It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't(hbswk.hbs.edu)
hbswk.hbs.edu
It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6498.html?wknews=101210
12 comments
This is awesome. When I was growing up, in Saudi Arabia, I never once saw a Saudi woman at a desk. I've read that King Abdul Aziz University actively recruits women professors and students, and that's such a wonderful thing to hear.
KSA is the least influential in the region, culturally. Anything Saudi is synonymous with inflexibility. Even religious extremists go to Kuwait, UAE and the UK for their meetings. King Abdul Aziz University is a good thing, but KAUST blows it out of the water! I was skeptical at first then did a little research. KAUST is not exactly the MIT of the middle-east, but it's up there with Cornell and CMU. Not only is it the second co-ed institution in Saudi Arabia (the first is the Ka'bah in Mecca, where Muslims go for pilgrimage, side-by-side, but you already knew that ;-) but it's also a place with a strong theoretical bias.
I heard the complaints from right-wing groups when they said "it's a place for boys and girls to sit side by side and learn useless abstract mathematics that will server neither God nor the nation", and I thought ... FUCK YEAH!
My younger sister finished medical school only a few years ago, but because she speaks 4-languages and has a master's degree, she went on to manage an entire clinic, and soon after that the investors sent her to training in hospitality and gave her a hotel to manage, then a second. This is in Oman, btw. I know it's anecdotal evidence, but you couldn't imagine a 27 year old woman managing hotels and hospitals with a staff of several hundred. (I was worried they might be framing her for "something", but I went over her paperwork and it's all kosher; she answers to a board of directors and has clear rights, responsibilities, budget, and reporting procedures. She has been at it for 3 years now.)
Similarly, when dealing with companies in Gulf, I have seen a few repeating patterns in management. You have the national institutions headed by tribal/military chiefs, you have the domestically owned companies headed by foreign expertise, then you have this new breed of "agile" companies headed by women and young people that don't seem to respect the traditional order and hierarchy. Ten years ago, a Request for Proposal was a joke; a formality to waste people's time before the contract was given to the CEO's cousin.
I heard the complaints from right-wing groups when they said "it's a place for boys and girls to sit side by side and learn useless abstract mathematics that will server neither God nor the nation", and I thought ... FUCK YEAH!
My younger sister finished medical school only a few years ago, but because she speaks 4-languages and has a master's degree, she went on to manage an entire clinic, and soon after that the investors sent her to training in hospitality and gave her a hotel to manage, then a second. This is in Oman, btw. I know it's anecdotal evidence, but you couldn't imagine a 27 year old woman managing hotels and hospitals with a staff of several hundred. (I was worried they might be framing her for "something", but I went over her paperwork and it's all kosher; she answers to a board of directors and has clear rights, responsibilities, budget, and reporting procedures. She has been at it for 3 years now.)
Similarly, when dealing with companies in Gulf, I have seen a few repeating patterns in management. You have the national institutions headed by tribal/military chiefs, you have the domestically owned companies headed by foreign expertise, then you have this new breed of "agile" companies headed by women and young people that don't seem to respect the traditional order and hierarchy. Ten years ago, a Request for Proposal was a joke; a formality to waste people's time before the contract was given to the CEO's cousin.
I'm not sure what the article is suggesting as the reason for the increase in revenue. It seems from comments on here that people are implying that women are simply more productive when given an opportunity where they usually would be denied one.
This has been documented in the U.S. and is pretty core to advertising agencies today who have a goal of generating revenue from minority groups: you need to hire the minority groups into your companies because people tend not to buy where they cannot work (DBWYCW, or "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" is a popular acronym in the early 20th century from the United States). Don't read this the wrong way as "they only use minority groups to generate revenue," this is a marketing goal to do business with minority groups (it's not a bad or "evil" thing).
Revenue increases when you do this. There's a correlation there, but I really doubt that the cause is a supposed increase in productivity simply by giving people an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have had. I think the key indicator is to look at the media and see if these people have boycotted against companies who refuse to hire members of their group (women and African Americans were the two major groups during the Great Depression who practiced this).
It was also suggested that women for example are cheaper, although if you have a company doing programming (just a random example) and you're hiring women for secretary jobs (another example), your revenues are going to be discounted by the fact that you have less programmers. I'm not sure what type of jobs they're filling, but I'm a bit skeptic about this although it at least sounds intuitive.
This has been documented in the U.S. and is pretty core to advertising agencies today who have a goal of generating revenue from minority groups: you need to hire the minority groups into your companies because people tend not to buy where they cannot work (DBWYCW, or "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" is a popular acronym in the early 20th century from the United States). Don't read this the wrong way as "they only use minority groups to generate revenue," this is a marketing goal to do business with minority groups (it's not a bad or "evil" thing).
Revenue increases when you do this. There's a correlation there, but I really doubt that the cause is a supposed increase in productivity simply by giving people an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have had. I think the key indicator is to look at the media and see if these people have boycotted against companies who refuse to hire members of their group (women and African Americans were the two major groups during the Great Depression who practiced this).
It was also suggested that women for example are cheaper, although if you have a company doing programming (just a random example) and you're hiring women for secretary jobs (another example), your revenues are going to be discounted by the fact that you have less programmers. I'm not sure what type of jobs they're filling, but I'm a bit skeptic about this although it at least sounds intuitive.
> I'm not sure what the article is suggesting as the reason for the increase in revenue.
The typical economic argument is a variation on the general principle that when other people are making irrational decisions (e.g. not hiring the best candidate because of their gender), you can do better / take advantage of them.
The typical economic argument is a variation on the general principle that when other people are making irrational decisions (e.g. not hiring the best candidate because of their gender), you can do better / take advantage of them.
I think that the article was implying that it in some countries it is easier to hire better (more qualified and possibly more talented) women than men. Eg - in Korea there are a large number of women with advanced university degrees in relevant fields who have more trouble than men finding work.
The article also said the researchers were speculating that women made better decisions because they were traditionally in charge of household spending and therefor understood the consumer better.
