4 ms·

> Why is the number of vaginas in a room the measure of how progressive a firm is? It isn't. However, when the count is 0, it is a pretty good indication of a

by cbsmith 12y ago

> Why is the number of vaginas in a room the measure of how progressive a firm is? It isn't. However, when the count is 0, it is a pretty good indication of a _lack_ of progressiveness.

ObviousScience 12y ago
That depends incredibly heavily on circumstances. I've yet to see the research which indicates that we should see an even mix of men and women at the top of social structures when we already admit a difference in terms of both physical ability (eg, why we separate sports) and behaviors (eg, men tend to be more risk taking). For that matter, many distributions that we see which have no obvious component have different distributions between the two genders. For example, women often average a bit higher, but have fewer outliers (in both directions) when scored on intelligence. I don't believe that there is no gender based component to behaviors (ie, that there isn't a gender based distinction in the distribution of normal behaviors for the two genders), and even a very slight distinction would become significant after rounds of selecting the outlier candidate over and over for promotion. In much the same way that we see a dominance of men in athletic events, we might be seeing that in corporate leadership positions.
- discodave 12y ago
  > I've yet to see the research which indicates that we should see an even mix of men and women at the top of social structures The reason that we want to see this is that we have thousands of years of evidence that when group A has more power than group B it tends to end really badly for group B. See: slavery, capitalism, the patriarchy, colonialism... etc. > admit a difference in terms of both physical ability (eg, why we separate sports) That's spurious. Physical ability is not at all important for competency in most of the high paying and powerful roles of society. If physical ability were important then the CEOs, bankers and politicians of the world would be young men rather than old white men. > and behaviors (eg, men tend to be more risk taking) It's very hard to prove that different behaviours between the genders are a result of biochemistry (that we can't control) as opposed to social conditioning (that we can control). Most of the behaviours that people think of as "feminine" or "masculine" are learned rather than innate. One example (competitiveness) is outlined in this Freakonomics podcast: http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/what-can-a-ball-and-a-bucket-teach-us-about-why-women-earn-less-than-men/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/what-can-a-ball-and-a-buc...
  - tomp 12y ago
    But even if we consider it wrong that "society" conditions men and women to behave differently, there's nothing wrong with companies promoting more people that are already more aggressive, which turns out to be men more often. I think it's the purpose of the companies to earn money, not to change the society; actually, I actively don't want them to influence the society too much (their influences are too powerful already), except through advancing the technology (again, within the frameworks that the civil society sets up).
    - kaitai 12y ago
      How about the fact, though, that more conservative financial practices often result in better long-term results for established firms? If you're in a startup that you don't mind blowing up or running into the ground, promote the more aggressive, but if you want to continue an established business, that's the wrong strategy. For links to some investment studies, see http://www.thestreet.com/story/13018257/1/who-had-bigger-investment-returns-in-2014-women-or-men.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/13018257/1/who-had-bigger-inv... , http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/behavioral-economics-show-that-women-tend-to-make-better-investments-than-men/2013/10/10/5347f40e-2d50-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/behavioral-economics-...
