[char]

Why do people love trying to make complex issues black and white? The fact that there are so few women in tech is an issue that is likely caused by multiple factors, some of which were addressed in this article, and some of which were addressed in the Arrington post. No one is wrong; each just seems to be arguing over which the greater factor is, but refuses to recognize the other.

Arrington cites factors dealing with biological and societal tendencies of women as reasons for them to not engage in risky lifestyle choices such as startups, or to not be interested in tech in the first place. I agree with this. This isn't 'bad' or 'good', but it's the truth. People need to stop ignoring that there ARE (on average) differences between men and women. We (women) just aren't as interested in tech or building our own businesses in general.

I'm just one data point, but based on many experiences, I would strongly argue that in general, women do not have the desire to take as many risks as males, or deal with day-to-day uncertainties. A vast majority of my female friends thought I was absolutely nuts when I first started doing startups. (They still think I'm a little nutty, despite being able to pay my bills now). The most common questions were, "What are you going to do for money if it fails?" (Answer: Get a job, or build something else), and "How do you deal with not knowing what you're going to be doing in the next [insert some time period]?" On the other hand, my male friends overwhelmingly asked about the technologies I'm building and admired me for taking a risk. Also interesting to note is that the reaction of female friends to my (male) co-founder was more of admiration than thinking he was crazy (but I was looked upon as crazy).

On the other hand, for the women who ARE interested in tech (or could be persuaded to be interested), there are certainly existing challenges within the field itself. Again, I'm just one data point, but I am always amazed at the reactions I get from males in the startup world when they find out that I code. They are SHOCKED. Not only because I'm a woman, but also because I'm a white, blonde woman who is reasonably attractive. Sometimes I really do feel like I'm not taken seriously by many people until I do something completely bad ass to prove myself. The other article certainly has a point there.

[Estragon]

  Why do people love trying to make complex issues black and white?

Because they love the resulting attention.

[jobeirne]

Also because most people find it very easy to convince themselves they've come up with a simple solution to a very complicated issue.

[146]

Come now, we can be more mature than this. The OP may be an oversimplification of the issue, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't earnestly see and want to fix a problem.

[rradu]

It's human nature to try to understand things. And the best way to do that is to simplify the issue. But some things just cant be simplified.

[Alex3917]

"People need to stop ignoring that there ARE (on average) differences between men and women."

Considering that we live in an era where you can basically take a pill that gives you the experience of being a woman for whatever amount of time you want, it seems like these differences are going to get much harder to ignore, especially since this technology is only going to get better and more scientifically validated with time.

[tbrownaw]

we live in an era where you can basically take a pill that gives you the experience of being a woman for whatever amount of time you want

Wait, what? I've never heard of that before, what is it?

[Alex3917]

There are many points of difference in how males vs females perceive the world. Different drugs approximate different points of difference. For example, increasing serotonin makes colors brighter, closer to the way a woman would perceive them. Which is probably why women like flowers and brightly colored clothing more than men, and why they are more OCD about keeping the house clean. I'm not sure to what extent mainstream science recognizes this, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

Amusingly, about a third of my friends on SSRIs have become temporarily attracted to the 'wrong' gender. Which is why I suspect that sexual attraction is an emergent property of our sensory perception systems, rather than being a discrete switch that's unrelated to anything else.

[hugh3]

That sounds like a pill that makes you perceive colours more brightly, not a pill that makes you into a temporary-woman.

I'm not sure why you think that women perceive colours more brightly (I don't think the fact that they like flowers is evidence...). In fact, if women do perceive colours more brightly than men, how would we possibly know about it? We can't even solve the "What if the colour I see as blue is seen by you as red" problem.

[Alex3917]

"I'm not sure why you think that women perceive colours more brightly."

