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Genuine meritocracy would ideally see women in positions roughly commensurate to their percentage of the population (~50.8%). There are a lot of reasons why we

Genuine meritocracy would ideally see women in positions roughly commensurate to their percentage of the population (~50.8%). There are a lot of reasons why we don't see that, and those reasons shape choices made by, available to, and expected of women well before they ever get to the point where they're applying for a position at Github or any other tech company. I think a lot of the criticism of Github's rug went for the low-hanging fruit there, and missed a lot of those earlier factors that push far too many women away from math, science, and technology while they're still just developing children. Removing a rug (and granting the assumption that the act heralds a shift in workplace culture), or any number of the policies that might improve the gender imbalance in the tech world, are the functional equivalent of bandaids: useful and maybe even necessary, but they're actions taken after the initial cause has already arisen. Part of that's because the damage is already done by that time (how many have given up on math because they didn't think they were a "math person," even before we start to look at the gender disparity there?), but also because defining--let alone building--a true meritocracy is damned difficult. Humans are fallible. We see things through our own perspectives, and don't even realize what we're missing unless we make a conscious effort to attempt it. There's a lot of cultural baggage that still surrounds questions of gender, and diving into that is an incredibly messy process that, if we're going to be honest, is going to take years if not decades. And that's a damned scary thing, precisely because of how unjust the consequences of that baggage are. Speaking as a man, I don't think most feminists have an issue with meritocracies as ideals: there's no basis for assuming that a woman can't compete equally against a man, and that'd be obvious in a meritocracy. Their brains aren't "different," nor are they the "weaker sex," or any of a thousand tropes littered throughout history. I think that the issue boils done to a problem with what happens before you get to that meritocracy that affects the decision-making calculus. It's hard to say that you're looking at a genuine meritocracy when the sample being analyzed is already skewed. This is setting aside questions of pay, culture, and other gender issues in the workplace.

kefka 11y ago
And I think the way I grew up and the things that's happened to me that goes against the flow of what others say and see. One of my first jobs was a Subway. Had a female manager. Her boss was the district manager and also female. Cool. The store manager tries sexually assault me (shoves things in my underwear) in the store. DM promptly fires her. And yet, I hear about this kind of stuff with guys doing it to women, along with butt slapping and the sort. I've not been around that crowd, but had it does the same. I went to a bar with a my wife and a friend. He's a big burly gay guy (a Bear, self identifies). Technically I, along with my wife are both bisexual, it's not a big deal. The bar, however, was a Bear Bar. I'm 6'5", big beard. Pretty fat. In other words, I fit in. Except, the whole feeling that women talk about they are a piece of meat; I felt that. I was the piece, to be gawked over. It was pretty uncomfortable, but it ended soon enough. I had a manager, female, in a professional setting. She speaks highly of feminism. Cool. Except, she would wear skimpy short skirts, low cut blouses and more. She would play the stereotype; the same stereotype she would claim she was against. And when people would treat her like the hot sexy eyecandy, rather than smart computer scientist (which she is), she would get pissed off.
civilian 11y ago
It's not yet decided whether our brains are wired differently: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41919/title/Crossed-Wires/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41919/...
adekok 11y ago
> Genuine meritocracy would ideally see women in positions roughly commensurate to their percentage of the population i.e. meritocracy means having people in positions based on their incidence in the general population... not on their merits. Are you sure you understand the meaning of the word "meritocracy" ? > a lot of those earlier factors that push far too many women away from math, science, and technology while they're still just developing children Because women have different interests from men? I can easily name 10 male friends who obsessed about science and technology starting from 12 years old. 30 years later, they're all in computers making good money. I can think of maybe 2 female friends who came close. And even they didn't have the same level of obsession as the guys. > I don't think most feminists have an issue with meritocracies as ideals: If a meritocracy means hiring people on their incidence in the general population (not on their merits), then yes, that statement is true. > Their brains aren't "different," Yes, they are. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/2014... > This is setting aside questions of pay, culture, and other gender issues in the workplace. If you believe the American Association of University women, they "wage gap" is about 6%. Not 77% like it's widely (and falsely) reported. http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/ http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gend...
- Bluestrike2 11y ago
  > i.e. meritocracy means having people in positions based on their incidence in the general population... not on their merits. If we take a random, representative sample of people, we're going to see women make up approximately 50.8% of that sample. Positions aren't assigned on the basis of that percentage; rather, it just works out that they'd match it overall across an industry. Or it would, and that was my point. Differences in individual workplace makeup are deviations away from that, for whatever reasons you have (say, the gender split amongst CS graduates and other factors that contribute to it and the numbers we see today). > Yes, they are. That was a rather poor word choice on my part. That sentence consisted of a series of historical examples of rationals used when describing women as lesser beings for various reasons. When I wrote "different," I was thinking specifically of arguments used against women's suffrage movements on the basis of irrationality. Even more obvious arguments can be found in how common diagnoses of "female hysteria" by the European medical community for centuries. Even the word hysteria comes from the Greek hystera, meaning womb. The precursor of those arguments--the so-called wandering womb--dates back to at least Hippocrates. Plato later describes the theory in the Timaeus, and Aretaeus after him. The medical community never really managed to escape the theory until relatively recently. It's actually a really fascinating history; if you're interested, Hysteria: The disturbing history by Andrew Scull is an excellent introduction to how the disease of hysteria changed over time, eventually fading altogether as we learned more about the human mind. I guess my point is that there's a huge difference between historical views of the female mind (and its differences) compared to how neuroscientists approach the question today. You're absolutely right in that sense; chemical and structural differences might affect how information and sense input is processed, but the current body of research doesn't recognize that as indicating a difference in ability or even capability. Chalk this up to a poorly written sentence on my part with my apologies. > If you believe the American Association of University women, they "wage gap" is about 6%. Not 77% like it's widely (and falsely) reported. One of the reasons why I said to set questions of wage aside is precisely for this reason. The 77% number comes from BLS statistics, but those numbers are in aggregate and making comparisons from that is intellectually dishonest at best. But it's a very easy mistake to make, precisely because the caveats behind that number are so complex. There are a lot of very significant factors that have to be accounted for, and the top-line numbers can't do that by their very nature. Career choice is one of the largest: what cultural factors push women towards one career and men towards another--and how early do those factors start influencing people's own choices and self-images? Just look at the nursing field and how it's shifting from its historical, almost all-female makeup. While I don't really think it's relevant to the discussion, Blau and Kahn expand on the points raised by the AAUW article if you're interested: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/ge...