      - tomp 12y ago
        Talking money is definitely better than other types of persuasion, especially when it comes to companies. Having said that, I wouldn't put too much confidence in the articles you posted; the effects in the first one are tiny, and for one year only, and the beginning of the second one is ripe with sexist stereotypes (I didn't bother to read the whole one). Also, as with all economic/psychological research, the results are to be trusted only if they can be demonstrated over a very long period of time, by multiple researchers (and even then it's not of equal validity as a controlled scientific experiment). Having said that, I don't necessarily reject your hypothesis; I'm sure that people will be putting money to it, and if it's true, someone will be reaping profit.
- lukeasrodgers 12y ago
  I doubt that scientifically reputable research into this would is possible. How would you design the study? Start a bunch of successful large corporations then randomly staff their executive positions with different mixtures of men and women, and study the effects on society at large for 30 years?
- cbsmith 12y ago
  You are talking about statistical measures here, yet seem blind to the underlying principle that whatever the statistical measure, there are more than enough outliers for a count of 0 ought to be surprising, particularly in an area like this where any relevant gender variances are so dwarfed by individual variations.
colmvp 12y ago
I feel like that's a very simplistic way of evaluating progressiveness. A board of a well known tech company is composed of 3 women, and 6 men. By your metric, that's progressiveness. After all, a third are women. Greater than 0. Now what if all of them are white. Is that progressive when the population of the U.S. also includes Hispanics, Asians (who make up a sizable % of the tech industry), and Blacks but the board contains none? As a visible minority, I say yes, because women are under-represented and it's fine if sometimes other ethnicities aren't represented. So by one metric it's not progressive/diverse, but by another it is. Likewise, if a group happens to be all male but contains visible minorities, is that not an example of being progressive? It's not as if North America is completely color blind and minorities don't endure exclusion from a variety of groups ranging from executive positions to judicial positions to political representation in North America. Being white and male in North America carries a privilege very unlike being Black/Asian/Hispanic and male. And so yes, I sound like a broken record on this thread but it irks me when people only judge by gender, when ethnicity is a consideration here in the U.S. And when I look at the partners, they have some visible minorities. But most importantly, when I read their bios, they are clearly very qualified.
- rtpg 12y ago
  well progressiveness isn't a binary thing, and there's a lot of angles upon which to be progressive. It's possible to be progressive among some angles and not among others. Just because you aren't racist doesn't give you the right to be sexist (being blunt but the idea is there).
- cbsmith 12y ago
  > I feel like that's a very simplistic way of evaluating progressiveness. It is incredibly simplistic. > A board of a well known tech company is composed of 3 women, and 6 men. By your metric, that's progressiveness. No it is not. I made no assertions about that context. My assertion was that when there are NO women in the room, that is an indication of a _lack_ of progressiveness. Even that has some obvious caveats, as for small numbers of people (like say... 1), it wouldn't mean anything... but my assertion already concedes that you could have half or more than half the room be made up of women and still not be at all progressive.

