16 ms·

What 'Lean In' Misunderstands About Gender Differences

67 points by newnewnew 13y ago

firstprimate 13y ago
My experience is obviously is anecdotal, but nonetheless I learnt this from my daughter. When she was about 3 my wife and I were discussing a birthday gift. My wife wanted to get her a kitchen play set (stove, dishes, etc) and I disagreed, purely on gender role grounds. A week later we were visiting with my sister, whose daughter did have one of these play sets. My daughter spent the entire visit playing with that set, and asked for one when we left. My wife looked smug. In retrospect my thinking was dumb. My own life experience should have clued me in. Most of Western society is built to cater for the white male. Those who aren't are told that 'success' is dependant on behaving more like a white male. That is only true if there is only one type of success, the white male type.
- antiterra 13y ago
  Your mistake was not acknowledging that a kitchen play set is a great developmental tool for both girls and boys. Deciding that girls should avoid all things stereotypically for women is just as bad as deciding they should avoid all things stereotypically male.
- finnh 13y ago
  My son's incredible fascination with buses and cars arose with ZERO outside influence, starting when he was maybe 1 year old (he's 2 1/2 now). At the time I don't think he even owned any toy cars, but he would hear a bus driving by our house and shout "bus! bus!" ... it was one of his early high-usage words. I'm not saying this is down to gender - he could have had the exact same reaction were he a girl - but I am saying this is a genetic predisposition evident in him. Nothing cultural about his love for cars. Whether this (and other) inherent traits correlate with gender is a question whose answer I don't know. My only point is that culture is not everything - clearly genetics play a big role in what people are interested in.
  - nerfhammer 13y ago
    primate studies have consistently shown monkeys and chimpanzees have similar sex-based toy preferences as humans e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921
  - djur 13y ago
    What mechanism do you suggest for a genetic predisposition for interest in a technology that was invented in the last handful of generations? How could there possibly be a "car gene"?
    - gbog 13y ago
      There could be a predisposition for males to be attracted by noisy or fast moving things, because that is what they will have to care about when they grow up, in a hunter gatherer society. Have you seen kitten chasing things? They are obviously predisposed to grab and chase and their early games prepare them for hunting in adult life. There could be a "car gene" as much as there could be a "play with a doll" gene. Wishful thinking cannot remove such a possibility.
    - nerfhammer 13y ago
      see sibling comment
- GFischer 13y ago
  You remind me of the Swedish gender experiments: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14038419 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14038419 hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831429 another The Atlantic article on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4903247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4903247 a story on women making less than men in programming: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3289750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3289750
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  My son had a fascination (amongst many others) with hairdryers. We once watched an advert together for a pink barbie toy hairdryer that blew out sparkly bits when on. Noticing his interest I asked him if he wanted one. He looked at me as if I was an idiot. Pink is for girls he explains. I think that's the end of it but no, he goes on to say he'd like a blue one. Clearly he hadn't fully internalised the cultural rules at that point. Not long afterwards I can remember him becoming acutely embarrassed by the pink play house he'd inherited from a cousin that he'd previously enjoyed playing with.
  - marquis 13y ago
    That's a perfect description of children figuring out the world. I remember having the same confused experience as a young girl, being embarrassed that my girly friends would come over and I wanted to build things outside instead of playing dress-ups. Convincing an 8 year old girl who's been told not to get her clothes dirty to come out and play in the mud is tough, until you let her wear your own overalls and you both go out and get filthy. I'm sure her mother wasn't impressed with me but I'm proud of that day.
- xixi77 13y ago
  As I noted in another comment already, kitchen playset was one of my favorite toys, and I kept bothering my parents to get more of those :) No, I'm not a woman. They are just fun for a lot of kids!
harryh 13y ago
So women really just prefer to not work, take care of the kids and the house. And they're totally comfortable with generally being poorer and less powerful. Ya right. Really disappointing to see pg link to this.
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  >So women really just prefer to not work That's what the quoted study appears to suggest, yes. Disputing those claims requires slightly more effort on your part than "ya right". >Really disappointing to see pg link to this. pg didn't link to it.
  - harryh 13y ago
    https://twitter.com/paulg/status/390880998386184192 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/390880998386184192
    - redthrowaway 13y ago
      I stand corrected. Regardless, your original comment added nothing to the discussion.
- NoPiece 13y ago
