The correct takeaway from this, however, is not “herp derp, women can’t do math.” It’s that the social costs of sexism are really, really high. If, despite massive cultural and institutional barriers, significant numbers of women were making important contributions at the highest level all along, but denied credit, that would obviously be grossly unfair to the women in question. But it would be sort of a wash from the perspective of overall social utility: The allocation of credit is different, but society still gets the benefit of the brightest women’s contributions. The grimmer alternative is not that the wrong people get the credit, but that important innovations just don’t happen because the pool of brainpower available to tackle important social goals is needlessly halved—the potential female counterparts of Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn never got the opportunity to accelerate the progress of the Internet because, at the time, hostile institutions froze them out, or antiquated norms of femininity deterred them from obtaining STEM educations in the first place. That’s a much, much bigger loss.
It’s natural that we want to look for inspiration to the members of marginalized groups whose incredible achievements required surmounting equally incredible obstacles, but overselling the success stories can also subtly reinforce the complacent view that Genius Always Finds A Way, regardless of social arrangements, even if it’s not properly recognized until much later. The depressing reality is that it very often doesn’t. And the deeper the roots of the inequality—the more culturally entrenched it is—the longer we should expect inequality in achievement to persist even when the most obvious formal barriers have been eliminated. It’s worth pausing to belatedly recognize the neglected heroines who did overcome the odds, but insisting that there’s been some hidden parity of contributions all along actually seems to risk underselling the gravity of the collective harm we’ve done ourselves. Sexism has consequences—and it has left all of us vastly worse off.
Comments
It is true that we are worse off because of our society's sexism. I am tired of the war on women that I have watched unfold in my adulthood. It is a good point to point out we would be so much farther ahead if we give everyone a chance that has talent not just white men. Thanks for pointing it out.
by trkingmomoe on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 2:03am
To be fair, we are closer to parity in our western, white-man society than any other. Also, have not seen any reports of widespread Unnatural Selection in western societies.
by EmmaZahn on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 9:34am
Not buying it.
First, "antiquated norms of femininity" - well, I thought Janis Joplin & Twiggy & Mother Theresa and Geraldine Ferraro and Sinead O'Conner and Patti Smith and Betty Blowtorch and Mairead Maguire were ushering in new norms. But largely they've been overshadowed by Kim Kardashian/Miley Cyrus. And I can't see that society is fighting this atrocity - my "new norm" was simply an aberration - Barbie is the norm, mildly upgraded to "Bratz" & Destiny's Child. I'm disgusted and disappointed, but what can I do? Cheer when there's an Angela Merkel or Benazir Bhutto, not much more.
Regarding STEM opportunities - women were well accepted in Computer Science 30 years ago (I remember a couple of classmates getting much better offers than I ever got, and database management systems especially had a high female enrollment), and on the Engineering side, especially around the Detroit area, there were a lot of capable female engineers. (I remember one dainty-looking blond classmate who could strip down & rebuild a car engine in about 2 hours, a female work colleague managing all the Sun network systems across the campus).
Nobody in the Open Source hacking community knows if you're a duck or an aardvark. Girls have the same opportunity I did to download & install free Linux and hack away - on the kernel, on GUI, on applications, on mobile ports, on databases, on extreme networking, on virtualization, on whatever cranks their tractor. But they didn't, or not in too major numbers. Anyone can set up a home internet business - as many women have - but we don't see so many women as co-founders of Facebook, Google, Twitter, MySpace - companies that required only 3 people & a core idea. No one said Wikileaks had to be fronted by a dude - they were all anonymous.
But in general, females have been less interested in hacking, playing metal guitar & drums (vs. only singing), working cars & bikes, and phreaking phone & cable systems (yes, illegal activities can form the basis of a great tech career).
Women haven't been locked out of high-level media positions, Web development & digital design - they're well represented. We also have a few examples of the Meg Whitmans & Carly Fiorinas, though fewer in the tech sphere. But that's choice as much as anything.
Oprah Winfrey's built up a monster media machine; Martha Stewart developed her empire, Arianna Huffington is the biggest name in internet media. But we keep coming back to STEM which is like our fixation on Math & Science, Science & Math for elementary schools.
The bigger problem is even after Project Management became a respected career in its own right, where Organization & Teamwork is now seen as important as programming skills, where hands-on experience including fuck-ups in technology or the arts is more important than theoretical grounding, we still fall back on our ideas of "what's right".
The female Internet will be created as women & girls create it - if it's Facebook user-focused, or a new paradigm in organization, or a network of social-focused resources, or a sudden blooming of STEM-based activity, I've no idea. But no one's holding them back. It's as far away as the Android/iPhone device in their pocket, a $100 all-in-one PC at WalMart. If they're interested, they'll find a way. That's the hacker ethic.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 3:20am
Geez PP thanks for coming here and telling us how great it is for us. I mean all those years in school that Profs told me that because I was a woman I couldn't cut it in my field, all those faculty meetings where I was the only woman and men were shit heads and never acknowledged shit about women, and that boss I had out of academia, who couldn't believe I was a nerd because of my appearance, who didn't believe I could do simple algebra because I was a woman, his degree was in literature, I have one in applied mathematics, and he would still ask some man to check my work, what the hell do we know, men know our experience so much better.
Thanks for the info! Glad to you know you men out there are making sure you know just how great we have had it and we should just accept those facts as you men present them to us.
by tmccarthy0 on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 1:57pm
I just said you could have started your own Facebook & no one would have known you were a woman.
I said you could easily get a computer and rip it apart and no one could stop you from being a hacker.
But thanks for twisting my words as usual. Bitter. Clinging to guns. And religion.
Sure, I've had English majors over me for technical positions, and worse - yeah, it sucks. A few trendy phrases and they think they're an expert. Only a female experience? Ever read Dilbert?
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 3:12pm
Stealing someone else's comment:
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 3:01am