This sounds like the same question as why are there so few top-notch women in STEM fields, why there are so few women listed in Human Accomplishment’s indices*, why so few non-whites or non-Asians score 5 on AP Physics, why...
In other words, here be dragons.
* just Lady Murasaki, if you were curious. It would be very amusing to read a review of The Tale of Genji by Eliezer or a LWer. My own reaction by the end was horror.
That’s absolutely true. I’ve worked for two US National Labs, and both were monocultures. At my first job, the only woman in my group (20 or so) was the administrative assistant. At my second, the numbers were better, but at both, there were literally no non-whites in my immediate area. The inability to hire non-citizens contributes to the problem—I worked for Microsoft as well, and all the non-whites were foreign citizens—but it’s not as if there aren’t any women in the US!
It is a nearly intractable problem, and I think I understand it fairly well, but I would very much like to hear the opinion of LWers. My employers have always been very eager to hire women and minorities, but the numbers coming out of computer science programs are abysmal. At Less Wrong, a B.S. or M.S. in a specific field is not a barrier to entry, so our numbers should be slightly better. On the other hand, I have no idea how to go about improving them.
The Tale of Genji has gone on my list of books to read. Thanks!
At Less Wrong, a B.S. or M.S. in a specific field is not a barrier to entry, so our numbers should be slightly better.
Yes, but we are even more extreme in some respects; many CS/philosophy/neurology/etc. majors reject the Strong AI Thesis (I’ve asked), while it is practically one of our dogmas.
The Tale of Genji has gone on my list of books to read. Thanks!
I realize that I was a bit of a tease there. It’s somewhat off topic, but I’ll include (some of) the hasty comments I wrote down immediately upon finishing:
The prevalence of poems & puns is quite remarkable. It is also remarkable how tired they all feel; in Genji, poetry has lost its magic and has simply become another stereotyped form of communication, as codified as a letter to the editor or small talk. I feel fortunate that my introductions to Japanese poetry have usually been small anthologies of the greatest poets; had I first encountered court poetry through Genji, I would have been disgusted by the mawkish sentimentality & repetition.
The gender dynamics are remarkable. Toward the end, one of the two then main characters becomes frustrated and casually has sex with a serving lady; it’s mentioned that he liked sex with her better than with any of the other servants. Much earlier in Genji (it’s a good thousand pages, remember), Genji simply rapes a woman, and the central female protagonist, Murasaki, is kidnapped as a girl and he marries her while still what we would consider a child. (I forget whether Genji sexually molests her before the pro forma marriage.) This may be a matter of non-relativistic moral appraisal, but I get the impression that in matters of sexual fidelity, rape, and children, Heian-era morals were not much different from my own, which makes the general immunity all the more remarkable. (This is the ‘shining’ Genji?) The double-standards are countless.
The power dynamics are equally remarkable. Essentially every speaking character is nobility, low or high, or Buddhist clergy (and very likely nobility anyway). The characters spend next to no time on ‘work’ like running the country, despite many main characters ranking high in the hierarchy and holding ministral ranks; the Emperor in particular does nothing except party. All the households spend money like mad, and just expect their land-holdings to send in the cash. (It is a signal of their poverty that the Uji household ever even mentions how less money is coming from their lands than used to.) The Buddhist clergy are remarkably greedy & worldly; after the death of the father of the Uji household, the abbot of the monastery he favored sends the grief-stricken sisters a note—which I found remarkably crass—reminding them that he wants the customary gifts of valuable textiles.
The medicinal practices are utterly horrifying. They seem to consist, one and all, of the following algorithm: ‘while sick, pay priests to chant.’ If chanting doesn’t work, hire more priests. (One remarkable freethinker suggests that a sick woman eat more food.) Chanting is, at least, not outright harmful like bloodletting, but it’s still sickening to read through dozens of people dying amidst chanting. In comparison, the bizarre superstitions that guide many characters’ activities (trapping them in their houses on inauspicious days) are practically unobjectionable.