  In a 2013 national poll on modern parenthood, the Pew Research Center asked mothers and fathers to identify their "ideal" working arrangement. Fifty percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 11 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. And the higher the socio-economic status of women, the more likely they were to reject full-time employment. It might sound crazy, but when you are a little older, married, and have kids, it will make more sense. And for the ~40% of women who want to go back to work - AWESOME. Go hire them. Make it easy to leave and come back. But stop judging and just let women do what they want.
  - overgryphon 13y ago
mikeyouse 13y ago
Throughout the world, women tend to be more nurturing, risk averse and emotionally expressive, while men are usually more competitive, risk taking, and emotionally flat. The article seems to imply that since the world has a persistent bias toward men in terms of competition and risk, that this is the normal state of affairs. Would these results hold in a matriarchal society? Is the causation genetic (unlikely in my estimation) or just cultural? If the causation lies in cultural norms, wouldn't a "Lean-In" type push shift the line over time?
- timmaxw 13y ago
  > Would these results hold in a matriarchal society? I wrote up the following response and then realized that I was answering a different question than the one you asked. The following is an investigation of whether the tendency for child-raising to be "womens' work" is caused by genetic or cultural factors. This isn't directly related to the question of whether the personality traits are caused by genetic or cultural factors. I'm posting it anyway because I spent an hour writing it up and don't want to throw it away. I did some quick research and found that even in "matriarchical" societies, women are usually more involved in infant care than men. I started with this article: <http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/05/where-women-rule-the-world-matriarchal-communities-from-albania-to-china-3525234/> http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/05/where-women-rule-the-world-mat... and went down the list: * Regarding the Mosuo, this Wikipedia article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo> writes that "Children of such relationships are raised by their mothers and the mothers' families." However, men are involved in raising their nieces and nephews. * While men are heavily involved in child-raising in Aka societies, this source: <http://books.google.com/books?id=21z2hbOuTcEC> http://books.google.com/books?id=21z2hbOuTcEC> writes that "The Aka are exceptional in comparison to other societies in that fathers are actively involved with infants and are second only to mothers in the amount of direct care to their infants." (pg. 5) * Despite the existence of sworn virgins, Albania is patriarchical, according to this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_sworn_virgins> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_sworn_virgins> * I wasn't able to find sources regarding childcare in Iceland or Meghalaya. In addition, the fact that there are so few matriarchical societies in the world is notable in and of itself. My hunch is that the reason why women are more involved in childcare than men is due to cultural factors which are caused by genetic factors. One could certainly imagine a culture in which as soon as a woman gives birth, she hands the infant off to the father, and then has no further involvement in its care. So there is no immediate reason why women must be the caregivers. But that hypothetical society would require that babies be bottle-fed, which is a recent invention; historically, children had to be breast-fed, and genetic factors are certainly responsible for the fact that women are much better than men at producing milk. So the women would have had to be involved in caring for their children at least at the beginning. This could lead to a cultural norm for women to remain involved in childcare even after it is no longer necessary to breast-feed. Of course, that's not to say that childcare should be "womens' work". Even if women do turn out to have a genetic propensity towards childcare, that doesn't mean that we as a society have to let that dictate our gender roles.
whiddershins 13y ago
Another way to frame it is to postulate, if gender roles tend to persist and even increase along with wealth, why are our political and economic systems configured to be so "masculine." For example, the US has a very low proportion of elected representatives who are women, in relation to other developed countries. If you take this article at face value, the involvement statistic could be an indicator of how we conduct our political affairs, more than an indicator of women's empowerment.
ambler0 13y ago
The author waits until the very last paragraph before acknowledging: "Gender differences can sometimes be symptoms of oppression and subordination." And that's true. Oppression, subordination, etc exist. And so do innate differences between men and women. There doesn't have to be a hard-and-fast dichotomy here. I think the author is right to criticize Sandberg, since Sandberg apparently says: "A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes." which is contradicted by the research mentioned in the article. To take Sandberg's position would be sticking to one half of the dichotomy that I am alleging is a false one. That said, I think perhaps this author underestimates the extent to which oppresion exists and to which gender roles are contingent (i.e. not innate). Or, at least, the tone of the article could lead to that sort of interpretation. IMHO, better to put that acknowledgement up front rather than at the end of the article.
