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I wonder how it adjusts for culturally pushed gender differences. Women could have the same opportunities as men but be expected to have different tastes, be subjected to different experiences growing up, etc. which could affect their choices in latter life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd add: - Done by people who more often than not are politically militant on topics that are politically charged.
I don't think it's really their fault. There are not many funding sources and those few that exist are usually coming from big players (companies, governments, etc.), so you are basically forced to pick a side if you want to do research. It's not like a researcher in engineering or computer science who can start a small collaboration with a local company and solve some optimization problem for them and publish a pape…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because in one case, things "must" be this way and there is no reason for introspection--given exactly equal opportunities, both groups would choose the same thing they are already choosing. In the other, that's not the case at all, and it may be necessary to (for example) pass legal reforms in an effort to make sure that both groups actually are free to choose.
I am not really sure what you're trying to say. Can you give an example, perhaps? In particular, can you give an illustrative example which explains the difference between "free to choose" and "actually free to choose"?
Last week I got to meet my cousin’s daughter for the first time. It was a family dinner and after everyone had eaten she pulled out her barbie dolls to play with. Since I‘ve been on HN for a few years now and this is not the first time I came across this topic I asked my cousin: Why does your daughter play with barbies? Did she choose the barbie doll or where they given to her?
My cousin, confused at first (because remember people: Most people don‘t really care that much about this stuff), answered: I think she chose herself, or maybe grandma gave one to her first.
So this could be it: The little girl might be free to choose as far as her mom is concerned, but is she _actually_ free to choose because she got influenced by her grandma first? Who‘s to say?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand why people care so much whether preferences are biological or cultural. (Well, I understand it if we assume they are being dishonest, so assuming that something is not biological allows them to claim that it can be changed to whatever they think is morally superior. The debate whether being gay is cultural is a good example.) If I am given a true freedom to choose, to decide according to my prefere…
I think the idea is that your culture can enslave you in an idea of who you want to be, which isn't really yours , but rather your culture's. The idea seems to be that this identity has been forced on you, and isn't really yours . This brings up all kinds of nature-vs-nurture questions. It also has a nice recursive issue: Those who hold this view (that you should be free to choose your identity, without your culture…
But isn't this basically what much of life itself is about? To really figure out who you are? Because you are not born into a vacuum but into a number of overlapping human subcultures. And one of the main tasks in life is to figure out who the hell you really are and what you really want, and also how you change over the years. Only then you can find your vision of where you want to continue your life journey onwards.
I am highly sceptical to this study. Does anyone have a list of what they measured as differences and how they did it? The reason I am a sceptic is because as a Scandinavian I notice easily how much more macho men are in less gender equal societies and how much more feminine the women are. I don’t think it is an accident that the world’s top female boxer is Norwegian rather than say Italian. I do there is something t…
http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girl...
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/scandinavian-gender-e...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Countless more articles if you google
Equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes are incompatible as long as the source groups differ in any meaningful way, even "just" in preferences, which is a very big factor in choice of profession. In order to get equality of outcomes, you would need to enforce inequality of opportunities.
Equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes are incompatible as long as the source groups differ in any meaningful way, even "just" in preferences, which is a very big factor in choice of profession. In order to get equality of outcomes, you would need to enforce inequality of opportunities.
The problem is distinguishing the two. People (and not just women) feel understandably cross when they come across real obstacles - which may seem very subtle to others - preventing them from choosing a path, and then hear someone else say it's just a result of preferences.
However if we say that any difference from equal representation is due to obstacle then in reality we will introduce new obstacles in order to get a end result that is different from preferences.
There is no silver bullet here. The obstacles must be found and torn down individually. Making obstacles elsewhere will just make things worse for everyone involved.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For another data point: I'm an American woman. I swear like a sailor. Sadly, this has failed to be man-repellent. If only! My life would be vastly simpler if my foul mouth just got me left the hell alone by men. Also, everything I have read and experienced suggests that other women are a huge source of social pressure on female behavior, possibly far more than male sexual predilections. An actress once said "I dress…
I did not mean to imply that no American women swear. But, I never expected that swearing would be man-repellent nor was told anything of the sort. > Also, everything I have read and experienced suggests that other women are a huge source of social pressure on female behavior, possibly far more than male sexual predilections. It is kind of interesting that whenever general "society expects women x" many many people t…
It's not just me. It's unusual to see a couple where one swears and the other doesn't. Swearing will also exclude one from various social, business, and political circles, and they'll never tell you why. They may not even consciously know themselves.
I wonder how it adjusts for culturally pushed gender differences. Women could have the same opportunities as men but be expected to have different tastes, be subjected to different experiences growing up, etc. which could affect their choices in latter life.
So, for example, in more equal countries there is a higher gender difference in trust and altruism than in less equal countries.
For the countries, they categorised them on a few factors: "we created a Gender Equality Index as a joint measure of four indices of gender equality: (i) the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF), (ii) the Gender Equality Index of the United Nations (UN), (iii) the ratio of female to male labor force participation rates, and (iv) the number of years since women’s suffrage."
Equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes are incompatible as long as the source groups differ in any meaningful way, even "just" in preferences, which is a very big factor in choice of profession. In order to get equality of outcomes, you would need to enforce inequality of opportunities.
The problem is distinguishing the two. People (and not just women) feel understandably cross when they come across real obstacles - which may seem very subtle to others - preventing them from choosing a path, and then hear someone else say it's just a result of preferences.
If women in a 'perfectly equal opportunity' environment, very rarely 'choose' to participate in some fields ... then those fields will probably develop social and institutional dynamics that make it more difficult.
The Canadian Navy did a study in the 1990's that showed if there were only a small number of women on a deployed ship, that they had a hard time, but once there was a critical mass (I think like 8% of the ships crew) - then things were easier.
So at very low levels of participation of one group, things can get weird.
The Army is obviously an extreme version of this, particularly the Combat Arms, but some other entities might be this way.
In particular, startup culture might have this problem - there is literally not enough women (at least apparently) today to form a strong critical mass in the culture and so I do think it's harder for them.
Of course I'm not implying that there is necessarily 'equal opportunity today in startups, but even if that were the case, there'd be problems.
You see a lot of 'clumping' for example: startups led by women have a lot more women working at them, and tend to be focused in slightly different areas.
It's why orgs which traditionally have 'almost none' of some groups might have to change a little to accomodate the first few.
Literally today in the National Post (Canada) there's an article about the first male midwife in Quebec and the kinds of issues he faces etc..