Maybe one day you'll find someone that accepts links as proof without reading them better than you do.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[ncc74656]

SJWs can be dismissed out of hand as nitwits.

FTFY.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Dixie_Flatline]

Meanwhile, here's a fine article on the thing that I'm describing. https://aeon.co/essays/why-are...

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[ncc74656]

I do know a ton of women that go into feel good majors that are vital to society and help people but unfortunately don't pay well.

Yes, if only they could be paid as well as a garbage man.

Garbagemen are paid as well as they are because it's a dirty, stinky, thankless job that needs to be done to keep cities and towns clean. How many women do you know who'd sign on to spend all day tossing other people's trash into the back of a truck?

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[ncc74656]

In Star Trek, the voice of the computer is Marina Sirtis.

Majel Barrett, actually, for both TOS and TNG...and according to Memory Alpha, all the way through to the 2009 reboot. You can hand over your geek card on the way out the door. :-)

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[SvnLyrBrto]

Actually, Star Trek's computer was nearly always Majel Barrett, not Marina Sirtis. Barrett is even credited in the first Abrams movie; so apparently, she got all her dialog recorded before passing on. I don't know who did the computer voices for Into Darkness, but Sirtis isn't credited in IMDB.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[orgelspieler]

That's funny, I mostly see people use SJW to mean "person I don't agree with." At least here on Slashdot. Of course, there are those true SJWs who feign offense at terms like "waitress" and "Jew's harp." But they are in the minority.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[OutOnARock]

or nuke them from orbit......its the only way to be sure

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[wyHunter]

Exactly. The SJWs would say that these excluded women, and that 'male voices were authoritarian that's why these were chosen.' Spare all of us this idiocy.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[wyHunter]

Women compete, but differently. It is NOT everyone working together for the common good.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[wyHunter]

Don't forget the risk of disease, as well. Of course, that's also true for teachers. Then again, how many hours does a garbage man work versus a teacher? Break it down into hourly and look at the difference. How are their pensions different?

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Hognoxious]

men primarily optimizes for money while women optimizes for things like happiness

Why does you talks like Popeye?

box of legos

My kids prefers meccanoes.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

That's something I've always wanted, but haven't realized it until now.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Wycliffe]

  - if you select to work in field that is easy or where we already have too many people you will get payed less
  - if you select to work in profession where not enough people can/want to work, and is extremely hard/stressful like cardio-surgeon, you get payed much more

not every job is worth the same

That's kindof my point. You look at most hard stressful demanding jobs you will see a lot more men. STEM jobs tend to be very demanding and pay accordingly. Many women have no desire to have a career like that. There are some that do and I think everyone should be allowed to pick their job but trying to force it is silly. Just look at where men and women volunteer to see natural preferences and you'll see the same kind of break down. Even when they are volunteering men tend to pick more stressful jobs like coaching over less stressful jobs like working at the library.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Chaxid]

Of all of Slashdots user base (UIDs are up to, what, 3 million now?)

Wow, this place still exists. Cool!

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Altrag]

I think you misunderstand the definition of "wage gap." The wage gap is that an equally qualified woman performing an equal job to a man in the same position is earning significantly less (I think the current estimate is around 80%.)

The wage gap has nothing to do with more women being in positions that generally pay lower to start with. That's definitely an issue as well, but its not what they mean when you hear "wage gap." At least not when the speaker knows enough about the subject to bother distinguishing the various issues.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[rochrist]

Nitwit.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[ausekilis]

At my school, we called women who were pursuing simple degrees (university studies, some management courses, etc...) as "getting an Mrs degree". Most my friends and I ran into simply wanted an engineer husband.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[nytes]

Majel Barrett was the voice of the computer, you heathen! :)

Marina Sirtis was Counselor Troy.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Dread_ed]

If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?

You should know better. This question is currently unanswerable in academia. Unassailable even, without detonating your career. Any attempt to honestly discuss the issue by people who work in academia is tantamount to walking blindfolded into a minefield.

Funny that some people are all up in arms about why women aren't joining certain fields. They rail against the patriarchy, blame men for making a field unattractive to women, etc. The unspoken operating assumption is that little ol' women can't make decisions for themselves and are constantly at the effect of everything around them, powerless in the extreme until the entire landscape is redesigned around their delicate sensibilities. Its fucking insulting. The same people are the ones stifling accurate and appropriate discussions of the issues. They shut down discussion and fill the vacuum with propaganda, politics, and dis-empowering rhetoric.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[david_thornley]

I want to know why all the sexual disparities exist, personally. Some doubtless are biological in origin, but some are doubtless cultural, and I don't really know how to tell the difference. I do know that the disparities have changed a lot over time, and that people in different periods have thought that their situation was the norm for the human race, so I have no confidence that we've finally gotten it right.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[david_thornley]

Which is interesting, if you look at my hearing loss by frequency. Like most people, I lost higher frequencies faster.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

I WOULD BUY THE $#!+ OUTTA THAT!!! FOR REALSIES!!!

lots of non caps added cause slashdot don't like mr. torgue

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Mr. Shotgun]

I think you misunderstand the definition of "wage gap." The wage gap is that an equally qualified woman performing an equal job to a man in the same position is earning significantly less (I think the current estimate is around 80%.)

Holy shit, if that is the case why am I not hearing about lawsuits flying around about this? Especially since it would be prima facie against the Equal Pay Act. Hell if I was a lawyer I would be salivating at those cases as a slam dunk win, if what you said was true.
Or you could be pulling shit out of your ass since the wage gap you described has been debunked multiple times. There is no evidence I could find of a pay gap as you described it, There is a gap when looking at all men vs all women but this is because of career choice and hours worked. If you are aware of any woman who is being underpaid as you described I would recommend they contact their nearest competent attorney because they are due a hell of a settlement.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[johnsmithperson123]

Believe me, spending time watching math Ed students claiming zero is not a polynomial killed my opinion of them. Most "education" degrees are junk. What I would do is move to a two phase system. First, an associate's or bachelors in the related subject, followed by two years of teaching school culminating in a residency the last six months. Think med school but toned down a bit. Of course, we'd have seperate schools for elementary and middle school teachers- think nursing and pharmaceutical school. Not as high end or well paid as the "doctors", eg high school teachers.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

The higher pitch of a woman's voice is easier to hear and more attention getting. Count the number of men vs women in TV ads. The men are often off (like Moviefone guy, with a very deep voice) or a celebrity, which are done to increase the attention to the add. Something a generic male voice doesn't do.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

SJW, like "liberal" means "someone I hate" and nothing more. Those who use it are idiots who can't identify what they object to.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

Because tests show that woman have similar levels of aptitude and interest in STEM as males, yet avoid it as a profession. That warrants greater exploration. Some claim it's sexism. Others claim it's societal bias. If the bias exists, then something must explain it.

So are you saying that there is no bias because the bias exists, but only for good reason? That seems to be your general point.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

Then why all of the whining about "wage gaps"? If women are majoring in genuinely useful things, then there should be no "wage gap".

And if the majors indicate there should be no age gap, what do you propose if one still exists?

You are just blaming the victim, then calling anyone who points out your misogyny an SJW. That's good for winning an argument nobody is having, but useless if you want to discuss topics, or convince anyone else of anything.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

We call that Male Privileged.

That men can work in the childcare field and generally choose not to is Male Privileged? I don't think that means what you think it means.

Mutually exclusive statement, rendering the excuse false.

You are just being a dick. I'm interested in the time it takes to "forget" something, and have devised a test to measure this. But I have never looked into it because I'd need a couple years and a lot of money to look into it. If I go back for a PhD, that's one of the subjects and topics on the short list. So that doesn't mean I'm not interested because I haven't had time to look at it.

The great thing about America, which the SJW can't seem to wrap their heads around, is that we are Free to choose, rather be imposed upon by SJW ideals.

Yes, unfortunately you can't make the Niggers eat in the back alley anymore. Stupid Reconstruction. Go join the KKK and wear the pointy hat. Claiming all the same things, then claiming oppression by anyone who points out its absurdity. Your position is exactly the same as the KKK and other white supremicist groups. You just pretend it's different because women.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Kartu]

It doesn't really contradict what ArchMi said, it just doesn't exclude other possibilities. What you've cited was at best "but there could be other reasons". Well, there could be. Possibly.
But that's exactly what people often labeled as SJWs do: claim/imply that the only explanation to gender disparity is discrimination/suppression. Yet it looks like not only "not the only", but even rather unlikely explanation.

I guess you missed the following part:

"The striking thing about the looking data shows that the attraction to these objects occurs very early in life, before it's likely to have been socialized."

This piece makes "social basis" argument look rather wrong:

Further buttressing the idea that toy preferences are caused by hormones, last year, a group of British researchers found that girls with a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who experienced abnormally high levels of the male sex hormone androgen while in the womb, prefer to play with male-typical toys.

http://www.livescience.com/226...

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[Altrag]

Because proving discrimination (of any sort) as an individual going up against a company that probably has far more resources than you to fight the battle is extremely difficult while gathering statistics across a population sample and making correlations is.. certainly not easy (to do it right) but a hell of a lot easier.

In particular, while its pretty unlikely you'll find two people doing the _exact_ same job within a single company, you can find lots of people doing effectively equivalent jobs across multiple companies, and then take a large enough sample set of such people that you can claim within a statistical margin of error that you've found a correlation.

Your argument is like saying the percentage of black cats in the world is 0% just because you happen to only have a gray cat in front of you. Proving that claim based only on the evidence presented is impossible, and is meaningless for drawing any larger conclusions, but if you sample 1000 cats you can start coming up with a useful statistical value for the true percentage of black cats across the population.

As for your links "debunking" the issue, the first one states that its still an issue but maybe not as big as we thought based on interpreting the data a different way.. The third one (BLS report) puts it at 82%, or basically right around the number I stated (Chart 2 in the report if you want to re-check that yourself.) The second is paywalled so I don't know what it says.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Hashead]

Oh no! It seems that the science isn't quite settled here! It seems that socialization DOES have an effect!
No, it's settled. Boys are more interested in things, girls in people, and this is not due to socialization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Social Justice people like to think that it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to determine to what degree nature and nurture influence behavior, and advocate that we must take the position that we can manipulate everything by socialization, since we can't know for sure wether it's determined by nature, nurture, or a combination of both. It's essentially shifting the burden of evicence.

In fact, it's pretty easy to determine what is innate, and what is learned. All you have to do is look at the variation across cultures. The behavior that varies is socialized, while the behavior that remains constant across cultures is innate. Boys prefer things, and girls prefer people, across all cultures. There are several other such differences we can observe.

