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> I don’t think there is a widespread consesus within Feminism for the idea that women and men aren’t different — and honestly, everybody who says so didn’t bot

• Anthony-G 7y ago
  Feminism is a broad church. The point being made is that there isn't a consensus on the idea that "any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the result of discrimination". Many of the louder voices within the movement express this view but it's not a consensus.
• atoav 7y ago
  > Apprently there is, otherwise why claim than any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the result of discrimination? I don't think Feminists claim any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the result of discrimination. At least the ones I know usually hold much more balanced views here and the subset of them that is for a fixed quota of women in certain fields/levels usually also say, that they really don't think of this as a good solution, but as they unsucessfully atempted to change things using voluntary solutions for decades, they are now in favour of such solutions. I am a European, so our feminist debate might differ from the one in the US. But you shouldn't listen to the ones screaming the loudest anywhere and think they are representative. If we'd judge white christians based on that it would mean the world would be filled with lunatics, when in fact it is much more nuanced. > [...] then it is also probable that more females will be in UX or design than males [...] I think nobody rational would argue agaisnt your thesis. The point feminists usually tend to make about this is, these bilogical tendencies are the only one thing that decides careers – there is also the question of work culture and sociatal expectations, etc. If you do a little bit of research you will be fascinated how many women helped in the dawn of computation. This was, because before electronic computers, the word "computer" literally meant humans who did the calculations and these humans were predominantly female maths graduates in the dawn of the computer age. The job of a female computer was not well paid, only a fraction of what the male deciding mathematicians earned. But there weren't enough skilled people here, so women filled the position. When computers became bigger, it started to become more male and the focus shifted from maths specialists to special degrees, the quality of software declined with the quality of education, more men started to work in the fields salaries increased, until at some point it was a male dominated field, with slight shifts in the recent years. It is conviniently easy to say women are better at the thing they do at a specific point in history (which for some reason is always paid worse) and so they should just stick to it. E.g. today many women work in textiles and fashion, this was the polar opposite 150 years ago, yet today every unreflected person would swear that there is something inherently feminine about working in the textile industry. So IMO biological factors make a difference, but it has significantly more impact whether you live in a society that expects certain genders to fill certain roles. There will always be men or women that go against these roles, but wouldn't it be the best to live in a society where men are not expected to do/be/embody X and women not expected to do/be/embody Y? This would mean everybody could be closer to their true selves, and we end up with the best people for a given job. In a practical setting the sensible and civilized stance to take on this is not to focus too much on gender and other features when deciding if somebody has the skill, while focusing on it when it is about the "systemic" question, whether somebody should be part of a team or not, with the goal of including people with different backgrounds.