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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 counterex

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. 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 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?

zasz 15y ago
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 http://www.pnas.org/content/106/22/8801.abstract
- skeptical 15y ago
  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 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.
  - zasz 15y ago
    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.

zasz 15y ago

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 http://www.pnas.org/content/106/22/8801.abstract

skeptical 15y ago
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 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.
- zasz 15y ago
  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.