Thanks for the info! That's a tidier (and far more nuanced) summary than I managed. Cultural issues do loom large, no doubt - but tagging the whole dynamic as "exclusion" does a big disservice to everyone who's ever grappled with the latter (or who believes words have specific meanings).

Yeah, I'd expect most people prefer a serious reply to Reddit flotsam... so thanks for the links and info.

Improvement at senior/leadership levels operates at a distinct, multi-decade lag from undergrad levels (sorta by definition, no?)

I grew up toddling around IBM 370 mainframes, and spent part of hs in a university CS department... so yeah, kinda. (I put my notes on women in early computing in another comment, so won't dupe 'em here.)

That's not the way analogies work, so no. Maybe if I write it out for you formally, SAT-style? Would that help?

"Excluded for decades because of our gender"? That must be some kind of auto-fill glitch, surely?

Lindsay reminds me more and more of the Doonesbury character who tried to run a feminist daycare center.

That was maybe the most subtle, funniest comment I have ever read here. You deserve a big cake... or a cash bonus.

A cute hamster on Youtube might actually be able to beat McConnell in Kentucky. Ashley Judd? Never in hell.

What's the biggest difference between male and female grooming products? Is this a trick question?

Whoa... solid question. Stephanie Rice is swimming's female Lochte, but she's Aussie and never went to university. Natalie Gulbis (LPGA) has Lochte's love of the spotlight, mainstream sex appeal, and general obliviousness, but only lasted a year at U of Arizona.

Agreed. In fact, the best tool for promoting diversity might be to show a roomful of white-guy writers how white guys are portrayed on Asian TV, by Asian writers w/little experience of the culture.

It's amusing that Lochte's considered an uber-white guy yet formally qualifies as Hispanic (for college-admissions purposes, etc).

Title IX has specifically benefitted thousands of female Lochte-equivalents over the past 30 years. Let's not get too negative on athletic scholarships.

My concern abt demographic arguments is twofold: a) the logical pair of "too few" anything is "too many" of something else... and as someone else alluded to w/the "elephant in the room" comment, that flows right into Jewish finger-pointing; and b) men are not a monolith, and a female ex-Lampoon writer arguably has a…

Can't ask for a better answer than that. I stand partially corrected, and better informed.

The dude was never bright to start with, has one parent who's a non-native speaker, comes from a scrappy, not well-off background, and has been underwater for like five hours a day since he was eleven. How smart is he supposed to sound?

"Game of Thrones" does a pretty good job despite not having any writers with formal experience of mythic kingdoms, dark magic, medieval battle tactics, etc. "The Sopranos" managed despite having a single writer with an Italian surname.

I don't think this was the intent... but if we're going to argue that the "right" numbers in Hollywood should reflect overall US demographics, you open the door to some ugly conversations.

"We can't tell the whole story if only half of us write it..."