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70% of the technical degree holders living under the Iranian patriarchal theology... are women. That's problematic to me. That suggests to /me/ that the gender

70% of the technical degree holders living under the Iranian patriarchal theology... are women. That's problematic to me. That suggests to /me/ that the gender disparity in Silicon Valley has very little to do with genetics. In fact, the role of genetics in intelligence is too heavily disputed to be considered anyhow - the tech field being a supposed /meritocracy/, and genetics having little to do with personal /merit/, it instead suggests to me that the problem is how our culture is defining "ideal merit" to our women. The reason why tech conferences can't find enough women speakers is because there aren't enough girls encouraged /socially/ to enter the tech field. And by "girls," I don't mean to use disparaging language, but indicate that the problem is rooted all the way in how they're taught and influenced, be it in schools or amongst friends and family. When mathematics, science and computer programming are considered culturally gender-neutral, that's when female representation in the tech industry will be less of an issue. Until then, we remain unable to tap a good half of our population's intellectual resources. That's a bit of a problem.

mkramlich 16y ago
I can't speak to your 70% Iran science degree holder figure but I do want to make the point that we can't make generalizations about gender participation in "tech" when tech is a generic heterogenous basket of different activities. It jumbles together all/most of the the sciences (for example, would bio be tech but social science not be tech?), engineering and programming, for example. Still speaking in rough terms, but at a little higher degree of fidelity, I'd say female interest/talent/ambition in science fields is much higher than in programming, which in turn is higher than in traditional engineering (EE, mech eng, etc.) -- and even within engineering the percentages vary by specific field. So if you told me of one particular country or region or whatever where say 70% of bio science degree holders were women, that wouldn't sound too extra-ordinary to me. If you said 70% of electrical or mechanical engineers, that's different. Btw, do you think society also has a problem (speaking USA) that the vast majority of cosmetics salespeople are women? Do you think there's some horrible educational/cultural/societal conspiracy or flaw going on that has caused there to be so few men in that field? And how about child day care? How about the small percentage of women that are garbage truck pickup workers? Auto mechanics? Hunters? Weightlifting? I think that today in the USA we're about as close to "culturally gender neutral" in mathematics, science and programming as we're ever going to get without some sort of significant genetic engineering or neurological/cyborg modification. Small changes? Sure, of course. Big changes? I highly doubt it without hacking on our DNA or hormones.
- JCThoughtscream 16y ago
  Note that the use of gender-specific industries is a bit of a sham when you can't demonstrate that the tech industry /itself/ has any overt gender-specific targeting, outside of the occasional attempt at tech fashion. In fact, it isn't too hard to imagine a culture where cosmetology /is/ male-predominant - just switch the zeitgeist around so that peacock behavior is seen as sexually beneficial. I'm afraid your underlying logic is full of holes. At the very least, it's unimaginative, and fails to at least ask "actually, /why/ is this so?" As for the 70%, Wiki's "Science in Iran" lists it as specifically degrees in science and engineering. While Wiki is, at times, unremarkable in its factuality, this specific assertion is actually backed by citation. Furthermore, biology being /also/ male-dominant in the US, your point doesn't hold well. What makes biology more female-oriented than chemistry or physics anyhow? What basis are you making such a claim?
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    What makes dancing so much more female-oriented than male? What makes playing dress up? What makes gossiping on the phone? What makes playing with dolls and toy babies? Make-up? Shoes? The beauty of this line is that one doesn't need to come up with any "line of reasoning" or "logical argument" if it just comes down to biological/hormonal/neurological differences between males and females. Why do so many women have vaginas and so few have penises? Cultural conspiracy? Or is there perhaps some other force or mechanism involved? I know which I think it is. :P
    - JCThoughtscream 16y ago
      Tango is male-dominated, mostly because of its internal culture. Dressing-up is, again, cultural pressure and can conceivably be changed with altered values. Plus, guys dress up to - only, when they do, they get called a fag and suffer detrimental social effects. Guys gossip all the time - Hacker News is /full/ of gossip, if you haven't noticed. Genitalia has nothing to do with technical merit. Or, rather, as my point has been this entire time, it /shouldn't/. Most of our cerebral functions are a good long ways away from it - that is, unless you really do think with the smaller head. Trying to say that there doesn't need to be explanations for these only demonstrates the limits of your own range of exposure. In fact, there has been plenty of discussion, academic and otherwise, as to the roles and functions of cultural norms. It's call anthropology.
