Re:JL on Female Founders
by aasarava on Saturday July 12, 2008 @11:40PM
(#244854)
The problem about discrimination is what happens after this step: a man is unable to multitask. A giraffe is unable to eat food that is not in trees.
We are in agreement, and I give you credit for explaining the point better than I did.
I also probably should have been more specific when I said it's dangerous to believe that "women [are] wired for different work than men". I'm not arguing that women and men are the same in every way. Clearly there are differences. I'm saying it's unfortunate to take a problem like the low number of women founders and to use Darwinian theory to say "women just aren't wired for this type of intellectual work." This makes it all too easy to overlook other causes of the problem and, as you point out, can lead to discrimination in various forms.
Indeed, someone just posted this timely article on HN today about a study showing that "boys are not innately better at maths than girls, and any difference in test scores is due to nurture rather than nature."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2283083,00....
We are in agreement, and I give you credit for explaining the point better than I did.
I also probably should have been more specific when I said it's dangerous to believe that "women [are] wired for different work than men". I'm not arguing that women and men are the same in every way. Clearly there are differences. I'm saying it's unfortunate to take a problem like the low number of women founders and to use Darwinian theory to say "women just aren't wired for this type of intellectual work." This makes it all too easy to overlook other causes of the problem and, as you point out, can lead to discrimination in various forms.
Indeed, someone just posted this timely article on HN today about a study showing that "boys are not innately better at maths than girls, and any difference in test scores is due to nurture rather than nature." http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2283083,00....