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Silicon Valley VCs and the Gender Gap
fysdt writes with this excerpt from TechCrunch:
"An analysis of Dunn and Bradstreet data shows that of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms — minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco — you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms — male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
I'm a man, I don't have venture capital, so I don't care. If women want more venture capital, its not my issue.
This is my sig.
Time for another insightful discussion on the gender gap in tech. There will be no flames, no attacks, and no blaming. Just quiet, reflective discussion.
SSC
nothing's holding anyone back. if women want to be in a field (other than Infantry or SOF) then they can.
maybe we should make some laws to bring up the numbers, eh comrade?
THL phish sticks
...that if women aren't highly represented in these endeavors, it might be a sign that women just aren't interested in the same damn things that men are?!
Sheesh!
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
I've sometimes wondered about levels of testosterone and their link with "the desire to lead".
Women and men are certainly mentally as capable as each other, but I wonder if there's a chemically induced motivation difference.
>"of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms were founded by women."
Yes, we have discovered a massive conspiracy by society to prevent women from founding new companies. New evidence shows States refuse to give business licenses to women, especially if it is apparent it will be a high-tech company. News at 11....
So there are few women in technology. Sad. There are few men in primary or secondary education, nursing, or child care. Do we care?
If you believe that sociopaths are more likely to become effective CEOs, as has been claimed, then given that antisocial personality disorder is about 3 times more common among men than women, this is pretty much exactly what you'd expect.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Film at 11.
..don't panic
management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman.
Well, it is Apple ... there's no *women*, but ...
More seriously, it's interesting, but has little bearing on anything. Anyone done any studies on the lack (or excess) of LGBT in tech or venture capital?
Okay, I guess I should get in here before it gets really bad. I'm a PhD student who studies entrepreneurship, so I've read a bit on the topic of gender discrimination and difference in entrepreneurship. In fact, I'm writing this instead of working on the lit review of my research proposal. There is plenty of evidence that women are discriminated when they look for loans or investments. A good read is Blake 2006 "Gendered Lending: Gender, Context and the Rules of Business Lending" in Venture Capital 8(2) pp. 183-201. Basisiaclly, there are pretty large, statistically signifigant, differences in loan approval rates between men and women, after controling for a host of factors like education, business plan, experience ect. Plenty of women applying for loans for high-tech businesses were told by the banker to instead start more traditionally women-oriented businesses like salons or clothes stores. On the venture capital side, access to venture capital is heavily dependent on social networks, if most venture capialists are men, then women will have a harder time getting into these networks. The old boys network still does exist, and it's hard to break in to.
But why does this matter? The fact is that entrepreneurship is the only way that the American economy is going to grow. This is the best feature of our economy. So sure, I agree that women might not be equally as interested in entering the technical fields as men (though I'd say this is due in large part to implicit and explicit discrimination rather than anything biological). But we need all the entrepreneurs we can get. If women, who as you recall make up half the population, can't get a fair shake at starting high-tech firms poised for fast growth and export-base sales. we're doing the economy a disservice.
Sleep is for the weak!
This affirms that confirmative action needs more time to... panic!
If 3% of "tech firms" and 1% of "high-tech firms" were founded by women, and yet 19% are primarily owned by women, that seems to suggest that women position themselves very well in terms of getting to the top of these companies.
In terms of founding firms, if one gender wants to found more firms --- then maybe they should just found more firms? I don't see how anything but the most abstruse and heavy-handed affirmative action is going to change that. ("Oh, you want a business license? But you're a male and we've already completed our quota of patri-licenses! Try again next decade.")
Maybe male-dominance of firms can be explained by three facts: (1) founding a firm is one of the more risky ways to try to secure wealth for oneself; (2) tendency to take greater risks is positively associated with testosterone levels (link and link); and (3) males have higher testosterone levels than women.
Sure, there is much more that needs to be done in the realm of women's rights. But that men tend to want to found firms and women do not, is not really high up on the list. Let's try making sure women do not get assaulted as much as they do. This will probably increase their mental well-being and self-confidence such that they will be even more able to succeed in things like finance and high-tech as well!
The percentages near the end are somewhat misleading. If there are only 19% of mainly women-owned businesses, who receive VC, they only get about half of that what men do. But I think especially the high-tech industry is the one getting all the VC, and there the percentage is, according to TFA, 1-3%. So women would, if one assumed that most VC went into this industry, get more than men.
So, all in all, these numbers are, at best, misleading.
Silicon Valley is a meritocracy. People who get put in positions that they don't deserve, just because of their skin color or their gender might hold the title, but won't hold the respect or the credibility.
I know plenty of females that are competent in terms of technology. But the ones who are in leadership positions right now started out in tech 20+ years ago. They were the first wave. Now, we have more females in the general ranks, and they will filter their way up. But it takes time.
Force-feeding gender equality in a meritocracy won't work. They have to earn it just like everyone else. And when they do, no one will blink an eye or care, because everyone will think they deserve it.
You're right, there aren't enough male nurses. Gender discrimination goes both ways. We need a lot more nurses in this country, and one way to reach that is to get over this stupid idea that it's emasculating to be a male nurse.
But, I'd also point out that a hell of a lot of nurses work 60+ hours a week in a much higher stress work place than a coder at a startup does.
Sleep is for the weak!
Guess we'd better force women at gunpoint to enter careers they wouldn't voluntarily choose to enter. After all, it's for their own good. And it makes the weak spined males feel better about themselves. Cuz that's what this is all about, isn't it?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I don't think its just the idea that it's emasculating to be a male nurse but also the legal liability. Remember, every man is a rapist and pedophile and women and children *never* lie.
How is this important? Go make me a sandwich.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What can lead to a difference in motivation? Hint: hormones isn't the only answer. Gender-biased parenting and social norms can also be at play. Discrimination leads to a change in motivation which in turn leads to and justifies more discrimination.
Aside from the veritable goldmine of easily disputed points you afforded me (and the complete lack of behavioral science references that your post begs for that matter), you do represent an popular and therefore essential viewpoint in this discussion.
You and I will have to agree to disagree and instead I'll address the people reading this thread: this person is who you and your children have to deal with. They're not always men and sometimes they're as innocuous as writers for sitcoms and television showing that women should play the subservient role in any relationship or else it will fall apart. Your wife might make more than you, deal with it.
