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An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

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Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#61

Post by huherto »

intortus wrote: post #10
chaostheory wrote: post #5

"I’ve lived my life in a 'man’s world', receiving a degree in mechanical engineering—which contains the lowest percentage of women compared to any other engineering field at just 7.2%—from an already male-dominated university." Going on a tangent, I suspect areas like mechanical engineering and computer science are still "boy's clubs" due to one thing: social prestige. I feel that women are more attracted to high pre…

You don't think it could have anything to do with attitudes toward women in each respective field?

May be, but women(and men) make their decisions before entering the field.

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#62

Post by tptacek »

tomp wrote: post #48
fallinghawks wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard engineering called low prestige.

It's now low prestige, it's just lower prestige than e.g. medicine, law or "investment banking".

This is more truth-y than true. If occupational prestige drove employment, we'd all be firefighters. And, of course, when you actually look at occupational prestige figures, engineers crush lawyers. Really, there's no axis on which your hypothesis explains anything.

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#63

Post by tptacek »

tomp wrote: post #41
lambda wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when I looked around a bit I found this article " rel="nofollow">http://readwrite.com/2014/09/02/women-in-computer-science-wh... which links to this study: " rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/11/220748057/why-wome... which indicates that rather than being based on prestige, it appears that the disparity can be broken down based on more rewarding but lower paying, vs. more purely mercenary jo…

You can't compare being a teacher with a career in "law, medicine, politics, or finance" or a programmer. The latter all require very high intellectual aptitude, either logical/mathematical (programming, finance), memory (medicine, law) or social intelligence (finance, politics). In contrast, mostly everybody can be a teacher (and according to comment [1], teachers usually come from the bottom of their class). [1] ht…

Perhaps 20 years ago it was the case that anyone could get job as a teacher. That's very difficult from succeeding as a teacher, and it's also not true today.

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#65

Post by lucidrains »

So much talk for so very little. Can we not just celebrate women in tech? We all share this world for a limited time, so who gives a fuck who wears a shinier hat. Its all a game, a game that moves our world towards a better place, a world where we can put down our hats and spend time with each other and allow our benevolent machines to take care of us.

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#66

Post by brighteyes »

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #50
malandrew wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You failed to include all the blue collar low-prestige jobs where men are far more common, like construction, factory jobs and warehouse work. For every profession that is low prestige and largely female, there is another profession that low prestige and largely male.

And for every high-prestige profession dominated by men, there is one dominated by women, natch.

Sounds like sarcasm? If so, it's unwarranted.

For example, clinical psychology is high-prestige and high-paying, and is dominated by women. Medical research and more generally the biosciences is another (smaller majority, though).

http://www.sheheroes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Percent-...

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#67

Post by abathur »

chaostheory wrote: post #5

"I’ve lived my life in a 'man’s world', receiving a degree in mechanical engineering—which contains the lowest percentage of women compared to any other engineering field at just 7.2%—from an already male-dominated university." Going on a tangent, I suspect areas like mechanical engineering and computer science are still "boy's clubs" due to one thing: social prestige. I feel that women are more attracted to high pre…

The reason you're getting blowback has to do with the tone it sounds like you're taking on the issue of gender and prestige with some selective examples.

In regard to your final question: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris%20Poll%2085%20...

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#68

Post by abathur »

chaostheory wrote: post #38
lambda wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when I looked around a bit I found this article " rel="nofollow">http://readwrite.com/2014/09/02/women-in-computer-science-wh... which links to this study: " rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/11/220748057/why-wome... which indicates that rather than being based on prestige, it appears that the disparity can be broken down based on more rewarding but lower paying, vs. more purely mercenary jo…

Yeah I forgot about social expectations http://www.npr.org/2014/11/22/365968465/after-backlash-compu... Still I can't help but feel social prestige is still a stronger factor for females than males

Why can't you help feel but feel this?

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#69

Post by scobar »

nailer wrote: post #21
garrisondmr wrote: post #18

I watched the FFC live and what struck me was that it was the same as any other founder conference except that it was a girl on stage instead of a dude. If we want to stop making gender a big deal then we need to stop making gender a big deal. There is no Male Founder Conference right?

I think people need people from a background close to them to really feel like 'yeah, that could be me on stage'. I don't think that's good or bad, just how it is.

I don't think people need someone with a relatable trait to believe they can also accomplish audacious goals. However, I am convinced that it provides disproportionately more inspiration.

Re: An Open Letter to Jessica Livingston About YC's Female Founders Conference

#70

Post by brighteyes »

diego wrote: post #55
[deleted] wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I'm not saying he's right, but "we're all social animals" ignores the entire discipline of evolutionary psychology. Biology forced males and females of various species to evolve different strategies. For humans some of those strategies are obsolete, but it doesn't mean that they're gone from our brains. If you haven't, check out The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller or similar books.

Please don't refer to the Mating Mind here. It's borderline-crank material, and not regarded as serious by the vast majority in the field.

Referring people to almost any book by Steven Pinker is much better. E.g. "How the Mind Works."

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