kefka 11y ago

And I think the way I grew up and the things that's happened to me that goes against the flow of what others say and see. One of my first jobs was a Subway. Had a female manager. Her boss was the district manager and also female. Cool. The store manager tries sexually assault me (shoves things in my underwear) in the store. DM promptly fires her. And yet, I hear about this kind of stuff with guys doing it to women, along with butt slapping and the sort. I've not been around that crowd, but had it does the same. I went to a bar with a my wife and a friend. He's a big burly gay guy (a Bear, self identifies). Technically I, along with my wife are both bisexual, it's not a big deal. The bar, however, was a Bear Bar. I'm 6'5", big beard. Pretty fat. In other words, I fit in. Except, the whole feeling that women talk about they are a piece of meat; I felt that. I was the piece, to be gawked over. It was pretty uncomfortable, but it ended soon enough. I had a manager, female, in a professional setting. She speaks highly of feminism. Cool. Except, she would wear skimpy short skirts, low cut blouses and more. She would play the stereotype; the same stereotype she would claim she was against. And when people would treat her like the hot sexy eyecandy, rather than smart computer scientist (which she is), she would get pissed off.

civilian 11y ago

It's not yet decided whether our brains are wired differently: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41919/title/Crossed-Wires/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41919/...

adekok 11y ago

> Genuine meritocracy would ideally see women in positions roughly commensurate to their percentage of the population i.e. meritocracy means having people in positions based on their incidence in the general population... not on their merits. Are you sure you understand the meaning of the word "meritocracy" ? > a lot of those earlier factors that push far too many women away from math, science, and technology while they're still just developing children Because women have different interests from men? I can easily name 10 male friends who obsessed about science and technology starting from 12 years old. 30 years later, they're all in computers making good money. I can think of maybe 2 female friends who came close. And even they didn't have the same level of obsession as the guys. > I don't think most feminists have an issue with meritocracies as ideals: If a meritocracy means hiring people on their incidence in the general population (not on their merits), then yes, that statement is true. > Their brains aren't "different," Yes, they are. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/2014... > This is setting aside questions of pay, culture, and other gender issues in the workplace. If you believe the American Association of University women, they "wage gap" is about 6%. Not 77% like it's widely (and falsely) reported. http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/ http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gend...

Bluestrike2 11y ago
> i.e. meritocracy means having people in positions based on their incidence in the general population... not on their merits. If we take a random, representative sample of people, we're going to see women make up approximately 50.8% of that sample. Positions aren't assigned on the basis of that percentage; rather, it just works out that they'd match it overall across an industry. Or it would, and that was my point. Differences in individual workplace makeup are deviations away from that, for whatever reasons you have (say, the gender split amongst CS graduates and other factors that contribute to it and the numbers we see today). > Yes, they are. That was a rather poor word choice on my part. That sentence consisted of a series of historical examples of rationals used when describing women as lesser beings for various reasons. When I wrote "different," I was thinking specifically of arguments used against women's suffrage movements on the basis of irrationality. Even more obvious arguments can be found in how common diagnoses of "female hysteria" by the European medical community for centuries. Even the word hysteria comes from the Greek hystera, meaning womb. The precursor of those arguments--the so-called wandering womb--dates back to at least Hippocrates. Plato later describes the theory in the Timaeus, and Aretaeus after him. The medical community never really managed to escape the theory until relatively recently. It's actually a really fascinating history; if you're interested, Hysteria: The disturbing history by Andrew Scull is an excellent introduction to how the disease of hysteria changed over time, eventually fading altogether as we learned more about the human mind. I guess my point is that there's a huge difference between historical views of the female mind (and its differences) compared to how neuroscientists approach the question today. You're absolutely right in that sense; chemical and structural differences might affect how information and sense input is processed, but the current body of research doesn't recognize that as indicating a difference in ability or even capability. Chalk this up to a poorly written sentence on my part with my apologies. > If you believe the American Association of University women, they "wage gap" is about 6%. Not 77% like it's widely (and falsely) reported. One of the reasons why I said to set questions of wage aside is precisely for this reason. The 77% number comes from BLS statistics, but those numbers are in aggregate and making comparisons from that is intellectually dishonest at best. But it's a very easy mistake to make, precisely because the caveats behind that number are so complex. There are a lot of very significant factors that have to be accounted for, and the top-line numbers can't do that by their very nature. Career choice is one of the largest: what cultural factors push women towards one career and men towards another--and how early do those factors start influencing people's own choices and self-images? Just look at the nursing field and how it's shifting from its historical, almost all-female makeup. While I don't really think it's relevant to the discussion, Blau and Kahn expand on the points raised by the AAUW article if you're interested: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/ge...