Stepping back a bit, based on what we know about sexually reproducing species, we should certainly expect there to be many innate differences. Men and women, like all living things, are optimized for reproductive success. That is, behavior that increases fitness ( read: produces successful offspring ) is selected for.

Thing is, men and women reproduce VASTLY differently. Since womens reproductive potential is capped by biology, she can only grow so many offspring in her lifetime, while mens potential is capped only by access to mating opportunities, it follows that men and women will act differently. Men will display behavior designed to maximize their access to mating opportunities, while women will act in ways that maximize her ability to raise her offspring. Let's remember that a really smart ape is still an ape.

If men acted like women, being more choosy about who they copulate with, that would be detrimental to their reproductive success. Likewise if women acted like men, and tried to have sex with as many men as possible, that would be detrimental to her reproductive success because such behavior will produce less fit offspring. You can point to bonobos, and a couple of other exceptions in nature, but these species evolved in very specific and unusual environments. Bonobos have no natural predators, and have easy access to food, which is a rare luxury in nature. Their sexual behavior is just as much biologically hardwired as chimpanzees'.

These predictions fit perfectly with observations we can make. Men and women do in fact behave this way, in all cultures. There is no culture where these roles are reversed, so claiming that this behavior is "socially constructed" makes no sense.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[siliconsmiley]

You must be young. My Computer Engineering class at Virginia Tech had 1 woman out of 400. Overall, the graduating class of '97 was the first year in Tech's history where there were more women then men.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[obscuro]

I thought that RedK and Rockoon were being a bit shrill calling you an SJW until I read,

"...I would happily accept STEM being 90% male if there was evidence that all involved made a free choice, but there is actually a lot of evidence to the contrary."

In the spirit of fairness, I'm going to first present an article that aggregates support for your general argument in a well organized advocacy piece: https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem

Academic settings tend to encourage examinations into topics that have the potential to over turn accepted ideas. This is actually a significant bias especially regarding fuel for the social justice agenda. So it won't be surprising that there are studies looking into this "problem" and coming out with support for the idea that it's a problem.

Here's another way to view it that is sufficiently obvious that it doesn't need a study.

American society has been actively encouraging girls and women to take an interest in STEM for about 40 years and got focused about it 10 years ago.
The Association for Women in Science was founded in 1971
WEPAN was founded in 1990
The AAUW started the Tech-Savvy program in 2006
The National Math and Science Initiative was founded in 2007
National Girls Collaborative Project

And there's Scientista and Million Women Mentors and... and... and....

My point is that there is AMPLE support for girls and women to enter STEM education and STEM careers. That support has been around long enough to successfully work its influence. And the result has been zero or negative change in the number of women entering college in STEM.

It seems remarkably biased and disingenuous to HUNT for reasons for this in STEM culture. Will you find some male bias there? Sure! Is that male bias the signal you should come away from after beating a drum to increase women in STEM for decades and getting no significant increase in APPLICATIONS for STEM in higher education among women (a class of people over represented in college populations already)?!

Here's what this tells me - A certain percentage of girls and women are into STEM. A certain greater percentage of boys and men are into STEM. The cause of the disparity between these percentages is not due to a lack of support or an exclusionary STEM culture.

This doesn't mean that STEM culture is without male bias. It doesn't mean that it's legitimate to ignore concerns about that bias. It doesn't mean that there aren't gender biases in the greater culture at work on girls and women that keep them from taking an interest.

But it also doesn't mean that men in STEM are part of a pervasive culture of denial when they observe that there are less women interested in their field. It doesn't mean that when all the digital assistants end up defaulting to female that it's part of some blind male presumption. We've been imagining robot voices sounding like Sigourney Weaver for 30 f**king years. In Hollywood, with the exception of Kit, J.A.R.V.I.S, and Max Headroom, EVERY GODDAMN COMPUTER VOICE sounds like Sigourney Weaver. Every countdown sounds like her. Every warning system... every magic talking box.

That voice is a MARKETING decision- not a tech decision. The order in which bugs are fixed is largely a business decision - not a tech decision. And, if you've done enough work in tech, you know that the shortfall in women programmers is made up for in a larger percentage of women in marketing and management.

So, when the various commenters went on their tirade about the SJW nonsense posing as an article in the OP, they had a pretty good point. They weren't demonstrating that they were

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

Test show _girls_ have similar aptitudes and interest in STEM. Than puberty happens and they no longer do. You are not entitled to make up 'facts'.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

Until they flunk out. Gender studies isn't exactly a challenging program. Unless regurgitating the profs prejudices is a challenge to you.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

Masters of Residential Science.

The good thing about that, is you can talk right in front of them and they don't get it.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[ooloorie]

Mea culpa, I should have said the ratio of men to women in CS, not in university in general.

So? The only problem there is your implicit and erroneous assumption that people in fields of studies should be statistically representative of a bunch of categories that you are obsessed with.

It's interesting that your response is basically to call me an "SJW" (see my sig for what I think of that) and then pick up on what seems like an obvious mistake. Oh, and then back to the SJW ad-hominem. Nice.

He called you a "social justice warrior" because you advocate studying and using as the basis of public policy a specific set of statistics, like gender ratios in particular academic fields. It distinguishes you from other people (like myself) who believe that your advocacy and politics are rooted in fundamental misconceptions about statistics, biology, and social science. Calling you a "social justice warrior" is no more and no less insulting than calling a Lysenkoist a "Lysenkoist".

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[ooloorie]

I'm trying to make a reasoned argument

You are trying, but you are failing. The reason you are failing is that you assume that deviations from overall population statistics in subpopulations require explanations.

I don't know where the rage comes from exactly.

Because you stubbornly insist on promoting ignorant and bad policies that hurt people for nothing more than your own self-aggrandizement.

Re: *TRIGGERED*

[blogagog]

I wish there was a "score:6" for your comment. Gender studies should be a silly hobby. Not a college degree.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[Archangel Michael]

In fact, it's pretty easy to determine what is innate, and what is learned. All you have to do is look at the variation across cultures. The behavior that varies is socialized, while the behavior that remains constant across cultures is innate. Boys prefer things, and girls prefer people, across all cultures. There are several other such differences we can observe.

Actually, the SJW types love to blame "Patriarchal societies" for this, since there are almost NO cultures that have a different basis. They can't handle the fact that biology is the cause of the resultant behavior, and they have to (want to strongly) believe it is cultural bias of patriarchal societies. So, the blame does go to culture, even when it is clear it isn't, because of some unique feature that spans all cultures around the globe.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

You are implying that puberty is somehow linked. post hoc ergo propter hoc much?

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

The data shows a bend in the curve. There are various possible biological/social explanations. But the data is clear.

When girls get tits, they apparently forget how to do math.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

Nope, when they get tits, boys get annoying about it, so they hide in professions that aren't male-dominated. The ugly girls continue in STEM because they aren't as aggressively pursued. I know a woman in STEM that's "engaged" to a gay guy so that he doesn't get harassed as much for being gay, and she can rebuke the abusive advances by pointing out she's engaged.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

Your explanation doesn't match the data. Explain doctors, their demographic shift and why that is different...IMHO women as a group are more focused on prestige positions, reflecting their more social nature.

Girls get tits and figure out that they can get men/boys to do much of the hard, ugly and dirty work, which includes STEM. I've seen a girl go from changing alternators herself to being 'incapable'* of changing a flat tire, because she figured out how to get someone to do it for her. Then go back to fixing things for herself when she got old and the tit shaking thing stopped working.

The appearance of women in STEM runs the same range as generally sedentary women in general. Dykes and straight butches are over-represented (especially among the competent) but are not the only women in STEM.

* Unless there was nobody there to help, then she miraculously remembered.

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[AK Marc]

The interest in the field is similar pre-breast. So why would they be less interested with breasts? Because it's hard? So they don't do what they like because it's too hard? Then the question is, is it actually hard? Or is it just called hard?

Your friend liked changing alternators until she had breasts, then decided to not like changing alternators anymore, then decided to like them again, based on her breasts? That seems silly. She never liked it, but was capable of it. That's not the same as "interest", that's just "ability".

Re:*TRIGGERED*

[HornWumpus]

During the years they are best at learning, they learn a bad lesson. Tit's get them what they want...until they start to look like tennis balls in socks. By then it's too late.

Amazon

[Bovius]

"Amazon: 61.0% male, 39.0% female"

Wow, really? I mean, it's not proportional to gender population, but it's so much closer than what I expect to see everywhere else in the tech world. Good job, Amazon!

Re:Amazon

[phizi0n]

Because the majority of Amazon's employees work at their warehouses and have nothing to do with tech.

Re:Amazon

[Njorthbiatr]

It's nowhere near close to gender population of qualified coders.

What we have here is discrimination against men.

Re:Amazon

[phizi0n]

Amazon's actual numbers here: https://images-na.ssl-images-a...

"PROFESSIONALS" = 74.5% male
"TECHNICIANS" = 88.8% male

"LABORERS & HELPERS" = 54.6% male

Re:Amazon

[tsotha]

I'd be surprised if that didn't mirror the applicant pool.

Re:Amazon

[Aighearach]

They are clearly higher women who are less qualified.

I think clearly you're even higher than they are.

Re:Amazon

[sociocapitalist]

Amazon's actual numbers here: https://images-na.ssl-images-a...

"PROFESSIONALS" = 74.5% male
"TECHNICIANS" = 88.8% male

"LABORERS & HELPERS" = 54.6% male

Technicians are not professionals?

HAL

[Edis Krad]

Make it HAL's voice and I'll switch it right away. Specially if after searching for something it didn't find it, it said. I'm sorry (Your Name), I'm afraid I can't do that .

Re:HAL

[Freshly Exhumed]

You mean like "I'm sorry, I can't do that because Hitler didn't do anything wrong"...

Re:HAL

[ArylAkamov]

All I want is a car with a Nazi personality to bicker with on my drive to work.

Is that too much to ask?

Re:HAL

[tsotha]

Well, sure, but you'd have to brush up on your Heidegger.

Re:HAL

[TheReaperD]

All I want is a car with a Nazi personality to bicker with on my drive to work.

Is that too much to ask?

So when you're arrested for a road rage incident, you can say with all honesty (and insanity) "the Nazis made me do it!"

Re:HAL

[Aighearach]

The problem with an insanity defense if that if you decide someday you want to get out of the insane asylum, then you have to go to court and answer to the charges against you.

