CoBF Demographics? Percentage of XX chromosomes?

[rkbabang]

You know you guys could ask him or her.

 

I was being sarcastic.  One or two ladies on this and other financial forums does not change the overwhelming sausage-festedness.

 

The thing is you see women on Twitter engage in political debate which can be as contentious or even more nasty than exchanges on financial forums.  Which begs the question - Why don't women engage in financial forums?  Avoidance of mansplaining?  General disinterest?

 

I know this is VERY un-PC to say these days, but just as the Google memo author was correct about the lack of women in Computer Science and other tech fields is simply general disinterest, I believe the same is true for finance.  It has nothing to do with intelligence or aptitude, it is simply that women don't pursue these as interests.  Not only professionally but as hobbies either.  There are many like me for whom investing is a hobby, not a profession, but not many women.  There are many for whom tinkering with programming or electronics is a hobby not a profession, but not many women.  Now whether this is nurture or nature I don't know.  I suspect to some extent it is both.  The same reason you don't see very many men teaching Kindergarten.

 

Here is a role model for men to be Kindergarten teachers,

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099938/

 

As you can see I have nothing better to do than to try to post humorous things on a message board.

 

Being alone in a room with 15-30 5 year-olds has to be one of the hardest jobs there is.  I wouldn't last an hour.

 

[Pelagic]

An anecdotal, yet reasonably large, sample is the Quora topic Value Investing https://www.quora.com/topic/Value-Investing.

 

267.5k followers of the topic yet I'm hard pressed to find an answer by a female where female answers are fairly common on Quora in other topics. While I don't think it's possible to see the full followers list, I'm sure Quora itself can, it would be interesting to see what % of followers are female as the topic has a large enough following to draw some conclusions on female interest in value investing.

[bizaro86]

I think more male elementary school teachers would be a great thing for society. Not because women are doing a bad job, but because it would provide more male role models for young boys. This is especially key for boys who are growing up without a father present. Unfortunately, educational outcomes tend to be worse for poorer students/those with less stable family situations, and I think that would help.

 

Also, having male teachers early in life might help forestall the idea that school "is for girls." Academic success by males is declining in most fields, and I think more male teachers would help that issue as well.

[oddballstocks]

It's interesting/strange/fascinating how genders group in certain roles.

 

I worked at some large companies where people would say "Can you believe they hired a man for x department? He's the only guy on the floor!"

 

I worked with a group that did some deep analytics, almost all female.  At one company most tech support was female, at another mostly male.  I have a close friend who worked with a female exec who only hired women unless forced to hire a man out of absolute necessity.

 

I'm not sure there's much rocket science to this. Cultures develop at companies and amongst people.  People are all just different.  My wife was a teacher and now prefers to raise our kids, not all that different from teaching.  She wouldn't take what I do for all the money in the world.  She has good friends who wouldn't take all the money in the world to stay home with their kids, they prefer to work.  To each their own, I don't think there is a universal woman/man thing.  There's a guy down our street who is a stay at home day, props to him, that's not my gig at all.

 

It's really personality above all else.  One of the best CEO's I've ever worked for was female, some of the worst? All male.

 

As to message boards?  My wife is on facebook groups, which from what I've seen is just like this with a different focus, and much more active.  She'll be on there debating the merits of some local thing (store opening, local issue, school thing) that I think is utterly pointless, and that's the same as what she thinks about this...

[rkbabang]

It's interesting/strange/fascinating how genders group in certain roles.

 

I worked at some large companies where people would say "Can you believe they hired a man for x department? He's the only guy on the floor!"

 

There are a little over 100 people who work in my building and there are exactly 3 women.  One is the secretary and the other 2 are engineers.  My son is starting in computer science this year at a 2-year school with plans to transfer to a 4 year school afterwards and all of the incoming freshmen in his major are male.  When we were touring the school earlier this year they showed us the Dental Hygienist building and they had pictures of all of the graduating classes in one of the hallways and there was 1-2 males in each picture (out of maybe 200 students) and they told us that the program started in the early 1960s and that they didn't have their first male graduate until the 1980s.  It is strange how the sexes separate themselves into and away from certain professions.

 

As to message boards?  My wife is on facebook groups, which from what I've seen is just like this with a different focus, and much more active.  She'll be on there debating the merits of some local thing (store opening, local issue, school thing) that I think is utterly pointless, and that's the same as what she thinks about this...

 

You are correct here, which goes against the "women have no time theory".  There is a local "concerned parents" FB group in my town and my wife and I are both members.  I never post and rarely read it, because every time I look at it there are tens or hundreds of new posts each with hundreds of comments (almost exclusively by women) and I am not interested enough in any of the topics to spend any time reading it.  Also from what I have read there, they are not nice to each other at all in the comments.  It makes the politics section here look like a bunch of people holding hands singing kumbaya.

 

[oddballstocks]

Also from what I have read there, they are not nice to each other at all in the comments.  It makes the politics section here look like a bunch of people holding hands singing kumbaya.

 

Can echo this.  My wife will talk about how someone posted a question like "Are there any parks without slides?" and other women will just lay into them as if the question is a life or death decision and how they're terrible parents for even asking.  Absolutely brutal.

 

We had a neighbor up the street, extremely nice in person, she was a former teacher.  They've since moved, but my wife said she's extremely active on these groups slaying people for whatever choices and decisions they've made.  It's weird because on Facebook your name is attached to your posts.  In person she was great, online..watch out.

 

[boilermaker75]

Also from what I have read there, they are not nice to each other at all in the comments.  It makes the politics section here look like a bunch of people holding hands singing kumbaya.

 

Can echo this.  My wife will talk about how someone posted a question like "Are there any parks without slides?" and other women will just lay into them as if the question is a life or death decision and how they're terrible parents for even asking.  Absolutely brutal.

 

We had a neighbor up the street, extremely nice in person, she was a former teacher.  They've since moved, but my wife said she's extremely active on these groups slaying people for whatever choices and decisions they've made.  It's weird because on Facebook your name is attached to your posts.  In person she was great, online..watch out.

 

“It’s hard to hate up close,” said James Comey

[rb]

Why do you think that is? That an otherwise pleasant person becomes an asshole online? could it be some animal instinct that if you're an asshole in person you may catch a beating?

[Packer16]

Alot of it has to do with body language & missing the social cues from that language.  If you have met someone face to face you & know them you have more compassion & empathy.  It much more difficult to have empathy online than in person as your imagination can go wild with no visual or emotional feedback.

 

Packer

[DooDiligence]

Why do you think that is? That an otherwise pleasant person becomes an asshole online? could it be some animal instinct that if you're an asshole in person you may catch a beating?

 

nail + head