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Forget about diversity. When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent availa

Forget about diversity. When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent available. Excluding women, castes, races, ethnicities seems like a poor choice for any society that wants to advance as a whole.

chasil 4y ago
Every mind has value, we must agree.
edge17 4y ago
I think the point here is caste is something different than the other categories. Caste doesn't discriminate gender, religon etc. In the indian caste system you can be a woman, a Christian, etc and still not escape it. It is a layer on top of all the other forms of discrimination and traditionally passed through generations. Most of the people I know that came from India to America, when I have asked, have told me that they forgot about caste within a few years of living in the US. Everyone's lived experience is different though and I can imagine these traditions die harder in pockets of the US where South Asian communities live.
- known 4y ago
  [dead]
petilon 4y ago
Here are the facts about women in India: Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley [1]. India has a much better male-to-female ratio compared with the U.S. Engineering male-female ratio in India is 1.96 as compared with 4.61 in the U.S. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/24/why-women-in-stem-may-be-better-off-working-in-india-and-latin-america https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2... [2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-is-a-mane28099s-field-changing-a-stereotype-with-a-lesson-from-india/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-... What India Can Teach Silicon Valley About Its Gender Problem https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-skilled-female-developers/ https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-sk... The 2015 stackoverflow survey has this interesting statement: "Developers in India are 3-times more likely to be female than developers in the United States." See https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015 https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015 Actually it is worse than it sounds because most of the female developers in the United States are first generation immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe.
- richbell 4y ago
  What's the breakdown of women in the context of this discussion (caste)? Is there an equitable ratio?
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Those are facts about women in Indian IT that employs 5M / 0.5% of population. Real concerning facts about women in India is they have some of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world, excluding Arab countries. And DECLINING from 25-30% in early 2000s to ~17% today. Which is absurd since everywhere else, female partcipation increases in workforce as country developes. That said, my understanding is, at least with respect to "elite" fields, i.e. talent that drives development, the balance is improving. Which TBH might be enough.
  - flashgordon 4y ago
    One aspect of this could be the support in India for maternal care? https://www.sumhr.com/blog/maternity-leave-in-india#:~:text=In%20India%2C%20all%20women%20working,paid%20maternity%20leave%20in%20India.&text=ALSO%20READ%3A%20What%20is%20Payroll%3F https://www.sumhr.com/blog/maternity-leave-in-india#:~:text=... Compare this with US where mothers are expected to be back to "normal levels of productivity" within 6-12 weeks. Any more is really a company benefit.
    - dirtyid 4y ago
      It's been sinking since 2000s and intuitively, Indian TFR is not high enough to explain such low female labour force participation, where world average is 50%. Also plenty of of countries with much better maternity benefits and significantly higher participation rates, but not fair to compare OECD. Culturally, I think it's driven by traditional social pressure for women to stay at home if husband can be bread winner, or jobs get deferred to men when times are tough.
  - belltaco 4y ago
    >Those are facts about women in Indian IT that employs 5M / 0.005% of population You're off by two orders of magnitude in your percentage calculation, which makes the rest of your comment suspect.

chasil 4y ago

Every mind has value, we must agree.

edge17 4y ago

I think the point here is caste is something different than the other categories. Caste doesn't discriminate gender, religon etc. In the indian caste system you can be a woman, a Christian, etc and still not escape it. It is a layer on top of all the other forms of discrimination and traditionally passed through generations. Most of the people I know that came from India to America, when I have asked, have told me that they forgot about caste within a few years of living in the US. Everyone's lived experience is different though and I can imagine these traditions die harder in pockets of the US where South Asian communities live.

known 4y ago
[dead]

petilon 4y ago

Here are the facts about women in India: Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley [1]. India has a much better male-to-female ratio compared with the U.S. Engineering male-female ratio in India is 1.96 as compared with 4.61 in the U.S. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/24/why-women-in-stem-may-be-better-off-working-in-india-and-latin-america https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2... [2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-is-a-mane28099s-field-changing-a-stereotype-with-a-lesson-from-india/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-... What India Can Teach Silicon Valley About Its Gender Problem https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-skilled-female-developers/ https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-sk... The 2015 stackoverflow survey has this interesting statement: "Developers in India are 3-times more likely to be female than developers in the United States." See https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015 https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015 Actually it is worse than it sounds because most of the female developers in the United States are first generation immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe.

richbell 4y ago
What's the breakdown of women in the context of this discussion (caste)? Is there an equitable ratio?
dirtyid 4y ago
Those are facts about women in Indian IT that employs 5M / 0.5% of population. Real concerning facts about women in India is they have some of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world, excluding Arab countries. And DECLINING from 25-30% in early 2000s to ~17% today. Which is absurd since everywhere else, female partcipation increases in workforce as country developes. That said, my understanding is, at least with respect to "elite" fields, i.e. talent that drives development, the balance is improving. Which TBH might be enough.
- flashgordon 4y ago
  One aspect of this could be the support in India for maternal care? https://www.sumhr.com/blog/maternity-leave-in-india#:~:text=In%20India%2C%20all%20women%20working,paid%20maternity%20leave%20in%20India.&text=ALSO%20READ%3A%20What%20is%20Payroll%3F https://www.sumhr.com/blog/maternity-leave-in-india#:~:text=... Compare this with US where mothers are expected to be back to "normal levels of productivity" within 6-12 weeks. Any more is really a company benefit.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    It's been sinking since 2000s and intuitively, Indian TFR is not high enough to explain such low female labour force participation, where world average is 50%. Also plenty of of countries with much better maternity benefits and significantly higher participation rates, but not fair to compare OECD. Culturally, I think it's driven by traditional social pressure for women to stay at home if husband can be bread winner, or jobs get deferred to men when times are tough.
- belltaco 4y ago
  >Those are facts about women in Indian IT that employs 5M / 0.005% of population You're off by two orders of magnitude in your percentage calculation, which makes the rest of your comment suspect.