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Originally Posted by wil318466
Can you explain this a little more? What examples can you come up with where there is equality of opportunity and balanced outcomes? Where in the world would be a good example of that?
I'm not really arguing for balanced outcomes. My argument is this. Sometimes social views about people's capabilities are based on unfounded prejudice rather than facts about those people. This prejudice can limit these people in ways that won't necessarily be corrected by market forces. Thus, if we see an unbalanced outcome, but with no immediately apparent difference in people's capabilities, one of the explanations we should look at is whether this imbalance is the result of unfounded prejudice. If it is, then we should try to correct that, whether through government or non-governmental means.
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For example, India has more gender equality in tech than, say, the US and the scandanavian countries. Therefore, India must be less sexist.
I don't think anyone would agree that is correct.
Well, I don't think this stuff is simple. For instance, the bolded is consistent with a number of theses:
a) Tech is more entrepeneurial, less-network driven and easier to break into on the basis of merit than other industries, thus more women in India are in tech because they don't have the same opportunities in eg law, finance, business, education, etc that they'd have in the US or Scandinavia.
b) New industries are less effective in putting up barriers to entry, and tech is older in the US and Scandinavia.
c) Differences in the education and regulatory systems.
d) India is less sexist than the US and Scandinavia about women studying/working in STEM.
e) Many people who work in tech in the US are immigrants, often from more patriarchal societies.