Re:HAL

[RivenAleem]

I forget where I read it (possibly here) that many groups have stayed away from using male voices because of figures like HAL have made us instantly suspicious of male computer voices.

A quick google search: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10...

So yeah, there's many plausible reason why these voices are female, however 5 years later when we ask the same question, it's now become a gender discrimination debate.

Re:HAL

[Rockoon]

The fact that these companies dont always use the same voice for the same language due to differing regions... these companies are clearing making what are hopefully well informed choices about the markets they compete in, and if the choice is not well informed the company still believes it to be best just based on bad information.

Occams razor. The company chooses the voice that it thinks will sell the best because greed, vs the company chooses the voice that it thinks will best preserve the patriarchy because sexism.

The scenario where the company voluntarily takes on the responsibility of preserving the patriarchy with no guarantee that its competitors will also... yeah... that doesnt even come close to surviving occams razor, 'cept in the minds of these sjw clowns.

Re:HAL

[AmiMoJo]

It's a shame Majel Barrett has passed away, otherwise I'd advocate the Star Trek computer voice. I always thought her voice was perfect for a computer.

Re:HAL

[butzwonker]

That's an extremely relevant remark. The word "Zeigzeug" is so much more precise than "blinker".

Re:HAL

[Imrik]

Only if you're found unfit to stand trial, if you're tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity, you won't have to answer to the charges if you ever get out of wherever they send you.

Re:HAL

[0100010001010011]

I want Amazon to release a "Echo for the shop" with Paul Bettany as the voice.

Re:HAL

[Aighearach]

Right, but you have to convince a jury of that. You have to have been insane your whole life for a jury to even consider it. And if you're crazy in a way that causes you to claim association with Nazis, who are controlling you, they're probably going to decide you're more evil than crazy.

Re:HAL

[HornWumpus]

I know he was a 'boozy beggar, who could drink you under that table', is there anything else?

Re:HAL

[RockDoctor]

Only if you're found unfit to stand trial, if you're tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity, you won't have to answer to the charges

If you stand trial, then you ARE answering the charges. If you stand trial and are found not guilty, then that is it : end of process. the charges were laid, were answered and the case was not proven (Of course, Scots law has an explicit "not proven" finding that allows for the charges to be laid against you again, if new evidence is found.)

Female voices are easier to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Female voices are easier to understand. This has been known for decades. It has nothing to do with exploitation. As if you could even exploit a computer program in the first place.

Re:Female voices are easier to understand

[havana9]

I recall that some experiment was made by telephone companies, for landlines, and despite the fact a male voice, being lower in pitch could be sampled at a lower bit rate, a female speaker was more intellegible when sampled at 8 kHz and passed via a telephone.

Re:Female voices are easier to understand

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I've also heard that most people are more likely to obey a female voice than a male voice, I believe this was in relation to the default voice on standalone GPS devices.

Re:Female voices are easier to understand

[Doub]

For children maybe. Women voices are higher pitched, and that's what goes first when you start to age.

Re:Female voices are easier to understand

[jsepeta]

More than that, hetero male brains are wired to respond to female voices.

I switched Siri to a male voice for a while but found it jarring. Now my Siri is an Australian chick. Think of the possibilities!

Jarvis

[jxander]

Make it happen.

Alternate hypothesis

[stoborrobots]

Alternate hypothesis: users respond better to female digital voices. Most GPS units and previous IVR systems feature female voices.

Re: Alternate hypothesis

[AvitarX]

I was going to say this too.

Why muck up a valid issue (adoption services when googling abortion ones) with a non issue that almost certainly has to do with response of people.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[Anubis IV]

Another hypothesis: this is an imaginary problem, since Siri debuted with a male voice in other regions (e.g. UK and France) and is capable of being changed to either male or female voices in all or almost all major regions. I haven't checked, but I'd assume the same is true for Google Now and that Microsoft and Amazon are likely working on the same thing too. At best, there may be an argument that this is an American cultural issue, but suggesting it's a general tech industry problem would require that we ignore the obvious evidence to the contrary, namely, that these products aren't female by default for all users.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[SeaFox]

Alternate hypothesis: users respond better to female digital voices. Most GPS units and previous IVR systems feature female voices.

Ha. It's not even a technology thing. Why are the majority of personal assistants and receptionists in meatspace women, too? Even when men apply to those jobs the person they hire if more likely to be female.

Looks like a case of coders simply following human behavior.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[TheReaperD]

The problem is not so much the default voice option but, the fact that these services don't have a general feedback/report issue function for the general population so it relies on the company techs to find and correct issues until something gets big enough that the media is contacting the companies. When the general workforce is 75% or so male, that directly means that any issue that affects just men are three times more likely to be detected and corrected than an issue that affects just women, with things the affect both being detected and corrected the most frequently. When executives ask the teams why a female specific topic wasn't corrected, the most likely, and most likely honest, answer is "it didn't come up." That just unintended consequences of having a non-diverse workforce rather than any maleficence.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[Aighearach]

Considering the way I speak to gender-neutral error messages, I think you might have something there. If I'm less likely to yell at my device, I'll probably have a better day.

With all the testosterone and neck hair on slashdot, I'll take some balance anywhere I can get it.

Stories like this, you'd have to dip the whole submission in Nair(TM) to get a reasoned discussion.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[gl4ss]

I'm confused what response to abortion question "they" would have been happy with. liberal or conservative? probably why it took so long.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[AmiMoJo]

Agreed, I'd say if there is an issue it's more subtle than that. The voice in my car is female, which is fine, but he is kinda sultry... I don't really need sat nav directions read out like some kind of bizarre phone sex line. Aside from anything else it's less clear than more neutral female voices like Google's or the one on my old sat nav.

On it's own I might not think much of it, but placed in a context of Cortana wearing less and less clothing (and seemingly getting breast enhancements) with each game it's at least worth thinking about.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[AmiMoJo]

Looks like a case of coders simply following human behavior.

That's not really a good excuse... Just because there is bias elsewhere doesn't mean that we, as engineers who are developing something new, have to follow those biases. That's why it's important to talk about this stuff.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[SeaFox]

That's not really a good excuse... Just because there is bias elsewhere doesn't mean that we, as engineers who are developing something new, have to follow those biases.

No, it's a great excuse. Unless you want to explain to your boss why you're being SJW about interface decisions, instead of choosing what customers will prefer.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[silentcoder]

I don't think it matters - the right answer for apple would be to answer the question you are asked as accurately as possible and leave moral judgement to the user. Apple of course appointed itself the world's moral police years ago. Like when Jobs said: "If you want porn get an android".
The problem with that approach is that you can never actually please everyone - and whichever side you take on any issue will be deemed immoral by somebody else. They would have been better off simply answering any question as accurately as possible.

If the user asks for an abortion clinic, show them abortion clinics. If they ask for an adoption service, show them one of those. The moral decision of what to ask for is best left to individuals.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[AmiMoJo]

In the case of Apple or Google your boss would probably thank you, or be the one making the suggestion.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[thinkwaitfast]

That's why it's important to talk about this stuff.

I specifically went into science (then engineering) so that I wouldn't have to talk about this crap and so that I could play in the lab all day with science and computers.

In my more professional industry, rocket science, these decisions occur at a higher marketing level and the engineers just implement whatever specs they are told. Why isn't management being blamed?

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[superwiz]

This might be cultural. I've been told (and no, I have not verified it although it could have been on slashdot) that Germany had to put in male voices in GPS units because drivers didn't trust female voices to give them directions.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[chihowa]

Cortana, the phone assistant, is a pulsing blue circle and not an anthropomorphized character at all. Also, on the Windows phone I used, Cortana was a male voice by default (Cortano?).

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[religionofpeas]

I always wait for my boss to make the suggestion. They like feeling smart.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[ooloorie]

The problem is not so much the default voice option but, the fact that these services don't have a general feedback/report issue function for the general population so it relies on the company techs to find and correct issues until something gets big enough that the media is contacting the companies.

Companies do detailed user studies before they make these choices. In addition, they have an excellent feedback mechanism, namely number of sales and number of users.

What you seem to be griping about is that they pay attention to such objective measures, instead of the activism of a bunch of social justice activists.

Social justice clickbait

[Jiro]

See subject.

Re:Social justice clickbait

[AmiMoJo]

Actually, it's anti-SJW bait. There is no article, it was posted anonymously and it's worded to trigger the anti-SJWs around here. Someone is trolling Slashdot, but I don't think they are really trying to promote social justice at all.

When I occasionally post social justice stories I always try to word them in a non-confrontational way and am careful not to lay blame on individuals or groups when the problems are institutional, as they are with the workforce ratios. Maybe it wasn't the intent of the poster to put it over this way, but they did.

Re:Social justice clickbait

[AmiMoJo]

Maybe the editors just thought that the stats would be helpful to the discussion. Combined with the half-arsed summary and barely related articles the whole enterprise just went badly wrong.

Re:Social justice clickbait

[Kielistic]

It is interesting that you label anyone modding you down as abuse. Maybe the abuse of the moderation system was the "insightful"?

Re:Social justice clickbait

[AmiMoJo]

Not anyone modding me down, just the people using the "toll" and "flamebait" mods as their personal -1 Disagree. No one could reasonably argue that what I wrote was an attempt to troll, no matter how strongly they disagree.

I strongly suspect that the people claiming "SJWs" hate freedom of speech and anyone who disagrees with them are the same one ones who down-mod anyone who disagrees with them.

Re:Social justice clickbait

[Carewolf]

50% insightful
50% troll

Slashdot's moderation system is broken. Maybe troll and flamebait should only count for -0.5 or something, to reduce abuse.

Seems to work perfectly to me. Your post was 50% insightful and 50% trolling.

The article was flamebait, whatever the tone it triggers both sides of the argument. The GP noticed one half, you the other, and both you trolled eachother.

Re:Social justice clickbait

[bingoUV]

but I don't think they are really trying to promote social justice at all

Regardless of your signature message, when someone says SJW - they don't mean someone trying to promote social justice. The urban dictionary tells me :

"A pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation"

The purpose of an SJW is not social justice at all. These are conditions in which a word/phrase comes to mean the opposite of what it should mean - similar to sarcasm.

Why do they need to politicize ***EVERYTHING***??

[Taco Cowboy]

What the fuck is wrong with having robots with female voice?

Please tell me the rationale of politicizing *everything*, including digital servants having female voices?

We in the tech field are focus on inventing, we really don;t give a fuck on whether those SJW like what we do or not

If they don't fucking like what we do, go invent their own digital servants and STOP BOTHERING US

I am fucking fed-up with those assholes!!!

