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There are less woman founders because our culture treats men and women differently. And in particular, it is more repressive of females, and cripples their abil

• axod 19y ago
  That's terribly wrong IMHO. Very wrong. I used to think similar thoughts until I had kids. Girls and boys are just into different things. From a very early age. They have vastly different interests. Their brains work differently. They have different strengths. The key thing is that it's not just due to surroundings/culture. It's due to how they are wired. The fact is, the probability that a male will 'do a startup' is going to be greater than the probability that a female will. Why try to blame that on society? Why try and change that?
  • curi 19y ago
    I'm not trying to blame anyone, but I believe the truth of the matter is that it is caused by culture. I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently. One reason to question the notion of specialized hardware (brains) for boys and girls is the concept of universality. The easiest, by far, way to be able to do many computations, is to create a computer that can do all computations. Similarly, the easiest way by far to create a system capable of creating a variety of kinds of knowledge, is to create one capable of creating any knowledge. One reason to believe culture would be behind these kinds of differences is we know that our culture transmits vast quantities of knowledge to children. Far more information than is in DNA, just in terms of bits. But also in terms of importance. We also know our culture believes boys and girls are different, and treats people different for many reasons.
    • axod 19y ago
      "I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently." Do you have children? A girl and a boy? I do. I can tell you categorically that they most definitely without a doubt are 'wired' differently. Regardless of what you do. Treat them absolutely identically. Even before they have outside influences. Before they start nursery/school. Before society/friends influence them. They act very differently indeed. I didn't get that before I had kids. I thought girls liked dolls because people give girls dolls. They don't. It's a reflex. It's how they're built. Just like boys love cars and doing outside stuff. I seriously don't know what else to say here if you think men and womens brains are identical and work the same.
      • curi 19y ago
        Authority of experience, based on anecdotal evidence, is not a valid way to argue scientific issues. Further, you have not addressed well known exceptions to your claims, such as tomboys and males who do not love to be outdoors.
        • Tichy 19y ago
          However, all you provide is your belief, which frankly to me seems to be driven by your wishful thinking. I personally don't know if men and women are wired differently or not, but I can't understand your concept of belief. Give us some scientific evidence, and I will mentally assign your claim a probability. But I won't believe it.
          • curi 19y ago
            I have provided some arguments (for example, about universality). I have also provided some (as yet unanswered) criticism of the other view. If you don't understand my comments, and wish to, you could ask questions, and I will be happy to explain further. Evidence would not be the right thing to provide, because I am not predicting different human behavior than the mainstream theory, I am simply explaining the same evidence in a different way. So evidence can't resolve this dispute. (Setting aside evidence from analysis of brains which is beyond our present technology.)
    • Tichy 19y ago
      I know for a fact that boys and girls are very different. If you don't believe me, just google for porn. I am not saying that women's minds are not wired for startups/maths/whatever (I don't know), but the cultural differences are rooted in biological differences. Women have babies, which is very costly. Hence they need a different mindset (more responsibility, time to take care of kids etc.), they are also very valuable to men, so they can sell their bodies as baby-making machines rather than do startups. Different options in life create different paths... Men have to do something impressive to convince women to carry their babies, hence the startup thing (high risk, but if success, there will be babies).
      • curi 19y ago
        So, your theory is that selection pressure for [various things] resulted in adapted genes. One of the major questions this position has to answer is: why did that selection pressure result in adapted genes instead of adapted memes? Prima facie, it would result in adapted memes, because memes evolve faster -- they have much shorter generations.
        • Tichy 19y ago
          Well, I would recommend the book "Why is sex fun" by Jared Diamond. I don't know all the theories anymore, but the gist is that there is/was a biological arms race between men and women. For example, the reason that women have to be inseminated inside their bodies is so that men can not be sure who is the father of the women's babies. Because otherwise, men are prone to killing offspring of other men (at least in the animal kingdom). Now, if a woman sleeps with another man, we still can not be sure that she is not carrying our baby. At least that is one theory, as far as I remember. There are several more aspects that come into play. There actually was one chapter with the theory that men go hunting to impress women (and I would be ready to make the leap and equate hunting with startupping). Gathering would be more energy efficient than hunting, but hunting allows men to come home as bigshots, make a big party, and impress lots of women. That theory was only based on one study of a primitive society, though, so I guess the evidence is not yet very strong. Just a theory... Anyway, a good book to read in my opinion. Other than that, I am not sure I agree to your question. Men and women certainly have different genes, have they not? I think the asymmetry is inherent in the problem of growing a baby inside of your body. Perhaps it would have been possible to allow both men and women to get pregnant, but it might have been too much overhead (although there are animals that can switch gender, and come to think about it, there are human hermaphrodites). Most animals seem to have a difference between men and women - for example the spiders that eat their mates...