If you have a daughter, she's going to interface with daughters of the above attitude and it's going to be very trying for your child not to strive to make the cheer leading squad. I'ts going to be hard if she wants to sit at a computer and code up her ideas with her peers expressing this gold standard of high school politics. It's going to be hard like it was hard for me to shirk off sports and instead embrace music and computers. My friends were few but they're still my friends and, hey, we're all lucratively employed. I don't know about the football team and frankly could care less. Sports are great and staying in shape is crucial to your health and well being but the second you step off that field the real parts that matter in your life begin. In the classroom. You're entertainment when you're on the field. It might get you laid in high school but it won't get you employed later in life.
Teach your children to poke holes through arguments that rely on name calling like "gayboys" and try to enforce alpha male hierarchy. These are values and ideals that are, in my humble opinion, vital to success and acceptance. It's your choice to instill them firmly in your children.
My work here is dung.
I'm trying to come up with something witty to say, but the only woman CEO that comes to mind is Carli Fiorina. That worked out well for HP...
No man is an island. These stereotypes exist whether I like it or not. I have an 18 month old son we are about to have a daughter.
I'm not about to teach my son to play with girl oriented toys like dolls etc. or dress him in dresses. Regardless of what I believe, he would be the one to suffer if I did. He would be teased. He would be ostracised. He would be beaten up. I'm not going to change society as a whole just by making my own house rules that do not fit in. Me and mine would just be labelled weird.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Women do compete between themselves more than men do. Men are able to organize large and hierarchical structures (e.g. military, church etc) while women usually prefer horizontal relations exactly because they are less willing to subordinate.
Women are just not that keen on taking risks, they prefer long-term stability - that is probably why they are not numerous in risky businesses like being a VC. And I do agree, that's natural: males are nature's way to experiment while female's role is to pick the most successful one among them and reproduce his genes. Somehow it is akin to VC's role in business, though.
Coding etudes
Gender isn't important if there are enough people in the sector or occupation. Well, I mean, I would still be concerned if there's discrimination that favors or disfavors one gender over another, but it's not a critical issue.
It becomes an issue when there aren't enough people in it, and you need to get more. If there aren't enough women who want to become nurses, what's easier, trying to convince more women, who are essentially all tapped out, or try to encourage more men to join up?
It's the same thing with entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers. We need all of them. There are plenty of smart, talented and qualified women who don't enter because of both overt discrimination and more subtle forms of discouragement such as it being harder to get VC or bank investments.
And as for the studies: to quote XKCD, correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does wiggle it's eyes suggestively while gesturing towards causation. In the social sciences, statistical data provides the what, but theory and qualitative evidence (actually talking to people) provides us the how and why. It's hard, but when you look at dozens and dozens of studies, you start to see patterns emerge.
Sleep is for the weak!
Most comments seem to be from the outside looking in, looking from the big picture to the small.
Try a different strategy. Look at the small picture and imagine it replicated a zillion times.
So, the wife and I serve the evil empire at our corporate jobs. Due to gender quotas, etc, she's pretty much untouchable at a big enough corporation in her technical field. The only way it could be better for my wife, is if she were a minority. Me, I'm just another off the shelf white male tech dude. Which of us should stay in the corporate world to haul down some cash and (more importantly) health insurance? The replaceable cog in the machine man, or the quota'd fire-proof woman? Obviously the least risky solution is she keeps her day job, he forms the new company.
Multiply by roughly 10000x and you get the reported numbers. No great surprise, really.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Maybe harder for women to get private funding, but much easier getting government loans, either small biz or schooling, etc.
Besides, VC stuff isn't that great, you are beholden to people who just want a huge return back, and swiftly. They won't ever care about the tech or doing a good job or being in it for the long haul.
You'd think this would be learned by now. Want a company, or to start your own business, expand on some ideas? That's fine! But you don't have to go this VC route either. Do what it takes to stay private and self funded some how. If this means you stay small for a long time..at least you are still working and don't have to put up with PHBs, dumb VC investors, dumber generic stockholders, etc.
Small does not necessarily translate into bad, and giant doesn't necessarily translate into good either, despite what those pirates believe and are taught in the biz schools.
There's more to life than some nebulous goal of being a big biz tycoon. We already have quite enough of those globalist turkeys running around, we don't need any more of them..we need less of them.
And this "bigger is always better" corporate mindset is wrecking the economy as a whole, not making it better. All these huge companies are just eating the middle class up and spitting them out, leaving them stuck with huge debts, personal and governmental, and shifting the wealth of the nation into fewer and fewer hands, where they don't care after that point, they'll go elsewhere with that stripped wealth and just let everyone else rot.
It's a vicious circle where they have to kowtow to the wall street pirates to achieve "growth" in their business, which has de evolved into just building up, acquiring with takeovers, stripping assets to achieve this growth, selling off the good stuff cheap and fast, shuffling off the jobs as fast as possible, another way they get short term profits, then bailing once your company and your idea has been destroyed with their golden parachutes they vote themselves to take. Lather, rinse, repeat, with co-opting our government in the meantime, to let them keep getting away with that.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19658
That's what you want, to be part of that system?
So..stay away from those guys. Do it yourself, stay small and integrated, have a better life, less hassles and headaches and bogusness, don't be part of that corrupt and morally bankrupt system if you can avoid it.
You should care because the only way to make this work...
What do you mean "make it work"? Perhaps it already is? As far as I can see the ONLY data backed evidence in the article is that more men than women get VC dollars and that the women are equally, if not better, qualified. This is NOT evidence of sexism and could be easily due to the fact that women may find the high pressure and huge work load of starting up a company less appealing than men. This could even be viewed as a sign of superior intelligence!
All I'm saying is that perhaps, for the most part, stereotypes have been greatly relaxed (although there are still some throw-backs out there) and what we are seeing is the result of those relaxed stereotypes. We do know that there are differences between the genders so it should not be surprising that this results in differing levels of interest for different types of job. What we have to care about is ensuring equal opportunity for all and not worrying about differing take-up. While the article does conjecture about that there is no evidence to support those conjectures.
I wish I had mod points for you. Well said!
they survive longer due to their husbands working their fannies into an early grave.