I mean, we are not talking about some 'sex toy' or some 'porno-gadget', we are talking about digital assistances with female voice

Re:Slashdot

[ArmoredDragon]

I think the dumbest part of this is that the preferred gender of the voice tends to go by cultural norms rather than the company that made the damn thing. Middle eastern cultures, which are by far more male dominant than even the most male dominant tech company in the US, will either get offended or pissed off (or both) if a female voice gives them directions.

In western cultures, women are just more culturally inclined to take caretaker (as in medicine, grade school teacher, babysitter) or assistant type jobs (for an anecdote, my uncle's family is really into computers, and all three of his boys are going into tech related jobs, but his daughter wants to be a dentist even though she's had the same tech exposure that they had.)

Re:Slashdot

[BeauHD]

... and whiny users commenting about other whiny users -- it's a paradox. Welcome to the internet.

Re:if it was 90 % female...

[hcs_$reboot]

If it was 90% female, the % would reach 50% pretty quickly. Similar to nightclubs, where women have free drink/entrance to attract more men.

Higher Pitch Vocals

[Dr. Evil]

The higher vocal pitch can speak more quickly without turning into a mumble.

Voice emulation

[phorm]

In the early days of digital voices, the female ones always seemed to sound more authentic. Perhaps this just carried through?

If I had the choice though, I'd go for Jarvis (Iron Man), Morgan Freeman, or possibly old-school Arnold just for fun.

Re:Voice emulation

[TheReaperD]

I'd switch it to Christopher Walken for your alarm just for the fun of it. And maybe set it to whisper to you in your sleep for good measure.

Re:Voice emulation

[dbIII]

I wonder if the mp3 standard being developed with "Tom's Diner" as the example track had something to do with that. The work wasn't done until Suzanne Vega sounded as good compressed as uncompressed.

Re:Voice emulation

[dbIII]

BRIAN BLESSED
The font is about fifty points too small.

Re:Voice emulation

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I want BRIAN BLESSED to narrate everything, forever.

This, it's marketing basics

[s.petry]

Women have better voices for marketing, plain and simple. The majority of commercials have female voices for the same reason these "robots" (sorry, I don't consider them robots) do.

Certain female voices are hard on the ears, but the range of woman's voices considered pleasant dwarfs male's.

TFA misses that basic information and jumps right to the typical rants about discrimination, which have been verified false over and over and over. Social engineering does not like or want facts, they want to manipulate. So far, they are doing just that because the populous does not fact check anything. Even those that claim to be scientific use bias at least as often than facts.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[khasim]

Siri also has a male voice option. I have a friend and that's the option she chose.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[ArylAkamov]

Nice of the summary to skip over that and go straight to SEXISM

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing dumber than that particular breed of leftist who constantly searches for things to get offended over, is the new type of radical rightwinger who paints every effect he doesn't like as a result of leftism. You people are both boring.

There is a reason the "Bitching Betty" is not the "Angry Alan" and that is that pilots are mostly male. Males respond more to a higher pitched voice such as a woman's than a man's and when it's time for Betty to speak, you typically really NEED to hear that message. It has nothing to do with niceness and it has just as little to do with any galloping leftism in online culture.

The whole world is not against you just because some morons on twitter and tumblr get their tits in a twist about imagined slights.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[serviscope_minor]

Really? Because I'd pay good money for a digital a assistant voiced by either Brian Blessed out Mister T.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[wickerprints]

I have heard this claim repeatedly made and used as justification for a wide variety of things ranging from why voice guidance in GPS systems are invariably female by default, to why women's voices are preferred in radio advertising. Yet I see little or no solid scientific research to back up the claim. I am frankly skeptical, because (1) female voices seem to me to be just as diverse as male voices; (2) ethnicity and language seem to play a huge role; (3) the perceived sexual attractiveness of a voice clearly is a confounding variable.

Even if it were true, it doesn't mean that the default should always be some cooing female, especially with a synthesized voice which can easily be modified to sound androgynous. That, I suspect, is more a reflection of the personal preferences of the system's designers than it is a decision based in science.

Just to conclude with an unscientific and personal anecdote, I've noticed that I sometimes find the sound of female voices when they are socializing to be extremely grating, more often than I do with male voices. There is of course no shortage of instances of either sex being loud and obnoxious over lunch or dinner, but for some reason, I find the sound of female voices to get very piercing and the manner of inflection to be particularly cringe-inducing.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[Dave Emami]

Really? Because I'd pay good money for a digital a assistant voiced by either Brian Blessed out Mister T.

No digital assistant, but Brian Blessed does have an alarm clock app.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[Richard_at_work]

In the UK, when Siri was first introduced, the only voice available was the male voice.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[Feral Nerd]

Siri also has a male voice option. I have a friend and that's the option she chose.

Is his name 'Fabio'?

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[NotDrWho]

There is no amount of money I wouldn't pay for a Mr. T digital assistant.

"Time for your meeting, fool!"

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[thewolfkin]

Women have better voices for marketing, plain and simple. The majority of commercials have female voices for the same reason these "robots" (sorry, I don't consider them robots) do.

Certain female voices are hard on the ears, but the range of woman's voices considered pleasant dwarfs male's.

TFA misses that basic information and jumps right to the typical rants about discrimination, which have been verified false over and over and over. Social engineering does not like or want facts, they want to manipulate. So far, they are doing just that because the populous does not fact check anything. Even those that claim to be scientific use bias at least as often than facts.

Yeah female voices are just more pleasant sounding and that's science. I mean commericals know this and everyone knows commericals use rigourous science and avoid social tropes that might give them a market edge if it's not been proven empiracaly.

Re:This, it's marketing basics

[s.petry]

Freud and his followers, like Edward Bernays, wrote books on the stuff. The fact that you don't know where to look does not mean that the claim is false, it is just not something you are going to find easily. Knowledge is power, and people hide knowledge all the time.

Jon Briggs, the voice of Siri

[p.g.king]

In the telegraph article on finding Abortion Clinics/Prostitutes, there is a picture captioned "Jon Briggs, the voice of Siri". I guess this is because the Telegraph is a UK paper and in the UK Siri has a male voice. Perhaps the female dominance isn't quite what it's being made out to be.

Re:Jon Briggs, the voice of Siri

[david_thornley]

I just checked my Siri settings. I can get various languages (including various dialects of English), and can select a male or female voice, which can be US, UK, or Australian. If I want to change to a male Siri, no problem. I'd rather have the female voice.

The user chooses the persona

[GrahamCox]

At least with Siri, it's up to the user what "persona" (or more specifically, which voice) you choose. I would assume that the other similar services are user-customisable. The entire premise of the article is bogus.

Re:The user chooses the persona

[JustNiz]

Agreed. The OA needs to get over themselves.
Google can use whatever voice you want too. In fact think the only one thats stuck on female in the whole list is Microsoft/Cortana.
As for their point about gender makeup in IT, we've been over this a million times here already. The results of nearly all unbiased studies show the job opportunities are already equal or even in fact slightly biased towards encouraging women, and the single biggest cause of the disparity is simply free choice; most women don't actually want to work in IT.

Re:The user chooses the persona

[serviscope_minor]

And why don't most women want to work in it. I'm sure that as a fan of unused studies, you'll provide some evidence based argument, not pure speculation.

Re:The user chooses the persona

[JustNiz]

Google is your friend.

I set Siri to male.

[bipbop]

I set Siri to male. Why not? I like it better that way. Doesn't have anything to do with The Patriarchy, just the sound of the voice.

Re:I set Siri to male.

[HornWumpus]

You're just too sexist to listen to a woman's voice. You can't win.

Re:I set Siri to male.

[bipbop]

Why would I hate myself?

Blindspot in New Owners' Reform of Slashdot

[Kunedog]

Remember this poll?: https://slashdot.org/poll/2973...

It had some interesting qualities:

a) It simply and directly addressed a useless kind of content that users had been vocal about.

b) It didn't try to mislead the reader, strawman those who had complained as something evil (racists, sexists, luddites, etc.), or reframe the problem as something else.

c) It promised binding results, which (AFAIK) were honored.

Was it just a one-off? Will we ever see such a no-nonsense poll again?

Re:Blindspot in New Owners' Reform of Slashdot

[The New Guy 2.0]

Under the Taco regime, we told women who showed up with female-indicating names to go get a gender neutral name in order to avoid sexual harassment problems. Celebrities could show up from time to time when their knowledge was useful... such as the ten Disney Music artists who powered user account "AnalogHole".

Re:Blindspot in New Owners' Reform of Slashdot

[whipslash]

Is telling women who show up to pick a gender neutral name a good thing?

Re:Blindspot in New Owners' Reform of Slashdot

[whipslash]

There will be more polls like this. Not sure what it has to do with the anger around this story though. Lol.

Re:Blindspot in New Owners' Reform of Slashdot

[The New Guy 2.0]

It's been a while since one has stepped up, so it's hard to tell what would happen today... back then the only women who could claim to be women needed protection such as a TV network or podcast worth of security. We had some women run the LostCluster'sGirlfriend account while dating me, and the flirtations didn't come because it was clear they'd offend me.

It's really an invalid form of argument to let cuteness win, that was tried with the team claiming to be Aimee Deep of AIMster and didn't go very far.

It's a step backward for women's rights movements, but they just can't be allowed to keep that under the rules of fairness.

Slow news day

[realjordanna]

From 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/...

Re:Doing The Math

[Anonymous Coward]

'Math is hard', please change my persona to male for future math questions.

You're missing the obvious!

[CeasedCaring]

At time of posting, no-one seems to have considered that this was the only way for the programmers to get a girl to speak to them!

Re:You're missing the obvious!

[pr0fessor]

It was their attempt at programming a girlfriend and the boss caught them doing it on company time so they took it and monetized it?

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[ArylAkamov]

Exactly. It's impossible to win, the game is rigged from the start.

Soon the bots will even make the sandwiches.

[dsmatthews9379]

Meanwhile in my household the systems that I set up sound like an slightly bored English butler (male) and that is the way everyone likes it. Who knows what is going on with the tech companies, why didn't they give people a choice?

Re:Soon the bots will even make the sandwiches.

[TheReaperD]

They do. Most, if not all, of the services allow multiple voice choices. Female tends to be more common but, they have male voices as well.

Re:Soon the bots will even make the sandwiches.

[omnichad]

Against what race?

Re:Slashdot

[quenda]

Slashdot - news for whiny SJWs, stuff to get outraged about.

