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I'm getting a bit tired of this fake modern-thinking. I don't think anyone is disregarding women right to self determination by making an observation that is obvious.

There are jobs and social roles that are clearly perused mostly by men and some mostly by women. That's because man and women are different. There's nothing wrong with that, do we need to pretend that men and women are equal to grant equal rights to both?

So this woman is an exception, minority if you prefer, but so what? I feel that is rather frustrating that people doesn't accept simple facts because they are not fashionable in today's ethics or are not politically correct.

Everytime someone touches a sensitive subject concerning a group, there comes the sh*tstorm "you're stupid, I am the proof of the contrary". This is particularly sad among circles were one would expect to hear opinions of wise people. I guess even wise people have a hard time getting rid of taboos.

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The author makes the very good point that what people "want" changes over time. For example, in the 1960s only a small fraction of a given law school class was female.

Now almost 50% of law school graduates in a given year are female.

And I am sure people in 1965 were saying the same things about the differences between men and women and how those differences were reflected in law school classes.

The author's very valid concern is that one cannot draw the conclusions Penelope Trunk is drawing. The evidence just isn't in and quite frankly never will be in because society changes, expectations change, and preferences change.

I don't know how many startups will be founded by women 40 years from now. Neither do you. Which is exactly why the the author is writing "STFU about what women want." When we make assertions about what other people want we end up categorizing them without sufficient evidence, which ultimately leads to poor decision-making.

Making an observation isn't in itself problematic. It's all the bullshit that people tack on after that. To wit:

There are jobs and social roles that are clearly perused mostly by men and some mostly by women. That's because man and women are different.

This is either tautological or fatuous. You've gone from a simple observation (in 2011, some jobs are held at different rates by men and women) and suggested that it's somehow a natural feature of the universe, like the gravitational constant. There are a lot of possible explanations for the different occupational frequencies, and you seized on one of them with no proof and no apparent thought about alternatives.

200 years ago, women (and, say, black people) weren't doctors. People argued then, as you do now, that the current situation was just the outcome of natural differences. They said that not because it was true (it wasn't) or because they had any real evidence (they didn't). They said it because it was convenient for them to believe that.

I just made a simple observation yes. Whatever reason we find will fallback to men being different than women. That is in fact the only think we can say for sure. The outcome might not be fair, but it's not by denying this fact that we will make things better.

As for you example, it's flawed. 200 years ago doctors played a very different role in society of those of today's doctors. If you look carefully at today's society and try to find a social role more like that of a 1800's doctor, you'll probably find a job that is still done mostly by men. Is it fair? Indeed no. But it is in fact a good example how we can improve women rights by going to the root of the problem without fear of being political incorrect. I might not have any evidence, but nor have you.

I am sorry. There were few women doctors in the UK because prior to the 1972 Sex Equality Act the Medical Schools had quotas of between 5% and 15% for female students.

When that barrier went the number of female doctors took off like a rocket.

Likewise with the black middle class in the US - once the quota's that kept African Americans out of Universities ended, lo! magic!

"Today… increasing numbers of doctors — mostly women — decide to work part time or leave the profession. Since 2005 the part-time physician workforce has expanded by 62 percent, according to recent survey data from the American Medical Group Association, with nearly 4 in 10 female doctors between the ages of 35 and 44 reporting in 2010 that they worked part time.

This may seem like a personal decision, but it has serious consequences for patients and the public.

Medical education is supported by federal and state tax money both at the university level — student tuition doesn’t come close to covering the schools’ costs — and at the teaching hospitals where residents are trained. So if doctors aren’t making full use of their training, taxpayers are losing their investment. With a growing shortage of doctors in America, we can no longer afford to continue training doctors who don’t spend their careers in the full-time practice of medicine."

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/should-women-b...

That people in the past argued that something was due to natural differences doesn't necessarily mean that natural differences don't exist, and that they had no evidence then doesn't mean that we have none now. Men and women differ genetically by about the same amount that humans and chimpanzees do, so to discount the possibility that there just might be some real differences in the way we are prone to behave is just as ridiculous as to suggest that those genes account for the entire difference.