+1 Funny. In Britain 'fanny' means 'pussy', not arse as it does in america, and as such this sentence reads very differently :O)
Carol Bartz. CEO of Autodesk, where she did well, then Yahoo, where she inherited a mess and isn't doing too well so far.
I do some "Angel" investing on occasion (I'm not at VC stage yet), meaning that I invest some of my money in promising startups. As much as it may seem that "the kids" have all the tech-saavy and good ideas, I look for startups that are lead by people with fairly extensive experience in both "tech" and business. That means that I'd be hard pressed to put my hard-earned money into a new company that's being run by a 25-year-old who is probably right out of college and has never run a business before. Now, I know that many of the great companies were started by kids with no business experience and I'm probably missing out on a good thing here. However, when I am presented with two competing proposals of otherwise equal potential where the difference is that one company is lead by a kid with no "real-world" experience and the other is lead by someone who's been in the field for 10-20 years, has run other businesses (even failed ones), I'll probably go for the experience - if all other factors are equal. In fact, I believe the youngest person I've ever funded was around 33 at the time.
So, how does this fit in with the gender issue? I've been in the IT field since 1984 and I can tell you that girls were almost entirely absent from my field. What this means in terms of total experience today is that those in the high-tech field with the most experience tend to be predominately men. It would also follow that those with enough experience in their field who are seriously ready to both run a business that requires funding at the VC-level (i.e. millions of dollars) and have enough of a portfolio and background to attract VC would tend to be predominately men. Think about the ages of people running *most* large, successful companies; they tend to be in their 50's or older. Look back at how many women were in the workforce, getting management and "technical" experience in the 70's and 80's. Keeping in mind that during that time women really didn't have the same opportunities as men in the workplace and they tended toward more "traditional" positions - thus further reducing their potential experience in roles that would lead to high-level executive positions.
Is this *fair* to women? Not really. They've always had to fight harder to be accepted into non-traditional roles in business. Is it *fair* to men for women to get moved into positions of authority simply because there aren't enough women in positions of authority? No. However, as someone who puts my money out there on the line, I'm looking for the best chance of a return that I can find. I don't care about the race, creed, color or gender of who's leading the company. I care about their chances of leading the company to success and my getting a return on my investment. Generally that will tend to lean toward those with experience, and in the technical fields that *tends* to be populated with males.
Now, I'm always on the lookout for the exceptions...
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
There is plenty of evidence that women are discriminated when they look for loans or investments. A good read is Blake 2006 "Gendered Lending: Gender, Context and the Rules of Business Lending" in Venture Capital 8(2) pp. 183-201. Basisiaclly, there are pretty large, statistically signifigant, differences in loan approval rates between men and women, after controling for a host of factors like education, business plan, experience ect.
I have looked up that study and I must say that I find the statements here a bit misleading. The abstract says it is "a case study involving interview data from loan officers in Worcester, Massachusetts in the US". While a case study can be interesting for other reasons, statistically speaking it's on the level of anecdotal evidence. Furthermore this study "[looks] through the lens of geography" (presumably because the author works for a Department of Geography). Hard to extrapolate from such a tiny sample of VC lending in the USA, isn't it?
So you say that there is "plenty of evidence that women are discriminated" and "statistically significant differences", and in the same breath you mention a study that doesn't support what you just said because it's not statistically significant. If there is plenty of evidence why not pick a study that supports your rather strong statement?
Homeless men greatly outnumber homeless women.
Or how about fixing the died-on-the-job-gap, too?
Men die more often on the job.
Focusing on those few men that have been wildly successful is silly when so many other men are used and thrown away.
Bottom line is, you have no sense of respect for ages old cultural values, and you want to experiment. You don't like anything about the "status quo", and you think a different status would be better. All of this, despite the fact that you have NO EVIDENCE to support your new status.
What do you envision, precisely? That the population is divided evenly, with 50% males, and 50% females, and both sexes equally represented in ALL professions, hobbies, avocations?
While you are engaged in your social engineering, what exactly are you going to do about other genetic characteristics? You're going to mandate that x% of our representative government consists of genetically disabled people? Including morons (not a socially acceptable term, but accurate) psychos, and idiot savants? How about midgets? How about people like me, who are color blind? Is the world ready for a hemophiliac as president?
We simply cannot all be alike. More, I don't WANT to be like everyone else. I certainly don't want to be like you - anymore than you want to be like me!
How about a little bit of "Live and let live"?
If Suzie WANTS to play with her Raggedy Ann, or Barbie, why SHOULDN'T she? Boys are allowed to play with dolls - they just usually choose G.I Joe.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
raising half a dozen children and later helping out with the grandchildren? On average, raising those children will have a bigger impact on society than spending her reproductive years on a career.
If you wanted to cripple Western Civilization you could convince most of the smart women that they had to have careers, weigh down the middle class with taxes to curtail family size there, and give welfare to everyone else. Many people will beat the odds and more than a few trust fund brats will disappoint, but overall wouldn't this explain a lot? This bias against reproduction has created a very nasty negative feedback loop I think.
Unless you buy into the notion that humans are arbitrarily exempt from the rules of evolution of course.
I'm just saying that interfering less with personal decisions might lead to better outcomes. Enough with the reeducation programs.
Mmmmm. You *might have* phrased your second sentence differently. I got kind of hung up on "prefer horizontal relations". It took a small effort to understand what your point was. ;^)
But, your point is valid. I seldom take much notice of the competition between women, but, yes, it is there. And, you're right - it is the risk taking that separates the genders, more than any level of competition.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Venture capitalists are risktakers. Tech top execs are risktakers. Overall execs are risktakers. Taking risks tends to send people to the extremes of their groups, bigger winners or bigger losers. Men tend to be at the top of professions, but also at the bottom, and in the lowest jobs, and without income at all. Men are much more likely to be injured by their jobs, to have risky jobs, and live shorter lives.
Women tend to take fewer and less extreme risks, and tend to be in the middle of achievement, but more reliably achieve minimum standards of living.
Biologically men are more expendable. Aggression gets more rewards, but it also takes more damage. The limiting factor on human population growth is the number of women, while even one man can produce an entire generation among all the women.
There are social conventions held over from less developed societies that work to hold women back. And the bias towards training men to take risks and be expendable is an unfair gender bias now that the biological value isn't what determines social value.