akshayubhat 16y ago
70% of the technical degree holders living under the Iranian patriarchal theology Highly unlikely, their must be some difference in definition of "Technical", are they including Biology, Nursing even Teaching under "Technical"? Even in India, Women in engineering have similar proportion as USA.
- JCThoughtscream 16y ago
  http://web.payk.net/mailingLists/iran-news/html/2000/pdfj3iWUp97GC.pdf http://web.payk.net/mailingLists/iran-news/html/2000/pdfj3iW... In 2000, Iranian women accounted for 56% of students enrolled in the natural sciences. No matter how you cut that, /that's not nursing and teaching/. And isn't it a bit of a sign of discrimination to merely assume off-hand that another culture's definition of "science and engineering" isn't as "rigorous" as ours, even if we seem to be gearing up for a clash with them? Instead of pooh-poohing their efforts, it seems more appropriate to be astonished by their capabilities in as hostile a cultural paradigm as they live in.
  - akshayubhat 16y ago
    And isn't it a bit of a sign of discrimination to merely assume off-hand that another culture's definition of "science and engineering" isn't as "rigorous" as ours, even if we seem to be gearing up for a clash with them? Instead of pooh-poohing their efforts, it seems more appropriate to be astonished by their capabilities in as hostile a cultural paradigm as they live in. First it was "Technical", which is a confusing term. Second 56% in "natural sciences" is on par with USA. Nat. Sci. include Bio,Chem. Men in developing countries prefer Engineering. Finally as someone who grew up in India, I am familiar with eastern cultures/ educational systems, and can assure you 70% in "Technical [Science and Engineering]" is near impossible, unless significant men are enrolled in some technical military program and are not counted.
mkramlich 16y ago
My two little nieces had a birthday this week and for their birthday I gave them each a cool LEGO set, and, some rubber balls, play masks, a game and some windup toy robots. A few days later they came over to visit, and you know what they brought out to play with? Again? Dolls. And they wanted to bake cupcakes. No LEGO or robots or games in sight. Funny that!
- JCThoughtscream 16y ago
  Yeah. Common saying amongst my friends, mostly techies. "The plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data.'" To counter that, though, I would say that your presents to your nieces, while a great idea and well-encouraged, palls in the face of parental and social pressure. Their friends are playing with dolls. Playing with legos by yourself can be fun, but not quite as fun as playing with their friends.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Tonight one niece was playing dolls by herself. The other was baking by herself. shrug Actually data is comprised of anecdotes and anecdotes are data, in my judgment. Life and actual experiences in the real world are data. Reality is data. If your point is, well, this is just two little girls, you're right, that alone would not allow one to extrapolate to all little girls everywhere. However, I know for a fact that large companies and institutions have already done lots of experiments with kids (especially companies that have a vested interest in figuring out exactly what kids want, in order to maximize their profit) and my understanding is that the studies show that yes, girls mostly prefer to play with girlish things and boys with boyish things. This was the result of Science with a capital S. Now, do all boys hate dolls and all girls hate robots and dump trucks and guns? Of course not. But in the majority of cases that's how the cookie crumbled in the real world. Also the whole "pink vs blue" thing you see in stores in the kid sections? Do you think that's some conspiracy or cultural artifact? From what I've heard, it's isn't. They've done experiments. Girls in general, world-wide, really do tend to prefer pink and boys prefer blue. In the general case, when dealing with large enough numbers, etc.
    - 16y ago
yummyfajitas 16y ago
I've discussed this phenomenon with my Iranian ex-girlfriend. She believes it is caused by two Iran-specific factors and can't really be repeated in the US. A) Iran has forced labor (in the military) for men from age 18-20. Students are sometimes exempted, but the government makes it difficult for men to become students to prevent "abuse" of this exemption. Further, many men go straight to work after their term of forced labor is up - connections/skills they developed in the military serve a similar purpose to college. (Israel has a similar phenomenon - due to forced military labor, college is not as strict a requirement. But this does not affect gender balance since Israel has forced labor for women as well.) B) The country is ruled by, as you note, patriarchal theocrats. Religion is a path to power/money - this creates a brain drain among intelligent men.