- MoosePlissken 13y ago
  Yeah, the study showing a correlation between a country's economic status and its gender differences is interesting, but all it really means is that economic factors might have an effect on gender equality IN ADDITION to cultural and biological factors. Besides her one caveat at the end of the article, the author seems to be making the case that this study implies that cultural factors are non-existent. I don't see how that makes any sense. One might also conclude from the study that in the absence of economic pressures, cultural forces have a much greater effect on gender inequality. Perhaps wealthy countries can spend more on luxuries like toy dolls and action figures that have a conditioning effect on young boys and girls?
  - azakai 13y ago
    > Besides her one caveat at the end of the article, the author seems to be making the case that this study implies that cultural factors are non-existent. I don't think she's saying that at all. It's not one caveat at the end - the rest of the article is described as presenting a possibility, not an absolute truth. Hence she uses the words "hypothesize", "far from conclusive", "what if", etc. etc. Of course since she is arguing against the point of view that cultural factors are everything, she focuses on the other possibility. But she writes well and is very careful to not say that cultural factors are nothing - which is a correct position to take, because scientific research into this area, as she points out, is ongoing. We just don't know the answer to where things are along that continuum.
sequoia 13y ago
Better title: "What 'Lean In' May Misunderstand About Gender Differences" This study shows that more questioning and investigation should happen, it most certainly does not "prove" that women are e.g. inherently less interested in engineering. The title is conjecture, Sandberg may be totally correct. Interesting study tho, nice to see this complicated question get investigated more.
timje1 13y ago
I always wince whenever I see a person espousing any inherent gender differences or preferences, because they are consistently ripped to pieces. I actually think it's valuable to examine if, when X occupation is 80% male, does that mean that 80% of the people entering the occupation are men? Do the women: - drop out (possibly sexist work requirements, hours etc.), - get pushed out (obvious sexism), - or are there just a small number of them pursuing that path to begin with? And if it's the latter, is this actually an issue? And if it is, is it the fault of the industry, or does the problem start with girls not finding science (for example) very interesting at eight?
- parennoob 13y ago
  I think it is very possibly a result of culture in America and to a lesser extent, Europe, showing people working in technology as unglamorous, lonely nerds with questionable personal hygiene. Witness the many TV shows making fun of STEM-concentration people, The Big Bang Theory, The IT Crowd, etc. In any film, the hacker will typically be shown as the over-eager, quirky, physically weak character (think Charlie Day as the kaiju scientist in Pacific Rim). Unless the film is something edgy like the Matrix, people always expect to see computer professionals as low-status individuals. In my opinion, this results in women being afraid to enter these fields, because they are painted as having low social worth even if they have high economic worth. (BTW, if you live in Silicon Valley and are used to coffee-shop discussions about your favourite JS libraries, remember that it is a distorted reality field; if you are male and work in tech elsewhere in the States, the most people will come up with is "Do you work in IT? Oh, I see...") On the contrary, in the former Soviet Union, scientists and technologist had a high social worth. Boom, 58% of engineers were women, as the article says.
  - true_religion 13y ago
    At first, I thought that this was a viable explanation as well, however there are many low-status office occupations that are majority female (e.g. call centres). Perhaps its a combination of CS being predominantly male-oriented with all the trouble that brings for a woman trying to 'break in', and low-status as well. High-status occupations are sought after and reach gender equity even when there's a high barrier to entry. Examples would be law, and medicine (doctors).
marquis 13y ago
Being a woman in business, especially in the tech industry, is hard but gets easier as you grow older: you get isolated, pointed out, 'discussed' and I've had clients marvel at my technical prowess, as if it were some magical gift endowed to but a few women. It took me years to learn to cope, and to have the confidence to say, it's not about me. It's about whoever is saying those things. Every day I am the sole woman in my workplace and that's OK. Most of our customers couldn't give a damn, as long as we fix those bugs and make new features. It's hardest in public, I avoid industry meet-ups, but I'm also very reserved as a person which is probably more related, and why I speak anonymously online. It's hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men. It makes me the 'other' and it's awkward but I love what I do and I love HN because in my workplace, the men around me don't give it a moments thought that I'm the 'other' and I know that the majority of the men here are also the same when it comes down to it. Sandberg has a right to her own opinions about how things work for her as a leader and a parent. Just like everyone here has their own opinion about pretty much everything.
- parennoob 13y ago
