One explicit argument in favor of excluding women from the workplace is thus: "There is currently a preponderance of men in the workplace. If there are men and women in the workplace, then there will be romance. If there is romance, then there will be reduced productivity. If there are more women in the workplace, then there will be less productivity. Therefore, there should not be more women in the workplace."
The obvious counterpoint is that this argument implicitly describes a world in which all women that would be excluded from the workplace could be replaced by men. In the case of global research effort, as opposed to particular research projects, it is highly doubtful that the possible marginal decrease in productivity of one additional pair of coworking lovers is of greater magnitude than the marginal increase in productivity of one additional researcher, regardless of their gender. That is, the purported benefit of preventing a bit of romance is not worth the cost of excluding half of the global intellectual elite from the research community.
More to the point are the connotations that are smuggled in when the explicit argument is not rehearsed as I have rehearsed it above, and more vague things are said like "You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry." Here we go beyond the pragmatic consideration of productivity; we imply that workplace romance is not a thing that occurs in the presence of men and women, but that women are the sole causal origin of workplace romance. We imply that women are seductive people, by their very nature distracting; that women are people that are incapable of accepting criticism, a necessary skill in the task of research; that women have a Seductive, Whiny Essence that is antithetical to research. By this model, we might expect that a research institution composed entirely of women would be extensionally equivalent to a lesbian orgy-fight.
I would be royally pissed if someone attributed to me a Seductive, Whiny Essence; that would be a patently inaccurate statement to no virtuous end, and more, it would do my world harm. For me, it is natural to infer that people who are not seeking truth and who are acting against my interests are threats, and it is rational to experience powerful emotions when one perceives legitimate threats.
The pedestrian response to a claim like, "Women can't take criticism," would be to emphatically reply, "Women can take criticism!" I make this distinction particularly because I have seen women acknowledge that they have had problems adjusting to the climate of professions predominantly occupied by men. Perhaps the issue is more complex than the presence or absence of such a hypothetical Criticism-Taking Ability. More interestingly, we could ask questions like, "Can we make generalizations about how particular populations of people give and take criticism, and if so, how can we, and how do they?" It is a misstep to acknowledge individual and average differences and jump to barring women wholesale from research. Optimizing communication between male and female researchers is a better solution than excluding half of the intellectual elite.
The obvious counterpoint is that this argument implicitly describes a world in which all women that would be excluded from the workplace could be replaced by men.
That isn't necessarily true, though. Imagine that an average woman has a net negative effect and an exceptional woman has a net positive effect. Then you should hold women to higher standards without excluding them completely.
...I would be royally pissed if someone attributed to me a Seductive, Whiny Essence; that would be a patently inaccurate statement to no virtuous end, and more, it would
A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
If English is not your first language, don't let that make you afraid to post or comment. You can get English help on Discussion- or Main-level posts by sending a PM to one of the following users (use the "send message" link on the upper right of their user page). Either put the text of the post in the PM, or just say that you'd like English help and you'll get a response with an email address.
* Normal_Anomaly
* Randaly
* shokwave
* Barry Cotter
A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!
Once a post gets over 500 comments, the site stops showing them all by default. If this post has 500 comments and you have 20 karma, please do start the next welcome post; a new post is a good perennial way to encourage newcomers and lurkers to introduce themselves. (Step-by-step, foolproof instructions here; takes <180seconds.)
If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!