There are very solid biological reasons to believe that men should always be more genetically inclined to seek out reproductive risk than women (male reproductive success is more variable than female success by a good margin). It's not a very big stretch from there to conjecture that perhaps nature achieved that by cranking up the overall risk tolerance knob in men, since that would probably require fewer bit-flips than hard coding a condition for reproductive risk - in fact, to a large extent, we know that testosterone does exactly what this would require. That would explain a lot about why men are more likely than women to go in for high-risk high-reward ventures like startups...

I'm not saying that social factors are not in play, too, but quite frankly, these social factors are far less oppressive than they were 50 years ago, yet we've seen relatively little progress in terms of gender ratios. This makes me suspect that there are probably some other causes in effect, and the genetic one is an obvious suspect that I don't think has been properly debunked, excepting attempts to do so by overreaching appeals to equality that are, IMO, not justified by the relevant biology.

I have never suggested natural differences don't exist.

I'm suggesting that a) using the idea of them without evidence to justify apparently unfair outcomes is bullshit, b) historically people making those arguments have often been spectacularly wrong, and c) people who make that argument when it's personally convenient are perhaps fooling themselves.

You're also rampantly committing the naturalistic fallacy. What's natural tells us nothing about what's right. Even if we have made a perfectly fair society (which we certainly haven't) and discover that there is some difference in outcomes that is explainable by genetic differences, that doesn't mean we should accept the result.

If some people are genetically likely to be less good at math, should we cancel their math classes? Or should we give them better ones? I say the latter: as a society we want people to understand and appreciate math.

If some group of people is more prone to a disease, do we go with what's natural? Or do we work against it? Consider heart disease for African Americans, or skin cancer for white people. As one of the naturally pale, I appreciate having sunblock available, and cultural reminders to put it on or cover up. And if I do get skin cancer, I'd rather be treated instead of being told it's "natural" for me to die of it.

I've also heard it argued that psychopaths make "natural" CEOs, and that we should therefore accept their various depredations. That ignores that CEO isn't some sort of ecological niche; it's an artificial, societally-constructed position. We may have reason to want CEOs to be more responsible than average rather than less, no matter what's "natural" in this context. And we may have reason to want startups being created by a broader collection of people than those who might "naturally" most incline (after a lifetime of unnatural conditioning) to play the entirely artificial game we've set up for them.

This is what's frustrating about these conversations, the worst is always assumed. Given that I absolutely do not believe that "natural" implies "right", I'm annoyed at the accusation, which comes up with some regularity even though I (like most others in the "not-only-nurture" camp) specifically disclaim such a view and never said a single thing about what is right or not.

First, let me be clear: I think that the evidence that women are genetically worse at math is shoddy, at best. I think the evidence that their performance is less variable is very robust, but that's a very different claim.

Second, if either one is provably the case, then no, I very strongly don't think we should just throw our hands up. I think we should try to look at what causes the difference in statistical distribution of talent and figure out how to exploit/correct it - it's evolutionarily inconceivable that math talent is directly hard-coded genetically, so it's got to be emerging as a second or third order effect of genes, perhaps related to stress response (learning math is a process of experiencing micro-stresses over and over, and dealing with them in a way that makes you learn rather than get frustrated or angry - the "mathy" emotional state is a very delicate balance, even in people that are good at math). This is true even if the male/female gap is not genetic, since it's pretty clear that there is some sort of heritable component to math ability. Figuring out how this sort of thing affects performance could be very helpful, because even though it's partially innate (and somewhat based on brain chemistry), it can often be directly trained.

But if we declare by fiat that performance in math is primarily guided by factors outside the student's head (which is implicit in the "sexism keeps girls out of field X" argument), then we'll never figure out what's really going on, and we'll never discover how to help people that aren't predisposed to be good at math get better.

I general I agree with this line of thinking. We should encourage women to take on careers and challenges where they are under represented. We shouldn't create sexist work environments and educational institutions that discourage participation from the opposite sex.