Well we know for a fact that women perceive colors differently than men because they like different colors than men. It's not exactly clear what the differences in color perception are, but it seems like the drugs that increase men's serotonin levels leave them with aesthetic color preferences that more closely resemble those of women. So it stands to reason that men's color perception is becoming more close to that of women. Obviously there are some epistemological problems with proving this, but it seems like a reasonably good assumption.

[hugh3]

Well we know for a fact that women perceive colors differently than men because they like different colors than men.

I hate to turn this into a hard-core discussion of qualia, but I'm not convinced that the fact that women like different colours means that they perceive them differently.

At least, not except in the trivial sense that they see "purple" and think "I like purple" whereas I merely see "purple" and think "I am indifferent to purple".

[lucisferre]

Which gender is the 'wrong' gender now?

[Alex3917]

The gender that's the opposite of the one you were originally attracted to. (I put it in quotes so that it wouldn't be read as a value judgment.)

[lucisferre]

lol, and "originally attracted to" would be? Am I misunderstanding you or are you accidentally suggesting that gays and lesbians are originally attracted to the "right sex"? You are just digging deeper and deeper.

Seriously, though I realize it wasn't intended, just made me laugh.

[oconnore]

I'm sure there are plenty of existing challenges, but the author can't really fault people for being good at statistics and acting accordingly.

He is essentially asking males to ignore the current situation so that females can ignore the current situation (and the fact that women in tech are to some degree, still breaking new ground)

[seldo]

You're essentially using the existence of sexism as a justification for sexism. "There aren't many women in tech, therefore why should I treat women like they might be in tech?"

The reason you should ignore the current situation is precisely because _ignoring it will help change the situation_. That was the point of my post.

[Synthetase]

I don't think he was justifying sexism ANYWHERE in his comment. The fact is that few women are in tech. You can't fault people in good faith for making observations of their environments. But I doubt you can even claim good faith to your name.

[oconnore]

I think you are wrong about what sexism is, or what any -ism is. I can make all sorts of observations without falling into an -ism: There aren't many women in tech. I am not sexist. A majority of convicts are minorities. I am not racist. Older people are more likely to be ignorant of new technology. I am not ageist.

Ism's are not about making the observation in the first place, they are about being reluctant to drop your assumptions when you meet an exception.

[shareme]

I disagree, one of the highest risks currently is:

-Marriage -Getting Married to raise a family

Most of those have failure rates higher than starting a small business...and some would argue its approaching the risk level of startups.

Women on the whole are no more or less risk averse than Men.

[electromagnetic]

I'd wholly disagree, women on the whole are more risk averse than men, it's everywhere in society. Women take less dangerous jobs regularly. More men die in work place accidents, because men take the risky jobs, more men die in the military because more men join it and take the risky jobs.

I work in construction, it's not high-risk but it's not office-job safe and we get higher pay than average and the company advertises to men and women. Our office has 4 female workers and 1 male (the owner), but we've only ever had 1 female employee outside the office and I believe she was the only one to ever apply and we have a fairly high turnover.

Why is our job not getting an equal number of applicants if women are just as risk taking as men because jobs are advertised to both.

[LaGrange]

"more men die in the military because more men join it"

Ooh, what a great example that women are (generally) encouraged to take less risks, while men are (generally) encouraged to take more risks.

Not that some brain function differences are impossible, but assumptions about brain function seem more risky (sorry) than assumptions about cultural conditioning. Until we can get an ethical double-blind study on a large group of women with perfectly controlled upbringing, or at least a good study including some hypothetical culture that encourages women to take risks (not the same as matriarchal), I think it's better to assume cultural differences.

[adamesque]

Perceived risk is the metric to look at here, but I think you probably know that.

[kgo]

40-50% of marriages end in divorce.

50% of small businesses will be gone in five years. 80% in ten. That's across the board, not just high-risk tech startups.

[tomjen3]

Sure but in those 50% will be a lot of businesses that where part time and where never meant to go on forever.

And if you remove the startups from the number, more than 50% of businesses succeed for five years.