The Middle East Beats the West In Female Tech Founders 156
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this except from the Economist: "Only 10% of internet entrepreneurs across the world are women, according to Startup Compass, a firm that tracks such things. Except in Amman and other Middle Eastern cities, it seems. There, the share of women entrepreneurs is said to average 35% — an estimate seemingly confirmed by the mix of the sexes at 'Mix'n'Mentor,' a recent gathering in the Jordanian capital organised by Wamda, an online publication for start-ups. Reasons abound, and they are not always positive, says Nina Curley, Wamda's editor. Although more than half of university graduates in many Middle Eastern countries (51% in Jordan) are women, the workforce is dominated by men (women provide only 21% of it overall, and a paltry 16% in Jordan). The internet, however, is a new space that is more meritocratic and not as heavily male. The technology also lets entrepreneurs work from home, making it easier to raise children."
Re:gender/class/ comfort (Score:2, Interesting)
Just how many women are raped in computer games?
I know what you're thinking: just 1 woman is 1 too many. And you'd be right in thinking that.
But in contrast 99.9% of victims in computer games are men, and these men are routinely:
* eaten alive ... shall I go on?
* burnt
* drowned
* cut in two
* shot by regular guns
* shot by plasma rifles
* shot by arrows / javelins
* blown-up
* stabbed
* crushed
* ejected into the vacuum of space
* ripped apart
* dropped into acid
* electrocuted
You see, men are the disposable gender. Society is hyper-sensitive to violence against women (oh noes, that scene implied that the woman was going to be raped) but doesn't react to violence against men.
Heck, even "Funniest Home Videos" -- a show aimed at the whole family -- routinely shows clips of men being struck in the testicles. Could you imagine a regular segment dedicated to women having elongated objects thrust against their vaginas? With canned laughter played in the background?
You are right about one thing, redwagonfive: there are double-standards in this world.
Re:Arab potential (Score:5, Interesting)
Then around 800 years ago it all seems to have gone wrong. "Trouble in the Middle East" has been a newspaper headline since the invention of the newspaper. Personally I would love to know what changed 800 years ago as it might give a clue as to how to make it right again.
I know I'm going to get mod-bombed to hell and gone for this, but christianity happened. There's an old African proverb, "Once we had the land and the white man had the bible. Now we have the bible and the white man has the land." The Arabs were busy unlocking scientific secrets and storing up knowledge during that time out of necessity -- it's not a forgiving land. It has limited resources, and if you aren't smart about managing it, you die. Generations of resource scarcity meant that their culture stressed history. The first written languages came from the same region. Moving from a barter economy to a cash economy also came from there. And the thing is, this knowledge was shared -- it wasn't kept secret, or considered blasphemous per-se. Not like it was in Europe where the idea that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe nearly got Copernicous nailed to a cross anyway.
The Christians made numerous attempts to send armies into their lands -- and failed each time. But although the military campaign failed, the cultural changes that contact with them brought was ruinous to their civilization in the long-run. Think of it as being a bit like how America reacted to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 -- they really hadn't much exposure to terrorism before, so their first real taste of it caused a massive overreaction that has crippled the economy, sent millions into poverty, and triggered far-reaching changes in their way of life. But in reality, it was just a couple dozen guys who knocked down a few buildings. It did more damage though than fifty hurricanes.
There's plenty of other historical examples too -- Japan and China's isolationist policies, for example. When America steamed into Japan, they forced them to open their borders, and thousands of years of culture caught fire and burned in a matter of years. Similar things have happened to China repeatedly when people have crossed the mountains into their territory.
Cultural contamination is what brought them down -- specifically, from European christians.
Re:4. ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Making money is one potential road towards equality.
Different culture (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in a third-world country where there is a similar phenomenon.
We have a huge number of female entrepreneurs here - many of them are extremely successful even by Western standards, and many more earn a Western wage in a poor country, which gives them an extremely comfortable standard of living.
What is the secret? It's largely down to motivation. The concept of family is extremely important here - much more so for women than for men. If a woman gets pregnant and has a child, the husband/boyfriend can leave without any financial consequences, and few social consequences.
Women in general (in this country) are much more driven to help their parents, sibilings, children and extended family than their male equivalents (on average, of course). Men are still generally the biggest wage earners, and hold the top positions in most big companies, but women rule the world of small and family businesses.
I am not saying it is fair or correct, but the absence of sexual equality and a benefits system here has had some interesting consequences. I'm not trying to give my opinion about sexual politics, just commenting on how things work here from my day-to-day personal experience. Counter-intuitively, inequality here has led to a large group of middle class female entrepreneurs. Perhaps a similar effect is in action in the Middle East.
Re:Anonymous Loooser (Score:0, Interesting)
I can play this game too. So if someone (male or female) drunk gropes a woman's breast, or sticks their pinky up a man's butthole ...
I see what you did there: you removed genitals from the example. Yet the ENTIRE POINT was that a woman's vagina is given greater legal protection than a man's penis. DO YOU DENY THAT ?
You then spun a flawed example about anuses and breasts. A more accurate assumption would be for someone to stick their pinky up the butthole of a man AND a woman, in which case:
- violating the man / woman (Section 61I) = punishable by 14 years prison
In response to your ad hominem (ad feminem?) all I'll say is "nice try man hater".
Next time, a little less emotion. Try argue the facts.