More like "Click-bait for Nerds to get Outraged by whiny SJW article."
Actually, there is no article, just a pointless submission.

lies, damn lies and statistics.

[p.g.king]

Non-tech roles apple 37%, Google 47% and MS 41.7%

Re: lies, damn lies and statistics.

[p.g.king]

Whoops that's % female.

Re:lies, damn lies and statistics.

[serviscope_minor]

Hey you can't do that, you're comparing apples to ora.. uh googles.

More stats!

[kuzb]

Here's the breakdown of my level of care over tech workplace gender equality:

0%

Women who want to work in tech are not prevented from doing so, which is evidenced by the fact that they do happen to work in tech. Progress past the mythical problem already - it doesn't actually exist.

Re:More stats!

[bingoUV]

At least your weedicide was 100% effective against the weeds which did not like your garden and "chose" not to infest it at all.

Re:More stats!

[ooloorie]

It's your garden, so if you want to spray "weedicide", that's your business. Likewise, if companies only want to hire males (or only females, homosexuals, martians, or whoever), that ought to be their business. If there are a lot of good female developers and, oh, Facebook doesn't hire them, all the better for Microsoft, or smaller companies that get a windfall of potential good employees.

So, there may well be barriers, but kuzb doesn't care, I don't care, and many other people don't care either. It's just like you apparently don't seem to give a fuck why there aren't more men in biology, nursing, social work, counseling, or tax preparation.

Abortion services and hookers are different

[91degrees]

A lot of people feel incredibly strongly about abortion. If Siri gets a false positive when it thinks someone wants an abortion, Apple are in the PR shitter.

Re:Abortion services and hookers are different

[91degrees]

Since when is Apple a law enforcement organisation?

I was talking about the PR nightmare. This means public relations. This means that if they screw this up then it could result in Apple selling fewer phones. This is what Apple cares about.

Now, perhaps you aren't aware of the situation in the US, but that is a country where there are a large number of strongly religious people who believe that abortion is a sin. The US has, as part of its fundamental law, the right to freedom of religion. This means that these very religious people will make a lot of noise if a company seems to be supporting something they see as sinful.

These people also buy Apple products. Apple wish to sell iPhones to these people as well as moderate liberal minded people.

Re:Abortion services and hookers are different

[hyades1]

A cynic might observe that anti-abortionists are more than a little over-represented at the shallow end of the earning curve, and therefore less likely to be able to afford Apple's wares. ;-)

There is a very simple reason for this

[Opportunist]

The female voice is more pleasing to the ear than the male. Stems from back when our moms fed us 'cause, ya know, dad's moobs just didn't have the same tasty treats.

Personally, I think it's sexist. We should force people to enjoy the male voice as much as the female, ya know, because equality.

Maybe they watched Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

All of these services are basically trying to copy the experience of the Star Trek computer, except replace "Computer" with "Ok Google" or "Alexa" or some other distinct and easy to recognize 3-4 syllable phrase.

The computer in the Star Trek series has a female voice, so to those who dream of making a reality out of science fiction, that would be a natural choice.

Re:Maybe they watched Star Trek

[noblethrasher]

Google Now even started out with the code name "Majel".

Re:Maybe they watched Star Trek

[kdk4783]

Yes, and Yes! I came here just to point out the Trek connection. It's perfectly obvious to anyone who comes by their Geekdom honestly and has long-term core memory ;-)

Gender Diversity = Quality of Life

[mentil]

This is tangentially related, but I suspect that tech giants are trying to get women into tech (among other reasons) in order to improve quality of life for their male employees. I recall from the previous Slashdot thread on how Seattle residents/Amazon employees can't get a date because there are no single women in the area. If there are no women then there are no children, and thus no next generation (in the region). The way to break the cycle (or, um, start the reproductive cycle) is to bring women into the area. This helps ensure that their bachelor 30-something male employees won't say "screw this job, I'm moving somewhere where I can find a wife."
Alternatively, they could just hire gay men, and claim it's affirmative action. :)

And yes, I know that much of the broader "women in tech" campaign is part of a PR campaign to get more H1-Bs and drive down salaries.

Re:Gender Diversity = Quality of Life

[Anonymous Coward]

This totally makes sense. Funny thing is though that the tech companies might find it easier to attack stereotypes where all male nerds are seen as sexually-confused weirdos who can't say hello to a woman. Effectively young girls are constantly told that nerds are unfuckable and act accordingly.

In the past it was never as bad - you'll see vids of Nasa employees from the 60s who were super-nerds & most of them were married by their late twenties.

The media campaign of nerds as creepers (Big Bang Theory anyone?) is probably more responsible for less women in computing than any other issue. Yeah, I know some nerds have personality/Asperger problems but the same can be said for musicians/actors/film directors and they seem to manage fine.

female synthesized voice more comprehensible

[Anonymous Coward]

My car GPS lets me select between a male and a female voice, and I chose the female one because it's much easier to understand when there's road and traffic noise. I guess the higher frequencies carry better over the rumble, or something.

Re:Slashdot

[Aighearach]

That's why we have to have female digital assistants. Otherwise the nerdiness might border on neckbeard; especially if it is reading the internet to you.

I'd also recommend mostly hiring female spokespeople. Otherwise you risk some closet gamergater destroying your entire message with one slip of what they really think, but lied to you about during the interview.

Sweet voice

[Victorytractors]

Females have sweet voice.. may be thats why and Siri have both of voice male and female but by default is female.

that feel when no girlfriend

[xiando]

If you can't get one - MAKE ONE. Given the amount of men who work for these companies and the type they typically are... this result isn't shocking.

Re:if it was 90 % female...

[TheReaperD]

*groan*

Re:Odd

[TheReaperD]

Yea, I think Patrick Stewart would be a good Siri voice.

Re:Doing The Math

[TheReaperD]

Since when did Mattel start being outsourced to for Siri?

Re:Obvious solution is obvious

[TheReaperD]

They all have male voices as an option (though I'm not sure about Amazon). Just Siri is voiced by a female by default and in the advertisements, for the US.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[TheReaperD]

As the old saying goes: "The only way to win is to not play."

Re:Male or female, it has to have a British accent

[TheReaperD]

The British still own the world. They just loosened their grip a little.

Stop the gender busllshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, am I sick and tired off this gender equality bullshit. We are not equals. Never will be. Females don't like tech as much as men. DEAL WITH IT.

Re:Odd

[Aighearach]

Right, but the "offended person[s]" in this case are the ones freaking out about imaginary "SJWs" that never even tried to throw them in the gulag in the first place, or whatever the accusation is. That is 100% of the offended. Just read the thread.

99.9%, 101%

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that's bothered by the fact that Microsoft's breakdown adds up to not-quite-100% and Apple's breakdown actually adds up to more than 100%? Who's doing this math anyway?

Re:99.9%, 101%

[Rockoon]

Maybe Apple is counting transexuals twice. Thats the only explanation I have for what is clearly a 2-significant-digit error.

Re:99.9%, 101%

[sociocapitalist]

Am I the only one that's bothered by the fact that Microsoft's breakdown adds up to not-quite-100% and Apple's breakdown actually adds up to more than 100%? Who's doing this math anyway?

It's been outsourced.

Re:99.9%, 101%

[AmiMoJo]

Not sure about the US, but in many European countries you can decline to state your gender on the HR forms. So it's possible they don't have a gender on file for some employees.

Re:99.9%, 101%

[Godai]

The Microsoft one is pretty close, so that didn't bother me. The Apple one did, because it was basically slapping me in the face with 101%. All I could think was "Sheesh, even in a gender split percentage, Apple just has to come out on top!" ;)

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Aighearach]

LOL no, feminism was never involved, you're just using this as an opportunity to troll about feminism. Propaganda indeed.

Fuck off !

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, just fuck off with this shit.

I do see discrimination there...

[zmooc]

...but it's not in the voice of their personal assistants. It's in the gender breakdown. How could Amazon possibly achieve 39% female tech workers if only 18% of computer science graduates are women?! Do they have a super old workforce that stems from before the unexplicable decline of women in the 1980s? I doubt it...

Re:I do see discrimination there...

[Rockoon]

How could Amazon possibly achieve 39% female tech workers if only 18% of computer science graduates are women?!

Amazon isnt running a software business like Microsoft does nor is it running a hardware business like Apple does. Amazon is primarily a retailer, with all the labor needs of a turn-of-the-century mail order catalog company like Sears and Roebuck. Lots of warehouses and lots of office space for the clerical.

Re:Slashdot

[serviscope_minor]

stuff to get outraged about.

You seem pretty outraged about TFA.

Double standard

[Livius]

How can the notion that female voices are predominant "also demonstrate male favo[u]ritism"? That's clearly a bias against male voices, meaning it's female favouritism. Sometimes there is an underlying sexism that needs to be pointed out, but when the lunatic fringe anti-sexism crusaders assume that everything is malicious misogyny, including the rare but real cases of discrimination against men, rational people simply stop listening to them. And that's a loss because, like stopped clocks, they can on occasion be right about something.

prostitute viagra and abortion

[aepervius]

"It took Apple more than four years to fix Siri's responses to questions about abortion services, and yet the company didn't seem to have any problem programming Siri to search for prostitutes and Viagra."

yeah, methink that the political climate surrounding abortion is far more explosive than prostitution , and some people might have exploded in anger far more quickly at women being helped getting an abortion (sorry "murder baby!") than at the other keyword. So it does not surprise me in the least.

Re:prostitute viagra and abortion

[apetrelli]

"It took Apple more than four years to fix Siri's responses to questions about abortion services, and yet the company didn't seem to have any problem programming Siri to search for prostitutes and Viagra."

yeah, methink that the political climate surrounding abortion is far more explosive than prostitution , and some people might have exploded in anger far more quickly at women being helped getting an abortion (sorry "murder baby!") than at the other keyword. So it does not surprise me in the least.

I don't think you kill anyone by getting Viagra or going with prostitutes. And Amnesty International says that prostitution is a right.

Re:prostitute viagra and abortion

[dinfinity]

Also: I have never used Siri, but I assume it generates (indirect) ad revenue for Apple. I'm going to guess that the people offering prostitutes and Viagra spend more cash on ads than abortion clinics. If not that, I imagine the former lobbying Apple a lot harder to fix any problems.

Plenty of much more reasonable explanations than "Apple hates women!"

Re:prostitute viagra and abortion

[Gilgaron]

I've not used it a whole lot as it is far less useful than the commercials make it look, but all Siri normally does with anything complicated is transcribe your query into a Bing search. Other than that you can get it to call someone in your address book or give you directions from the map applet. Much else is easier to type than get the thing to understand you properly, and when it mishears you then you get some nonsensical Bing search. While I'd suppose MS gives them a tithe of the ad revenue it can't be much.