I don't think this is a clear cut issue though. Sexism exists in some place, but so does enjoyment by men or women for certain careers. I think part of that enjoyment is created by a culture that tells men and women to be certain ways but I think also some of it has to do with genetics - i.e. historically women were the primary child-rearers so they tend to be more of the nurturers.

There is also the question of how much energy does society as a whole invest in correcting sexist historical imbalances? Do we just say, "everyone can be anything they want when they grow up!" and leave it at that? Or do we impose things like quotas and programs specifically targeted to encourage women to join professions they're under represented?

I have mostly questions and no answers :(

It's not clear that some roles are genuinely best filled by women, and some by men. There is still plenty of institutional sexism that pushes people into certain roles. For example, many women in high-powered careers are forced out after they have children. Here is a link to a book on the subject: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18616558/ns/today-books/t/why-...

Here is an excerpt: "Married to fellow professionals, who face the same pressures at work that they do, women are home alone and go home because they have been unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain flexibility or, for those who were able to, because they found themselves marginalized and stigmatized, negatively reinforced for trying to hold on their careers after becoming mothers."

You can't look at the general pattern of women failing to pursue their own startups and assume that this is because they actually chose to do so. You might as well step back in time and assume that the reason black people were picking cotton instead of determining their own fates is because they were biologically inferior. Culture matters.

For me it is crystal clear. I have no problem stating that because I am not disrespecting nor discriminating anyone based on gender. What you mean by "it's not clear" is "there's no scientific proof", which is a totally different thing. You may argue that it's just something I believe in, but I'm ok everyone else's skepticism, I don't want to convince anybody of anything, but heck, don't disregard my opinion because of your taboos. Either way, even it wouldn't be clear, it wouldn't be clear that I'm wrong either.

I agree with you that culture matters, and indeed people have been victim of discrimination countless times throughout mankind history. But you are afraid to admit that other aspects might matter too, because it touches your taboos.

You pick the example of black people being thrown to the bottom of the social structure of north american society because you know that arguing with that is unethical by pretty much any current standard. But just recently James Watson stated precisely that the average black person is less intelligent than the average white. Now, quite frankly, I don't care about that subject, but would dare to discuss it or would you just claim that discussion is out of your ethical boundaries? It's not a nice topic to discuss, but because of that you can't just pretend there's nothing to discuss.

I'm just saying: If your arguments are limited by taboos then your opinion can't be of much value.

If any of this is "crystal clear", then you need to revisit your username choice.

It's fine to form an opinion based on limited and partial data; you have to. But the strength of your opinion should be based on how much data you have to support it, and you should revisit it when someone presents you with data that contradicts it (as the grandparent post attempted to do).

I'm not sure what to make of your "average black person is less intelligent" point. Are you seriously arguing that a debatable genetic difference was the principle reason antebellum blacks were picking cotton?

You can, and most people could discuss it, but it's an extremely weak point. (E.g., individual != average, and in-population range is very large, so you'd expect to see the appropriate percentage of black landowners, successful business owners, etc.). Hmm.

On the subject of skepticism -- it's perhaps worth mentioning that James Watson is an accomplished scientist, but he's not considered an expert on the study & measures of human intelligence any more than you are. Arguments from authority should at least offer an authority in that field, not just from any field.

If any of this is "crystal clear", then you need to revisit your username choice.

Well observed, but no. What makes me skeptical about many things is having a clear opinion/view about other things. For me that's the true essence of skepticism.

I didn't make any such point. And no, I'm not arguing that. But the phrasing of your question does prove my point about how afraid people is about some debates. That is particularly ironic because they seem to be so certain about it, why should they be afraid to debate it?

You can, and most people could discuss it, but it's an extremely weak point.

I don't think you really mean it, sorry.

(E.g., individual != average, and in-population range is very large, so you'd expect to see the appropriate percentage of black landowners, successful business owners, etc.). Hmm.

Yep, I really don't think you mean it. Starting by the 'individual != average' is a common symptom of such taboos. By doing so you try to nullify any consideration about a group of people, but you go on and do just that to prove your point whenever necessary. For the record, I share the same opinion as you about the topic.