The article also said the researchers were speculating that women made better decisions because they were traditionally in charge of household spending and therefor understood the consumer better.
Great article. Actually, you can do the same right here at home by hiring minorities, disabled employees, and people who would otherwise not find work. Many of them will be more motivated than the average employee and you also do society a service by doing what most employers still don't.
This is a great point. Frequently, people look to hire individuals that will "match the culture" which is thinly veiled as "people that look, act, and talk like us".
Trying to hire for diversity doesn't mean you can't hire that excellent 20-something white male hacker that impressed you with the latest web-mashup, it might just mean giving other applicants a second chance, even if you don't necessarily feel a natural bond with them.
Trying to hire for diversity doesn't mean you can't hire that excellent 20-something white male hacker that impressed you with the latest web-mashup, it might just mean giving other applicants a second chance, even if you don't necessarily feel a natural bond with them.
I wonder how much of the benefit (in technical jobs at least) can be had by actually sticking to the scoring system you decided on before the interviews (let's say X% technical questions, Y% resume, Z% fit) rather than going through the whole process and then just fudging it to go with your gut feeling.
That said, this article specifically mentions "a setting where it was clear that companies were not just hiring women for PR reasons" whereas I've been on hiring committees with specific instructions to favor non-white or non-male applicants here, so the arbitrage opportunity is likely less.
That said, this article specifically mentions "a setting where it was clear that companies were not just hiring women for PR reasons" whereas I've been on hiring committees with specific instructions to favor non-white or non-male applicants here, so the arbitrage opportunity is likely less.
That makes sense. But, based on the article, why couldn't you also conclude that women are better managers than men, in general, and not just because they are a better value due to cultural externalities?
Actually I would probably conclude that having a diverse culture makes better decisions than a monoculture.
Wouldn't a monoculture of yes-men, for example, be less likely to kill a failing project early on, and save money that would otherwise be wasted? Having a diverse team will provide better input on business practices, processes and work ethics, which all impact the product a business produces, and ultimately their bottom line.
Wouldn't a monoculture of yes-men, for example, be less likely to kill a failing project early on, and save money that would otherwise be wasted? Having a diverse team will provide better input on business practices, processes and work ethics, which all impact the product a business produces, and ultimately their bottom line.
>Actually I would probably conclude that having a diverse culture makes better decisions than a monoculture.
I am not sure culture counts matter as long as it is a good culture. Sure a mediocre multiculture is better than a bad monoculture but that just means mediocre is better than bad not multi better than mono.
I am not sure culture counts matter as long as it is a good culture. Sure a mediocre multiculture is better than a bad monoculture but that just means mediocre is better than bad not multi better than mono.
Actually, I would argue that a varied culture is almost always better than a very homogeneous one if you are shooting for innovation and competitive advantage. New ideas come from the clash of various ways of thinking not from the confirmation of thought paradigms.
This said, if you are running a mining company, an automotive giant, or you are operating in any industry where the priority is on reliability and tradition, I can understand why diversity could make you nervous. But never forget that diversity can become a way of life.
That's very much what hapenned to American culture anyways with the great melting pot, isn't it?
This said, if you are running a mining company, an automotive giant, or you are operating in any industry where the priority is on reliability and tradition, I can understand why diversity could make you nervous. But never forget that diversity can become a way of life.
That's very much what hapenned to American culture anyways with the great melting pot, isn't it?
Is that what is going on in America? I am not so sure. Just because I have a group that is mixed race and gender doesn't mean they are multicultural. They could have all grown up in Dallas and gone to SMU. Most of the multiculturalism in the US seems to be the Chinese restaurant verity. So changed from its origins that you couldn't find it in China.
Of course not. That's what you see on the surface but dig in a little bit and you'll find that there are still lots of 1st generation and 2nd generation immigrants with a wealth of unique cultural identities. I lived for years abroad in Europe and Asia and I can tell you that the US, Australia and parts of Latin america are definitely unique in that way. the rest of the world (the old world) is much more culturally homogeneous.
And who is talking about race here other than Stonemetal, here? Culture has a lot more attributes than those related to gender and race.
And who is talking about race here other than Stonemetal, here?
Uh, that would appear to be you.
Actually, you can do the same right here at home by hiring minorities
Uh, that would appear to be you.
Actually, you can do the same right here at home by hiring minorities
That's a fine conclusion too, but this article doesn't preclude the alternative conclusion that a monoculture of women would be better than the status quo.
If I wanted to be sexist, I would say: that should work here. If there's a glass ceiling, then corporations that don't have it should out-compete those that do, because they'll be drawing from a bigger talent pool.
So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in worker value, due to maternity or other gender-related issues, and the market recognizes it.
Rebuttals?
So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in worker value, due to maternity or other gender-related issues, and the market recognizes it.
Rebuttals?
When you look at the situation in the United States, and try to take all the factors into account to figure out whether or not women are being discriminated against...
... you'll come away with your head spinning because there's just too damned many factors.
Consider the factor of giving generous paid maternity leave. Obviously a benefit. Except that a company won't want to hire or pay someone that may disappear like that. Except they are legally obligated to. Except these things can't really be legally obligated because there's always a way around it. And of course a certain percentage of women really do of their own free will choose not to come back, which is hard to put an economic value on for any interested party, but if you can't put a reasonably concrete objective value on both the value of having that choice, and the values of exercising that choice, how can you tell whether women are being shortchanged? Being guaranteed that you can return to your job after X months is still some sort of economic value, even if most of the X months is itself unpaid.
It isn't even necessarily that hard to find women getting paid more than men by some metrics now: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.... Note, I'm explicitly calling your attention to the various caveats and logic in the article, because this is an example of my real point about the complexity of the topic, not that one article proves anything about the "real question"; my point is exactly that nailing down the "real question" is very, very complicated, well beyond simply totalling up who makes what and looking at which number is larger.