So long as risktaking is so different between men and women, rewardtaking is going to be similarly different. We could get closer to our inherent value regardless of gender's arbitrary constraints if we stopped ignoring the gender behavior that we are free to change, but don't, that affects success. And if we stopped ignoring the costs to either gender that come with either the achievement or the risktaking that underlies it.
--
make install -not war
There is something to what he is saying here though. It is an undisputed fact that men have more testosterone in their bodies than women. It is also known that testosterone affects aggression. It is not known whether or not this really has much to do with the gender gap in high power jobs. However, I think it's reasonable to make the assumption that it probably plays a big influence. I'm not a high roller yet, so I don't really know if there is anything to the idea that women have to be twice as productive as men to be seen as equally productive. I'm inclined to call bullshit on that. I'm sure there are men out there who are that way, but I have no reason to believe it is a majority. All I know is that my success to this point has been mostly due to my urge to claw my way up and to keep climbing even when my fingers are cracked and bleeding.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
I think you got the saying the other way around. It should be "men-soldiers are capable of anything, shy of conceiving babies."
I once had a signature.
While you are engaged in your social engineering, what exactly are you going to do about other genetic characteristics? You're going to mandate that x% of our representative government consists of genetically disabled people? Including morons (not a socially acceptable term, but accurate) psychos, and idiot savants? How about midgets? How about people like me, who are color blind? Is the world ready for a hemophiliac as president?
This is called a straw man logical fallacy. You offered up a bunch of easily struck down arguments in order to win an argument against me. What do any of these things have to do with the sexes? You still haven't given me any scientific references on sexual genders determining "genetic inferiority" in either behavior or physiological differences. Your argument is painfully flawed although you're doing the best you can with such a shaky foundation.
Honestly I'm not surprised you resorted to this but I hope your children take the time to learn more about how to correctly debate or discuss issues if you don't take the time to teach them these skills.
Sorry to talk down to you but your methods are well known and exploited all the time.
My work here is dung.
I'm doing my best but sometimes my English is confusing :> Glad that my point was understood :)
Coding etudes
Oh, don't fear "talking down" to me. Just try talking sense.
As I stated - society has worked reasonably well for millenia, with the males out taking risks, and women generally occupying their CHOSEN niches, in relative safety.
A relatively small percentage of today's population is unhappy with this arrangement, and they work hard to change society.
Do you have the least shred of evidence that society will be stronger, or that either males or females will be happier if you succeed?
Are today's women who work for a living really HAPPIER than their grandmothers who stayed at home, and tended the hearth?
I suspect that with a name like "eldavajohn" you are no more qualified to answer that question than I am. Maybe some of the ladies would like to chime in? If so - feel free!
My position is, activists are much to ready to change society, with no clue as to what unforeseen results we might see.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Oh I agree with you. It's an intractable problem. There's a poster down below who says that as an angel investor, he finds it hard to invest in women-run firms because they don't often have prior business experience. They don't have prior business experience because women have only entered technical fields in great numbers later than men.
The VCs aren't discriminating because they hate women. They are making decisions that are entirely rational based on their point of view. They meet less women entrepreneurs because their networks contain fewer women. The women that do pitch ideas to them will, on average, have less business experience than an average male entrepreneur. I can't blame the VC for not investing. It really is a social issue that doesn't have an easy solution. But bring up the issue a lot so that people are aware that there is discrimination is an important first step.
Sleep is for the weak!
So, Dunn & Bradstreet reports that 19% of all companies in all industries are run by women.
And then it tells us 3% of tech firms were founded by women.
And then it tells us that 1% of high-tech firms "as in Silicon Valley" were founded by women.
Finally, it tells us that 9% of Venture Capital investments go to women-led companies (in some nebulous undefined "historical" time period) and for 2007 the figure is 3%.
Let's see here ... 1% women led companies in Silicon Valley. 3% of VC funding.
1%. Hmmm.
3%. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Sounds like the article, which purports to concentrate on technology firms, seems to suggest the women-led companies in Silicon Valley have no trouble whatsoever getting funding, and lots of it.
And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms -- minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco -- you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple -- not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms -- male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
At the moment, there is heavy social pressure to conform to the ideal, and deviations are often treated as horrible aberrations rather than honest differences. I think it is a good parent's job to try and discern whether their daughters really want to play with Barbies or are being made to want it, and whether their sons really want to play with their GI Joes. What is essential is not any proportion for equality, but the effort to level the playing field and let everyone succeed on their talents and abilities. To use everyone's abilities and give everyone the opportunities to be what they want to be. It is reasonable to assume that if there are very few women engineers, there is some sort of societal or biological factor. The fact that in other countries (a friend of mine tells me it is the case in China) that women are seen as better suited for engineering, or that in times of need (such as World War II) many women stepped up and acted as capably as men, that this entire thing is a social imposition and not a true desire of the people, and that people are being restricted in their desires because of the configuration of their genitalia. The reason why live and let live doesn't work is because the forces that push people to conform are not abiding by it. Everyone is unique, and that should be cherished. Girls who want to play with barbie should. Girls that don't should not be pressured to.
You're cool - my hang up on that phrase was my hang up, really. I completely overlooked your name - and I forgot for a moment that we aren't all Americans speaking the same dialect of English as our mother tongues. Had I bothered to absorb the name "Dmitry" I would have been reminded of that fact. :)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It's going to be hard like it was hard for me to shirk off sports
Dude, if you keep shirking off, you'll go blind.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Alright, you bring more good points into the discussion. Yes, there is pressure to conform. And since sports have already been mentioned, I'll talk about my "sporting" career.
I was a natural born runner. I could run all day long, as long as I could choose my own pace. I could run extremely fast, for short distances. In short - I could beat the majority of our high school champion runners in most events. When the coaching staff discovered that I could run, they wanted me badly. I experience some of that pressure. But, I decided after one year that I didn't WANT to compete in track and field. Just walked away from it.
Likewise with gymnastics. I was good, and the coaches wanted me.
I sucked at football, baseball, basketball, but I was a great runner, and a pretty decent gymnast.
I said "No." I just didn't fit into the jock crowd, even peripherally.
So - why is it harder for a girl to just say "No" to society's expectations? Is there any chance that she really is hardwired to do what is expected of her? Maybe the studies don't give enough weight to genetics?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
;) Thanks. You're cool, too.