This sounds like the same question as why are there so few top-notch women in STEM fields, why there are so few women listed in Human Accomplishment’s indices*, why so few non-whites or non-Asians score 5 on AP Physics, why...
In other words, here be dragons.
* just Lady Murasaki, if you were curious. It would be very amusing to read a review of The Tale of Genji by Eliezer or a LWer. My own reaction by the end was horror.
That’s absolutely true. I’ve worked for two US National Labs, and both were monocultures. At my first job, the only woman in my group (20 or so) was the administrative assistant. At my second, the numbers were better, but at both, there were literally no non-whites in my immediate area. The inability to hire non-citizens contributes to the problem—I worked for Microsoft as well, and all the non-whites were foreign citizens—but it’s not as if there aren’t any women in the US!
It is a nearly intractable problem, and I think I understand it fairly well, but I would very much like to hear the opinion of LWers. My employers have always been very eager to hire women and minorities, but the numbers coming out of computer science programs are abysmal. At Less Wrong, a B.S. or M.S. in a specific field is not a barrier to entry, so our numbers should be slightly better. On the other hand, I have no idea how to go about improving them.
The Tale of Genji has gone on my list of books to read. Thanks!
Yes, but we are even more extreme in some respects; many CS/philosophy/neurology/etc. majors reject the Strong AI Thesis (I’ve asked), while it is practically one of our dogmas.
I realize that I was a bit of a tease there. It’s somewhat off topic, but I’ll include (some of) the hasty comments I wrote down immediately upon finishing:
The prevalence of poems & puns is quite remarkable. It is also remarkable how tired they all feel; in Genji, poetry has lost its magic and has simply become another stereotyped form of communication, as codified as a letter to the editor or small talk. I feel fortunate that my introductions to Japanese poetry have usually been small anthologies of the greatest poets; had I first encountered court poetry through Genji, I would have been disgusted by the mawkish sentimentality & repetition.
The gender dynamics are remarkable. Toward the end, one of the two then main characters becomes frustrated and casually has sex with a serving lady; it’s mentioned that he liked sex with her better than with any of the other servants. Much earlier in Genji (it’s a good thousand pages, remember), Genji simply rapes a woman, and the central female protagonist, Murasaki, is kidnapped as a girl and he marries her while still what we would consider a child. (I forget whether Genji sexually molests her before the pro forma marriage.) This may be a matter of non-relativistic moral appraisal, but I get the impression that in matters of sexual fidelity, rape, and children, Heian-era morals were not much different from my own, which makes the general immunity all the more remarkable. (This is the ‘shining’ Genji?) The double-standards are countless.
The power dynamics are equally remarkable. Essentially every speaking character is nobility, low or high, or Buddhist clergy (and very likely nobility anyway). The characters spend next to no time on ‘work’ like running the country, despite many main characters ranking high in the hierarchy and holding ministral ranks; the Emperor in particular does nothing except party. All the households spend money like mad, and just expect their land-holdings to send in the cash. (It is a signal of their poverty that the Uji household ever even mentions how less money is coming from their lands than used to.) The Buddhist clergy are remarkably greedy & worldly; after the death of the father of the Uji household, the abbot of the monastery he favored sends the grief-stricken sisters a note—which I found remarkably crass—reminding them that he wants the customary gifts of valuable textiles.
The medicinal practices are utterly horrifying. They seem to consist, one and all, of the following algorithm: ‘while sick, pay priests to chant.’ If chanting doesn’t work, hire more priests. (One remarkable freethinker suggests that a sick woman eat more food.) Chanting is, at least, not outright harmful like bloodletting, but it’s still sickening to read through dozens of people dying amidst chanting. In comparison, the bizarre superstitions that guide many characters’ activities (trapping them in their houses on inauspicious days) are practically unobjectionable.