At this point, given the very market forces that this article talks about, I am unconvinced there is a major systematic problem that comes from human bias; I think the variance caused by the non-zero-but-small-in-practice effect is dominated by the other various concerns that cause disparities. I'm sure there's sexism afoot but I suspect it's been pushed below the noise threshold. But I can't prove it.
... you'll come away with your head spinning because there's just too damned many factors.
Consider the factor of giving generous paid maternity leave. Obviously a benefit. Except that a company won't want to hire or pay someone that may disappear like that. Except they are legally obligated to. Except these things can't really be legally obligated because there's always a way around it. And of course a certain percentage of women really do of their own free will choose not to come back, which is hard to put an economic value on for any interested party, but if you can't put a reasonably concrete objective value on both the value of having that choice, and the values of exercising that choice, how can you tell whether women are being shortchanged? Being guaranteed that you can return to your job after X months is still some sort of economic value, even if most of the X months is itself unpaid.
It isn't even necessarily that hard to find women getting paid more than men by some metrics now: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.... Note, I'm explicitly calling your attention to the various caveats and logic in the article, because this is an example of my real point about the complexity of the topic, not that one article proves anything about the "real question"; my point is exactly that nailing down the "real question" is very, very complicated, well beyond simply totalling up who makes what and looking at which number is larger.
At this point, given the very market forces that this article talks about, I am unconvinced there is a major systematic problem that comes from human bias; I think the variance caused by the non-zero-but-small-in-practice effect is dominated by the other various concerns that cause disparities. I'm sure there's sexism afoot but I suspect it's been pushed below the noise threshold. But I can't prove it.
In the United States, maternity leave is rarely generous, and only kind of mandated. There are many, many loopholes and exceptions.
Yes, men's versus women's opportunities are complex in the US. Whether they are exactly equal doesn't matter. They are close enough that the most competent, skill women have good opportunities - which means that there's less of a reserve of the cheap and competent women's labor out there.
This is might be a explanation for the decline of women in computing fields. What could be happening that there are now more other fields where the most competent can go and not get any hassle at all or even experience preferential treatment. Thus the only reserve of the cheap and competent labor in the field would be those who are drawn to computing from early age. For whatever cultural, biological or other reason, these are mostly men and so this would explain why programming field has become more and more male over the last twenty years.
I know that the proportion of blacks who teaching in inner city schools declined tremendously from, say 1965 to 1985 because the barriers to those black who attended college dropped down and many more went into industry instead of teaching.
This is might be a explanation for the decline of women in computing fields. What could be happening that there are now more other fields where the most competent can go and not get any hassle at all or even experience preferential treatment. Thus the only reserve of the cheap and competent labor in the field would be those who are drawn to computing from early age. For whatever cultural, biological or other reason, these are mostly men and so this would explain why programming field has become more and more male over the last twenty years.
I know that the proportion of blacks who teaching in inner city schools declined tremendously from, say 1965 to 1985 because the barriers to those black who attended college dropped down and many more went into industry instead of teaching.
I think there is a huge opportunity for exploiting the fact that the market clearing price of 1 hour from someone with a graduate school degree is currently zero if she is also a stay-at-home mother. I do it on small scale. Demand Media does it industrial scale. Both of us put together can't absorb even a sizable fraction of the woman-hours available for sale in a single Midwestern town.
Could you elaborate on this?
If this is indeed the case, I'd be very interested in tapping into it.
If this is indeed the case, I'd be very interested in tapping into it.
I've talked about this extensively on my blog -- go to the Greatest Hits section and look up Content Creation. (http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits)
The thumbnail sketch: Queries on the long tail of the keyword distribution frequently have no effective competition. A single page laser-targeted at the query with basic on-page optimization will likely rank for it (and, most probably, a basket of related keywords). I wrote bingo activities by hand for a while, saw success with the strategy, then wrote a CMS to semi-automate the process and hired a teacher to add content to the website through it. This is far and away my most effective marketing strategy, the ROI on it is stupendous (last time I ran the numbers it was $3k in costs over 4 years for $20k in sales in the trailing 12 months), and I have yet to encounter a software company in consulting that cannot make use of a spiritually similar idea.
The ladies come in at the stage where you need cheap freelancers to write hundreds or thousands of pieces of content. You can find them through Craigslist, related communities, or good old-fashioned networking. Find good ones, pay by the piece, treat them right, and as long as you have a monetization strategy for the content being produced you will practically print money.
I've implemented (or suggested) variations on this for consulting clients, too. The applicability goes way, way beyond bingo cards.
The thumbnail sketch: Queries on the long tail of the keyword distribution frequently have no effective competition. A single page laser-targeted at the query with basic on-page optimization will likely rank for it (and, most probably, a basket of related keywords). I wrote bingo activities by hand for a while, saw success with the strategy, then wrote a CMS to semi-automate the process and hired a teacher to add content to the website through it. This is far and away my most effective marketing strategy, the ROI on it is stupendous (last time I ran the numbers it was $3k in costs over 4 years for $20k in sales in the trailing 12 months), and I have yet to encounter a software company in consulting that cannot make use of a spiritually similar idea.
The ladies come in at the stage where you need cheap freelancers to write hundreds or thousands of pieces of content. You can find them through Craigslist, related communities, or good old-fashioned networking. Find good ones, pay by the piece, treat them right, and as long as you have a monetization strategy for the content being produced you will practically print money.
I've implemented (or suggested) variations on this for consulting clients, too. The applicability goes way, way beyond bingo cards.
Would you please make a product of your method? I would like to be your customer.
The same has been mentioned to me before.
I very much doubt that I'd execute on this if it were dropped into my lap, but hypothetically supposing I saw a way to productize this, I would not need customers. It would be like inventing an AI which could successfully trade stocks in all market conditions. Sure, I suppose I could sell it for $99.95 on infomercials, but the more obvious path is to proceed directly to total world domination.
I would go raise capital, call in all of my favors with the witch kings of SEO, pull off Demand Media in parallel for as many niches as I could scale to (and if I productized this and had capital available, that number would be very high indeed), and sell out at a truly ridiculous multiple prior to the borg deciding my business model needed to be nuked from orbit.