Coding etudes
You haven't been paying too much attention, then. Groups of women "cooperate" the same way groups of men do -- a leader is found, and then those remaining follow the leader or drop out. The way they choose the leader, and the ways those discontented with the chosen leader act, are different than with men. But they're certainly competitive with each other.
firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women.
Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007
Let's play a little game I like to play called "math is fun". in 2004 19% of firms were founded by women. This 19% says nothing about % of market but for fun let's say it's exactly 19% (a generous assumption). In 2007 women received less than 9% of venture capital. Let's say that 2007 was identical to 2004 and 19% of new market was from women. That means that you get 9% VC / 19% market for women and 91% VC / 71% market for men. This might not be good but it's certainly not as bad as the summary paints it to be.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Your posts remind me of those old white guys arguing that women shouldn't be giving the right to vote because it would lead to anarchy.
Perhaps there is more pressure on women to conform? Generally in western society that has proven to be the case. It seems like, in general, men have more pressure to excel, but get more latitude in what they excel at. Women are forced more into a mould.
How so, exactly? You will note that I do NOT advocate that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, and kept out of any field of work. I am arguing against some vapid revolutionary concept that the world should be forced to push women into a field that many women find uninteresting.
Go ahead - read all those previous posts again. The basic premise is, there are few women who own or manage a particular type of company. There are few women in senior positions in the field. Hence, something is wrong with society, and we should mandate changes.
I say, "Why?" Are there large numbers of women who WANT into these positions and fields? Are women intentionally being shut out?
Let's see some evidence. I don't mean anecdotes by one or six activists, some or all of whom may simply be incompetent. Let's see some statistics regarding the women who have struggled and worked to get into the field, and were unfairly shot down by callus fools who are members of the Good Old Boys club.
I also argue against government quotas and subsidies aimed at fixing what I see as a nonexistent problem. You want quotas and/or subsidies? Prove that there is a problem. Show me that women are being discriminated against, and you'll get my vote.
Meanwhile - how many ethnic Persians own corporations in Silicon Valley? How many ethnic Kurds? How many Jews? Should we mandate that every group in the world who might conceivably claim some sort of prejudice be subsidized, as well?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Girls are fine at that age, it is when they start dating that their IQ drops to room temperature. But I got a cunning plan: I just forbid my daughter to date! That will work right? I mean teengirls do listen to their father right? Right???
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Top 10 cosmetics firms:
1) Maybelline -- founded by a man, who stole his sister Maybel's idea.
2) Avon -- founded by a man.
3) L'Oreal -- founded by a man.
4) Lancome -- founded by a man.
5) Clinique -- founded by a woman.
6) Revlon -- founded by a man.
7) Estee Lauder -- founded by a woman (yes, Mrs. Estee Lauder)
8) Max Factor -- founded by a man. (Max Factor himself)
9) Cover Girl -- a spin off of a large corporation (Noxell Chemical)
10) Shiseido -- Founded by a man
So, leaving Cover Girl out of it, only 22% of major cosmetics firms were founded by women. Hmm, maybe we should be investigating that industry too.
I mean that is like saying because the only female leader of britain turned out to be Margaret "Mad Cow" Tatcher... wait a minute... you might be on to something.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unless you got some example were men are being stopped from becoming nurses, you are blowing smoke.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They're not always men and sometimes they're as innocuous as writers for sitcoms and television showing that women should play the subservient role in any relationship or else it will fall apart.
Sitcoms almost always portray the father/husband/man figure as a bumbling idiot that is coerced into unwittingly doing his wife's/partners/childrens' wishes.
That's all I wanted to say.
Whenever the subject of woman not being represented in a chose profession or field comes up, I can't help but notice something interesting.
The professions are programmer, CEO, the financial field, doctor, or some other high paying white-collar job. I'm pretty sure that women are underrepresented in coal mines, off shore oil rigs, Alaskan crab boats, and the like. All of those jobs are also high paying, but they're just not...ya know...glamorous or easy to do while still have long fingernails.
What a crock.
I would say there are two things that should be noted:
1. Saying 'no' to direct pressure/requests from another human is quite easy. What is much harder to resist are the pervasive 'background' pressures, because they mostly pass beneath our notice unless we're actively looking for them. Media, TV, toys, clothes, parents, friends, teachers all contribute to low-level stereotype reinforcement. Read any book or magazine aimed at girls and there are common themes in the subtext that are often highly damaging. I don't suggest you read it, but you can google for criticism of 'Twilight' to see the sort of thing I'm talking about.
2. The subtle stereotyping doesn't only affect women. There are a whole bunch of them aimed at men, subconsciously seeping into your brain as you grow up. Expectations of how men should behave, what things they should like, what jobs are appropriate for them etc. The difference is that women, through being oppressed for so long, have had the issue brought to light in a big way, and have had the motivation to want to change this. Perhaps in a few decades we will see a large-scale backlash against stereotyping of men.
I'm a female programmer, and I've always been strongly interested in 'masculine' things, but I had the benefit of supportive parents and a lack of trash media. I've seen plenty of my peers from school who were perfectly bright and interested in learning at a young age, yet headed straight to bimbo-ville as they reached their teens. If there is a genetic predisposition towards or against certain fields (in either gender), IMO it is certainly a less significant effect than social conditioning.
Before starting I'll violate the internet and give some personal backstory to show some perspective. I'm a man in a software development company. Our company is probably in the minority here, because we've got pretty close to 50% male / female ratio for developers / testers / DBA's / middle-managers. I'd say that probably only the upper level managers are almost entirely male. I've seen and worked in other companies where frankly a woman working in the company was a conversation point based on its rarity! Different companies foster different opinions which are rooted from their founders or powerful leaders there-after. Now that I've described my context, I can hopefully lay out what views are in this particular issue.
We see these types of studies and posts on Slashdot come and go every half a year, and it basically comes down to the same old crap. You have the groups:
1. I don't give a crap about women. If they had the balls to get ahead they would
2. I don't give a crap about the stat. Women aren't programmed to being in 'said role' so all is well in the world
3. I think this stat is really serious because it means that women are being discriminated against
4. I think this stat is really serious and we should change they way we raise our children, or the way our neighbors raise their children
Firstly, I'd like to ask this: There are women in the fields described in the review and they find a way to do their jobs day in and day out. If I had a fist full of grant money for a research project about this topic, I'd do a study on the lives of female executives, their world, and the challenges they face day in and out both professionally and personally. How can line item statistics grasp the truth of something so ? Why not:
Do high level executives face ongoing male ridicule?
