These assumptions and stats are virtually meaningless.
Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. Classifying these challenges by sex ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness for one career or another, or lack there of.
More than just encouraging your daughter to study tech or any other career (tech might be saturated), encourage them to learn how to interview aggressively, and how to ask for raises. Encourage them to be fearless.
> Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges.
Have you faced sex based discrimination, intimidation or othering in your workplace?
> ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness
The issue is that the capacity of women is backgrounded to the point that they have to do more to be seen as talented as their male counterparts. I'm sure every woman in tech would love to focus on skills instead of sex but that's just not the world they're presented with.
> More than just encouraging your daughter to study tech
More than this teach your sons about bias against women, how to have empathy for historically marginalised groups, how to give space for quieter voices, the broader cultural norms that lead to inequality etc
You can teach generations of daughters whatever you like but the weight of solving these issues is far from resting only on women, and the idea that it is is ironically hostile in itself.
Women are kicking ass because they kick ass, not because men are "helping" by viewing them as disabled. Ask any successful woman if she needs your help. Lol. Individuality is more important than your labeling by a huge margin.
Recognising and actively working to dismantle issues of systemic bias against women isn't viewing women as disabled.
I've spoken with many women about this and volunteered alongside many others on various projects aiming to help tackle these issues such as Women in Tech Netherlands. The women I've encountered have universally recognised the importance of allyship. Who are the women you spoke with who laughed?
You might disagree with what she says but you'll struggle you convince me that I should give more weight to your views on this than the actual women involved.
Your daughter isn't "women." My commentary isn't about changing the world. It's about providing the practical tools for individual success. Focusing on individual advantages, rationally and with careful planning, produces results. Their sex isn't really something to focus on when compared with the majority of other hurdles having a dramatically larger impact in their life. They should focus on things they can act on if you want them to be successful.
My mother retired in the 2000's earning more than 2M / yr running her own business. That's net, not gross. A single mother of two. My earliest memories are in a homeless shelter. It's not a competition to know someone. While not a woman, I earn in the top 1%. I credit my mom for that.
It's obvious that people who focus on what's in their control, tend to produce results.
Ally groups are great for networking. It's just not what I'm talking about.
> Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges.
And many people get heaped additional challenges by virtue of their birth group - challenges that are commonly supplied by people whose birth group started at the lowest difficulty level.
Yes. Including homelessness, disease, religious background, language, distance from an opportunity, nationality, sexual orientation, financial stability of their parents, lack of lottery winnings or inheritance, mental acuity or lack there of, mental disorder, physical deformity, and indeed sex. And combinations of those and etc.'s that I didn't think of.
Everyone has countless reasons to fail. Sex is by far among the smallest of those reasons.
Yes, exactly. And therefore it has the least impact on the individual.
Giving everyone a dollar is the same as giving no one a dollar. -Econ 101
Compare that with say, severe anxiety, inability to take tests, low IQ. Or even just lack of interview experience, and never asking for a raise.
These last two dramatically affect income and are true of a strikingly large number of women compared with men.[1]
Is it possible that women aren't asking for raises because everyone keeps telling them that they need "special" help (implied inferiority)? That they won't get raises, so why bother?
I think it's a factor. I think your argument, while well intentioned, might be causal in preventing women's success.
Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. Classifying these challenges by sex ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness for one career or another, or lack there of.
More than just encouraging your daughter to study tech or any other career (tech might be saturated), encourage them to learn how to interview aggressively, and how to ask for raises. Encourage them to be fearless.
And do the same for your sons.