  I don't understand the "hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men" bit. These articles are typically published in rags like the Atlantic, which I would imagine have fairly equal gender-distributed commenters, or even skewing female. Or if you mean comments on HN, how do you know the genders of the people who are commenting? Not everyone mentions their gender in their comment / profile.
  - marquis 13y ago
    I mean on HN - to say how it feels: it's like being put on show in some glass box, being talked about like a rare specimen. It's just strange. I don't know if it's just me as I can't speak for other women.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      You're not wrong about the percentages. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 There was a similar poll this year with similar results but I can't find it.
NTDF9 13y ago
I'm just a young male and my views are obviously not perfect. But I've always thought that if Sheryl Sandberg was not rich, she would've had a completely different view of the world women live in. In lean-in, she paints this rosy world in which ambitious women can achieve whatever they want to. Reality is, most people (men included) just don't have the financial freedom, support system, recognition etc. to take huge risks. Even when we take risks, statistically, we fail most of the time. Most men and women never grew up in a family where both their parents are successful. Heck, many American kids grow up in broken families with parents divorced. Sheryl has had a lot of institutional support that she could take for granted. Of course, this does not mean women should not have the freedom to do what they want. In fact, I really want to see more women focus on smarts and take leadership positions in the hard stuff (military, congress etc.). But, just because things worked out for Sheryl, she's talking through a lens of privilege and success. Unfortunately, these lenses are not readily available.
- xixi77 13y ago
  Seeing success in the family certainly helps. You are right that not every woman (or man) has had that opportunity; however what Sandberg tries to do is to exactly help them by providing an example that they were lacking when growing up. I'd say more from my (very anecdotal) experience: I'm in a male-dominated and technical field, but among (very competent) women that we do have, it seems that growing up in a family where mother is decidedly more successful than the father is quite a common trait. Good role models to follow -- and not just abstractly good, but examples that suggest that women can compete as equals and win on merits in real life -- do matter for confidence, and confidence matters for everything else.
  - NTDF9 13y ago
    I want to congratulate you for reading between the lines and understanding the reasons for success. You put it in much better words. Thanks!
- cine 13y ago
  This is exactly what is wrong with society. You're actively looking for reasons to discredit Sandberg, attributing her success to her parents', to her education, and to her finances. So because she is successful, women won't be able to relate to her, and thus should not take her advice, is that correct? Does anyone know what Jack Welsh's parents did? Does it matter? Do any articles about Larry Page emphasize his parents' support as the reason for his success? I didn't think so. So how come people are actively looking to credit Sandberg's success to anything but her actual work? Because she's a woman. Sincerely, A female tech worker with divorced, middle-class parents.
Locke1689 13y ago
Both this article and the book its describing seem to mistake possible explanation for definitive or even probable explanation. The article notes that the gender differences are smaller in less developed societies and the authors conjecture that actualization could be the cause. Sure. It could be. It could also be that less developed societies generally have less specialization and fewer members, and thus less hierarchical groups, meaning that women don't feel the need to conform to a social strata within their society. All three explanations seem possible to me. Given this, I'm barely more informed than when I started. I'd have liked this piece to put in a little more sweat in actual verification and less hand-wavy brainstorming.
mhb 13y ago
Phil Greenspun's review of Lean In: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/05/12/lean-in/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/05/12/lean-in/
pessimizer 13y ago
>Wealth, freedom, and education empower men and women to be who they are. What if wealth just frees people from the necessity of subsistence labor efficiency enough that they can indulge themselves with arbitrary rule-following and role enforcement and not starve to death? I'm not sure if a culture can afford much moral policing overhead until it reaches a certain point.
- ninjac0der 13y ago
  I like how most of the /real/ problems with sexism boil down to nasty people ignoring social correctness while being nasty. I'm sure they just need a reminder that being nasty is socially unacceptable. It's entertaining watching this vacuum effect in the tech community as we take on nastiness. Next up, mandatory 9-5 drugs that suppress our evolutionary desires! Finally, real equality in the workplace!
wffurr 13y ago
I thought this was a great article until I got to the very bottom: CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Very little comes out of the AEI that I have any respect for. I am now paranoid that this article is a stalking horse for conservative "save the nukular family gays are destroying marriage drop bombs on brown people" values.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  How do mindless ad hominem attacks add to the discussion?