Do female executives need to choose either reproduction or promotion?
Do women who leave 'said field' (either as executives or not quite there yet) because they felt pushed out, stressed out, underachieving, overachieving, not worth it, or did they just not want to pursue that type of life?
Speaking of 'that type of life', As a man speaking here, I want to live a long happy and content life where I hope money would not factor into any unhappiness. I think so far I'm doing a good job of that. I haven't had money supply worries since university, and I've been spending well below my means for around 5 years (even before investments, retirement savings, etc..). I'm not going to push myself into more pain to aspire to the greatest position in a company because of all the agony of in-fighting, politics, sucking up, and usually losing a few points of IQ just to make more money and/or to have power over people. If my managers promote me for my merit, then at least I know that I deserved it. I know the adage, you are never totally free in a company until you're on top, but I say what does it take to achieve that freedom, and who do you become from it?
Another little store about top executives since we're on topic. I knew the CFO of >100million company and was always constantly astounded to find at just how greedy his share holders were for money. These are people what could probably buy a small countries and live like kings, or have their families live hundreds of years without working a day of their lives in contentment.. They will always want more. I really can't say why because I'm just not that type of person. I think everyone should want to do good for their family and themselves, but at some point the acquisition of wealth becomes 'the' purpose of these peoples lives, and that just makes me feel sorry for them.
Bye!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_nursing
http://www.cno.org/prac/yau/2005/06_male_nurses.htm
Answer: They are discriminated against, but they still seem to get promoted better than their female counterparts.
PS troll: Its not about wanting to become a kindergarten teacher, or race car driver, or CEO, or nurse. Its that once you've chosen your aspired to career path you are not being discriminated against for who you are.
Bye!
Minorities will always face discrimination. Your argument that women are "naturally" minorities in some fields may be true, but it also supports the negative feedback loop that discourages talented women from entering such fields because they will feel out place. And while it's true that there are lots of minorities and lots of ways to be discriminated against, that doesn't meant that it's not a problem. Reverse-discrimination does seem like a very poor solution, however.
I never understood this "all jobs should have the same makeup as the population" bullshit. I mean I'm a 5 foot 9 white guy that can't dunk to save his life, should we have a fit until the NBA has x% of short white guys who can't dunk? this crap is frankly getting ridiculous. Women excel at certain skills, languages, negotiations, hell cops. I have found women cops are MUCH more likely to be able to talk down a situation without having to resort to force, whereas the guy cops have to act macho and stir up the shit.
So while I am all for it if a woman wants to try a non traditionally female job, why should EVERY job need x% of women? What if they don't want to do that job, or don't like it? The girls I went to school with hated math and loved literature, should we take away their library cards and force them to do calculus? there is a difference between equal opportunity and "man holes should be person holes" level of PC bullshit, and I'm smelling the PC on this article.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
No.
But I would consider as evidence the fact that Humans are still around and that there are now over 6 billion of us.
That's my point. They don't truly want an equal representation in the workforce. They want an "equal" representation in the fields that they choose.
Which, in case you're not paying attention, is not the same thing or quite as noble as the advocacy groups would have you believe.
I call bogus bullshit. First, for substituting "blacks" for "gayboys". "Gay is not the new black" is the title of an excellent article by a black who is also gay. Google it, and read it. Or not, as you wish. But don't substitute "black" for "gay" if you wish to be taken even half seriously.
As for substituting "black" for "female" - that is far less offensive, but still off target. You see - both women and blacks had very important roles in building this nation. Both groups have been honored less than they deserve, and both groups are now beginning to get some of the honor they deserve.
Your link is interesting, and it gives some credence to the idea that culture influences percentages more than genetics do. But, only some credence. As has already been noted somewhere in this discussion, right here in the US of A our mothers (in my case) and grandmothers (in the cases of most slashdot readers) stepped up and took over all the jobs that were left behind when all the men went off to war in 1942. They proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they COULD do the same jobs as men, and in a lot of cases, did those jobs more efficiently.
Yet - when the men came home, the girls (my mother, I'm talking about here) got all googly eyed and silly, they quit their jobs, and were more than happy to play house for their newly captured men.
Was that PURELY CULTURAL, or were there underlying genetic reasons for that?
I suggest that those figures you link to reflect a lot more than just cultural differences. I suggest that they also reflect decisions made out of necessity, and that not ALL those women necessarily WANT to be in their positions.
In short, the people arguing so hard against my views see or imagine cultural pressures that they don't like, so they want to create new cultural pressures that will force women to do things differently. And, meanwhile, the guys are supposed to sit down, shut up, and just accept what's going on.
Since I mentioned my own Mama - I'll add that she would be very much offended if she were told that she did things just because people "expected" them of her. She is a very independent woman, who, among other things, raised a daughter to be just as independent. Big sister is a retired state police officer. Funny thing about Sis, though. She worked hard to become a cop, and she drove a patrol car for several years, and did all the nasty work that ANY cop has to do. But, her goal from day one was to get into an office job. NOT a management position, mind you. She NEVER had any interest in becoming a lieutenant, or a captain, and certainly NOT a colonel. Her goal was to get an office job within the state police, and she got it after - uhhhmm - I think it was 8 years on patrol.
Me? I *could* have been a cop. But, you couldn't have FORCED me into an office!
Culture, or genetics?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You chide others for failing to cite references, but you don't support your position with any references either. Remember, /. is not a peer reviewed journal, sometimes common sense can be used without citations.
I don't think it takes cites for observant and knowledgeable individuals to realize that in many "advanced" species there are substantial and obvious sex differences, both physical (even beyond simply reproductive organs) and behavioral. (Any more than one needs cites to suspect that an unprotected human will be severely affected by swimming in molten iron for an hour.)
For example, surely one would accept that substantial sex differences (both physical and behavioral) exist between male and female elephants? Or, for that matter, male and female elephant seals? Surely one doesn't believe that these, in some cases dramatic, differences are the result of some "old elephant [seal] good old boy network" that has been in place for perhaps millions of years and a bit of retraining could cause males and females of these species to become relatively indistinguishable in behavior in a few generations?
