[throwawasdf]

> Since there are 50% women in the population then they should account for 50% of founders, right?

Your intention is in the right place but that's just not how biology works.

Women will be underrepresented in these categories mainly because women (on average, as a population – not individually) don't want to do this type of work.

The real problem would be if the ones that do aren't being able to because they're women. This would then indeed be sexism.

You can find the mirrored argument when it comes to male kindergarten teachers, for example. Ideally every male that wants to become one should be able to, but there won't ever be 50% of the distribution because males (on average, as a population – not individually) don't want to do this type of work.

My wife is a STEM scientist / data-scientist with a background in economics. Much more of a numbers person than I am, better at calculation and numerical visualisation than I am. I'm a male who would much rather be a homemaker and take care of our kid and households. People like us exist, but we don't represent the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox

[supergirl]

> Women will be underrepresented in these categories mainly because women (on average, as a population – not individually) don't want to do this type of work.

That's actually also sexist. What is the type of work that women do want to do then? And what is it about being a founder that is not appealing to women, in your view?

[throwawasdf]

> That's actually also sexist.

I understand how this can be read as sexist within a context that's not informed in the psychometric measurements that have been performed over many cultures, for many decades.

> What is the type of work that women do want to do then? And what is it about being a founder that is not appealing to women, in your view?

First of all I want to clarify this is not my view. I'm not a psychologist. I'm simply reproducing information that I consumed. This is pretty much the current scientific consensus within a framework of psychometry.

Let me try to give you some more context: Over the course of a long time, through questionnaires, self-reporting, observations, etc, psychologists and other scientists have worked on grading individuals within populations on a series of personality traits. How likely a given person may be to become violent, for example. Or to want to work in a team. Or to take specific risks. These are just examples.

Often, these personality traits are graded among a framework of the "Big Five"[0]: Openness, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion and Conscientiousness. These words are domain terms, that is, they don't mean their normal meaning in English. In this context, they mean specifically defined meanings within psychometry that you can read more about on your own.

What's been observed is that, among other differences, there are clear distinctions, on average, of where given individuals lie on these spectrums, which are associated with sex.

You will find specific individual women and specific individual men who want to perform, and do well, and do badly, at all sorts of activities and work. So this is not about specific individuals. I'm not saying "women can't maths" or "men can't be caring". This is not what is being said.

What's being said is basically two things: On the extremes, there are certain groups that are overrepresented. For example, while there will be men and women distributed along the whole spectrum for, let's say, Agreeableness, the individuals scoring the highest in Agreeableness will overwhelmingly tend to be women, and the individuals scoring the lowest in Agreeableness will overwhelmingly tend to be men.

The second thing that's being said is: Even though most people as individuals fall roughly along the broad middle in these groups, if you cluster by sex, you can see clear distinction between populations. You would be able to see women being, on average, more agreeable than men.

In general, one can broadly summarise these into saying that, on average (again, we're not talking about individuals, we're talking about populations), men will prefer to work with things while women will prefer to work with people.

So it's not that being a founder is "not appealing to women". I'm sure there are literally millions of women to whom being a founder would be much more appealing than to literally millions of men. It's just that, when clustering by data, most people who would have the psychometric characteristics to want to become founders would be men. Most people who would have the psychometric characteristics to become, let's say, nurses, would be women.

Are there no great women founders? Of course there are. Can women be founders? Women be whatever they want! Are there no great men nurses? Of course there are. Can men be nurses? Men can be whatever they want!

However when analysing as a population, trying to reach the equivalent outcome of 50% men and 50% women is bound, for most things, to fail. Because of the psychometric differences between men and women.

This is what the Gender-equality Paradox[1] shows: In countries where women have less freedom (let's say, Pakistan), you will find a higher relative rate of women being, let's say, engineers. In countries where women have more freedom (let's say, Sweden), you will find a lower relative rate.

Because in countries where they have the freedom to do what they want, women will tend to cluster around occupations dealing with people; while in countries where earnings and stability are of higher concern and freedom is low, women will do what they need to do (go for high-paying work) in order to survive in these societies.

Instead, a better framework would be to think about opportunity. Women and men should have equal opportunity to access whatever fields they choose to. However the corollary of that is that, when given this equal opportunity, they simply won't choose to do things in a perfect 50:50 distribution.

A simpler example would be, let's say, Basketball. Is Basketball a racist sport because most people in the high-performing leagues are Black? No. Simply, Basketball is a sport that selects for height and strength, and within this clustering, there are more Black people who are tall and strong than, let's say, Asians.

Does that mean that all Black people are tall and strong? No. I'm sure Kevin Heart wouldn't stand a chance in the NBA. Does that mean that there are no tall strong Asians? No. You have high-performing Asian athletes such as Yao Ming who are tall and strong and perform well at Basketball.

