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It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

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Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#41

Post by mahmud »

commanda wrote: post #22
mahmud wrote: post #11

This is well understood in the middle-east. Within a company or a government office, the bureaucratic wild goose-chase stops the moment you're sent to a woman's desk. They just get it done. 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…

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.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#42

Post by Retric »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#43

Post by JoeAltmaier »

xentronium wrote: post #25
jtbigwoo wrote: post #6

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 option…

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.

You're sexist.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#44

Post by sprout »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#45

Post by dgabriel »

jerf wrote: post #18
billybob wrote: post #12

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…

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…

In the United States, maternity leave is rarely generous, and only kind of mandated. There are many, many loopholes and exceptions.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#47

Post by danielnicollet »

stonemetal wrote: post #19
tjarratt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

>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.

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?

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#48

Post by lsc »

xentronium wrote: post #25
jtbigwoo wrote: post #6

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 option…

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.

>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.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#49

Post by nl »

jmtame wrote: post #34
mahmud wrote: post #11

This is well understood in the middle-east. Within a company or a government office, the bureaucratic wild goose-chase stops the moment you're sent to a woman's desk. They just get it done. 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…

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 minori…

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.

Re: It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won't

#50

Post by mbubb »

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.
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