I thought the same

[MrKaos]

To alleviate the issue, I recorded the phrases for my wife's car navigator but I changed the 'left' and 'right' audio with the much more helpful 'it's coming up' and 'you just missed it'. I re-recorded the 5, with a 3 and the hundred with 'just there, fuck it's right in front of you' - That way I no longer have to assist her in person - the machine does that for me and it's like I'm in the car actually being helpful.

Re:I thought the same

[sabbede]

+1 million points for genius.

Re:I thought the same

[MrKaos]

Thanks - I'm glad someone got the joke.

Re:I thought the same

[sabbede]

My favorite part was how it was "helping" her in your place. Perfect way to cap it off.

Re:I thought the same

[MrKaos]

I think I might replace the "turn around" audio with "Calm down and do a U turn" then replace the "merge" audio with "gun it!" - I think she would really appreciate it.

Hey - thanks for having a clue :) , I glad you had a laugh!

Re:I thought the same

[sabbede]

How about, "What the hell babe, you missed it! Where can we turn around?" for U-turns?

You've got me wishing my girlfriend had a traditional GPS in her car. I don't think I can replace the audio for google maps on her phone. I'd definitely change all the turn prompts with, "Hey, is your turn signal on? It should really be on if you're turning, other drivers need to know. Which way are we going again?"

But maybe I can... Androids are pretty hackable. I should look into it.

What we need

[jandersen]

Is the voice and persona of The Archetypical Mother-In-Law. Actually, that would be a very useful feature for fighting vermin: http://izquotes.com/quote/4826...

Re:What we need

[RabidReindeer]

Actually, I think that there was a study back in the 1960s that determined that a woman's voice was more intelligible in an environment where there was a lot of background noise.

Plus, there's the possibility that people might be less inclined to abuse or outright destroy "female" machinery when they get frustrated with it.

Re:What we need

[jbmartin6]

I thought this was interesting so I searched around a bit and it seems this idea has been dis proven. Wired had a piece also. Some interesting tidbits in there like "For example, women’s speech includes more personal pronouns (I, you, she), while men’s uses more quantifiers (one, two, some more). If someone listening to a voice interface hears a male using feminine phrasing, they are likely to be distracted and distrustful. "

Re:What we need

[pr0fessor]

I read about half the gizmodo article but when I got the part about vocal range I had to stop typical male vocal range is about 110Hz to 260Hz and it surely doesn't start below the lowest note on a guitar of 82Hz.

Re:What we need

[sexconker]

Synthd female voices are also easier to do well and easier for a shitty phone/tablet speaker to handle. I've tried all manner of voices for my phone, and the default female one is the only one that doesn't sound like ass, unfortunately.

Re:What we need

[nytes]

I do recall seeing a story about one of the earlier pinball machines with voice synthesis (called "Xenon" or something like that) and one of the things they mentioned was that they could compress a female voice better and fit more vocalizations into the machine.

I remember it would give a suggestive sigh when you put a quarter into it.

Re:What we need

[Coren22]

I would also add, wasn't there a study done that came out with males and females preferring to take directions from a female, even a digital one?

I know I prefer it, it is just like having a wife in the seat next to you...

Re:What we need

[HornWumpus]

You could make that pinball machine sound like it was cumming. It was more than a little weird.

Re:Slashdot

[Hognoxious]

That's not a paradox.

Are you timothy or just one of his classmates from remedial English?

Higher pitch voice *are* easier to hear

[DrYak]

Actually most automated voices are female because a female voice is easier to hear against background noise

Yup. There's even research supporting that (If I wasn't lazy, I could dig a few refs).

Although lots of culture consider deep male voice to be signs of authority, it happens that our ears are better tuned to hear our mothers (whose voice in turn has also evolved to be better heard).

So in a way, evolution has been clearly matriarchal for that specific characteristic of vocal communication.
Head monkey's voice sounds cool but is basically understood as "Yadda-yadda". It's mom's voice you should be listening at.

SJW could maybe stop over-reacting and ponder a bit the implication of these point of views.

(Also, think about all the GPS giving orders in imperative form using by default a female (higher pitched) voice pack.
- That's as far as possible from the "servile" position that is criticised in the summary
- Don't you think these firms have done the necessary litterature review and determined that it's the best voice for noisy environment)

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[serviscope_minor]

If the tech firms had chosen to make the voices male instead,

They have. Siri defaults to a male voice in the UK.

the story would be about underrepresentation and misogyny.

And despite your condition being met, that never happened.

Do you enjoy hating a group so much that you're prepared to simply make up stuff about what they do even when its provably incorrect?

Quite Opposite

[DrYak]

Thats exactly why hunter-gatherer languages are full of high pitched tongue clicks: prey cant hear the hunters talk because the sound stops at the first tree.

So high pitch is the frequency range we have evolved to communicate with.
- both the ability to express (clicks, consonnants and hisses)
- and the ability to hear (our ear do cover the necessary range)

Explain me again how this is an argument, against using female (higher-pitched) voices ?
How your explanation of physics contradicts the parent poster that higher-pitched voices are better heard ?

Ever walk past a nightclub ? Notice how you can usually hear the bass drum through the walls but not the rest of the music ?

(BTW, your explanation is incomplete. The dominance of basses isn't only due to the diffusion being proportional to 1/f . It's also due to the way how different material conducts different frequency ranges. Few night club are completely in the open).

So you've (more or less) successfully demonstrated that most noise that get the farthest and dominates the most is low-frequency.
Given all this low-frequency noise, please explain me again why you think that the parent is wrong in proposing that a high pitch voice (say a soprano - high range female) would be better heard against such low-freq noise than a low pitch voice (bass - low range male) ?

If you are going to attribute something to the laws of physics you should probably know what they are first.

If you're going throw around science in your reply, maybe you should pay attention of this peculiar field called Psychoacoustics.
It's science, it works and it's what nearly every modern audio compression algorithm runs on.

Feminism the new Fascism

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tech firms have an obsession"

  I have an obsession too, and i am not a tech firm. It's called having a preference. A preference is a core trait of individualism. Individualism is what gives people their own identity and personality. To deny my preference is to deny my identity and in doing so my own humanity.

Denying my preference, whatever it is, whether it is superficial or not, is no different from denying gay men, lesbian women, and arguably transgenders, their sexuality because sexuality in most cases is primarily dependent on what you call "objectification". A prioritization of the superficial (external aesthetic points) over the internal (character). By that logic, Feminism only approves of Bisexuals; and derides gay men, lesbian women, and arguably transgenders, as bigots (people who are not open minded, since only bisexuals have an open minded view regarding the opposite person's sex). With this, it should become obvious that objectification and sexualization are at best neutral things, and a double edged sword when you are using them as an argument.

At this point it becomes obvious that Feminism is about the same as religious fundamentalists: Using moralizing and arbitrary interpretations of labels (misogyny and sexism, as is with the religious heresy and blasphemy) in order to stifle individualism and thought control people.

I'm really getting sick and tired of this movement that's the secular form of religious moralizing.

The one at fault here is the one using a social issue as leverage to oppress (thought police) people. That is the article's author, and that is Feminism. So there is only one thing i can give to your Feminism, which is a stain upon Egalitarianism because it make a soccer match out of genders and furthers division and categorization with its bias and infantile sense of self-infallibility. A movement that patronizes women and has managed to ironically garner massive derision from women themselves by a good amount. I give you a middle finger.

GPS imperative

[DrYak]

because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.

Also note that most GPS speak by default using a female (higher pitch) voicepack, and are clearly giving order using imperative forms to the driver.

That's not exactly what I would call subservient.

Re:GPS imperative

[Mr D from 63]

Why would the author of this article call a female voice that helps people a 'servant'. That seems kind of sexist and demeaning to me. Is is OK now to refer to people, including women, who work on help lines 'servants'?

Re:GPS imperative

[ddtmm]

Your point is probably more relevant and insightful than the rest of the article...

Re:GPS imperative

[Trailer Trash]

Why would the author of this article call a female voice that helps people a 'servant'. That seems kind of sexist and demeaning to me. Is is OK now to refer to people, including women, who work on help lines 'servants'?

Uh, yeah. A "servant" is a person who serves.

My wife's from the Philippines where household servants are still very common even in the middle classes. They typically use the term "maid", but "servant" is also used.

What's the big deal with that?

Re:GPS imperative

[Mr D from 63]

Uh, yeah. A "servant" is a person who serves.

My wife's from the Philippines where household servants are still very common even in the middle classes. They typically use the term "maid", but "servant" is also used.

What's the big deal with that?

In that sense, there should be nothing wrong with it and I agree with your very good point, but in the reality of where we are in the US, 'servant' is often used in a demeaning context, and it is implied by the writer of the article. Is it nonsense? Yes, but not to the author, and I used the author's basic premise to point out the ridiculousness of the contention. Just to be clear, my perception of one who serves is in no way the same as the authors.

Re:GPS imperative

[Kreplock]

By all means, when you eat at restaurants refer to the waitstaff as "servant". Enjoy your meals.

Re:GPS imperative

[cHiphead]

Quiet, peasant, and serve me that last 3oz strip of steak immediately.

*waves hand around in reverance of the power wielded among the servants at the Golden Corral buffet*

Re:GPS imperative

[AthanasiusKircher]

Why would the author of this article call a female voice that helps people a 'servant'.

Note that the word "servant" does NOT appear in either of the two linked articles. The word was introduced in the title/summary, obviously to make things sound as bad as possible.

Also, note that there is no on-topic article linked here. It's just two links to a couple random old articles which don't say anything like what the summary implies.

That seems kind of sexist and demeaning to me.

I think that's what the "anonymous" person who "submitted" this "story" was going for.

Or, to be more blunt about this, the whole thing is a TROLL to get people riled up here. Nobody's saying what the title or summary claims, except for the AC who supposedly submitted it.

Re:GPS imperative

[nine-times]

Also note that most GPS speak by default using a female (higher pitch) voicepack, and are clearly giving order using imperative forms to the driver.

Also (and I'll admit this is hearsay because I won't be able to find a link) I've read an article that explained that part of the reason these systems use female voices is that old research found more people were likely to listen to them. There were a few different attempts to explain then phenomenon, whether it was "female voices are more pleasant" or "male voices sounded too competitive or challenging" or "our hearing is more attuned to the pitch of a female voice", Whether you're talking about subway system announcements or military computer systems, when the same commands/instructions were given in a male-sounding voice, people were less likely to hear it and more likely to ignore it.