I might be wrong here, of course, but I'm getting the feeling that you are assuming I'm 'white' and that that is strongly affecting your reasoning. You might stop to re-think for a little while. Just saying.

I had a vague idea you were Indian, but no strong sense, FWIW. I also can't imagine how it would affect what I wrote. These are not new topics I'm only considering now.

I didn't know what to make of this point:

"You pick the example of black people being thrown to the bottom of the social structure of north american society [example in the post you're responding to was more blacks picking cotton historically in the US] because you know that arguing with that is unethical by pretty much any current standard. But just recently James Watson stated precisely that the average black person is less intelligent than the average white."

Can you clarify your point, then? Or less tangentially, return to your original points about the topic at hand, and present research that's too taboo to discuss?

If you claim your opinion is too taboo to discuss, that's pretty much just blowing smoke; people who disagree (and explain why) aren't shying away from a taboo; they're disagreeing. If you have "inconvenient truths" that seem to contradict common opinions, that's far more interesting (and yes, is worth discussing), though if you don't entertain the possibility that you're misinterpreting the data (because you're already crystal clear...), it's all a waste of breath.

I tell what you could do of that point. You could admit that you deliberately picked a sensitive topic (black people being oppressed in the past) as a counterexample to push the discussion in a dead end because race is a 'dangerous' topic for anyone to touch. I do not want to discuss such topic here because it will inevitably take over the original one as it always do.

I don't have inconvenient trues, only an inconvenient opinion, and that is: women and men won't reach a 50/50 share in many roles of society simply because women and men are significantly different both physically and psychologically. Furthermore, I think the trend of forcing men and women to be equal in all aspects doesn't help improve women rights, but rather degrades them.

Many ask for scientific proof. I don't have such thing, but if you understand what 'scientific proof' really means you'll agree that is not much more than a consensus on a matter that will prevail until we find a better explanation for it, a better 'scientific proof' that will render the previous one obsolete.

But on to the subject, from the age of ten if you look at people's performances in school, it's pretty much obvious that girls do consistently better across the board. On the other hand if you pick the top students of a specific subject you'll find many more boys than girls, specially in exact sciences and the like. I've live in a few european countries and this pattern is pretty obvious. Honestly I can't find an active social setup that would enforce this outcome. Sure there might be some residual gender segregation that still affects it, but in my opinion this pattern is too consistent to be solely explained by social constraints. Specially since it's observed since very young age. This is an example, one of the simplest, but there are more evidence.

Do you think that this is not relevant? Why?

Don't get jtheory confused with me. I deliberately brought in race because opinions on race are shaped by culture, not because I felt like ending things in a flamewar. Opinions on race and gender are the kinds of things that are shaped by where you are in history. That is, they are shaped by the culture you grew up in. The main I'm not a racist asshole right now is because I wasn't raised to be. The main reason I don't take studies that show women and minorities are stupider than white men for granted, honestly, is because I've been raised to be extremely skeptical of those studies. I am honest about why I believe what I do, and I am terrified of the cultural biases that I'm not aware of. I wanted to make a point that beliefs on what a group of people are or are not capable of are highly dependent on culture, and the time period you find yourself in. You're going to have to work extra hard to convince me that you are actually aware of your cultural biases and that you came to you conclusions about gender through a completely honest inquiry, and right now, you're failing really hard.

Anyway, there are plenty of cultural explanations for female underperformance:

1. Stereotype threat. People who are stereotyped negatively in one arena of life will do worse when reminded of that stereotype. I recommend reading Whistling Vivaldi, by Claude Steele. You can force white American men to underperform in sporting tasks if you remind them that white men are stereotyped as being less athletic than black men. This effect is, of course, extremely detrimental to women who are studying math and science or conducting business at a very high level. The extra stress of not wanting to live up to a negative stereotype has the ironic effect of causing underperformance. 2. Sexism is still strongly present in many countries. See this study, for example, that societies with greater equality have more even gender balance in representatives to the International Math Olympiad. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/22/8801.abstract

You seem to try to debunk some [imaginary] point about women being somehow 'inferior'. I never said such thing. Women and men are different, that's all I said. I even started by stating that girls outperform boys in school to a very large extent. Boys appear to have their advantage among the tiny narrow peak only, that affects a tiny minority of people.