Anyhow, good news for HN readers: the fact that this strategy is still done by bingo card makers and boutique SEO consultants and not a department dedicated to it at the New York Times means that you still have an opportunity to make a lot of money at it before your competitors with mega-brands, link juice flowing out their ears, and vast reserves of capital figure out how to exploit it.
I very much doubt that I'd execute on this if it were dropped into my lap, but hypothetically supposing I saw a way to productize this, I would not need customers. It would be like inventing an AI which could successfully trade stocks in all market conditions. Sure, I suppose I could sell it for $99.95 on infomercials, but the more obvious path is to proceed directly to total world domination.
I would go raise capital, call in all of my favors with the witch kings of SEO, pull off Demand Media in parallel for as many niches as I could scale to (and if I productized this and had capital available, that number would be very high indeed), and sell out at a truly ridiculous multiple prior to the borg deciding my business model needed to be nuked from orbit.
Anyhow, good news for HN readers: the fact that this strategy is still done by bingo card makers and boutique SEO consultants and not a department dedicated to it at the New York Times means that you still have an opportunity to make a lot of money at it before your competitors with mega-brands, link juice flowing out their ears, and vast reserves of capital figure out how to exploit it.
What if other companies discriminate against you for hiring women at very high levels? Or if sexist men within a company react badly to having women promoted above them? Then there really is a gap in worker value, but only due to sexism.
In 1996 I helped startup a branch of a company in Seoul. We had a number of help wanted ads for office staff that got a lukewarm response until we put the phrase "married women welcome to apply". Seemingly overnight we got very talented applicants who became the backbone of the office and of the company as we opened more offices in country.
It seems like this article is trying too hard to justify something that actually has a pretty easy explanation: if women are under-hired relative to their skill level, then a skilled woman is cheaper to hire than an equally skilled man.
It may be OT, but it made me think of something:
Inequality of opportunity is part of what made the U.S. a 20th century powerhouse. Bright, educated women had two career choices pre-1965: nursing or teaching. (Even in 1960, the state school my mom went to did not accept women into engineering or architecture and she could only take higher science classes if she planned to teach.) All those bright women with no options boosted our educational system to great heights for little cost. Once they had choices, many women spread out into other better paying fields.
It's not surprising that a business could succeed by following the same blueprint.
Inequality of opportunity is part of what made the U.S. a 20th century powerhouse. Bright, educated women had two career choices pre-1965: nursing or teaching. (Even in 1960, the state school my mom went to did not accept women into engineering or architecture and she could only take higher science classes if she planned to teach.) All those bright women with no options boosted our educational system to great heights for little cost. Once they had choices, many women spread out into other better paying fields.
It's not surprising that a business could succeed by following the same blueprint.
If you haven't read SuperFreakonomics and you're interested in this comment, get a copy of the book: the first chapter is about how the "decline" of the education system is linked to rising professional opportunities for women.
It used to be that highly competent women often became teachers because that was the only thing available to them. Now women can be professors, work in business, etc.
Note: this is not an argument for restricting female choice or anything else. It's about diagnosing how one (good) thing can lead to unintended consequences.
It used to be that highly competent women often became teachers because that was the only thing available to them. Now women can be professors, work in business, etc.
Note: this is not an argument for restricting female choice or anything else. It's about diagnosing how one (good) thing can lead to unintended consequences.
What this really indicates is that teachers need to be paid more, and the working environment improved. Then the profession will become more attractive to talented who are currently choosing other careers.
Why do you feel that our educational system achieved "great heights", and why do you believe these heights made the US a "20th century powerhouse"?
The United States is about 5% of the World's population, and produces about 25% of the World's economic output. This has been true for about the last 60 years. The USA and Western Europe have had the most expensive labor, focusing on high-quality products and services that require more education, but justify the higher labor cost.
I'd say that the educational system is uneven: elementary and high schools are just "good enough" to not completely screw the country. The university system, though, is really good: http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp .
Think "good enough."
Think "good enough."
[deleted]
I think it's generally agreed that the U.S. was the world's foremost economy and the home of many of the major innovations of the 20th century. I'm contending that our public education system was a major enabler of that creativity and productivity.
But many of the major and minor innovations were developed by people who didn't attend our public education system. This remains true even today.
Simply because not everyone who innovated went to college doesn't negate the value of our public education system. Nearly everyone in the United States after World War Two went to public school for some time.
I wasn't saying college negated the value of public education at all. I was pointing out that a huge number of the people who contributed to US prosperity did not attend US public schools.
Einstein didn't attend the American public school system, nor did Dyson, or many of the other great scientists of the early 20'th century. In the present day, Sergei Brin only spent 4 years in US public schools. Elon Musk didn't, nor did Max Levchin (Thiel's wikipedia page is ambiguous). Zuckerberg didn't go to a public high school either (don't know what he did before that).
You can't point to a country with massive contributions from immigrants, and then declare that services those immigrants didn't use (or used minimally) are the cause of prosperity. The logic just doesn't work.
Einstein didn't attend the American public school system, nor did Dyson, or many of the other great scientists of the early 20'th century. In the present day, Sergei Brin only spent 4 years in US public schools. Elon Musk didn't, nor did Max Levchin (Thiel's wikipedia page is ambiguous). Zuckerberg didn't go to a public high school either (don't know what he did before that).
You can't point to a country with massive contributions from immigrants, and then declare that services those immigrants didn't use (or used minimally) are the cause of prosperity. The logic just doesn't work.
Enumerating a list of successful people who didn't attend public school doesn't say anything about the utility of the public school system, especially without looking at the people who did.
It also ignores the armies of undergraduates and computers (the human kind, mostly public school educated women sitting at adding machines) that made most American discoveries and inventions possible. Individuals do make some leaps, but on the whole it's massive collaboration that advances science and technology.
