Comment by ViktorV | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ViktorV | Hacker News Reader

What I don't get in many of the left-leaning comments is that they're basically saying that 'patriarchy'/society is the only reason why women are underrepresented in tech.

In India/Russia, there are way more women represented in tech then in US. Do you think that these cultures are more welcoming/less sexist to women than US? It should be so in your world view.

I suspect that the companies in these countries doesn't have a diversity program, and they hire everyone for purely business reasons. Why do you think that diversity problems solve anything on the long term?

I live in Eastern EU and many people are actually sexist here ( men and women are favor of enforced gender roles ), unlike in Top 20 countries. But I suspect the gender disparity in tech is better than in the us, or largely the same. Isn't this kind of disproves the notion that gender differences are caused by sexism?

Biological differences maximize in societies that have achieved both affluence and legal equality between genders. In such societies, women have more options and they tend to choose not to go into tech.

Your suspicion is basically correct, with regards to relative representation of women in tech in inda/eastern europe vs. the US. (and actually you might add some East Asian cultures e.g. China and Japan to the list of more patriarchal systems with better representation (and anecdotally, middle eastern countries)). Perhaps there is even a biological reason behind the political posturing: older males tend to have daughters. Engineers marry older.

Personally, I believe addressing sexism is necessary, but not sufficient (to solving underrepresentation).

Where are you seeing that? Your comment is the only one here saying anything about patriarchy.

I was referring to gender norms for women + systemic bias against women as patriarchy. You are right, nobody wrote that explicitly, I just don't want to write a wall of text :) Hence the /society part.

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