by cbsmith 12y ago

> Why is the number of vaginas in a room the measure of how progressive a firm is? It isn't. However, when the count is 0, it is a pretty good indication of a _lack_ of progressiveness.

ObviousScience 12y ago

That depends incredibly heavily on circumstances. I've yet to see the research which indicates that we should see an even mix of men and women at the top of social structures when we already admit a difference in terms of both physical ability (eg, why we separate sports) and behaviors (eg, men tend to be more risk taking). For that matter, many distributions that we see which have no obvious component have different distributions between the two genders. For example, women often average a bit higher, but have fewer outliers (in both directions) when scored on intelligence. I don't believe that there is no gender based component to behaviors (ie, that there isn't a gender based distinction in the distribution of normal behaviors for the two genders), and even a very slight distinction would become significant after rounds of selecting the outlier candidate over and over for promotion. In much the same way that we see a dominance of men in athletic events, we might be seeing that in corporate leadership positions.

discodave 12y ago
> I've yet to see the research which indicates that we should see an even mix of men and women at the top of social structures The reason that we want to see this is that we have thousands of years of evidence that when group A has more power than group B it tends to end really badly for group B. See: slavery, capitalism, the patriarchy, colonialism... etc. > admit a difference in terms of both physical ability (eg, why we separate sports) That's spurious. Physical ability is not at all important for competency in most of the high paying and powerful roles of society. If physical ability were important then the CEOs, bankers and politicians of the world would be young men rather than old white men. > and behaviors (eg, men tend to be more risk taking) It's very hard to prove that different behaviours between the genders are a result of biochemistry (that we can't control) as opposed to social conditioning (that we can control). Most of the behaviours that people think of as "feminine" or "masculine" are learned rather than innate. One example (competitiveness) is outlined in this Freakonomics podcast: http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/what-can-a-ball-and-a-bucket-teach-us-about-why-women-earn-less-than-men/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/what-can-a-ball-and-a-buc...
- tomp 12y ago
  But even if we consider it wrong that "society" conditions men and women to behave differently, there's nothing wrong with companies promoting more people that are already more aggressive, which turns out to be men more often. I think it's the purpose of the companies to earn money, not to change the society; actually, I actively don't want them to influence the society too much (their influences are too powerful already), except through advancing the technology (again, within the frameworks that the civil society sets up).
  - kaitai 12y ago
    How about the fact, though, that more conservative financial practices often result in better long-term results for established firms? If you're in a startup that you don't mind blowing up or running into the ground, promote the more aggressive, but if you want to continue an established business, that's the wrong strategy. For links to some investment studies, see http://www.thestreet.com/story/13018257/1/who-had-bigger-investment-returns-in-2014-women-or-men.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/13018257/1/who-had-bigger-inv... , http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/behavioral-economics-show-that-women-tend-to-make-better-investments-than-men/2013/10/10/5347f40e-2d50-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/behavioral-economics-...
    - tomp 12y ago
      Talking money is definitely better than other types of persuasion, especially when it comes to companies. Having said that, I wouldn't put too much confidence in the articles you posted; the effects in the first one are tiny, and for one year only, and the beginning of the second one is ripe with sexist stereotypes (I didn't bother to read the whole one). Also, as with all economic/psychological research, the results are to be trusted only if they can be demonstrated over a very long period of time, by multiple researchers (and even then it's not of equal validity as a controlled scientific experiment). Having said that, I don't necessarily reject your hypothesis; I'm sure that people will be putting money to it, and if it's true, someone will be reaping profit.
lukeasrodgers 12y ago
I doubt that scientifically reputable research into this would is possible. How would you design the study? Start a bunch of successful large corporations then randomly staff their executive positions with different mixtures of men and women, and study the effects on society at large for 30 years?
cbsmith 12y ago
You are talking about statistical measures here, yet seem blind to the underlying principle that whatever the statistical measure, there are more than enough outliers for a count of 0 ought to be surprising, particularly in an area like this where any relevant gender variances are so dwarfed by individual variations.

colmvp 12y ago

I feel like that's a very simplistic way of evaluating progressiveness. A board of a well known tech company is composed of 3 women, and 6 men. By your metric, that's progressiveness. After all, a third are women. Greater than 0. Now what if all of them are white. Is that progressive when the population of the U.S. also includes Hispanics, Asians (who make up a sizable % of the tech industry), and Blacks but the board contains none? As a visible minority, I say yes, because women are under-represented and it's fine if sometimes other ethnicities aren't represented. So by one metric it's not progressive/diverse, but by another it is. Likewise, if a group happens to be all male but contains visible minorities, is that not an example of being progressive? It's not as if North America is completely color blind and minorities don't endure exclusion from a variety of groups ranging from executive positions to judicial positions to political representation in North America. Being white and male in North America carries a privilege very unlike being Black/Asian/Hispanic and male. And so yes, I sound like a broken record on this thread but it irks me when people only judge by gender, when ethnicity is a consideration here in the U.S. And when I look at the partners, they have some visible minorities. But most importantly, when I read their bios, they are clearly very qualified.

rtpg 12y ago
well progressiveness isn't a binary thing, and there's a lot of angles upon which to be progressive. It's possible to be progressive among some angles and not among others. Just because you aren't racist doesn't give you the right to be sexist (being blunt but the idea is there).
cbsmith 12y ago
> I feel like that's a very simplistic way of evaluating progressiveness. It is incredibly simplistic. > A board of a well known tech company is composed of 3 women, and 6 men. By your metric, that's progressiveness. No it is not. I made no assertions about that context. My assertion was that when there are NO women in the room, that is an indication of a _lack_ of progressiveness. Even that has some obvious caveats, as for small numbers of people (like say... 1), it wouldn't mean anything... but my assertion already concedes that you could have half or more than half the room be made up of women and still not be at all progressive.