At least, that's according to some random article... maybe in New Scientist or someplace like that... We have female voices in these systems because we're more likely to listen to a female voice.

Re:GPS imperative

[SuperKendall]

An assistant is not a slave, period. It can (and does) refuse to work sometimes you know, a slave would not have that choice.

Re:GPS imperative

[IcyWolfy]

Except in Germany, the default voice is always male, as it was shown that most people were offended(word choice?) to take directions from a female.
BMW even had to issue a recall to fix that problem.

http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Tech...

http://cuindependent.com/2010/...

Re:GPS imperative

[ausekilis]

I can't be the only one out there that really wants Joe Pesci giving me directions. I'd certainly pay for him to tell me which way to go with as much profanity as possible.

"You're gonna turn right in a half mile, ass-wipe"

Re:GPS imperative

[DutchUncle]

Years ago there were articles pointing out that the default voices in different languages were male or female depending on culture. As I recall, the German default was male because it was assumed that male drivers wouldn't want to take orders from a woman; OTOH some other cultures defaulted to female because a male voice would be taken as competitive or aggressive, while a female voice was "obviously" just making suggestions.

Studies...

[meerling]

I've seen studies done on how people respond and listen to various voices.
It was found that males are much more likely to listen to a females voice than a males voice.
Oddly enough, that was also true with females, though not as extreme, it was still at a significant level.
Also, the response difference was not a small one, so there is a definite advantage to using a female voice.
By the way, the study didn't explain why this anomaly is so, it just reported the findings.

Maybe the designers of those knew about the study. Or maybe they just went with what seemed to work in testing.
Of course it could be sexist, but considering how much greater the human response is to a female voice, it seems more likely they just chose a voice that's better for their design, even if they did it by instinct instead of cold logical design.
(Just because something involves someone of a particular gender, that doesn't mean it's due to prejudice. I highly suspect that those who scream accusations of sexism the loudest and most frequent are often being sexist themselves.)

Re: users respond better to female digital voices

[silentcoder]

Funny how you assume they wanted the voices to be overwhelmingly male instead and then shoot down that strawman.

Completely skipping over the obvious possibility: that if about half the companies did male by default and about half had done female by default (so, really, there was no industry default - just whichever voice actor the company could afford) then the issue would never have been raised at all ?

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Tech Firms Have An Obsession With 'Female' Digital Servants"

Did we even read this? I, and everyone else, see a blatantly biased story being used to push a radical left-wing social justice warrior agenda. There's no hate, that's pure psychological projection on your part. We're all angry at facts being selectively presented to serve a harmful agenda.

Powerful girls

[Pain_Center]

Don't under estimate the power of girls...

That female voice

[MaxSmoke]

Is not a servant but a dominatrix controlling males, so whats your problem bro.

Math....

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple: 79.0% male, 22.0% female

Seriously? 101% employees?

Re:Math....

[Shados]

Non-binaries counted twice maybe? ;)

Re:Math....

[The New Guy 2.0]

Apple's made up of 1% dead people like Jobs and the other founders. Woz is still alive as a result of retiring early... everybody else had too much info in their brain for the size of their head.

Where's the Ebonics voice?

[thisisauniqueid]

Siri also "sounds very white", but can you imagine the outcry if Apple released a voice with a thick "culturally black" accent? Or a thick Mexican English accent? Or an Asian English accent?

Why not

[Bender Unit 22]

why should it be a problem that it helps with viagra related searches? Grow up.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[serviscope_minor]

Did we even read this?

Yeah, it was a delightfully effective troll for baiting the kind of person who likes to use the phrase "SJW".

There's no hate,

Really, because you sound like you hate the (in your own words) "radical left-wing social justice warrior agenda".

We're all angry at facts being selectively presented to serve a harmful agenda.

How is blatantly making up facts (what you did) not just as bad?

Re: Why do they need to politicize ***EVERYTHING**

[Anonymous Coward]

What the FUCK are you talking about? Gamergaters are exactly the people who would take people to task for this bullshit.
Don't go dragging the gamergate name around because it's an easy target. The Dumbass behavior people are complaining about in this thread is purely SJW stupidity and nothing less.

Let's review...

[hyades1]

I was around at the dawn of desktop computing. I learned our office had an Apple 2E. It had sat on a shelf for a year before I got there (first job), because nobody wanted to bother with it. I figured out one of the two disks it needed to load was damaged. I got another one. I figured out how to run Appleworks, integrated word processor, spreadsheet and data base programs. On my lunch hour, I went to bulletin boards to learn how we could take advantage of all that bookkeeping, mailout, and information tracking power.

For my trouble, I was condescended to and ridiculed by the female office staff as a silly little boy playing with his silly little toy. Then our little non-profit organization started to punch 'way over its weight. Guess why.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed that virtually all the helpful responses I got on the bulletin boards came from guys. So I wondered whether this was universal. At that time, it was no big deal to get the membership of a BB. So I did...for 15 local ones. And I assigned all the names that were obviously male to one column, all that were female to another the results were so utterly one-sided I compensated. Who knows...maybe some women were afraid to identify themselves, though at the time there was no compelling reason not to. So I assigned all names like "Kim" and a lot of "foreign" names (where I couldn't be sure what sex the person was), to the female side.

I came out with more than 90% male bulletin board membership. So just about everybody trying to figure out how to use this new office tool effectively was male, at least in the Toronto area.

There was no coercion, sexism or even fooling around. Back then, communication via BB was just too slow and disjointed to bother with that kind of thing. People needed advice, and those who could give it were quite generous.

So now it's a new world, and women are complaining that people about my age, who have made their way up the corporate ladder in computing, are mostly male. If my experience is anything to go by, the reason has a lot less to do with sexism than with the fact that quite a lot of us back then were "silly little boys playing with our silly little toys". Now those toys are running the world, and the girls who couldn't be bothered to give up lunch in order to figure them out aren't well represented at the top.

I'm aware that my evidence is anecdotal, but my numbers with respect to those dawn-of-time bulletin boards is 100% accurate.

Re:Let's review...

[silas_moeckel]

The ones that were unwilling to embrace change got left behind regardless of gender. This is a good thing. SJW think everybody should get promoted just to be "fair". Life is not nor should it be that sort of fair.

Re:Let's review...

[Anonymous Coward]

If my experience is anything to go by, the reason has a lot less to do with sexism than with the fact that quite a lot of us back then were "silly little boys playing with our silly little toys".

[nixon] "When a woman does it, that means it is not sexist."

If they don't fucking like what we do, go invent their own digital servants and STOP BOTHERING US

I am fucking fed-up with those assholes!!!

It does seem like, at best, they like to push their way into things. They actually prefer to be "unwelcome," and they may begin to get their wish. I was very attentive to these issues two years ago, but now I just want to keep these poisonous people away from me. I think they're bullies intending to choose easy targets, and what I eventually, painfully learned about bullies is that you have to hit back. If your school has a "second person who hits gets punished" rule, then you have to ignore the rule. The rule-makers don't care about being fair and do not have your best interests in mind.

Re:Let's review...

[King_TJ]

Absolutely .... Just the other day, I read a comment made by someone in the tech. field that "Every important new technology I can think of started out being viewed as a toy." So that's probably a common mistake made by both men AND women when it comes to new things they don't understand and haven't spent time working with yet. But the pattern that I think emerges pretty consistently is it's a man who decides to "keep playing with the new toy" until he makes it do something really useful.

Maybe that's just a part of human nature ... that men are more likely to take an interest in playing around with something new until they can solve the problem of "How can this thing be used to accomplish something useful?" By contrast, women are more likely to concern themselves with keeping order and cleanliness in their environment and so forth? (I don't know about you, but my experiences over the years tell me that almost every time you walk into a work environment that's trashed up, nasty looking and stinks -- you don't have any women working in it.)

Re:Let's review...

[hyades1]

I have to agree with you on that, my friend. And there's something to be said for the productivity of people who don't have to work in an environment that reminds you of the inside of a dumpster.

Re:Let's review...

[hyades1]

100% agreed.

Re:Let's review...

[hyades1]

As you say, no anecdote is the whole picture. However, my experience led to results so spectacularly one-sided I have difficulty believing they don't apply more widely. Although Canada isn't as progressive as many European countries with respect to sexual equality, it's certainly beyond the US.

I've also found out my experience was far from unique. For example, the woman who taught me BASIC had a pretty lucrative sideline doing that for small evening classes at the local high school. She tried offering the same class free for women, along with one on MS-DOS. (This would be sometime in the late 80's). She stopped after a while because there weren't enough takers to be worth her time. The few women who actually were interested were willing to pay, and wound up in the same class I took.

I'm glad things worked out well for you and your co-workers. I suspect, though, it's your experience that is anomalous rather than mine.

Interesting Numbers

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I guess that excess 1% are the worms in the Apple.

Re:Slashdot

[Viol8]

"There's nothing honest about your attempt to discuss this issue."

SJWs arn't interested in discussion, they only work with polemnic.

Well, once again, everything's a problem.

[Lt.Hawkins]

Everything really is a problem. Even stuff that's designed to not be a problem.*

* Parody tumblr. Its OK, really.

I set mine to UK Male

[trout007]

Feels like I have a butler.

Trolling

[plasm4]

The slashdot editors are trolling their readers really hard with this... well done.

ha?

[superwiz]

Comparing porn to abortion services? Not really a fair comparison now, is it? Porn is there to appeal to a primal instinct which turns off higher level functions of the brain, while abortion services are there to fulfil a need made after some somber deliberation. These use completely different parts of the brain. And it's not that difficult to imagine that providing help with one would require less thought than providing help with the other. It could just be a matter of a simpler technical challenge rather than a choice of equally difficult challenges (which is suggested by this comparison).

But...

[oKtosiTe]

My Siri is a dude, you insensitive clod!

So stupid

[drinkypoo]

When even CNN can figure out why this is, you are clearly spending time on a non-story. What a fucking clickbait wankfest. Can we get some fucking tech news?

Algorithms aren't biased

[naasking]

The results of those interactions also demonstrate male favoritism. It took Apple more than four years to fix Siri's responses to questions about abortion services, and yet the company didn't seem to have any problem programming Siri to search for prostitutes and Viagra.

This demonstrates a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of how algorithms work. Siri's responses are likely conditioned based on what people talk about most when "abortion" comes up, and surprise surprise, rabid pro-life people love talking about the evils of abortion far more than pro-choice people. Your disappointment should be directed at your fellow non-programmer humans, not programmers. "Fixing" Siri would basically amount to adding more contextual discernment, but this is hardly easy.

