c4428fda   
   From: green_knight@greenknight.org.uk.invalid   
      
   David Friedman  wrote:   
      
   > > > 6. Very successful scientists are people very far out on the upper tail   
   > > > of the distribution of abilities relevant to their field, so if the   
   > > > preceding arguments are correct and the average ability of males and   
   > > > females is similar (for whatever the relevant abilities are) we would   
   > > > expect to see more males who are successful scientists than females   
   > > > (also, of course, more males than females at the other end of the   
   > > > distribution, entirely unable to learn things in the field). Given the   
   > > > characteristics of the distributions, we would expect the effect to be   
   > > > large--even a small difference in standard deviation has a big effect   
   > > > when you are three or four standard deviations out.   
      
   [Suzanne]   
      
   > > The same effect happens if children are sorted into groups based   
   > > on--anything, actually, and one group is consistently but gently (or not),   
   > > directly or indirectly, told that they are inferior in whatever.   
   >   
   > Yet, oddly enough, that effect isn't strong enough to keep women from   
   > getting into law school, and passing the bar, in roughly equal numbers   
   > to men. Do you think for all those years they were being told that they   
   > couldn't be scientists but could be lawyers?   
      
      
   'Lawyer' is a fairly low step on the ladder.   
      
   Look higher up. Look at judges.   
      
      
   And for science, look down - IIRC, other than physics and maths, women   
   and men are more or less equally well distributed as teachers in these   
   subjects - which also involves a university education - but when it   
   comes to pure science, and much less to more prestigious positions, you   
   have the glass ceiling again.   
      
   Of course, from your point of view, it's invisible.   
      
   Catja   
      
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