67 points by newnewnew 13y ago

My experience is obviously is anecdotal, but nonetheless I learnt this from my daughter. When she was about 3 my wife and I were discussing a birthday gift. My wife wanted to get her a kitchen play set (stove, dishes, etc) and I disagreed, purely on gender role grounds. A week later we were visiting with my sister, whose daughter did have one of these play sets. My daughter spent the entire visit playing with that set, and asked for one when we left. My wife looked smug. In retrospect my thinking was dumb. My own life experience should have clued me in. Most of Western society is built to cater for the white male. Those who aren't are told that 'success' is dependant on behaving more like a white male. That is only true if there is only one type of success, the white male type.

antiterra 13y ago
Your mistake was not acknowledging that a kitchen play set is a great developmental tool for both girls and boys. Deciding that girls should avoid all things stereotypically for women is just as bad as deciding they should avoid all things stereotypically male.
finnh 13y ago
My son's incredible fascination with buses and cars arose with ZERO outside influence, starting when he was maybe 1 year old (he's 2 1/2 now). At the time I don't think he even owned any toy cars, but he would hear a bus driving by our house and shout "bus! bus!" ... it was one of his early high-usage words. I'm not saying this is down to gender - he could have had the exact same reaction were he a girl - but I am saying this is a genetic predisposition evident in him. Nothing cultural about his love for cars. Whether this (and other) inherent traits correlate with gender is a question whose answer I don't know. My only point is that culture is not everything - clearly genetics play a big role in what people are interested in.
- nerfhammer 13y ago
  primate studies have consistently shown monkeys and chimpanzees have similar sex-based toy preferences as humans e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921
- djur 13y ago
  What mechanism do you suggest for a genetic predisposition for interest in a technology that was invented in the last handful of generations? How could there possibly be a "car gene"?
  - gbog 13y ago
    There could be a predisposition for males to be attracted by noisy or fast moving things, because that is what they will have to care about when they grow up, in a hunter gatherer society. Have you seen kitten chasing things? They are obviously predisposed to grab and chase and their early games prepare them for hunting in adult life. There could be a "car gene" as much as there could be a "play with a doll" gene. Wishful thinking cannot remove such a possibility.
  - nerfhammer 13y ago
    see sibling comment
GFischer 13y ago
You remind me of the Swedish gender experiments: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14038419 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14038419 hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831429 another The Atlantic article on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4903247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4903247 a story on women making less than men in programming: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3289750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3289750
ZeroGravitas 13y ago
My son had a fascination (amongst many others) with hairdryers. We once watched an advert together for a pink barbie toy hairdryer that blew out sparkly bits when on. Noticing his interest I asked him if he wanted one. He looked at me as if I was an idiot. Pink is for girls he explains. I think that's the end of it but no, he goes on to say he'd like a blue one. Clearly he hadn't fully internalised the cultural rules at that point. Not long afterwards I can remember him becoming acutely embarrassed by the pink play house he'd inherited from a cousin that he'd previously enjoyed playing with.
- marquis 13y ago
  That's a perfect description of children figuring out the world. I remember having the same confused experience as a young girl, being embarrassed that my girly friends would come over and I wanted to build things outside instead of playing dress-ups. Convincing an 8 year old girl who's been told not to get her clothes dirty to come out and play in the mud is tough, until you let her wear your own overalls and you both go out and get filthy. I'm sure her mother wasn't impressed with me but I'm proud of that day.
xixi77 13y ago
As I noted in another comment already, kitchen playset was one of my favorite toys, and I kept bothering my parents to get more of those :) No, I'm not a woman. They are just fun for a lot of kids!

harryh 13y ago

So women really just prefer to not work, take care of the kids and the house. And they're totally comfortable with generally being poorer and less powerful. Ya right. Really disappointing to see pg link to this.