It also ignores the armies of undergraduates and computers (the human kind, mostly public school educated women sitting at adding machines) that made most American discoveries and inventions possible. Individuals do make some leaps, but on the whole it's massive collaboration that advances science and technology.
I'm not disputing the utility of the public school system. I certainly agree that literacy/numeracy is a good thing.
I'm disputing the idea that the public school system made the US into a "20th century powerhouse". If you want to attribute all of a person's success to the school they pass through, be my guest. I can similarly say the IRS is the cause of the US being a "20'th century powerhouse" - after all, 100% of US businesses are taxed by the IRS.
But the fact is, the US is fairly unique in terms of innovation and growth. The education system is, by most measures I've seen, fairly mediocre [1]. And additionally, a fairly large amount of our workforce, particularly at the higher ends, didn't even use the public education system. It seems like an extraordinary claim to attribute the success of the US to our public schools. Yeah, we need public schools/indoor plumbing/electricity, but it would be similarly silly to claim we are a powerhouse as a result of those services.
[1] As far as I'm aware, this was always the case. I know that during the Cold War, we were deathly afraid of the Soviets with their high test scores gaining a scientific advantage over us.
I'm disputing the idea that the public school system made the US into a "20th century powerhouse". If you want to attribute all of a person's success to the school they pass through, be my guest. I can similarly say the IRS is the cause of the US being a "20'th century powerhouse" - after all, 100% of US businesses are taxed by the IRS.
But the fact is, the US is fairly unique in terms of innovation and growth. The education system is, by most measures I've seen, fairly mediocre [1]. And additionally, a fairly large amount of our workforce, particularly at the higher ends, didn't even use the public education system. It seems like an extraordinary claim to attribute the success of the US to our public schools. Yeah, we need public schools/indoor plumbing/electricity, but it would be similarly silly to claim we are a powerhouse as a result of those services.
[1] As far as I'm aware, this was always the case. I know that during the Cold War, we were deathly afraid of the Soviets with their high test scores gaining a scientific advantage over us.
You also can't just look at the owners of major company's and think their background was the only thing that mattered. Drawing from a large, stable, educated workforce is a requirement for any large technology company to succeed.
PS: China and India both have huge public education systems.
PS: China and India both have huge public education systems.
Call me sexist, but I firmly believe there are three areas women should not generally be part of: military, cooking and teaching.
All the best chefs are men, best professors I know are men too. And military requires more endurance that women normally have.
All the best chefs are men, best professors I know are men too. And military requires more endurance that women normally have.
I know of many female chefs of great repute and talent - and I know some very good female professors.
I don't see the link between "most good chefs are men" and "women should not be chefs". It's a bit like "no Black people ride at the front of the bus" and "Black people should not ride at the front of the bus" - you've conveniently assumed a level playing field where there likely is none, and you've also erroneously linked the current state of things to the ideal state of things.
As for the military - not being a military man I'm not sure I am qualified to comment... but are there not many more roles in the military that do not require the massive amounts of brawn that "only men" can provide?
I don't see the link between "most good chefs are men" and "women should not be chefs". It's a bit like "no Black people ride at the front of the bus" and "Black people should not ride at the front of the bus" - you've conveniently assumed a level playing field where there likely is none, and you've also erroneously linked the current state of things to the ideal state of things.
As for the military - not being a military man I'm not sure I am qualified to comment... but are there not many more roles in the military that do not require the massive amounts of brawn that "only men" can provide?
>military requires more endurance that women normally have.
my understanding (and experience) is that women tend to have better endurance than men. I remember a few years back I was running with a friend of mine, a girl who was probably 10" shorter than I am, who had a notably worse BMI than I did (at least, she did when we started running together. she improved significantly more than I did during the course of our efforts. Maybe she was just more motivated than I was?)
All along, I could out sprint her, but when it came to distance running, from day one, half way through the run she'd start leaving me in the dust. Oh man, it was so humiliating, getting left in the dust by a short fat girl. (It was good for both of us, I think, really;)
Now, if you loaded us both down with 100Lbs of equipment and had us do the same run? sure, I'd kick her ass. I don't think she could lift a pack of that size.
So yeah, men are nearly always stronger but that does not mean we have better endurance.
my understanding (and experience) is that women tend to have better endurance than men. I remember a few years back I was running with a friend of mine, a girl who was probably 10" shorter than I am, who had a notably worse BMI than I did (at least, she did when we started running together. she improved significantly more than I did during the course of our efforts. Maybe she was just more motivated than I was?)
All along, I could out sprint her, but when it came to distance running, from day one, half way through the run she'd start leaving me in the dust. Oh man, it was so humiliating, getting left in the dust by a short fat girl. (It was good for both of us, I think, really;)
Now, if you loaded us both down with 100Lbs of equipment and had us do the same run? sure, I'd kick her ass. I don't think she could lift a pack of that size.
So yeah, men are nearly always stronger but that does not mean we have better endurance.
Anecdotal evidence. You are simply on the low end of the bell curve for men.
Endurance is simply how long you can use your muscles before they give out; it's not independent of how much muscle you have. If you are very weak, you will have terrible endurance.
Yes, there are things called fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers; the greater proportion of the latter, the better endurance you have. The greater proportion of the former, the faster you go.
There doesn't seem to be evidence of gender difference in the ratio, but Google could have failed me. There is, however, an argued difference along ethnic lines. (East Africans have a much higher slow twitch/fast twitch ratio than other ethnicities.)
Even if there were, though, a marathon is an endurance race. You rely primarily on your slow twitch muscles, except perhaps in the home stretch, if you have anything left. Men win the marathons.
Endurance is simply how long you can use your muscles before they give out; it's not independent of how much muscle you have. If you are very weak, you will have terrible endurance.
Yes, there are things called fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers; the greater proportion of the latter, the better endurance you have. The greater proportion of the former, the faster you go.
There doesn't seem to be evidence of gender difference in the ratio, but Google could have failed me. There is, however, an argued difference along ethnic lines. (East Africans have a much higher slow twitch/fast twitch ratio than other ethnicities.)
