Earlier quoted context omitted.
A problem I have heard female friends speculate about is with promoting women in higher positions. If the female population is too low, and you try to get them into higher positions, two effects occur according to this theory. First of all, with a low female population there probably aren't enough proven and qualified women to fill the desired number of slots. This leads to imposter syndrome / worry about people thin…
You assume that all applicants are of equal attainment, ability, and motivation. However, women have to fight an in-built discrimination. While men are more forced into work because our gender role expects it of us. Thus, women who are candidates for promotion are likely to be more motivated and more ambitious than their male counterparts - they've had to fight harder against more obstacles to get to that point. I se…
As a male growing up in the 80ies and 90ies in Europe I must say this must be somewhere else.
If this was the case then there would be some merit to the idea of "male privilege".
From what I saw encouragement came in two forms:
- generally for everyone
- and in addition, specifically for girls
I.e. I've seen activities for "kids who code" or "girls who code" but never for "boys who code".
I also have some personal experience regarding encouragement: from I was a young boy and until I had almost finished my Bachelors degree I was more than once discouraged from IT and encouraged to get a "real job" so either I was very special or the idea that boys get "nothing but encouragement" is plain false