On the origins of perceived gender disparity
2009.10.01 21:58 by Leo Antunes - 5 CommentsI was gonna write this as a comment to Daniel Kahn Gillmor’s post on sexism in the FOSS community, but it got a bit too big and I noticed I couldn’t log in with OpenID to comment, so here it goes.
“Do you think that the significant under-representation of women is a problem?”
I don’t think it’s a problem in itself, but it is a symptom which can point to a series of problems, with different levels of importance, depending largely on the cultural background involved. That is to say: the reason for this gender disparity may have significantly different roots depending on the place, some of which need to be addressed in completely different ways, if at all.
Off the top of my head I’d name a few:
- Cultural favoring of men as intellectually superior in any given field, filtering women out of participation in said field.
- Cultural/religious taboo of women as professionals in general.
- Cultural/religious taboo of learning for women.
- Cultural favoring of women as superior in some fields, draining other fields of prospective women professionals.
- Cultural characterization of certain fields as non-feminine, scaring women away on other grounds than technical capacity.
- Cultural expectations regarding pregnancy and marriage, coupled with age expectations for entry level jobs, barring entry to certain fields.
And since I’m speaking theoretically, we could also imagine a maternalist culture in which women aren’t attracted to IT because it’s “beneath their level”, preferring instead careers in politics or whatever is seen as a superior career in this imaginary culture.
This is obviously bogus, but I feel the need to make at least one Devil’s Advocate argument pointing out that women don’t necessarily need help achieving equality everywhere.
With this in mind, I’d say we can start addressing the problems where they exist and for what they are. Seems like a clearer starting point, IMHO.
Disclaimer: I’m not really active in this endeavor, partly because I’ve never believed in any particular large-scale plan to change the scenario. I’m more of a small-scale guy: changing the world one person at a time (which is ironically contradicted by the sheer existence of this post, but anyway…).
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Leo, I skimmed over your post at first because, to be honest, I was a little exhausted and overwhelmed with all the recent discussions on Planet Debian concerning gender issues in technological pursuits.
I previously spent the time to express my thoughts as a comment on Matt Zimmerman’s site, which I mirrored on my own site about fatherhood, and figured I’d leave it at that.
Thankfully your disclaimer caught my attention and impressed me. I went back and read your post and was refreshed by your thoughtful, rational, and well-mannered contribution to the ongoing conversations regarding gender.
But back to your disclaimer – good on you! I morally support your effort to change the world one person at a time.
I too focus on small-scale, real change, and decided to share with you what I believe about this pursuit.
I believe that true benevolence, which I hope people are trying to achieve when they try to change the world, is incredibly difficult, but well worth the effort.
I also believe that true benevolence starts from within and requires years of thoughtful, inspired, and intentional behavior to share with others.
PS – I’m going to mirror this comment at my personal site as well.
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Thanks!
If it’s any consolation, I was also pretty overwhelmed with the amount of feedback on Matt’s post. There was just so much going on and the original post was so to-the-point that I felt it wasn’t particularly constructive to add anything to the discussion at that point.
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See Also: Aristotle.
Aristotle may have been the first to apply a form of logic to philosophy, too bad it was terribly flawed logic.
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