I've lived in societies that took radically different approaches on this. Whenever I talk about this I'm called 'fascist' or 'marxist' depending where I am. I think that's hilarious to say the least.

Mmm... I don't want to sound arrogant, but have you red the source you linked beyond the abstract? If you follow the links, one of them will take you here: http://pps.sagepub.com/content/6/2/134.full

and that clearly states that opinions like mine cannot be disregarded, it even acknowledges that such possibilities are less studied.

But there's one important thing to note. If you're a biologist and write a paper where you go through an hypothesis similar to my views, you can still expect an avalanche of cheap offenses.

The link of this thread is called "STFU about what women want". Why is the author so pissed of? Why resourcing to such heavy language right on the title? Sorry, but if you have a clear solid opinion you don't reply an inoffensive opinion with 'STFU'. If you do so it's because of some other reason. I'd say taboo, or at least she has no strong valid point so she resources to a violent response.

The authors of the study are good scientists for being open to other possibilities. I salute them for that. But where it comes to what women can and cannot do, there seems to be a great deal of compelling evidence that cultural factors are immensely important, and any statements on whether one gender is really better at running a startup than another is probably premature. The study itself is in favor of cultural factors, rather than ability, playing the larger role in where women end up in life.

The point is, intelligent people at the time thought that it was biologically predetermined that some men should enslave others. For a more recent, horrific example, it used to be legal to sterilize people without their permission if they failed an IQ test. A Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, endorsed this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolin...

It is entirely possible to be an intelligent person too blinded by the social norms of the time to give people the benefit of the doubt, the justice, and the mercy that they deserve. And a true skeptic ought to recognize that, and be afraid of embracing any belief that feels natural or true.

You are not a good skeptic if you are willing to consider beliefs that are bizarre or taboo. Religious fundamentalists do the same thing, too. You are a good skeptic if you're willing to question your own intuitions.

The examples you pick and the way you present them are very relevant. your observations are also very well made and in my opinion very reasonable. In fact i agree with you. I just think your conclusion is undermined by your unwillingness to question yourself, even if you state that everybody should do just that.

To pick up on your example, castration. I recently red about swedish history and found out that some decades ago the Swedish government forced castration on a rather high amount of people through criminal law. Sure, the reason was supposedly not the same as in North Carolina, but if 1 to 3 percent of the population got the penalty, one may ask if the criteria were really all that well defined and legit. Personally, I also consider this horrific. The truth is, the developed and tolerant swedish society we all know basically started after the castration trend. I will not say it's a consequence of it, I sincerely hope it's not. But will I disregard that possibility just because I don't like it? No, never. I dare to look at those facts and try to understand them. I don't like that possibility, it is brutal, but I will not censor my critical thinking.

We have gender distinction in sports because it's obvious that men and women are physically different. No one objects that. But no one dares to admit the possibility of man being different than women intellectually/psychologically/mentally, because that's a taboo. It's not obvious, there is no scientific evidence, etc. but why does everybody gets so angry if that possibility is even talked about? I'm tired of this fake morals. You are not more respectful towards woman rights simply by staying away from sensitive topics. Most importantly, I don't mind if you think I respect women rights less than you because of my opinions. I know I how much I respect women rights, I could care less about proving it.

> I'm getting a bit tired of this fake modern-thinking.

I'm getting really tired of the old stratagem consisting of pretending that social norms are a natural given. Because you know, this old beast have been beaten to death for centuries, time to move on.

Recipe for success:

> There are jobs and social roles that are clearly perused mostly by black and some mostly by white people. That's because black and white are different.

I know, it's quite obvious that men and women are different. But does it count nowadays? Sure, a man is more fit than a woman to push the plough behind a horse, or cart around stones in a wheelbarrow. However these activities are of no relevance in our modern world.

Similarly we could argue that black people are less at risk of skin cancer by exposure to sunlight, and therefore are better fit for street work. See what I mean? It would be so nice of you to reconsider your position to the light of the last 50 years of anthropology and social sciences.

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