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by backpropaganda 3237 days ago
The problem with the "social change by force" approach is that it's easy to find yourself in the wrong side of history. Hitler also wanted social change, and decided to do it by force since it was such a good social change. Just because what you're doing "seems" like a good thing doesn't mean that it actually is. You might try the forced social change, and years later, get revolted against, and go down in history as the people who forced their ideas on everyone else.

People v/s things is not the only gender difference. There are others, which could explain why there aren't more women leaders. Or, it could very well be that sexism/glass ceiling is the reason women aren't at the top. That doesn't mean the people v/s things theory is wrong. It has the most amount of evidence and the largest demonstrated effect sizes (d > 1 even).
1 comments
yedava 3237 days ago
No need to invoke Godwin's law. There are different degrees of force. Even the staunchest libertarian will concede that some amount of force is warranted to protect rights. The question here is the nature and degree of the force. I'd say firing someone is warranted especially if an organization has committed to fighting gender stereotypes amongst its workforce.

People vs things is just one example. The cited science also says that men are more prone to anger and aggressiveness. So in net, leadership positions should be held by women if one were to make an 'ought to' argument based on the science.

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Houshalter 3237 days ago
The Google memo made a number of points on why women might be less likely to pursue leadership positions. Women prefer lower stress jobs and more social-work balance. Men are more competitive than women and may have more of a natural drive to "reach the top". But the biggest effect I think is that our culture values men based on their job a lot more than women. Men have a lot more pressure to get a high status job.

Note that all of this is purely a "interests based" argument. No one is saying women would make worse leaders than men. As you mention, there might even be some good arguments that they would be better at it. I'm just saying there are good reasons why they might be less interested in pursuing that. As opposed to it all being because of sexism.

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