Even if there were, though, a marathon is an endurance race. You rely primarily on your slow twitch muscles, except perhaps in the home stretch, if you have anything left. Men win the marathons.
First, I bet in my case neither one of us was really being pushed to the limit. two suburban white kids trying to become slightly less fat? not exactly running for our lives, you know? So it probably has more to do with will and pain tolerance than anything else.
weird, so I thought that the statistics backed up my anecdotes, but at least for pain tolerance, apparently the studies seem to show that men can tolerate more pain... which seems really weird to me. (Have you ever seen a woman give birth? I watched all five of my siblings being born, without any sort of anesthesia. I'm pretty sure that would kill me, or, at least, deter me from having more children.)
So yeah, the first couple pages of google results seem to show that you're right and I'm wrong, though, so eh, whatever. I guess I'm just a wuss.
weird, so I thought that the statistics backed up my anecdotes, but at least for pain tolerance, apparently the studies seem to show that men can tolerate more pain... which seems really weird to me. (Have you ever seen a woman give birth? I watched all five of my siblings being born, without any sort of anesthesia. I'm pretty sure that would kill me, or, at least, deter me from having more children.)
So yeah, the first couple pages of google results seem to show that you're right and I'm wrong, though, so eh, whatever. I guess I'm just a wuss.
> Men win the marathons
Among those who run marathons, the top men put in better times than the top women. However, I know _far_ more female marathon runners than men. (OTOH, I know far more male distance cyclists, so I wouldn't jump to any particular conclusions from either data point.)
Among those who run marathons, the top men put in better times than the top women. However, I know _far_ more female marathon runners than men. (OTOH, I know far more male distance cyclists, so I wouldn't jump to any particular conclusions from either data point.)
Really? Are we arguing about this? The males in all mammal species are better at physical tasks. It's called testosterone. It allows you to build more muscle mass. If women take it, they also build more muscle mass. So do female bunny rabbits.
There are other things that go into it, obviously, like body shape. Women are 8 times more likely to tear their anterior cruciate ligament because their wider hips cause them to impact the ground at problematic angles. And boobs are a dead weight.
But yeah, this is something where the biology is very well understood.
There are other things that go into it, obviously, like body shape. Women are 8 times more likely to tear their anterior cruciate ligament because their wider hips cause them to impact the ground at problematic angles. And boobs are a dead weight.
But yeah, this is something where the biology is very well understood.
Yes, it is very well understood. Muscle mass has little relationship to endurance.
In endurance events (real endurance, not wimpy things like 2-3 hour marathons) women are highly competitive with men, and there is some evidence they have an advantage.
For example, in the 235km Badwater Ultramarathon, women consistently finish top 5, despite representing only 5-10% of the field.
Long distance swimming is even worse for men. Shelly Taylor-Smith has held the record for the 48km Manhattan Island swim since 1995. Women are within 28 minutes of the outright English Channel swim crossing record (6:57 vs 7:25), and based on this older swim time list, women have 9 out of the top 20 times: http://www.channelswimming.com/solo-time-HTML.htm
I'm going to resort to quoting papers to you:
"When performing certain isometric exercises, the endurance of women is almost twice that of men performing the same exercise, according to results presented at a meeting of international scientists. Both sexes performed the exercises at the same percentage of their maximum strength. The study, conducted at the University of Colorado in the US, confirmed that women outlasted men by an average of 75 per cent and, importantly, showed that the reason women had longer endurance times was not due to differences in the motivation levels between men and women, or within the nervous system, but due to differences within muscle." http://www.mydr.com.au/sports-fitness/women-beat-men-on-musc...
"The negative slope and the X-axis intercept of this equation at 66 km supports the hypothesis that women ultramarathon runners have greater fatigue resistance than do equally trained men whose performances are superior up to the marathon distance." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9044230
In endurance events (real endurance, not wimpy things like 2-3 hour marathons) women are highly competitive with men, and there is some evidence they have an advantage.
For example, in the 235km Badwater Ultramarathon, women consistently finish top 5, despite representing only 5-10% of the field.
Long distance swimming is even worse for men. Shelly Taylor-Smith has held the record for the 48km Manhattan Island swim since 1995. Women are within 28 minutes of the outright English Channel swim crossing record (6:57 vs 7:25), and based on this older swim time list, women have 9 out of the top 20 times: http://www.channelswimming.com/solo-time-HTML.htm
I'm going to resort to quoting papers to you:
"When performing certain isometric exercises, the endurance of women is almost twice that of men performing the same exercise, according to results presented at a meeting of international scientists. Both sexes performed the exercises at the same percentage of their maximum strength. The study, conducted at the University of Colorado in the US, confirmed that women outlasted men by an average of 75 per cent and, importantly, showed that the reason women had longer endurance times was not due to differences in the motivation levels between men and women, or within the nervous system, but due to differences within muscle." http://www.mydr.com.au/sports-fitness/women-beat-men-on-musc...
"The negative slope and the X-axis intercept of this equation at 66 km supports the hypothesis that women ultramarathon runners have greater fatigue resistance than do equally trained men whose performances are superior up to the marathon distance." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9044230
Muscle mass seems fairly clearly distinct from endurance, given that most distance athletes aren't particularly bulky. And I'm highly skeptical that "The males in all mammal species are better at physical tasks". Among humans, I think it's generally accepted that women have better fine-motor control (for example, women were hired to assemble early core memories for this reason). Another well-known counterexample is lions: "Lionesses do the majority of the hunting for their pride, being smaller, swifter and more agile than the males" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion)
I don't see how that follows. Most chess grandmasters are men; should women not play? If you accept the hypothesis that males have greater genetic variability than females, it shouldn't be surprising to see men overrepresented at the very top (and bottom) of just about everything.
And military requires more endurance that women normally have.
It also requires more endurance than most men have. But if an individual woman can legitimately meet that standard, why deny her the opportunity?
And military requires more endurance that women normally have.
