Gender Bender

I had a nice lunch today with E., an ex-colleague, who incidentally now works for the competition, with whom I had barely stayed in touch since we got organizationally and geographically separated more than four years ago.

She is very active in the "Women in Science and Engineering" community, and it seems to motivate her tremendously to work toward better gender equality in schools and at work. I learned a lot from her today about things I tend to be oblivious to as a male, especially the "pressure to perform badly" in high school, because "cool girls" are not supposed to be smart -- it threatens the boys' self-esteem, apparently.

Toward the end of my discussion with E., we talked about the influence that other countries would have on the future of this situation. Some of the most interesting points that came up, in my opinion, were the following:

• The gender issues in school are, at least in part, causing a shortage of scientists and technically oriented people in the U.S., and we are partially making up for this by attracting students from other countries. However, these students are increasingly able to return home to have good careers -- they're no longer automatically staying in the U.S. as they used to.
• Some of the countries that are likely contenders to dominate the 21st century, especially China and Russia, have much better gender equality than the U.S., both in academia and in industry. Call it an unexpected lasting benefit of communism! But these people may be able to stay home and do well, especially because their countries are doing a lot of outsourcing for Western countries. So their influence will be positive in terms of the presence of women in science overall, but not specifically in the U.S.
  
• On the other hand, the technical gap is also filled by a lot of students and immigrants from the Middle East (Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Iran, etc.), and this population is overwhelmingly male, because they come from countries where women are even less supposed to go into science and technology than in the U.S. Therefore, this tends to aggravate rather than help our imbalance.
• An unexpected bright spot in the world, we agreed, is Latin America. Both E. and I have travelled (although not extensively) in countries like Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, and we met women in significant positions in management, sales, etc. -- of equal or higher rank than men, who appeared to be well adjusted to this mixed environment. It even seemed to me like the professional women in Latin America were able to remain very feminine in their social behavior (they would kiss the men good morning each day at the office) without jeopardizing their professional authority when they were the hierarchical superiors. Did we happen to find the exceptions, or is this a real social/professional phenomenon? I'm curious to hear about other people's experience.

Taken altogether, these remarks point to another troubling point for the U.S. in this century. Losing some access to the intelligence and potential of half the population is a crime, and aside from all the other stupid things that have been done geopolitically in recent years in this country, this is a handicap that may take a very long time to be corrected. If better regard for women in schools and in the workplace contributes to the standing of Russia, China and other countries in the 21st century, then more power to them!

Some people might object that the presence of a woman in the current race to the White House disproves my argument. First, I wasn't talking about politics, but about science and technology. But even considering politics, I don't think Americans realize that marveling about the fact that a woman may become president isn't as good as not marveling about it. Margaret Thatcher (not that I ever agreed with her, but that's another story) was the UK Prime Minister 20 years ago. India had Indira Ghandi. Israel had Golda Meir. Chile has Michelle Bachelet. France had a serious woman candidate for president, Ségolène Royal, in the 2007 election. The U.S. has never had a woman at this level of power, or that close to being chief executive, and government cabinets were overwhelmingly male, or had women in minor positions, until Bill Clinton appointed Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State in, I think, 1996.

So... nice lunch, depressing thoughts, but I'm glad E. made me think about all this.