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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

#51

Post by gchpaco »

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.

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.

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

#52

Post by nl »

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.

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.

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

#53

Post by yummyfajitas »

sprout wrote: post #44
yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leap…

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.

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

#54

Post by xentronium »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #43
xentronium wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#55

Post by araneae »

lsc wrote: post #48
xentronium wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

xentronium wrote: post #54
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becaus…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by Dylanlacey »

mhill wrote: post #40

A corollary: hiring older developers would have a distinct competitive advantage.

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".

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

#58

Post by JoeAltmaier »

xentronium wrote: post #54
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becaus…

Hey, you asked for it. I don't mean anything by it. I am sexist too - I like women lots more than men.

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

#59

Post by thelabyrinth »

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…

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.

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

#60

Post by kscaldef »

araneae wrote: post #55
lsc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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 proporti…

> 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.)

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