• angryprofessor 19y ago
  > And in particular, it is more repressive of females, and cripples their ability to think more, especially in business and technical areas. Why business and technical areas in particular? Historically, I'd agree with you. But that effect has completely vanished in many fields: law and medicine are two prominent examples. It also partially vanished in technical fields; physics went from 0% to 20% women in the same way that medicine went from 0% to 50%. Why do you think that physics and computer science are more anti-woman than medicine? And for that matter, why is experimental physics less anti-woman than theoretical physics? And similarly, why does environmental engineering have more women than electrical?
  • curi 19y ago
    Traditions are complex and it's hard to trace reasons for them. Which they don't always have, in the sense we normally look for -- they don't always have good reasons for why they were designed/intended to help people. So I don't know specifically why it is that parents, and others, discourage girls from business and technical areas in particular. And I don't know exactly what kind of discouragement is effective -- probably it is not the straightforward kind that does most of the work. As well, it may be some kind of encouragement that matters more than discouragement. Or the process may be much more complex than English is good at capturing in a word. One thing I can tell you is that women working in a field does not imply the problem is solved. First, they might be less skillful, on average. But second, they might have had to put in more effort to achieve the same level of skill, and that could be very hard to detect.
    • angryprofessor 19y ago
      >So I don't know specifically why it is that parents, and others, discourage girls from business and technical areas in particular. Not only technical areas, but also particular technical areas. What makes experimental physics less technical than theoretical, and chemistry less technical than physics? Also, if you look at the percentage of women in technical fields, it does look like cultural barriers dropped. I.e., over the same timeframe that cultural barriers dropped in medicine, they dropped similarly in physics/engineering, causing women to increase from about 1970-1990. After 1990, the % women was roughly flat in all fields: in medicine at 50%, in physics at 20%. Basically, womens liberation had the same qualtitative effect on physics that it had on medicine; only the magnitudes differ. This strongly suggests that some other factor is keeping women out of technical fields. It could be cultural, but it's a completely different type of cultural barrier than the one that kept women out of medicine and physics up until the 1990's. It could also be biological, I don't see much evidence for or against that. >One thing I can tell you is that women working in a field does not imply the problem is solved. First, they might be less skillful, on average. But second, they might have had to put in more effort to achieve the same level of skill, and that could be very hard to detect. Lots of difficult to measure things are possible. I'll wait for evidence of them. (*) By the way, I'm using physics/EE as a proxy for all technical fields, since I've been forced to sit through lots of meetings on that topic. Speaking openly in those meetings was frowned upon...
• bayareaguy 19y ago
  In the US at least, I don't think there is any overt activity preventing women from succeeding in CS-related business and in the past 15 years at least I've seen plenty of women succeed. I think if there are fewer women founders the reason is that fewer women simply choose to go that route. Now outside the US things may be quite different. I am 100% certain that if my 10 year old daughter ever decides to start a CS-related business I'm sure there will be plenty of good role models for her. However her current inclination is to become a school teacher.
  • curi 19y ago
    Why do fewer women choose to go that route? As you say, it is not because they will be less rewarded if they do. Once they are doing a startup, they can get the same rewards men can. So there is still something to explain here.
    • bayareaguy 19y ago
      It beats me, but my best guess is that founders get that way first by a) identifying with other founders and b) realizing that nothing is stopping them from succeeding the way they did. I think girls just need more exposure to successful women who can act as role models. It's my belief that time will eventually solve this problem.
      • axod 19y ago
        But as I said before, why do you see it as a problem. It's a problem only if there are women who WANT to be founders, but cannot. Is the fact that fish don't have legs a 'problem'? Only if they long to have legs. (Please don't think I'm likening women to fish, but you get my point hopefuly).
        • bayareaguy 19y ago
          Thats a very good question which probably deserves a better answer than I can offer. But I'll have a go. My first premise is that I think those who achieve success via "fair" competition tend to be better qualified than those who achieve it other ways. My second premise is that over time successful founders should expect to find themselves in positions of power and influence beyond the scope of their initial successes. My last premise is that societies avoid the worst types of social injustice when no single culture or way of thinking dominates the others. While heterogeneous societies may not make as much "progress" as homogeneous ones, they also avoid the worst cases. Based on this, I think we'll have a better society if there are more qualified women at the top, but to have that we need more qualified women at all stages of the competition.
• Tichy 19y ago
  What do you think of the difference in life expectancy between women and men (7 years in the US, I just googled) - that is women live on average 7 years longer than men. If I had to choose between higher wages and a longer life, I would choose the longer life.... The page I found could not give a definite answer, but I'll throw in theory: men are more expendable than women, and it shows. And for the same reason, men have to try harder. On wikipedia they say "men take more risks" - yes, because they have no choice. Either they impress a woman, or all was futile anyway. On the other hand, I am pretty sure it is a LOT easier for women to have sex, whenever they want. Check this experiment: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P10/ http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P10/ (#18) Men and women were walking across a campus asking strangers flat out if they would like to have sex with them. Men were almost always rejected. Women almost never. I claim that the reason for that is not solely cultural.
  • curi 19y ago
    Being a woman in our culture certainly has some advantages.