mkramlich 16y ago

I can't speak to your 70% Iran science degree holder figure but I do want to make the point that we can't make generalizations about gender participation in "tech" when tech is a generic heterogenous basket of different activities. It jumbles together all/most of the the sciences (for example, would bio be tech but social science not be tech?), engineering and programming, for example. Still speaking in rough terms, but at a little higher degree of fidelity, I'd say female interest/talent/ambition in science fields is much higher than in programming, which in turn is higher than in traditional engineering (EE, mech eng, etc.) -- and even within engineering the percentages vary by specific field. So if you told me of one particular country or region or whatever where say 70% of bio science degree holders were women, that wouldn't sound too extra-ordinary to me. If you said 70% of electrical or mechanical engineers, that's different. Btw, do you think society also has a problem (speaking USA) that the vast majority of cosmetics salespeople are women? Do you think there's some horrible educational/cultural/societal conspiracy or flaw going on that has caused there to be so few men in that field? And how about child day care? How about the small percentage of women that are garbage truck pickup workers? Auto mechanics? Hunters? Weightlifting? I think that today in the USA we're about as close to "culturally gender neutral" in mathematics, science and programming as we're ever going to get without some sort of significant genetic engineering or neurological/cyborg modification. Small changes? Sure, of course. Big changes? I highly doubt it without hacking on our DNA or hormones.

JCThoughtscream 16y ago
Note that the use of gender-specific industries is a bit of a sham when you can't demonstrate that the tech industry /itself/ has any overt gender-specific targeting, outside of the occasional attempt at tech fashion. In fact, it isn't too hard to imagine a culture where cosmetology /is/ male-predominant - just switch the zeitgeist around so that peacock behavior is seen as sexually beneficial. I'm afraid your underlying logic is full of holes. At the very least, it's unimaginative, and fails to at least ask "actually, /why/ is this so?" As for the 70%, Wiki's "Science in Iran" lists it as specifically degrees in science and engineering. While Wiki is, at times, unremarkable in its factuality, this specific assertion is actually backed by citation. Furthermore, biology being /also/ male-dominant in the US, your point doesn't hold well. What makes biology more female-oriented than chemistry or physics anyhow? What basis are you making such a claim?
- mkramlich 16y ago
  What makes dancing so much more female-oriented than male? What makes playing dress up? What makes gossiping on the phone? What makes playing with dolls and toy babies? Make-up? Shoes? The beauty of this line is that one doesn't need to come up with any "line of reasoning" or "logical argument" if it just comes down to biological/hormonal/neurological differences between males and females. Why do so many women have vaginas and so few have penises? Cultural conspiracy? Or is there perhaps some other force or mechanism involved? I know which I think it is. :P
  - JCThoughtscream 16y ago
    Tango is male-dominated, mostly because of its internal culture. Dressing-up is, again, cultural pressure and can conceivably be changed with altered values. Plus, guys dress up to - only, when they do, they get called a fag and suffer detrimental social effects. Guys gossip all the time - Hacker News is /full/ of gossip, if you haven't noticed. Genitalia has nothing to do with technical merit. Or, rather, as my point has been this entire time, it /shouldn't/. Most of our cerebral functions are a good long ways away from it - that is, unless you really do think with the smaller head. Trying to say that there doesn't need to be explanations for these only demonstrates the limits of your own range of exposure. In fact, there has been plenty of discussion, academic and otherwise, as to the roles and functions of cultural norms. It's call anthropology.

akshayubhat 16y ago

70% of the technical degree holders living under the Iranian patriarchal theology Highly unlikely, their must be some difference in definition of "Technical", are they including Biology, Nursing even Teaching under "Technical"? Even in India, Women in engineering have similar proportion as USA.