Similarly, no reasonable person would believe that there aren't physical differences between "typical" male and female humans. Even if one ignores reproductive organs, it's just a fact that men are physically bigger and stronger than women. Even an organ that seems likely to have a significant impact on behavior and personality, the human brain, seems not to have escaped sex differences between human males and females .
None of this is to say that, by nature, women wouldn't make better or worse CEOs than men -- I have no idea, but I suspect it depends on the field and the environment. But to assume that sex differences don't play a role and only societal (nurture) differences do seems naive and reminiscent of those who argue that humans are somehow special and created "differently" than other mammals by some deity.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
did you ever go to highschool? there's no added stress involved with *not* trying out for the cheeleading squad. in fact, if any given girl is not already in that particular clique there is more stress involved in trying out than not. i've never understood the things people think are 'hard'. like ignoring sports. i did the same, focusing on sciencey things and guitar. you know why? i sucked at sports. still do, and i do realize this is a feedback loop, but the loop started with sucking at sports. can you imagine the crap i would have gotten if i had gone to try out for the football team? wontonly displaying my atheltic suckage openly? trust me, it was easier for you to choose the path you did than to try to fit in with the stereo types.
? You will note that I do NOT advocate that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant
Why not? I mean, what kind of a man are you?
Come on dude, the Romans are laughing at you.
This is my sig.
we don't need morons meddling in people's natures.
What if it's part of human nature to meddle in people's natures?
while female's role is to pick the most successful one among them and reproduce his genes
The female's role is to socially pair bond with the most successful male she can get to do so, and then reproduce with as many different higher-status males as she can get away with. Anything else is clearly evolutionarily sub-optimal, and believing it is nothing but sexist myopia.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
What I just love on these is that almost no women are posting. /. really doesn't have a large female audience. As for daughters, I have two, both over 10, neither codes, both do what the fuck they want.
I believe that from evolutionary standpoint women should seek not quantity but quality. That is, it makes less sense to raise children from different (and perhaps unsuccessful) males than invest their time in winning the most successful one and then reproduce with him.
And I also believe that the whole concept of forming stable couples is later development, because apes do not exhibit such behavior. The scheme you mention is valid for humans, but I think it is an adaptation of underlying primal behavior to constraints imposed by current civilization (I also wonder how does it look like for polygamic societies).
Coding etudes
You've lost sight of the argument. The position being argued is:
Women aren't as competitive as men are. It's a fact. Get over it. We don't need any more equal opportunity programs, we don't need morons meddling in people's natures.
(with the further implication that this lack of competitiveness is why women aren't VCs etc.).
First, if you say "It's a fact. Get over it." you HAVE to put up references even if it's not peer-reviewed. This isn't common sense, this is a meme that may or may not be true, but without some backing it's an unsupported meme.
Second, that right there was the positive statement. I don't see what you think should have been referenced by the dissent on this.
Third, your entire argument here is beside the point, because nobody (in this particular branch of this particular thread, anyway) was arguing that there are no differences between men and women. That's a straw man.
I absolutely agree with this. Women are much more competitive than men. unfortunately this means a male boss wont promote you because you're not one of the boys and a female boss wont promote you because she's competing with you.
"Don't ask me, i'm just a girl"
yet failed to even identify those "easily disputed" points, let alone cite any references to dispute them. Instead, eldavojohn seems to just hope we will take his/her statement as factual without any support.
For eldavojohn to then complain about Runaway1956 not citing references seems hypocritical to me. eldavojohn was certainly free to simply omit his factual claim that the points were easily disputed (with no evidence to that effect), and hypocrisy would have not been an issue.
My points about other species was simply to point out that people with common sense freely do accept (I think without a cite) that males and females of some, perhaps many, species do differ in the drive and willingness to take risks to be "top dog". Thus, I merely meant to express (apparently inelegantly) that someone who believed that humans were not that different from other "advanced" (by a parochial definition) species might, based on personal observation, think it is the case that male and female humans, on the average, have different innate competitive drives.
I agree that it would be ideal to have cites to support the assertion about humans. I must admit I took (perhaps incorrectly) Runaway1956's absolute statement of "fact" as a bit of intentional hyperbole as we all know ethics prevents us from running the controlled studies necessary to actually resolve this issue. Ethics boards are, for example, unlikely to approve a study which isolates newborns from direct human contact and raises several isolated communities of them under observation, perhaps for a few generations, to see if in the absence of cultural biases if the males are more/less competitive (by some pre approved criteria) than the females.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
There is sexual discrimination, but some of it is indirect. For example, a woman who takes maternity leave will lose that many months of seniority and experience when she comes back relative to those who worked through that time, and will lose even more if she comes back part time. Now, you could argue that men should take time off to raise their children, but that is a question for the families, and for the biologists and psychologists, and you can't blame a business for promoting the person with more experience.
Then there is the question of career choices. For example, where I am, university entrance is based on high school results (this is over-simplifying, but the subjects where this isn't true are >50% female anyway), and girls have been getting higher scores than boys for the last 10 years at least, so there is nothing stopping girls choosing made-dominated fields if they want to. Nonetheless, the physics department at my university was doing well with about 1/4 female students, with about the same in chem, slightly fewer in Mech eng, and chem eng, even fewer in EE and still fewer in CS (about 1/10 of lecture attendees, even less of enrolled students). The female-dominated faculties were primarily humanities, soft and social sciences, and nursing, with approximately equal numbers in law, finance, and business courses. The same appeared to be true at the lesser universities, although less noticeably. This means that girls are choosing poorly-paid career paths at the end of high school. Now, I'm unlikely ever to become wealthy without a major career shift, but my school did at least include that sort of information in their career guidance, for all pupils, and I assume others did so as well.
In short, yes women do tend to earn less than men, and, yes, ou can argue that that's wrong, but it isn't really anyone's fault.
VC's hard to get. But it should be equally hard to get. Right now it doesn't seem like it is.
Does it? I mean, do we really have data that says that it is?
Because this isn't it:
"Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
What you'd want to know isn't the gender breakdown of companies that receive funding -- that number isn't going to give you any meaningful picture of potential VC bias. Rather, you'd want to know what fraction of female-led companies get funding vs a similar fraction male-led companies.
Tweet, tweet.