redthrowaway 13y ago
>So women really just prefer to not work That's what the quoted study appears to suggest, yes. Disputing those claims requires slightly more effort on your part than "ya right". >Really disappointing to see pg link to this. pg didn't link to it.
- harryh 13y ago
  https://twitter.com/paulg/status/390880998386184192 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/390880998386184192
  - redthrowaway 13y ago
    I stand corrected. Regardless, your original comment added nothing to the discussion.
NoPiece 13y ago
In a 2013 national poll on modern parenthood, the Pew Research Center asked mothers and fathers to identify their "ideal" working arrangement. Fifty percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 11 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. And the higher the socio-economic status of women, the more likely they were to reject full-time employment. It might sound crazy, but when you are a little older, married, and have kids, it will make more sense. And for the ~40% of women who want to go back to work - AWESOME. Go hire them. Make it easy to leave and come back. But stop judging and just let women do what they want.
- overgryphon 13y ago

mikeyouse 13y ago

Throughout the world, women tend to be more nurturing, risk averse and emotionally expressive, while men are usually more competitive, risk taking, and emotionally flat. The article seems to imply that since the world has a persistent bias toward men in terms of competition and risk, that this is the normal state of affairs. Would these results hold in a matriarchal society? Is the causation genetic (unlikely in my estimation) or just cultural? If the causation lies in cultural norms, wouldn't a "Lean-In" type push shift the line over time?

timmaxw 13y ago
> Would these results hold in a matriarchal society? I wrote up the following response and then realized that I was answering a different question than the one you asked. The following is an investigation of whether the tendency for child-raising to be "womens' work" is caused by genetic or cultural factors. This isn't directly related to the question of whether the personality traits are caused by genetic or cultural factors. I'm posting it anyway because I spent an hour writing it up and don't want to throw it away. I did some quick research and found that even in "matriarchical" societies, women are usually more involved in infant care than men. I started with this article: <http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/05/where-women-rule-the-world-matriarchal-communities-from-albania-to-china-3525234/> http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/05/where-women-rule-the-world-mat... and went down the list: * Regarding the Mosuo, this Wikipedia article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo> writes that "Children of such relationships are raised by their mothers and the mothers' families." However, men are involved in raising their nieces and nephews. * While men are heavily involved in child-raising in Aka societies, this source: <http://books.google.com/books?id=21z2hbOuTcEC> http://books.google.com/books?id=21z2hbOuTcEC> writes that "The Aka are exceptional in comparison to other societies in that fathers are actively involved with infants and are second only to mothers in the amount of direct care to their infants." (pg. 5) * Despite the existence of sworn virgins, Albania is patriarchical, according to this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_sworn_virgins> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_sworn_virgins> * I wasn't able to find sources regarding childcare in Iceland or Meghalaya. In addition, the fact that there are so few matriarchical societies in the world is notable in and of itself. My hunch is that the reason why women are more involved in childcare than men is due to cultural factors which are caused by genetic factors. One could certainly imagine a culture in which as soon as a woman gives birth, she hands the infant off to the father, and then has no further involvement in its care. So there is no immediate reason why women must be the caregivers. But that hypothetical society would require that babies be bottle-fed, which is a recent invention; historically, children had to be breast-fed, and genetic factors are certainly responsible for the fact that women are much better than men at producing milk. So the women would have had to be involved in caring for their children at least at the beginning. This could lead to a cultural norm for women to remain involved in childcare even after it is no longer necessary to breast-feed. Of course, that's not to say that childcare should be "womens' work". Even if women do turn out to have a genetic propensity towards childcare, that doesn't mean that we as a society have to let that dictate our gender roles.

whiddershins 13y ago

Another way to frame it is to postulate, if gender roles tend to persist and even increase along with wealth, why are our political and economic systems configured to be so "masculine." For example, the US has a very low proportion of elected representatives who are women, in relation to other developed countries. If you take this article at face value, the involvement statistic could be an indicator of how we conduct our political affairs, more than an indicator of women's empowerment.

ambler0 13y ago

The author waits until the very last paragraph before acknowledging: "Gender differences can sometimes be symptoms of oppression and subordination." And that's true. Oppression, subordination, etc exist. And so do innate differences between men and women. There doesn't have to be a hard-and-fast dichotomy here. I think the author is right to criticize Sandberg, since Sandberg apparently says: "A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes." which is contradicted by the research mentioned in the article. To take Sandberg's position would be sticking to one half of the dichotomy that I am alleging is a false one. That said, I think perhaps this author underestimates the extent to which oppresion exists and to which gender roles are contingent (i.e. not innate). Or, at least, the tone of the article could lead to that sort of interpretation. IMHO, better to put that acknowledgement up front rather than at the end of the article.

