Thursday 19 April 2018

Feminists don’t care about the gender gap in ballet. Why should we care about the one in tech?

Men just don’t dig ballet as much as doing nerdy stuff...
This relates to the efforts of tech companies to get more gender equality, being that men are about 70-90% of staff in most silicon valley companies.  And if you write about what it might be that stops women going into STEM careers, it must be discrimination and bigotry.  You’re not allowed to consider other possible causes, like maybe, women just don’t want to go into STEM as much as men do. What, if anything, do ballet and tech have in common? The obvious answer is that both fields show highly disproportionate gender distributions.  That you’re not allowed to even raise this possibility was proved by the James Damore case a while back, where he was fired for writing a thoughtful memo on the subject.  He was pilloried, slimed and fired.
Here is Madison Breshears writing on the subject, in the Washington Examiner:
Less acknowledged but no less relevant is this uncomfortable commonality: Both are industries where it pays to be in the sexual minority. I know, because I was a ballet dancer for 16 years.
Another thing: in countries with the most equal gender policies like Scandinavia, women choose STEM at a lower rate than in places like the US where they are agonising over the lack of women in STEM. And what about men in nursing? Or in ballet, as in this article linked below.