So the defense against his straw man is to prop up your straw man so that he is bigger? You are basically arguing that your straw man can beat up his straw man.
Programming: Its not just a job - its an indenture.
sometimes they're as innocuous as writers for sitcoms and television showing that women should play the subservient role in any relationship or else it will fall apart
Seriously? Have you watched any sitcom newer than The Brady Bunch?
Today the men are drooling idiots. The women are always right. TV writers know their audience: women. TV writers also know that it isn't politically correct to show the women in a negative light, but plots still require somebody to fill that role.
You will note that I do NOT advocate that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, and kept out of any field of work.
Without smart mothers, where is our future? Smart kids (future adults to form our society) come from smart parents. Women who work outside the family don't have many kids. Any nerd should realize that evolution is real, and it doesn't always lead to greater intelligence.
Being barefoot and pregnant is a privilege. It needs to be deeply respected, at least for women who produce better-than-average kids.
Shoes are not really good for you. They change your stride to be heal-first and they promote fungal growth.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding greatly reduces the risk of breast cancer. Women are genuinely made to birth and nurse lots of babies. Given proper support and appreciation, this is naturally very satisfying.
The problems come when people demean the job with words like "just a housewife" or "not working" or "not doing anything with her life". Wipe those foul words from your thoughts and give the mothers some respect!
You're forgetting the risks of STDs, getting abandoned, getting attacked, and having the children attacked.
Sticking with one single male is a moderately good way to avoid all those problems.
sit is up to you to ensure that said progeny have equal support from you to pursue desires in sports and technology
Support their true desires should it be technology, sports or hair dressing.
Sports and hair dressing are both crap. Multiply the expected income with the probability of success, and you'll see that neither pays off.
As for the girls I have, I hope to send them off to a very male-dominated engineering school... to find nice husbands. In the EE department at a place like Worchester Polytechnic, even an unattractive girl can catch a nice one. Completing the degree and working some damn office job is plan B, a tragedy but still better than sports or hair dressing.
BTW, I wish I knew where my sons could find smart women to have children with. :-( There isn't an easy hunting ground for them. For the girls, simply being in an engineering class does the job.
Back in 200x 1. I stumbled upon a "WOMEN ONLY" position in CS department at some Canadian university. MEN need not apply. 2. There was a study of director-level positions pay. Women receive about 10% more than man for the same work. According to my personal experience, most women are smart and selfish. They perform cost-benefit analysis, and if it is not worth, they do not pursue it. I am talking about Software Engineering positions. Recent study has shown that student switch from CS to other majors as soon as they understand what's ahead. It's not worth it, and won't go there, unless you are an altruist. Sure, if you give a competitive advantage for one half of the population over another, they will use it. The question is why would you do it. So, the lenders must relax their requirements for women, than for men ? Is it what this article is about ?
No, judging by the replies so far, on slashdot you're probably in the 95% that believe precisely this.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't value the thoughts of idiots.[..]
...who use well-accepted non-compositional speech units. Congratulations, I guess you value the thoughts of exactly zero people.
Can I mod something +1 Scary if it's true but I wish it weren't?
Yeah, and because I'm male I could beat Serena Williams at tennis. It's a fact.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
What's "getting much done"? You ask yourself, "is this working, am I employed doing something worthwhile that I enjoy, am I making enough to live on OK"? If all three answers are "yes", that qualifies as "getting much done", it's enough. Anything beyond that point is just gravy. It might be fun or more lucrative, but it isn't necessary either.
I don't think it's necessarily the emasculation part. Between the type and hours of work, and the co workers described to me by a nurse i was acquainted with, you likely couldn't pay me enough to take on that kind of job.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
> First, if you say "It's a fact. Get over it." you HAVE to put up references even if it's not peer-reviewed
;).
In most competitive sports and fields where being a woman is not a clear physical disadvantage, women are generally not even in the top 10 (when you rank them amongst the men).
The average woman might be better than the average guy in lots of stuff, but in very many fields (not all) it's not the average that makes the big difference. What matters in those fields is how close you are to being the best.
Nobody really cares if you can sprint faster than the average person. They only start caring if you can run 100 metres in less than 10 seconds. Hardly anyone cares if you can add and multiply a bit better than the average person. They start noticing if you can solve stuff like the Poincare conjecture BEFORE other people.
Nowadays there's little really stopping women in the Western World.
If harsh or discouraging words or wolf-whistles would stop someone from succeeding, then they clearly do NOT have what it takes to be a "success"[1] in many fields (especially high paying ones). You think those rich asshole investment bankers didn't get harsh words or discouragement? They took their bonuses anyway...
In the USA it seems lots of "nerdy guys" get harassed (even physically) by others for being "nerdy/geeky". They persist anyway, and a few might even become famous and successful nerds. The rest? They remain nerdy guys anyway
So what's stopping women from starting their own OSS projects? Sourceforge doesn't care what gender or race you are.
From what I see, women generally aren't as competive as men. If a woman had a compulsion to wash her hands very often, she'd either seek professional help or try to keep it a secret. If a guy had a compulsion to wash his hands very often, there's a higher chance that he'd join a group of like-minded guys and they'll argue about the best way to wash, whether bar or liquid soap is better, what sort of water or even liquid, and brag about how many times they washed. That's what a lot of popular male hobbies are... It stops being silliness when they discover something practical or very interesting, or get millions of people to join in the insanity...
But competitiveness is overrated - if you know you're not the best, then if you are wise you pick a field or market where being the "Star person/company" isn't as important. There are plenty of areas where you (or your company) can do well without having to be the top 10 or even top 1000.
[1] But what's the definition of success? At the end of the day, most women appear to have lots of close friends, whereas a top CEO might have only a few close friends.
Every year, the results are the same. The young ladies don't want to be Engineers. There might be one or two out of several hundred, but they wanted to be an engineer long before we talked to them. They are the exception that proves the rule.
So what to do? Do we force young ladies to become Engineers? Not allow them to be what they want to be?
It seemed that a lot of these young women want to be Lawyers or Doctors. A smattering of social type occupations, but precious few Engineers.
Is it possible that there are just some differences between the majority of men and women that might affect the decision of what we might do as a vocation? Otherwise, how do we change this, if it needs changed? Nature, nurture?
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
Awesome reply. Thanks.