JCThoughtscream 16y ago
http://web.payk.net/mailingLists/iran-news/html/2000/pdfj3iWUp97GC.pdf http://web.payk.net/mailingLists/iran-news/html/2000/pdfj3iW... In 2000, Iranian women accounted for 56% of students enrolled in the natural sciences. No matter how you cut that, /that's not nursing and teaching/. And isn't it a bit of a sign of discrimination to merely assume off-hand that another culture's definition of "science and engineering" isn't as "rigorous" as ours, even if we seem to be gearing up for a clash with them? Instead of pooh-poohing their efforts, it seems more appropriate to be astonished by their capabilities in as hostile a cultural paradigm as they live in.
- akshayubhat 16y ago
  And isn't it a bit of a sign of discrimination to merely assume off-hand that another culture's definition of "science and engineering" isn't as "rigorous" as ours, even if we seem to be gearing up for a clash with them? Instead of pooh-poohing their efforts, it seems more appropriate to be astonished by their capabilities in as hostile a cultural paradigm as they live in. First it was "Technical", which is a confusing term. Second 56% in "natural sciences" is on par with USA. Nat. Sci. include Bio,Chem. Men in developing countries prefer Engineering. Finally as someone who grew up in India, I am familiar with eastern cultures/ educational systems, and can assure you 70% in "Technical [Science and Engineering]" is near impossible, unless significant men are enrolled in some technical military program and are not counted.

mkramlich 16y ago

My two little nieces had a birthday this week and for their birthday I gave them each a cool LEGO set, and, some rubber balls, play masks, a game and some windup toy robots. A few days later they came over to visit, and you know what they brought out to play with? Again? Dolls. And they wanted to bake cupcakes. No LEGO or robots or games in sight. Funny that!

JCThoughtscream 16y ago
Yeah. Common saying amongst my friends, mostly techies. "The plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data.'" To counter that, though, I would say that your presents to your nieces, while a great idea and well-encouraged, palls in the face of parental and social pressure. Their friends are playing with dolls. Playing with legos by yourself can be fun, but not quite as fun as playing with their friends.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Tonight one niece was playing dolls by herself. The other was baking by herself. shrug Actually data is comprised of anecdotes and anecdotes are data, in my judgment. Life and actual experiences in the real world are data. Reality is data. If your point is, well, this is just two little girls, you're right, that alone would not allow one to extrapolate to all little girls everywhere. However, I know for a fact that large companies and institutions have already done lots of experiments with kids (especially companies that have a vested interest in figuring out exactly what kids want, in order to maximize their profit) and my understanding is that the studies show that yes, girls mostly prefer to play with girlish things and boys with boyish things. This was the result of Science with a capital S. Now, do all boys hate dolls and all girls hate robots and dump trucks and guns? Of course not. But in the majority of cases that's how the cookie crumbled in the real world. Also the whole "pink vs blue" thing you see in stores in the kid sections? Do you think that's some conspiracy or cultural artifact? From what I've heard, it's isn't. They've done experiments. Girls in general, world-wide, really do tend to prefer pink and boys prefer blue. In the general case, when dealing with large enough numbers, etc.
  - 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I've discussed this phenomenon with my Iranian ex-girlfriend. She believes it is caused by two Iran-specific factors and can't really be repeated in the US. A) Iran has forced labor (in the military) for men from age 18-20. Students are sometimes exempted, but the government makes it difficult for men to become students to prevent "abuse" of this exemption. Further, many men go straight to work after their term of forced labor is up - connections/skills they developed in the military serve a similar purpose to college. (Israel has a similar phenomenon - due to forced military labor, college is not as strict a requirement. But this does not affect gender balance since Israel has forced labor for women as well.) B) The country is ruled by, as you note, patriarchal theocrats. Religion is a path to power/money - this creates a brain drain among intelligent men.