[Grange]

http://www.economist.com/news/business/2...ofthedudes

The Economist magazine brain farts a piece saying that Silicon Valley is very successful despite the fact that very few women work there, especially at the higher levels. The unspoken principle is that any "gender imbalance" is necessarily somehow caused by sexism despite reams of scientific evidence to the contrary. Basically it says SV is so sexist it's willing to give up even higher profits to exclude women.

And then it implodes by saying venture capital firms work best when run by a tight-knit group of partners. Which side are you taking in this article? Pick one. The Economist magazine should know better.

At least the comments section is talking sense.

Here's the part the anonymous author thinks is an argument:

Quote:

Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as the very embodiment of meritocracy. Its heroes are brainy entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg, who transform IQ points into dollars. More than half of its firms are founded by immigrants. However, the spirit of meritocracy fades when it comes to the female sex (as it also does in respect of some racial minorities). Silicon Valley has its share of high-profile women, such as Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman. Yet about half of America’s publicly traded technology companies, including Twitter, have all-male boards. Women’s share of jobs in software and computing fell from 34% in 1990 to 27% in 2011. An analysis by the Kauffman foundation, which studies entrepreneurship, found that of high-technology firms created in 2004, only 1% were founded by women.

The venture-capital business, where Ms Pao tried to make her career, is the Valley’s most macho corner. A study by Babson College showed that the proportion of female partners in American venture capital-firms declined from 10% in 1999 to 6% in 2014. A survey by Fortune magazine found that only 4.2% of the partners of the 92 most successful firms are female.

[2Wycked]

The whole "male-centric" = macho is a hilariously sad assumption. What a disappointment going to a Dungeons & Dragons night at the local rec center must be.

[Sonsowey]

"It is not a meritocracy because the type of people there aren't a fair representation of the population as a whole"

[EuphoricWizard]

No point in arguing with these idiots who worship at the altar of Ellen Pao. Feminists have the worst folk-heroes. Sister raper Lena Dunham, Ellen Pao, Hiliary Clinton, Jackie Hoaxley. It's hilarious seeing all the new words they come up with to explain imaginary events while real word events fly in the face of all of it. Non health related STEM fields have very few women and the ones who major in it are pretty much always Indian or Asian. According to SJWs these are the most sexist places on Earth where women are thrown in dumpsters for being born. Yet despite all that sexism they do just fine in STEM fields while the upper middle class white woman armed with sociology degrees cry sexism.

[Samseau]

What's amazing is the lack of gratitude. The technological age has given women a way to sate their social and emotional needs beyond measure, you'd think these feminists would be a bit more appreciative. Honestly, I think regular people notice this and probably distance themselves from feminists.

[Kabal]

America's bridge underpasses and alleyway dumpsters have very few women.

Where's an Economist article on that?

On the right tail, men are driven to achieve, as male achievement tends to enhance male social status, which increases sexual market value. And as we all know, female achievement is orthogonal to female status and sexual market value, because female looks and non-sluttiness are what matter.

The male drive to achieve does not need to be a conscious motivation, just like one's motivation to breath is not a conscious one.

[lskdfjldsf]

Quote:

What's amazing is the lack of gratitude. The technological age has given women a way to sate their social and emotional needs beyond measure, you'd think these feminists would be a bit more appreciative. Honestly, I think regular people notice this and probably distance themselves from feminists.

Unfortunately they don't know that men are responsible for making these technologies. Hell, they don't even think men landed in Normandy by themselves. When everything women are taught in high school and college is a split lesson on diversity and inclusion, can you blame them for not knowing?

I remember we spent a day learning about the Battle of Gettysburg in 10th grade. 30 minutes covering the actual battle, the other 30 minutes talking about the woman's viewpoint, women's contributions, contributions of people of color, etc. They grow up thinking "equality" is the true measure of a society, so any industry or historical event will be viewed through that lens.

When teaching goes out the window, so too does thinking.

[speakeasy]

What's stopping women from creating their own Silicon Valley? Let a bunch of female entrepreneurs form startups and hire nothing but female staff. Since men and women are equal in every way, we should then expect this female-driven tech sector to do just as well as the male-dominated version. Right? Right???

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(04-06-2015 04:02 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

What's stopping women from creating their own Silicon Valley? Let a bunch of female entrepreneurs form startups and hire nothing but female staff. Since men and women are equal in every way, we should then expect this female-driven tech sector to do just as well as the male-dominated version. Right? Right???

