I’ll make a sidelines comment in the Dave/Meg/Robert exchange over the deficit in women in IT.
Dave, you mench, I know you mean well, but even if there are significant biological differences between mens’ and womens’ brains, those differences arose many, many generations ago when selection was working on our ancestors and satisficing the problem of surviving in the Great Rift Valley of southern Africa. The selection process is ignorant of the future, so I think it’s a non sequitor to say that either women or men are “well-” or “ill-” suited to programming, stock trading, arts, or practical nursing. Selection wired our brains when the issues were food, disease, reproduction and predator-avoidance. That’s my take on the issue.
So if we’re going to deal with the lack of women in the industry, then we can’t fall back on biology. We have to look at institutions and history.