MoosePlissken 13y ago
Yeah, the study showing a correlation between a country's economic status and its gender differences is interesting, but all it really means is that economic factors might have an effect on gender equality IN ADDITION to cultural and biological factors. Besides her one caveat at the end of the article, the author seems to be making the case that this study implies that cultural factors are non-existent. I don't see how that makes any sense. One might also conclude from the study that in the absence of economic pressures, cultural forces have a much greater effect on gender inequality. Perhaps wealthy countries can spend more on luxuries like toy dolls and action figures that have a conditioning effect on young boys and girls?
- azakai 13y ago
  > Besides her one caveat at the end of the article, the author seems to be making the case that this study implies that cultural factors are non-existent. I don't think she's saying that at all. It's not one caveat at the end - the rest of the article is described as presenting a possibility, not an absolute truth. Hence she uses the words "hypothesize", "far from conclusive", "what if", etc. etc. Of course since she is arguing against the point of view that cultural factors are everything, she focuses on the other possibility. But she writes well and is very careful to not say that cultural factors are nothing - which is a correct position to take, because scientific research into this area, as she points out, is ongoing. We just don't know the answer to where things are along that continuum.

sequoia 13y ago

Better title: "What 'Lean In' May Misunderstand About Gender Differences" This study shows that more questioning and investigation should happen, it most certainly does not "prove" that women are e.g. inherently less interested in engineering. The title is conjecture, Sandberg may be totally correct. Interesting study tho, nice to see this complicated question get investigated more.

timje1 13y ago

I always wince whenever I see a person espousing any inherent gender differences or preferences, because they are consistently ripped to pieces. I actually think it's valuable to examine if, when X occupation is 80% male, does that mean that 80% of the people entering the occupation are men? Do the women: - drop out (possibly sexist work requirements, hours etc.), - get pushed out (obvious sexism), - or are there just a small number of them pursuing that path to begin with? And if it's the latter, is this actually an issue? And if it is, is it the fault of the industry, or does the problem start with girls not finding science (for example) very interesting at eight?

parennoob 13y ago
I think it is very possibly a result of culture in America and to a lesser extent, Europe, showing people working in technology as unglamorous, lonely nerds with questionable personal hygiene. Witness the many TV shows making fun of STEM-concentration people, The Big Bang Theory, The IT Crowd, etc. In any film, the hacker will typically be shown as the over-eager, quirky, physically weak character (think Charlie Day as the kaiju scientist in Pacific Rim). Unless the film is something edgy like the Matrix, people always expect to see computer professionals as low-status individuals. In my opinion, this results in women being afraid to enter these fields, because they are painted as having low social worth even if they have high economic worth. (BTW, if you live in Silicon Valley and are used to coffee-shop discussions about your favourite JS libraries, remember that it is a distorted reality field; if you are male and work in tech elsewhere in the States, the most people will come up with is "Do you work in IT? Oh, I see...") On the contrary, in the former Soviet Union, scientists and technologist had a high social worth. Boom, 58% of engineers were women, as the article says.
- true_religion 13y ago
  At first, I thought that this was a viable explanation as well, however there are many low-status office occupations that are majority female (e.g. call centres). Perhaps its a combination of CS being predominantly male-oriented with all the trouble that brings for a woman trying to 'break in', and low-status as well. High-status occupations are sought after and reach gender equity even when there's a high barrier to entry. Examples would be law, and medicine (doctors).

marquis 13y ago

Being a woman in business, especially in the tech industry, is hard but gets easier as you grow older: you get isolated, pointed out, 'discussed' and I've had clients marvel at my technical prowess, as if it were some magical gift endowed to but a few women. It took me years to learn to cope, and to have the confidence to say, it's not about me. It's about whoever is saying those things. Every day I am the sole woman in my workplace and that's OK. Most of our customers couldn't give a damn, as long as we fix those bugs and make new features. It's hardest in public, I avoid industry meet-ups, but I'm also very reserved as a person which is probably more related, and why I speak anonymously online. It's hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men. It makes me the 'other' and it's awkward but I love what I do and I love HN because in my workplace, the men around me don't give it a moments thought that I'm the 'other' and I know that the majority of the men here are also the same when it comes down to it. Sandberg has a right to her own opinions about how things work for her as a leader and a parent. Just like everyone here has their own opinion about pretty much everything.

parennoob 13y ago
I don't understand the "hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men" bit. These articles are typically published in rags like the Atlantic, which I would imagine have fairly equal gender-distributed commenters, or even skewing female. Or if you mean comments on HN, how do you know the genders of the people who are commenting? Not everyone mentions their gender in their comment / profile.
- marquis 13y ago
  I mean on HN - to say how it feels: it's like being put on show in some glass box, being talked about like a rare specimen. It's just strange. I don't know if it's just me as I can't speak for other women.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    You're not wrong about the percentages. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 There was a similar poll this year with similar results but I can't find it.