However, on average, Black people will tend to be overrepresented in such a sport because on average (not individuals) they are as a group better suited for that specific selection criteria.

Or, for example, artistic swimming, as a sport, will tend to select people who are short and compact and easy to be thrown around. Or how most marathon high-performing people come from a specific ethnicity in Kenya which has over thousands of years been subjected to evolutive pressure that benefits those who can run long distances [2]. Or how there was a study performed on a tribe of free-diving fishermen who have enlarged spleens (which contract releasing oxigen) compared to most other humans, because they were subjected over a long time to a selective pressure where the successful reproducing ones would be the ones better at free-diving.[3]

Now, a valid question, back to the men/women differences, would be, ok – sure, this is the data – but, why? Then, I'm afraid I cannot answer you. I can simply point out that, firstly, this doesn't seem to be culturally dependent: there is very similar data in many cultures, cultures from very different places around the world. Secondly, I can point out that women, as humans who get pregnant and give birth, and then breastfeed, have within our sexual dimorphism a greater role for the care of infants than men, both historically, but mainly, biologically.

So probably these differences arose naturally as evolutionary adaptations to the needs of humans in the wild. However this is just my guess, and as far as I know, there are no conclusive evidences in this regard.

I hope I'm able to at least clear up that, while you may think that I'm wrong (and so is modern psychology, then), and you're free to disagree, and do your own research, etc, it doesn't come from a place of sexism, but from a place of observational data.

One last time stressing the point: this has nothing to do with individual men and women. This is simply what we observe when crunching the numbers for human populations.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/wh...

[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/04/bajau-sea-no...

[supergirl]

All these studies like big 5 and gender paradox suffer from "correlation is not causation" syndrome. I can agree that the studies correctly show what the state is now. But that doesn't mean this is how it SHOULD be.

It can very well be that society is causing these differences. For example, I can claim that women are more agreeable because that's how they are raised by their parents, influenced by their teachers and tv shows, etc. It's a cycle.

These studies didn't uncover some ancient rule of nature. People treat these studies as justification instead of treating them as a wake up call to improve the situation.

You say Sweden has more opportunity yet not many women go in STEM. I see that as a contradiction. Yes, legally, women are free to do any job in Sweden (more or less) but the society doesn't encourage it. Society was built over many years and it developed certain roles for men and women. Go search for boy and girl toys online and see the differences.

I see what you are saying with extremes, but trying to explain this by sports analogies doesn't work because clearly different sports require different physical traits. The fact that there are physical differences between men and women is not under question but does not explain the lack of women in STEM, I would think. The fact that women give birth and take care of children more than men can't (or at least shouldn't) account for this large gap.

> One last time stressing the point: this has nothing to do with individual men and women. This is simply what we observe when crunching the numbers for human populations.

I'll just repeat at the end: observations are just that, observations. They don't tell us how things should be for the better. They just tell us how bad it is now.

[throwawasdf]

> It can very well be that society is causing these differences. For example, I can claim that women are more agreeable because that's how they are raised by their parents, influenced by their teachers and tv shows, etc. It's a cycle.

That is true. Though I think that's less likely. While I agree that this may not be the case for most people, I had my (relatively privileged) formative years in a background where boys and girls had equal access to all sort of different activities and a varied curriculum. From my own observations and information I've been presented I choose to believe (after all, this is simply a point of view among many in my life, and not what I preoccupy myself with most of the time) that it's more likely that evolution has a larger part of influence than culture, simply because it seems to also be the case for other aspects of life.

A sibling comment referenced a book by Cordelia Fine (which I haven't read yet), which mentions on its abstract "Instead, sex, hormones, culture and evolution work together in ways that make past and present gender dynamics only a serving suggestion for the future – not a recipe".

I think this is definitely true – these factors certainly intertwined – but a factor being a biological "serving suggestion" carries to me more weight than culture, which is malleable, fluid and man-made.

> But that doesn't mean this is how it SHOULD be. > The fact that women give birth and take care of children more than men can't (or at least shouldn't) account for this large gap. > They don't tell us how things should be for the better. They just tell us how bad it is now.

To be fair I don't think it should be one way or another. I don't hold opinions on how these things should or shouldn't be. I'm also curious to know why you feel strongly that things should be a given way, and that that objective warrants large-scale social reform. I feel more often than not, large-scale social reform, even with positive intents, ends up having unintended consequences. The Chinese cultural revolution, as an example close to my background, certainly comes to mind.

> Go search for boy and girl toys online and see the differences.

I do think most toys I see are crap, whether "girl" toys or "boy" toys. I think they're all geared towards consumerism rather than child development. I do believe however that these toys evolved into boy/girl toys because of the reasons I mentioned, associated with market selective pressure and getting kids to want to acquire things.

