8 ms·

I think you're right about most of this, especially the fact that news media coverage is "bite-sized" and incomprehensive. But, I'd like to point out that the

by pj_mukh 11y ago

I think you're right about most of this, especially the fact that news media coverage is "bite-sized" and incomprehensive. But, I'd like to point out that the lack of women in STEM fields is about decision-making power and not necessarily equity. Women aren't fighting for equity in garbage collection jobs either. If women are to have equal say on the goings-on's of society they need to partake in the upper echelons of power equally (Government, Corporate Leadership, STEM positions etc.).

jules 11y ago
I think this is the difference between a collectivist and individualist point of view. You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. The last sentence of your comment is from a collectivist point of view. I don't think this view is helpful. One woman isn't really helped by another woman being in the government. What matters is that each individual has equal opportunity regardless of characteristics such as gender that are not directly relevant to the position. The tribal point of view does the opposite: rather than de-emphasising characteristics irrelevant to the situation at hand, it amps up those characteristics in a tribal us-vs-them conflict situation. Complaining that there aren't enough women in STEM seems to me as silly as complaining that there aren't enough people with red hair in STEM. What we should strive for is a world where each individual has the same opportunity based on their merits regardless of irrelevant characteristics, not a world with an elaborate system of conflicting tribes that lobby top-down control to ensure that their tribe gets an equal number of tribes(wo)men in prestigious positions.
- pj_mukh 11y ago
  Yes, what you described is a pure meritocracy and all things being equal, that would be GREAT, unfortunately, all things are not equal. If all people got equal encouragement, inspiration, and opportunity (from the moment of birth) then we could simply focus at the moment of judgement (which btw, is also currently biased [1]). So that is basically what STEM advocates are working on, making sure women and other disadvantaged minorities have equal encouragement, inspiration and opportunity (specifically to learn) so we can claim to have an equitable meritocracy. [1] http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    All you are saying is that due to bad luck during upbringing, some people have less merit than others. Furthermore this bad luck is not statistically independent of various other characteristics. Why does this imply that meritocracy is not great?
    - pron 11y ago
      You do realize that the term meritocracy is literally a joke, right? I mean, it was actually invented as a joke by a sociologist, who's apparently not very observant because he'd assumed everyone would get it. Obviously, every 'cracy believes that it's a meritocracy; the only defining characteristic of one that actually calls itself meritocracy is a lack of self awareness. The word meritocracy sounds to me exactly the same way "positive energies" sounds to me and you; it makes me laugh because it is a word that expresses absolutely nothing but the cluelessness of those who may use it with a straight face (the only difference is that "positive energies" wasn't originally invented by a physicist as a joke, while meritocracy was). I mean, a noble family really did have a greater relative contribution to the economy and to society than a common family (or, at least, could have been said to have a greater contribution by the norms of the time) -- until it didn't, and that's when things changed. It's not like previous societies realized that they're not meritocracies; they utterly and truly believed that their system was the best possible one (and they could prove it!) and that there are people who are less represented in positions of power is just bad luck. No society (that lasted long) has ever said, let's put all the people with real talent at the bottom. It's only when resources were allocated differently due to political action (or natural disaster, like the black death) talent "suddenly" grew where everyone had until then known little talent could be found (and they were right: there was little talent because talent requires cultivation to become effective).
