This blog reminds me of something I heard in an interview with Dr. Roy Baumeister. He pointed out that when he works with grad students he has to actively criti

This blog reminds me of something I heard in an interview with Dr. Roy Baumeister. He pointed out that when he works with grad students he has to actively criticize and knock down most of the ideas that his male students have because they are full of testosterone and hubris and he has to actively draw out his female students to build their confidence. He told some of his grad students this years ago and they thought he was being sexist, but years later when they (both male and female) got their own grad students they noticed the same thing. Baumeister is a psychologist who has done research in evolutionary psychology, culture, and gender. His point is that, as taboo as the subject is today, there are differences (statistically) between men and women: how they learn and how they interact socially, and what they like. Right now, we are doing a lot of work to make STEM a better environment for women, but we probably also need to understand that the style of interaction that the poster is criticizing is not bad per se, it’s just a male style, and it does work - it’s what young men use to push themselves further. Women, on average, seem to need/want a different style. It’s going to be hard to figure out how to accommodate both needs without systematically favoring one. We may not be at the right stage culturally to have a serious conversation about this. I think this is one of Paul Graham’s “Things You Can’t Say” http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html