4 ms·

Turns out women don't get 'merit'. Please provide citations.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Sure. https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/jun/24/false-theory-meritocracy-women-lose https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/jun/24/... The main takeaways here are: 1. Players have a range of qualities. It is nigh on impossible to rank them in a simple linear order, since strengths and weaknesses come in bundles, not as a single order of merit. 2. What makes someone a winner or a loser varies as they move up the ladder? Success criteria are context-dependent. Qualities suited to the top position may have little value in the middle, and vice versa. Indeed we may kill off the very leaders we need in middle echelon tournaments. 3. Something like the Peter Principle operates, where people are promoted to their level of incompetence. We advance people on yesterday's, not tomorrow's, competence. It is also striking that no one goes down. Losers just get stuck in their positions or exit the game. 4. People move ahead as much by luck as through performance. They get a good break, have a strong sponsor, make the right friends and get handed an opportunity to shine. https://theconversation.com/women-in-tech-suffer-because-of-american-myth-of-meritocracy-94269 https://theconversation.com/women-in-tech-suffer-because-of-... "In the U.S., women own 39 percent of all privately owned businesses but receive only around 4 percent of venture capital funding. Put another way, male-led ventures receive 96 percent of all funding." https://www.nawbo.org/resources/women-business-owner-statistics https://www.nawbo.org/resources/women-business-owner-statist... https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272646267/how-the-meritocracy-myth-affects-women-in-technology https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/27... Women account for just 6 percent of the chief executives of the top 100 tech companies There's plenty enough to dig further in this area. The numbers are damning, and show that "Turns out women don't get 'merit'." rather effectively. Well, unless you think that half of the population has 'fair' representation with only 4% VC funding, or 6% CEOs.
- CWuestefeld 8y ago
  You've shown that merit isn't a simple cardinal value; I buy that. You've also shown that outcomes aren't equal. You haven't provided any reason to believe that the outcomes should be equal - in particular, that a comparable number of women are actually competing with the men. There's a fundamental assumption here that women have the same goals as men, and prioritize them against other life choices in the same way. There's a lot of reason to think that both of those things are false.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    > You've also shown that outcomes aren't equal. You haven't provided any reason to believe that the outcomes should be equal - in particular, that a comparable number of African Americans are actually competing with whites. There's a fundamental assumption here that African Americans have the same goals as whites, and prioritize them against other life choices in the same way. There's a lot of reason to think that both of those things are false. By subtly changing a few words, I've replicated the same sentiment against African Americans. And before that, the Irish immigrants. And Chinese immigrants. You come from a superiority position, and that the "inferiors" don't really want nor care. I reject that worldview wholeheartedly.
    - CWuestefeld 8y ago
      Reject away, but your counterexample doesn't prove anything. Once again, you're continuing to make the assumption that all outcomes should, prescriptively, be equal for any demographic you might care to examine. There's no reason to believe that everyone is identical. That idea is a religion to some people, but it's all based on faith with no real evidence. People are free to pursue different goals, and to prioritize different things. For your argument to prevail, you've got to get past that as an assumption. You need to actually demonstrate that for completely equivalent cases, some demographics are being held back. That's remarkably difficult to do. Otherwise, I can do this: women compromise 56% of college enrollees, with men only at 44%. There's clearly some kind of superiority position with an interest in keeping men out of college. I'm not claiming that's a problem, but with your model of presumptive discrimination, you're going to have to come up with an explanation.
  - pseudalopex 8y ago
    The issue isn't that current outcomes aren't exactly equal. The inequality is larger than typical sex differences can explain. If current outcomes reflect an innate difference, the separation between the median woman and the median man has to be exceptionally large, the trait has to be exceptionally more variable in men, organizations have to be far more selective than other evidence suggests, and/or the trait must not be normally distributed.

Sure. https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/jun/24/false-theory-meritocracy-women-lose https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/jun/24/... The main takeaways here are: 1. Players have a range of qualities. It is nigh on impossible to rank them in a simple linear order, since strengths and weaknesses come in bundles, not as a single order of merit. 2. What makes someone a winner or a loser varies as they move up the ladder? Success criteria are context-dependent. Qualities suited to the top position may have little value in the middle, and vice versa. Indeed we may kill off the very leaders we need in middle echelon tournaments. 3. Something like the Peter Principle operates, where people are promoted to their level of incompetence. We advance people on yesterday's, not tomorrow's, competence. It is also striking that no one goes down. Losers just get stuck in their positions or exit the game. 4. People move ahead as much by luck as through performance. They get a good break, have a strong sponsor, make the right friends and get handed an opportunity to shine. https://theconversation.com/women-in-tech-suffer-because-of-american-myth-of-meritocracy-94269 https://theconversation.com/women-in-tech-suffer-because-of-... "In the U.S., women own 39 percent of all privately owned businesses but receive only around 4 percent of venture capital funding. Put another way, male-led ventures receive 96 percent of all funding." https://www.nawbo.org/resources/women-business-owner-statistics https://www.nawbo.org/resources/women-business-owner-statist... https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272646267/how-the-meritocracy-myth-affects-women-in-technology https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/27... Women account for just 6 percent of the chief executives of the top 100 tech companies There's plenty enough to dig further in this area. The numbers are damning, and show that "Turns out women don't get 'merit'." rather effectively. Well, unless you think that half of the population has 'fair' representation with only 4% VC funding, or 6% CEOs.

CWuestefeld 8y ago
You've shown that merit isn't a simple cardinal value; I buy that. You've also shown that outcomes aren't equal. You haven't provided any reason to believe that the outcomes should be equal - in particular, that a comparable number of women are actually competing with the men. There's a fundamental assumption here that women have the same goals as men, and prioritize them against other life choices in the same way. There's a lot of reason to think that both of those things are false.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  > You've also shown that outcomes aren't equal. You haven't provided any reason to believe that the outcomes should be equal - in particular, that a comparable number of African Americans are actually competing with whites. There's a fundamental assumption here that African Americans have the same goals as whites, and prioritize them against other life choices in the same way. There's a lot of reason to think that both of those things are false. By subtly changing a few words, I've replicated the same sentiment against African Americans. And before that, the Irish immigrants. And Chinese immigrants. You come from a superiority position, and that the "inferiors" don't really want nor care. I reject that worldview wholeheartedly.
  - CWuestefeld 8y ago
    Reject away, but your counterexample doesn't prove anything. Once again, you're continuing to make the assumption that all outcomes should, prescriptively, be equal for any demographic you might care to examine. There's no reason to believe that everyone is identical. That idea is a religion to some people, but it's all based on faith with no real evidence. People are free to pursue different goals, and to prioritize different things. For your argument to prevail, you've got to get past that as an assumption. You need to actually demonstrate that for completely equivalent cases, some demographics are being held back. That's remarkably difficult to do. Otherwise, I can do this: women compromise 56% of college enrollees, with men only at 44%. There's clearly some kind of superiority position with an interest in keeping men out of college. I'm not claiming that's a problem, but with your model of presumptive discrimination, you're going to have to come up with an explanation.
- pseudalopex 8y ago
  The issue isn't that current outcomes aren't exactly equal. The inequality is larger than typical sex differences can explain. If current outcomes reflect an innate difference, the separation between the median woman and the median man has to be exceptionally large, the trait has to be exceptionally more variable in men, organizations have to be far more selective than other evidence suggests, and/or the trait must not be normally distributed.