I just tweeted this today:

   

Silicon Valley offers jobs mainly for highly tech-oriented men - in addition to that very intelligent ones (also under-represented among women - 10% of MENSA US members work in IT). Plus the investment part of venture capital coincides with risk - even if a woman has the tech skills AND the money as some do, then we know that women are going to risk by far less.

So essentially women want the top dog positions with by far less technical interests, by far less STEM graduates, by far less technology infatuated workers, by far less intelligent and capable workers and those employees and investors are also by far more risk-averse even if there are female investors who have 50 mio. $ in the bank (she is by far less likely to invest 10 mio. $ on some project that may succeed spectacularly or fail completely).

Despite being the by far inferior gender on all accounts they demand to be over-represented. That's the equivalent of white and Asian guys demanding more starting places for the 100m run at the Olympics. No - actually that's even demanding not only fixed starting places, but also a fixed place among the top three - maybe a 2 second head start, so that a White or Asian guy wins sometimes.

[Troll King]

Why would any woman want to work in tech doing boring math problems when she can make 20k and buy all sorts of expensive shoes and bags for the price of a bit of hummus?

[T and A Man]

Quote:

Silicon Valley is very successful despite the fact that very few women work there,

Could it be instead that in fact it might be the cause?

[Basil Ransom]

"It is not a meritocracy because the type of people there aren't a fair representation of the population as a whole"

Yup. If you even point out that that is an assumption upon which their argument relies, they will castigate you. An unspoken assumption is an unquestioned assumption.



My explanation for the discrepancies: managers are not people who simply worked their way up from the bottom. They are often, sometimes ONLY, college graduates. And there are a lot more female civil engineers proportionally than there are female bricklayers and roofers. The days of working your way up without a college degree are fading away. I recall one company recruiting at my college that proudly touted the fact that retail workers were never promoted to management.

[almohajem]

I have seen women run and grow successful businesses. Make-up, advertising, selling, marketing, food and clothes. Women are under-represented in some fields and over-represented in others. They are also, poorer, on average than man probably because they are less intelligent and hard-working.

Genders are not equal. But you guys are missing the point.

People with money. They attract lots of attention, media, critics and polemics.

Silicon Valley is flash with money. Apple alone has over $700BN market cap. They'll obviously attract any kind of journalists to write about them.

Soon we'll start reading articles about the taste of these Entrepreneurs popo. which is not quite far from discussing gender imbalance in this field.

[Phoenix]

(04-06-2015 07:18 PM)T and A Man Wrote:  

Quote:

Silicon Valley is very successful [partly due to] the fact that very few women work there,

Could it be instead that in fact it might be the cause?

Yep, fixed it for you.

[RexImperator]

They don't want the programming jobs. They want the jobs in marketing and management, some of which they do get, and make a lot of money in. But to have increased representation to the point of "equality" or whatever it is you'd probably have to have every single one of the non-engineer jobs filled by women. Think about that.

[N°6]

I have never witnessed patriarchal collusion designed to keep women from jobs.

The only example was the pre-New Left labour unions which correctly saw that flooding the labour market with women who were living at home or married to a better paid man, would drive down wages for the lower labour tiers who needed to support a wife and kids.

What I have seen however is that in the company that I work for, the new graduates are mostly women. Last week, a pretty electrical engineering graduate started. Apparently three people went for the job (400 graduate jobs are chased by 10,000 graduates in all of the departments): one male and two females. The male was the best at the interview but the prettiest came third. She got the job by the 40 year old married mangina.

In the UK, women under 30 earn more than men under 30.

[phoenix101]

Women make up 20% of tech grads...and they make up 20% of the tech workforce...I'm not sure what the issue is.

[Glaucon]

When I read this whining my mind translated to this:

"Bitches want access to the Silicon Valley money too, but they lack the means so they want government to force it.

In other news, the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow."

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(04-07-2015 12:12 AM)N°6 Wrote:  

What I have seen however is that in the company that I work for, the new graduates are mostly women. Last week, a pretty electrical engineering graduate started. Apparently three people went for the job (400 graduate jobs are chased by 10,000 graduates in all of the departments): one male and two females. The male was the best at the interview but the prettiest came third. She got the job by the 40 year old married mangina.

In the UK, women under 30 earn more than men under 30.