  - jules 11y ago
    You're right that it's biased, but perhaps not in the way you think it is: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract > The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring. Here we report five hiring experiments in which faculty evaluated hypothetical female and male applicants, using systematically varied profiles disguising identical scholarship, for assistant professorships in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Encouraging everyone equally is great, but the problem is that many of these advocates seem to operate under the unsubstantiated hypothesis that there are no correlations between gender and career choice except those caused by upbringing. This leads to the idea that an unequal representation is necessarily a sign of a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't think this is supported by the data. We know from biology and other fields that there are natural differences. We also know that in more emancipated societies where people have more opportunity to choose what they want, there is a greater gender imbalance in universities (example: highest % of women earning science degrees is Iran; no western european country nor the US nor Canada is even in the top 20). Perhaps a gender imbalance is a sign of a society where individuals can do what they really want.
- pron 11y ago
  > You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. This distinction results from a poor understanding of what you call the "collectivist view". This approach does not view a social group as a constructive set -- a tribe as you call it -- but as an empirical, emergent set. The idea is that certain shared experiences that arise in society create a correlation of viewpoints and goals. Note that this isn't a statistical construct alone but also a social construct. If social dynamics give rise to certain shared experiences, then the shared experience would likely give rise to certain shared views and goals. Once again, this is not a philosophical question, but an empirical one. It either really happens or it doesn't. Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do). This isn't a tribe also because a single person can be part of many such correlative social groups. A woman could be working-class and share goals with other working-class people (men and women). In other words, I don't think that there is a difference in philosophy, but a difference in a philosophy vs. empiricism. One side says that philosophically every individual is on his own (based on the premises that the people holding this view seem to accept), while the other groups says, well, maybe, but in practice there are clear group dynamics that arise and can be seen empirically. > One woman isn't really helped by another woman being in the government. How do you know? > The tribal point of view does the opposite: rather than de-emphasising characteristics irrelevant to the situation at hand, it amps up those characteristics in a tribal us-vs-them conflict situation. Nah I think that that's just the common description among those who oppose the liberal view, and is usually a result of failing to notice what the demands really are. It's not us-vs.-them but a group that is empirically and statistically found to have opposing interests to those of another group. What you call "tribal conflict" is either empirically found to be real or it isn't; I don't think it can be argued against based on some philosophical notion.
  - viewer5 11y ago
    > Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do) Like what?
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
circlefavshape 11y ago
> If women are to have equal say on the goings-on's of society they need to partake in the upper echelons of power equally (Government, Corporate Leadership, STEM positions etc.) Aha! Now I understand the arguments better.
- nicelynicely 11y ago
  It is a terrible argument and runs counter to everything that various equality groups have worked hard for over the years. Using that same argument means throwing away the idea that you are not defined and judged based solely on your sex, gender, race etc. What you do and who you are is important. What you are (woman, gay, ginger etc.) is not important.