All in all I think a few good wooden spinning tops with strings and a group of kids playing around with them among themselves as a group will be healthier for development than anything I might see on a billboard.

Mostly I give my kid Legos, wooden blocks/gears/shapes/tools, lots of books, abstract things/widgets that seem to encourage reasoning, along with plenty of time in the woods and nature, observing animals, plants, mosses, things like that. Socialising with other kids/cousins of different but similar ages and genders is also very important. Which is also why I think raising kids in multigenerational households and with a large extended family around is so important, as seldom happens in the Western world it seems, but that's a different conversation.

[mr_woozy]

whoooooosh

[bergstromm466]

> whoooooosh

Behind an immature comment like that, which is likely used to try to shame the OP by pretending their argument doesn't warrant a humane response, can only lie an immature man. Am I close? I've seen this type of gaslighting abuse, to intimidate women, happen only too often in real life. It needs to stop.

Did OP's commment touch something vulnerable in you? Did you feel scared? Is that why you resorted to a vague, grandiose, belittling response? Was it too far out of your bubble?

Easier to shame others with vague non-word responses than to meaningfully engage.

[bergstromm466]

Sounds like you've read a lot of Jordan Peterson? Aren't you going to directly quote Simon Baron-Cohen?

Please read some Cordelia Fine and Gina Rippon to get the another perspective, instead of just repeating the misogynist lens and false research you've mentioned here

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/02/the-gendered-b...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/18/testosterone-r...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/10/gender-gap-m...

[throwawasdf]

I did skim some Jordan Peterson a few years ago, though I find him a to be a bit too much of a rambler. I don't know who any of these other people are, though I'm happy to inform myself better.

My ideas on that are mostly shaped... Well if I think about it, probably significantly by reading Hacker News, over the years. As well as matching them with with the way I perceived reality around me and different cultures. I was fortunate enough to grow up in between three massively different cultural landscapes divided in two continents (my parents had a strong migration background on both sides), eventually move to a fourth cultural area in a third country where I met my wife and had a child, and I now live in yet another country, in a third continent (where she's from) in a country where the culture is completely unlike any of these four other cultural landscapes.

From your links it seems like Testosterone Rex and The Gendered Brain are the books I could use to approach another perspective on this subject? Along with I guess The Essencial Difference as well, in order to contextualize better what they're refuting? I'll add these three to my reading list.

I'm happy to get other recommendations.

> instead of just repeating the misogynist lens and false research you've mentioned here

Please refrain from accusations of misogyny without substantiating evidence. You're better than that. We're all adults here and free to disagree. Describing research as "false", in the way you did, ascribes to either it or me ill intent; within the scientific process, ideas can and will turn out to be wrong sometimes and that's ok. A core tenet of Hacker News is that we assume positive intent when engaging our interlocutor and their ideas.

[bergstromm466]

> Please refrain from accusations of misogyny without substantiating evidence.

I wrote them from my perspective. They are my opinions/conclusions. If you have other views, that's fine for me. I am claiming my truth, not a universal truth.

> From your links it seems like Testosterone Rex and The Gendered Brain are the books I could use to approach another perspective on this subject? Along with I guess The Essencial Difference as well, in order to contextualize better what they're refuting?

Yes, that's the ones.

You wrote in a comment above mine:

> In general, one can broadly summarise these into saying that, on average (again, we're not talking about individuals, we're talking about populations), men will prefer to work with things while women will prefer to work with people.

I say, no, we can not summarize that at all.

You mentioned that you read a lot of stuff from Hackernews. Have you had a chance to look at the actual sources? Wikipedia has a great summary, with many sources to back up it's claims:

"Baron-Cohen has faced criticism by some for his "empathizing-systemizing theory", which states that humans may be classified on the basis of their scores along two dimensions (empathizing and systemizing); and that females tend to score higher on the empathizing dimension and males tend to score higher on the systemizing dimension. Feminist scientists, including Cordelia Fine, neuroscientist, Gina Rippon, and Lise Eliot have opposed his extreme male brain theory of autism, calling it "neurotrash" and neurosexism.[35][36][37][38] Rippon also argues against using "male" and "female" for describing different types of brains, and that brain types do not correspond to genders.[36][39]

A 2009 study led by Baron-Cohen which reported that autistic individuals possessed superior visual acuity has been subject to heavy criticism. The developers of the software he used said that his results were impossible based on the technology used in the study. Additionally, the results of the study could not be replicated in a follow-up study.[40][41][42]"

Basically the author you quote, Simon Baron-Cohen, is widely known for his many misrepresentations and un-replicable studies.

I guess his success is in spreading sexist psuedoscience, which supports the continuation of a patriarchal status quo, gaining widespread popularity for his unscientific science before it was challenged/discovered to be so.