That's my experience too. Men especially in all male spaces like to hire more or less competent women as most are manginas and want to have woman there too. Ellen Pao is even allowed to sue a company. The reason why she was not promoted was more due to her lack of competence as well as being an insufferable bitch. Social skills at a certain level are of utmost importance - pissing off one partner can end your career. Also you compete at the top with the best and the brightest and 90% of the time they are male - so good luck with that.

The Economist is turning out to be more of the Rolling Stone of gender relations - hiring more women at the top to increase profits - yeah right.

[StrikeBack]

It's a core feature, not a bug.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(04-07-2015 12:59 AM)Glaucon Wrote:  

When I read this whining my mind translated to this:

"Bitches want access to the Silicon Valley money too, but they lack the means so they want government to force it.

In other news, the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow."

These women are giving gold-diggers a good name.

At least with gold-diggers, you'd get to go to bed with them before they'd hit you up for money. Nowadays, women do their gold-digging through HR offices with charges of sexism and sexual harassment.

If men are gonna get screwed either way, they should at least get laid either way.

[Frank Rook]

With a few noted exceptions, women prefer being on the ship instead of having to conceptualize, build AND sail the ship.
It's a lot easier to co-opt a successful venture & screech about equality than to build one from scratch & keep it successful.
I'm all for equal opportunities for anyone to succeed. I'm just not for entitlement masquerading under the guise of equality.
The familiar excuse about gender oppression & under representation is old rag.

[N°6]

(04-07-2015 02:56 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(04-07-2015 12:12 AM)N°6 Wrote:  

What I have seen however is that in the company that I work for, the new graduates are mostly women. Last week, a pretty electrical engineering graduate started. Apparently three people went for the job (400 graduate jobs are chased by 10,000 graduates in all of the departments): one male and two females. The male was the best at the interview but the prettiest came third. She got the job by the 40 year old married mangina.

In the UK, women under 30 earn more than men under 30.

That's my experience too. Men especially in all male spaces like to hire more or less competent women as most are manginas and want to have woman there too. Ellen Pao is even allowed to sue a company. The reason why she was not promoted was more due to her lack of competence as well as being an insufferable bitch. Social skills at a certain level are of utmost importance - pissing off one partner can end your career. Also you compete at the top with the best and the brightest and 90% of the time they are male - so good luck with that.

The Economist is turning out to be more of the Rolling Stone of gender relations - hiring more women at the top to increase profits - yeah right.

I should update my report.

Both female graduates got a position. The second attractive one started today. That means the most able candidate didn't get the job because he's male. With two positions vacant and three people competing for one of them, the most able of the three might have got in - but no.

Graduate schemes with Top 100 companies are a doorway to the middle class and the male graduate is probably wondering what he did wrong.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(04-07-2015 11:29 AM)N°6 Wrote:  

I should update my report.

Both female graduates got a position. The second attractive one started today. That means the most able candidate didn't get the job because he's male. With two positions vacant and three people competing for one of them, the most able of the three might have got in - but no.

Graduate schemes with Top 100 companies are a doorway to the middle class and the male graduate is probably wondering what he did wrong.

Most jobs now go to women in the corporate world since the positions are catered to them. IT and highly technical ones are going to men if there are no women available or they require real high-level skills.

HR managers generally prefer women not only because of "team woman", but also because women demand lower wages. At the better corporate positions anyone can negotiate 20-30% - sometimes even higher - thus securing more income. Guess who does not do that? While men think of their families and earning capabilities women generally take what is given and rarely negotiate well. That is literally the main reason why wages at a certain managerial level are higher for men.

I have had a girl who was coached by her man on how to negotiate for her mid-level corporate six-figure job. She got roughly 30% more out of it, but felt uncomfortable doing it. She made roughly 40.000$ more only because her husband made her do it.

Keep in mind that the corporate world KNOWS fully well about this little female weakness. So there is a gender income disparity there, but it is fully created by women and corporations are milking it as much as they can.

[memcpy]

If you want to see how a company eats its self from the inside out, look at what's currently happening with American Apparel.

The jist of it--Dov Charney, (CEO) created the clothing company from scratch and was later fired because of allegations of sexual harassment.

He is currently trying to bring it down along with him by telling former employees to organize.

"Chief of American Apparel Faces 2nd Harassment Suit"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/busine....html?_r=1

"American Apparel Wants to Keep Out Its Sleazy Former CEO. Tanking Sales Aren’t Helping"
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015..._over.html