by pj_mukh 11y ago

jules 11y ago

I think this is the difference between a collectivist and individualist point of view. You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. The last sentence of your comment is from a collectivist point of view. I don't think this view is helpful. One woman isn't really helped by another woman being in the government. What matters is that each individual has equal opportunity regardless of characteristics such as gender that are not directly relevant to the position. The tribal point of view does the opposite: rather than de-emphasising characteristics irrelevant to the situation at hand, it amps up those characteristics in a tribal us-vs-them conflict situation. Complaining that there aren't enough women in STEM seems to me as silly as complaining that there aren't enough people with red hair in STEM. What we should strive for is a world where each individual has the same opportunity based on their merits regardless of irrelevant characteristics, not a world with an elaborate system of conflicting tribes that lobby top-down control to ensure that their tribe gets an equal number of tribes(wo)men in prestigious positions.

pj_mukh 11y ago
Yes, what you described is a pure meritocracy and all things being equal, that would be GREAT, unfortunately, all things are not equal. If all people got equal encouragement, inspiration, and opportunity (from the moment of birth) then we could simply focus at the moment of judgement (which btw, is also currently biased [1]). So that is basically what STEM advocates are working on, making sure women and other disadvantaged minorities have equal encouragement, inspiration and opportunity (specifically to learn) so we can claim to have an equitable meritocracy. [1] http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  All you are saying is that due to bad luck during upbringing, some people have less merit than others. Furthermore this bad luck is not statistically independent of various other characteristics. Why does this imply that meritocracy is not great?
  - pron 11y ago
    You do realize that the term meritocracy is literally a joke, right? I mean, it was actually invented as a joke by a sociologist, who's apparently not very observant because he'd assumed everyone would get it. Obviously, every 'cracy believes that it's a meritocracy; the only defining characteristic of one that actually calls itself meritocracy is a lack of self awareness. The word meritocracy sounds to me exactly the same way "positive energies" sounds to me and you; it makes me laugh because it is a word that expresses absolutely nothing but the cluelessness of those who may use it with a straight face (the only difference is that "positive energies" wasn't originally invented by a physicist as a joke, while meritocracy was). I mean, a noble family really did have a greater relative contribution to the economy and to society than a common family (or, at least, could have been said to have a greater contribution by the norms of the time) -- until it didn't, and that's when things changed. It's not like previous societies realized that they're not meritocracies; they utterly and truly believed that their system was the best possible one (and they could prove it!) and that there are people who are less represented in positions of power is just bad luck. No society (that lasted long) has ever said, let's put all the people with real talent at the bottom. It's only when resources were allocated differently due to political action (or natural disaster, like the black death) talent "suddenly" grew where everyone had until then known little talent could be found (and they were right: there was little talent because talent requires cultivation to become effective).
- jules 11y ago
  You're right that it's biased, but perhaps not in the way you think it is: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract > The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring. Here we report five hiring experiments in which faculty evaluated hypothetical female and male applicants, using systematically varied profiles disguising identical scholarship, for assistant professorships in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Encouraging everyone equally is great, but the problem is that many of these advocates seem to operate under the unsubstantiated hypothesis that there are no correlations between gender and career choice except those caused by upbringing. This leads to the idea that an unequal representation is necessarily a sign of a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't think this is supported by the data. We know from biology and other fields that there are natural differences. We also know that in more emancipated societies where people have more opportunity to choose what they want, there is a greater gender imbalance in universities (example: highest % of women earning science degrees is Iran; no western european country nor the US nor Canada is even in the top 20). Perhaps a gender imbalance is a sign of a society where individuals can do what they really want.
pron 11y ago
> You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. This distinction results from a poor understanding of what you call the "collectivist view". This approach does not view a social group as a constructive set -- a tribe as you call it -- but as an empirical, emergent set. The idea is that certain shared experiences that arise in society create a correlation of viewpoints and goals. Note that this isn't a statistical construct alone but also a social construct. If social dynamics give rise to certain shared experiences, then the shared experience would likely give rise to certain shared views and goals. Once again, this is not a philosophical question, but an empirical one. It either really happens or it doesn't. Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do). This isn't a tribe also because a single person can be part of many such correlative social groups. A woman could be working-class and share goals with other working-class people (men and women). In other words, I don't think that there is a difference in philosophy, but a difference in a philosophy vs. empiricism. One side says that philosophically every individual is on his own (based on the premises that the people holding this view seem to accept), while the other groups says, well, maybe, but in practice there are clear group dynamics that arise and can be seen empirically. > One woman isn't really helped by another woman being in the government. How do you know? > The tribal point of view does the opposite: rather than de-emphasising characteristics irrelevant to the situation at hand, it amps up those characteristics in a tribal us-vs-them conflict situation. Nah I think that that's just the common description among those who oppose the liberal view, and is usually a result of failing to notice what the demands really are. It's not us-vs.-them but a group that is empirically and statistically found to have opposing interests to those of another group. What you call "tribal conflict" is either empirically found to be real or it isn't; I don't think it can be argued against based on some philosophical notion.
- viewer5 11y ago
  > Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do) Like what?
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago

circlefavshape 11y ago

> If women are to have equal say on the goings-on's of society they need to partake in the upper echelons of power equally (Government, Corporate Leadership, STEM positions etc.) Aha! Now I understand the arguments better.

nicelynicely 11y ago
It is a terrible argument and runs counter to everything that various equality groups have worked hard for over the years. Using that same argument means throwing away the idea that you are not defined and judged based solely on your sex, gender, race etc. What you do and who you are is important. What you are (woman, gay, ginger etc.) is not important.