Father in law's navigation voice

[zerofoo]

Years ago my father in law changed the navigation voice on his Garmin to a man's voice.

When I asked him why he said: "My wife and two daughters have been telling me what to do and where to go my entire life. I don't want another woman telling me what to do."

nerves

[l3v1]

The original article is just a waste of time. On most systems, everyone can change the voices. Done.

However, the choice of voices is a somewhat interesting topic, I remember having read some stuff about it earlier. In my case, as a male, my choice of female voices for navigation, etc., probably has something to do with [my] history, i.e., I remember lots of men making me angry (I mean really angry, not simply annoyed and such) in my life, but I have to concentrate very hard for such occasions with women (there were some, but not many). I.e., for me, listening to a female voice is more comfortable, less annoying, maybe even calming, etc. Also, had some female teachers back in the day whom I relaly liked. Maybe people who choose female voices - either consciously or sub-c. - could simply trace it back to something similar (which I absolutely don't know, I'm just making wild guesses here).

Re: Odd

[BarbaraHudson]

Siri is Iris backwards. Pretty obvious.

Obsession or research/testing?

[sabbede]

Seriously, does the author think they just used female voices on a whim as opposed to picking the default through extensive research and testing? There are people who devote their lives to studying how people respond to different voices. The notion that Apple landed on Siri's voice without trying dozens or even hundreds of variations is patently absurd. And then capping it off with a mention of an incident from beta testing just demonstrates that the author has a serious bias and is hunting for things to get annoyed over.

There's plenty of sexism in the world. No need to invent more.

You can't change the voice?

[HalAtWork]

I never tried any of these digital assistants but I thought like with any other text-to-speech software you'd be able to change the voices. It really is weird that they all select female voices. Maybe all fans of Star Trek Next Generation?

Re:You can't change the voice?

[green1]

I can't speak for the others, but you can in fact change the voice on Google Now, and it has a selection of both male and female voices. In fact depending on the language you select, sometimes the default is male, other times it is female.

But if you're trying hard to be offended, there's no "right" answer they could have chosen to avoid it.

Re:You can't change the voice?

[david_thornley]

I don't know about all of them, but Siri allows me to select male or female (and accents from the US, the UK, and Australia). Siri in the US is female by default, but male by default in other countries.

thee counterexamples

[vel-ex-tech]

Personally, I don't think the cisgendered hunnies want a butler. Some of us do.

#1: There's Jeeves, but he's retired these days.

#2: My old therapist, Dr. Sbaitso.

#3: My RSI Aurora MR's onboard computer in Star Citizen.

I also wouldn't mind an emergency hologram.

Frankly, the onboard computer in the CNOU Mustang Delta is a shrill bitch. Hurts my fucking ears.

Not reading any comments! On to the next topic!

Where's Otis elevator in that list?

[NeoNormal]

The building I have worked in since 1998 has female voices for the elevators... "Going up", etc. It's a 30+ year old building. Where's the out cry over that?

Plenty of non-sexist reasons to have a female voice.

Re:Where's Otis elevator in that list?

[Locke2005]

I like it much better when she says, "Going down!"

Re:Where's Otis elevator in that list?

[green1]

Last building I was in that had elevators with voices had 2 elevators, the right one sounded female, the left one sounded male. If you're one of those people that are stupidly easily offended, wait for the next elevator and it will be the other gender. If you're a reasonable human being, take whichever one comes first.

Easy answer, and it isn't sexism

[shellster_dude]

I know these articles are SJW click-bait, but there is a perfectly normal explanation:

I work in cyber security, and it is while understood phenomena that both men and women implicitly trust a female voice significantly more than a male voice. This is so well established that many pentesting companies hire women with pleasant voices just for social engineering gigs. When an AI is already trying to overcome people's inherent distrust of technology, it makes sense to employ psychological tricks they can make people feel more relaxed and trusting.

Re:Awful big stretch there

[nospam007]

"Here's the gender breakdown for the tech workforce of each company:
Microsoft: 83.0% male, 16.9% female
Google: 82.0% male, 18.0% female
Apple: 79.0% male, 22.0% female
Amazon: 61.0% male, 39.0% female

What in the fuck does this have to do with digital servants?"

Well, as you see Microsoft has apparently 0.1% transgender workers while at Apple, there's 1% superfluous males waiting to get sacked and none of the writers of the summary used Siri nor Cortana to do the math.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[omnichad]

The only winning move is not to play

FTFY

Re:Slashdot

[qbast]

On the other hand people like you are clearly very upset. Did we hurt your poor little feelings? Would you like a special medal for posting, would that make you feel better?

You need to practice your sneer a bit more.

Only in some countries

[CanadianMacFan]

Siri is set to use a female voice in some countries. In others the default is male. And in some at least you can change it.

I think Apple is missing out by not having the ability to buy different voices like you can with certain GPS devices.

Or they focus grouped...

[mchall]

...the hell out of the names and voice selections and went with the most popular with the broadest cross-section of users like most marketing savvy companies are wont to do. The sexism argument is a complete non-starter.

Feminism is dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont let this bullshit on slashdot. They will bring you down to their level and crush you with their violent fury.
Never accept any of their terminology and never use it unless you are discussing how is it wrong.
Never engage in a discission with a feminist, they dont discuss they attack and slander.
Always cut any feminist "bad reality story" short by "its a free country so go fuck yourself". Example: "All AIs are female!" ( meaning it is bad thing) "Free country, fuck off" (right answer)

To those who are not up to date, feminism is no longer about equal rights, many rights already skewed towards females, it is about some weird power thing which i cant figure out yet.

Responding to customer demand

[Locke2005]

All studies I know of have shown that both men and women prefer a female automated voice to a male one; that's why the phone companies always used female recorded voice (e.g. the "time" number). It's not sexism to give the customer what they want. Also, Siri has a little-known feature that allows you to set it to a male voice instead; everybody I know that tried it went back to the female voice.

Yes, tech companies are predominantly staffed by socially awkward young men, which may make it uncomfortable for some women to work there, especially women that have a chip on their shoulder or aren't used to being "just one of the guys", like my girlfriend who worked at Informix was.

Tradition

[PPH]

It's been that way since way back.

Re:Why do they need to politicize ***EVERYTHING***

[funwithBSD]

They politicize things when they cannot win with the facts, and must move to emotions.

"truthiness" vs facts.

its partly audio science

[laurencetux]

there have been a couple studies done that point out that higher pitched voices (ie "female") tend to be understood more by people.

Re:Why do they need to politicize ***EVERYTHING***

[Stinky Cheese Man]

Please try to keep up...

Where men are over-represented, they are "dominating the field".
Where women are over-represented, they are "being exploited".

It's not that complicated

[RogueWarrior65]

It's a mostly male field of employment. Further, it's a mostly male nerd field of employment. Male nerds generally have trouble dealing with the opposite sex. It's always been that way. Female digital agents satisfy a small part of their desire to communicate with the opposite sex.

Weren't female voices more pleasing to humans?

[denzacar]

And more effective in getting humans to follow instructions?
While also more effective in establishing an emotional connection with the brand?
Haven't we figured that out already? Like... years ago?

Research Fail on articles part.

[CaptnCrud]

Companies use female voices because they are more effective to elicit both calm and be authoritative moods from the audience. It works on both sexes and is evolutionarily hardwired.

The only reason companies have tend to have a female mascot is for proft. Same reason why they only use cute and fluffy animals, or good looking people in movies, because it sells.

Sexism!

[AtlasEnder]

Who says women don't also prefer to be served by female digital assistants? They seem to when it comes to doctors.

Re:Slashdot

[whipslash]

Sorry if we triggered anyone's delicate sensibilities!

20 years old trend

[sponse]

It all started with navy.

Bitching Betty

[Chibi Merrow]

This article has some sources on the Human Factors research behind it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Apparently some of that original research has been called into question now.

Most modern systems allow for selection of gender, anyway.

Almost no women are killed in their work

[mpercy]

Virtually 100% of all on-the-job deaths are men, aren't you interested to know why?

Re:Slashdot

[cyberchondriac]

That gets infinitely recursive, 'yknow..

It's what the market wants

[firewrought]

Consumers prefer female voices. Crying wolf on sexism and racism does nothing to help society address the real inequalities these protected classes face. Jeez... it's almost like these SJW-types are running a false flag operation to tarnish the advances that the last century of feminism brought to society.

The word "obsession" is an especially bothersome bit of hyperlobe. If these companies were truly obsessed with female servants, Siri/Cortana/etc would display OS-tan-style maid animations with easter egg prompts that convince them to go ecchi, complete with deferential titles for their user (master, mistress, -sensai, -sama, etc.). That's what obsession would like... not just a few cherry-picked search results.

well duh

[TimMD909]

Having a male voice would support the patriarchy. It would show that women's voices should be silenced in technology. We can't have that.

Do they even have a gender?

[green1]

I know Google Now doesn't have it's own gender. I have my choice of both male and female voices, and it doesn't have a "persona" that indicates either way. In fact when I chose UK English for Google Now a couple of days ago, it defaulted to a male voice.

Even if they had chosen a female default, that's just plain good science. In many surveys of both genders, it has been found that the majority of both males, and females, feel more comfortable talking to a female sounding computer than a male sounding one. That's not because the tech firm is "obsessed with female digital servants", it's because the population at large prefers it, and they are catering to their customers.

This is another attempt to look for, and stir up, controversy where none exists.

Stupid fucking article

[JohnStock]

Sorry for the very low brow, low intelligence remark, but "fucking stupid article" perfectly fits on this occasion.

Oh slashdot, you guys never change

[samoanbiscuit]

Article: There is sexism in the tech industry

Reaction: SJW! SHILLS! LET ME REFUTE THIS WITH MY STEM LOGIC!

Article: There is racism in the tech industry

Reaction: SJW! SHILLS! LET ME REFUTE THIS WITH MY STEM LOGIC!

Article: There is ageism in the tech industry

Reaction: All the low UIDs suddenly start talking about how this is absolutely true, and how they couldn't get into Google or whatever because their recruiter thought they were too old. This one, this is the prejudice that truly exists in the tech industry, and they know because they've experienced it.

If only all that formal logic training taught self awareness.

Get Arnold

[ebvwfbw]

I think the I-phone voice should be replace by Arnold, with the Terminator type voice.

Why a bunch of I-phone users would pee their pants right away. Heh.