It also requires more endurance than most men have. But if an individual woman can legitimately meet that standard, why deny her the opportunity?
Okay: you're sexist.
Looking back on my MIT undergraduate education (class of 1980), I'd say one of my best professors was a woman: Jeanne Bamberger.
Looking back on my MIT undergraduate education (class of 1980), I'd say one of my best professors was a woman: Jeanne Bamberger.
You can't disprove a statistical assertion with a single counterexample. Kudos to Jeanne Bamberger, but she's not, by herself, statistically significant.
I'm not saying that your conclusions are wrong, but "one of my best professors was a woman" is a very weak argument.
I'm not saying that your conclusions are wrong, but "one of my best professors was a woman" is a very weak argument.
The original assertion (All the best chefs are men, best professors I know are men too) is unprovable, because none of us are xentronium and the professor part of his assertion was based on personal experience ("I know").
However, the first part of his statement (I firmly believe there are three areas women should not generally be part of: military, cooking and teaching) can be argued against quite effectively by showing a single counter example.
xentronium needs to either argue the counter example (ie, argue that Jeanne Bamberger is not a good teacher), or narrow down his argument (eg, argue that only women who's first name starts with "J" make good teachers). Both lines of response weaken his argument considerably.
However, the first part of his statement (I firmly believe there are three areas women should not generally be part of: military, cooking and teaching) can be argued against quite effectively by showing a single counter example.
xentronium needs to either argue the counter example (ie, argue that Jeanne Bamberger is not a good teacher), or narrow down his argument (eg, argue that only women who's first name starts with "J" make good teachers). Both lines of response weaken his argument considerably.
Counter example: Grace Hopper. That would be Rear-Admiral Grace Hopper to you.
I'm unsure about her cooking, but 2/3 ain't too bad.
I'm unsure about her cooking, but 2/3 ain't too bad.
Yup, you're sexist.
Anecdotal, but fairly true in my experience; when I did water polo in high school, it was coed. We didn't have many women interested in putting in the effort to land on the varsity team, probably for social reasons, but the handful that did were terrifying. I would rather have gone up against any two other people on the team than play polo with one of the women, because as it turns out there are certain things that guys just won't do to each other.
Anecdotal, but fairly true in my experience; when I did water polo in high school, it was coed. We didn't have many women interested in putting in the effort to land on the varsity team, probably for social reasons, but the handful that did were terrifying. I would rather have gone up against any two other people on the team than play polo with one of the women, because as it turns out there are certain things that guys just won't do to each other.
[deleted]
You're sexist.
And I can live with it.
Believe it or not, I deliberately didn't mention that I know there are areas where women are much better than men just for the sake of experimenting with HN public opinion.
Why? Because I feel the smallest glimpse of non-tolerable way of thinking is going to get downvoted. Unless it is coming from Zed or DHH. If I am right, I am going to be told I am wrong with a wording like: "It's not because you say what you think[, it's because you're troll without proofs]" (last part is optional because people don't want their opinion to have a tiniest trail of subjectivity).
Guess it's time to become one of them rockstars and have an ability to speak freely.
p.s. Bye, lol.
Believe it or not, I deliberately didn't mention that I know there are areas where women are much better than men just for the sake of experimenting with HN public opinion.
Why? Because I feel the smallest glimpse of non-tolerable way of thinking is going to get downvoted. Unless it is coming from Zed or DHH. If I am right, I am going to be told I am wrong with a wording like: "It's not because you say what you think[, it's because you're troll without proofs]" (last part is optional because people don't want their opinion to have a tiniest trail of subjectivity).
Guess it's time to become one of them rockstars and have an ability to speak freely.
p.s. Bye, lol.
One of the reasons I got tired of Reddit was people claiming to be persecuted by the Hivemind. Here's a thought experiment. Suppose you had said that you firmly believe that women will be dramatically underrepresented in cooking, teaching, and the military, if selection for those things is based on merit.
This is different from what you said; it implies that women are, on average, not as good at those things as men. For whatever reason. You seemed to be saying that there's such a huge difference between men and women in those fields that women might as well not even try, except for really exceptional cases -- a much less defensible statement.
A question for everybody: how would you have reacted to the statement above? Personally, I would have attacked it for rashly generalizing from a small sample without proper controls, but not for thinking Damned Thoughts.
This is different from what you said; it implies that women are, on average, not as good at those things as men. For whatever reason. You seemed to be saying that there's such a huge difference between men and women in those fields that women might as well not even try, except for really exceptional cases -- a much less defensible statement.
A question for everybody: how would you have reacted to the statement above? Personally, I would have attacked it for rashly generalizing from a small sample without proper controls, but not for thinking Damned Thoughts.
Good point.
Well, let's do some projection on the IT, because I think it's somewhat better known for most of us here.
How many good women programmers do you know? Do you remember them because they're exceptionally good or because they're women? If you believe my statement that they're "dramatically underrepresented in IT" (if you don't, I'll have to bring in some statistics like [1]), is it because they're:
There was an interesting insight on the subject of gender differences in [3] and some not-statistically-worthy-but-probably-scientifically-correct proof of the fact that women's brains are wired differently than men's.
Now back to military, cooking and teaching. There is a reason why women were "dramatically underrepresented" in military in Paleolithic era. If you pick most animal communities the male species are generally the defenders, the warriors, the aggressors. I believe that to be hard-wired to the brain. I admit that point about endurance is probably not valid, my bad, but women still can't run kilometers with full equipment on them. There was another point with totally anecdotal evidence: women-only teams work worse than men-only teams in my experience. Is it because males tend to be ultra-competitive and better team players? I think so.
Teaching. Now don't get me wrong, I admit that mothers have really great positive impact on their children, but I also think that in school and universities the teachers should be mostly men, at least for the "male audience". Boys need an authority, an example, a leader.
Cooking. I guess that's most controversial of three, because there shouldn't be any hard prerequisites for chef that women cannot meet. Yet they're "dramatically underrepresented" for one reason or other.