NTDF9 13y ago

I'm just a young male and my views are obviously not perfect. But I've always thought that if Sheryl Sandberg was not rich, she would've had a completely different view of the world women live in. In lean-in, she paints this rosy world in which ambitious women can achieve whatever they want to. Reality is, most people (men included) just don't have the financial freedom, support system, recognition etc. to take huge risks. Even when we take risks, statistically, we fail most of the time. Most men and women never grew up in a family where both their parents are successful. Heck, many American kids grow up in broken families with parents divorced. Sheryl has had a lot of institutional support that she could take for granted. Of course, this does not mean women should not have the freedom to do what they want. In fact, I really want to see more women focus on smarts and take leadership positions in the hard stuff (military, congress etc.). But, just because things worked out for Sheryl, she's talking through a lens of privilege and success. Unfortunately, these lenses are not readily available.

xixi77 13y ago
Seeing success in the family certainly helps. You are right that not every woman (or man) has had that opportunity; however what Sandberg tries to do is to exactly help them by providing an example that they were lacking when growing up. I'd say more from my (very anecdotal) experience: I'm in a male-dominated and technical field, but among (very competent) women that we do have, it seems that growing up in a family where mother is decidedly more successful than the father is quite a common trait. Good role models to follow -- and not just abstractly good, but examples that suggest that women can compete as equals and win on merits in real life -- do matter for confidence, and confidence matters for everything else.
- NTDF9 13y ago
  I want to congratulate you for reading between the lines and understanding the reasons for success. You put it in much better words. Thanks!
cine 13y ago
This is exactly what is wrong with society. You're actively looking for reasons to discredit Sandberg, attributing her success to her parents', to her education, and to her finances. So because she is successful, women won't be able to relate to her, and thus should not take her advice, is that correct? Does anyone know what Jack Welsh's parents did? Does it matter? Do any articles about Larry Page emphasize his parents' support as the reason for his success? I didn't think so. So how come people are actively looking to credit Sandberg's success to anything but her actual work? Because she's a woman. Sincerely, A female tech worker with divorced, middle-class parents.

Locke1689 13y ago

Both this article and the book its describing seem to mistake possible explanation for definitive or even probable explanation. The article notes that the gender differences are smaller in less developed societies and the authors conjecture that actualization could be the cause. Sure. It could be. It could also be that less developed societies generally have less specialization and fewer members, and thus less hierarchical groups, meaning that women don't feel the need to conform to a social strata within their society. All three explanations seem possible to me. Given this, I'm barely more informed than when I started. I'd have liked this piece to put in a little more sweat in actual verification and less hand-wavy brainstorming.

mhb 13y ago

Phil Greenspun's review of Lean In: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/05/12/lean-in/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/05/12/lean-in/

pessimizer 13y ago

>Wealth, freedom, and education empower men and women to be who they are. What if wealth just frees people from the necessity of subsistence labor efficiency enough that they can indulge themselves with arbitrary rule-following and role enforcement and not starve to death? I'm not sure if a culture can afford much moral policing overhead until it reaches a certain point.

ninjac0der 13y ago
I like how most of the /real/ problems with sexism boil down to nasty people ignoring social correctness while being nasty. I'm sure they just need a reminder that being nasty is socially unacceptable. It's entertaining watching this vacuum effect in the tech community as we take on nastiness. Next up, mandatory 9-5 drugs that suppress our evolutionary desires! Finally, real equality in the workplace!

wffurr 13y ago

I thought this was a great article until I got to the very bottom: CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Very little comes out of the AEI that I have any respect for. I am now paranoid that this article is a stalking horse for conservative "save the nukular family gays are destroying marriage drop bombs on brown people" values.

newnewnew 13y ago
How do mindless ad hominem attacks add to the discussion?