This is a long comment already, but the core idea is that in a good company you shouldn't be afraid to express your opinion, even if it doesn't have some fundamental research base behind it. There's nothing wrong in being wrong. It's wrong to be wrong and not admit it.
[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Csbachelors.jp... -- data is somewhat old but it shows the proportion. Believe me, percentages are even worse for Russia (probably because Russia is overwhelmingly sexist)
[2] Which makes me think of http://asset.soup.io/asset/1056/5293_e98d_500.gif
[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646105
Well, let's do some projection on the IT, because I think it's somewhat better known for most of us here.
How many good women programmers do you know? Do you remember them because they're exceptionally good or because they're women? If you believe my statement that they're "dramatically underrepresented in IT" (if you don't, I'll have to bring in some statistics like [1]), is it because they're:
a) less suitable for IT jobs (for whatever reason)
b) don't tend to like IT
c) b) because of a)
d) a) because of b)
e) strongly abused at IT work [2]
f) not their fault, employer's
There was an interesting insight on the subject of gender differences in [3] and some not-statistically-worthy-but-probably-scientifically-correct proof of the fact that women's brains are wired differently than men's.
Now back to military, cooking and teaching. There is a reason why women were "dramatically underrepresented" in military in Paleolithic era. If you pick most animal communities the male species are generally the defenders, the warriors, the aggressors. I believe that to be hard-wired to the brain. I admit that point about endurance is probably not valid, my bad, but women still can't run kilometers with full equipment on them. There was another point with totally anecdotal evidence: women-only teams work worse than men-only teams in my experience. Is it because males tend to be ultra-competitive and better team players? I think so.
Teaching. Now don't get me wrong, I admit that mothers have really great positive impact on their children, but I also think that in school and universities the teachers should be mostly men, at least for the "male audience". Boys need an authority, an example, a leader.
Cooking. I guess that's most controversial of three, because there shouldn't be any hard prerequisites for chef that women cannot meet. Yet they're "dramatically underrepresented" for one reason or other.
This is a long comment already, but the core idea is that in a good company you shouldn't be afraid to express your opinion, even if it doesn't have some fundamental research base behind it. There's nothing wrong in being wrong. It's wrong to be wrong and not admit it.
[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Csbachelors.jp... -- data is somewhat old but it shows the proportion. Believe me, percentages are even worse for Russia (probably because Russia is overwhelmingly sexist)
[2] Which makes me think of http://asset.soup.io/asset/1056/5293_e98d_500.gif
[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646105
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Hey, you asked for it. I don't mean anything by it. I am sexist too - I like women lots more than men.
Zed says intelligent things
Call me sexist, but I firmly believe there are three areas women should not generally be part of: military, cooking and teaching.
Lawrence Summers? Is that you?
Lawrence Summers? Is that you?
Clearly not - Larry Summers never made any gender-based value judgements, nor did he even draw conclusions. He got into trouble for asking questions people didn't want the answer to.
And yet, to this day, people remember what they thought he said, rather than what he actually said. Weird, isn't it?
Intuitively, this makes sense. If your company has walled itself off from hiring 1/2 of the population, of course you will be passing over some highly skilled applicants who are in the sector you've walled yourself off from. By broadening your search, you will get a larger pool of talented applicants.
Free market forces can definitely spure society towards equality and human rights. Unfortunately, there is a clear point (i.e. China) where business interests take over. So while I'm certainly happy that business interests and are aligned in this case, it certainly isn't the norm. The only example I'm aware of where a business fell clearly on the side of equality and human rights at the cost of business was when Google pulled out of China.
As to opposed to what? Being a poorer pleasant farmer dying of various diseases and having no access to modern health care?
Business interest are violating rules of law by taking away people's homes and properties for the sake of commercial development. That is what happening in China. Or when companies keep polluting with no regard for people down the river and killing them with cancer. That is also another situation in China.
Now, I don't care about equality and stuff like that but I do care when people's lives are being run over. However, I do not care when people are taking dangerous job voluntary and improving their lives because of taking said job.
I don't even care about the whales unless people are starting to be affected by the damage of pollution and people are dying.
Now, there are tons of problems that people face everyday. There are not enough money to go around. People are not generous. But at least, we should get the problem right.
Business interest are violating rules of law by taking away people's homes and properties for the sake of commercial development. That is what happening in China. Or when companies keep polluting with no regard for people down the river and killing them with cancer. That is also another situation in China.
Now, I don't care about equality and stuff like that but I do care when people's lives are being run over. However, I do not care when people are taking dangerous job voluntary and improving their lives because of taking said job.
I don't even care about the whales unless people are starting to be affected by the damage of pollution and people are dying.
Now, there are tons of problems that people face everyday. There are not enough money to go around. People are not generous. But at least, we should get the problem right.
Some executives interviewed for the study worried that this bias would hurt their business
I'm sure they did.
The fact that it was multi-nationals doing the hiring is I think an important factor. "Foreigners" are often expected to behave eccentrically, and if they are hiring women managers, oh well. I think a native company doing the same thing would face a more uphill battle.
Still, very heartening, and perhaps enough to start a snowball effect in some countries.
I'm sure they did.
The fact that it was multi-nationals doing the hiring is I think an important factor. "Foreigners" are often expected to behave eccentrically, and if they are hiring women managers, oh well. I think a native company doing the same thing would face a more uphill battle.
Still, very heartening, and perhaps enough to start a snowball effect in some countries.
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A corollary: hiring older developers would have a distinct competitive advantage.
Maybe, but women's salaries are about the same as and often lower than men's, while older developers tend to get paid much more than junior developers.
With the caveat that they'd need to older, but not old-fashioned. Mental inflexability is too damaging, especially when coupled with an easy defense like "Oh, but you're younger and not as wise".
It would be an interesting experiment.
[deleted]
It's even a signal nowadays. Companies with women in mid to upper management positions are signaling they're not corrupt, and they're all about efficiency and quality of work.
At least in the Gulf, if you want it done, put an Arab woman in charge.