Gayle Laakmann McDowell | Technology Woman » social issues

Why I Don’t Support “One Laptop Per Child”

Gayle — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:16:32 +0000

Recently, during a five week trip to Africa, I got the opportunity to visit a school and a hospital in Mayange, a rural town in Rwanda. Mayange is a beneficiary of both the UN’s Millennium Villages Project and the One Laptop Per Child program. The Millennium Villages Project is an effort to eliminate poverty in which the UN selects 12 of the poorest villages in different climates in Africa to improve education, healthcare, agriculture, business and other key components of a thriving society. These 12 towns acts as pilots in a greater poverty elimination effort.

From what the people we met told us, the impact of Millennium Villages has been striking. The impact of One Laptop Per Child, which aims to put an ultra-cheap ($165 + training and maintenance costs) laptop in the hands of each child (not family, and not school), has been a bit more questionable. This is particularly true when you look at its per-dollar impact.

The School

It was around noon on a Tuesday when we arrived at the rural school. Today was a half day, which they do twice a week to keep costs low. The morning students were returning home as the afternoon students were arriving to take their places. Each kid was carrying his or her papers or books. No one had their laptop. Where were these $165 laptops? Left at home. Even if they wanted to use their laptops, they couldn’t do much with them. As is common in this town, the internet hadn’t been working for several days.

The teacher who showed us around was proud to show off the gadgets. Apparently the kids love taking pictures of themselves with the built-in camera. That was as far as the “impact” he mentioned went.

The school lunch program, however, he praised. By giving otherwise hungry students free lunch at school, attendance had increased dramatically. You want kids to get an education? Feed them.

The Hospital

The true lost opportunity for OLPC funds really hits you when you go to the hospital. This town, as a beneficiary of Millennium Villages, was one of the lucky ones. They had adequately trained nurses. Refrigerators to store medicines. Equipment to test people for malaria and HIV, and the drugs to treat them. And, perhaps most significantly, birth control.

Our guide was nearly boastful about the family planning clinic, and he awkwardly pushed us through the crowd of women awaiting treatment. He whipped out a packet of birth control pills and explained to us how they worked: “Green pills for three weeks. Pinks pills for one. Don’t get them confused. Is very bad.”

In just a few years, the usage of birth control pills had increased from non-existent to over 60%. When families have just two extra mouths to feed, instead of seven or eight, children have more food, more clean water, and more medicine.

Healthcare premiums are just $2 per person per year (true cost is $10 – $20), but most people still can’t afford that.

The Impact

No doubt, OLPC has added value to the students it has reached. The question though, is how much? Is this really the best use of limited resources?

Education is critical to reducing poverty, and certainly, technology is a means to access nearly infinite educational resources online. But if we give one laptop per family, or set up a computer lab in each school, we would touch far more people for far less money.

The choice comes down to this: do you give a family with six children six laptops? Or do you give them one laptop to share, and then cover the healthcare premiums of another 500 children?

Blame Men – And Women: A response to TechCrunch’s article on women in tech

Gayle — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:05:09 +0000

Michale Arrington unleashed a fury of attacks – pro-women, anti-women, pro-Arrington, anti-Arrington – this week with his post “Too few women in tech? Stop blaming the men. Or at least stop blaming me.” The assumption, of course, is that you should blame the women.

The gist of Arrington’s post is this: Stop blaming us for the lack of women as speakers / subjects of articles. We try, but there’s just not as many women. And don’t blame the men either. Silicon Valley is a true meritocracy, and women have a ton of advantages in tech / entrepreneurship. Women are not pursuing this field, and it’s probably something innate.

He’s partially right, and I can understand his frustration. TechCrunch probably tries to attract female speakers, and it must be frustrating that, despite all that effort, people are criticizing them for not having enough women. I get that.

The rest of the article is where Arrington goes wrong.

1. Silicon Valley is a not a full meritocracy.

Your network is incredibly important in getting press, attracting employees, getting funding, etc. Can people assume you’re less technical, less credible because you’re female? If you’re female, do you have to do more to prove your credibility? Absolutely.

2. Women have many disadvantages as entrepreneurs.

He states that “statistically speaking women have a huge advantage as entrepreneurs”. He makes a common mistake here. Yes, women have some advantages. Are there disadvantages to being female? Of course. I’ve had so many people comment on my desire to start a company and ask, “what will you do when you have children?” If people are directly asking me that, I can only assume that VCs, potential partners, etc, will be wondering the same thing. And somehow I don’t think my fiancé John would get the same questions. I can tell you countless stories from business school, tech environments, etc about people making assumptions. I do get some advantages from being female, but I also have to work harder in some respects. And I, unlike Arrington, would not be so presumptuous to assume that it falls so heavily on one side or the other.

3. When you say “women have it easier,” you’re also usually saying “I assume women are worse.”

Here’s a conversation I’ve had many times with different people:

Person: “Oh no, I’m not sexist, but come on, women have a lot of advantages getting a tech job or doing other stuff. There’s so much pro-women stuff.”

Me: “So you’re saying that it’s easier to get into, say, Google if you’re female?”

Person: “Of course. Look at what they do to recruit women.”

Me: “I see. So then if it’s easier getting into Google as a woman, then you must believe that the average woman is less qualified?”

Person: “Well, right, that’s true.”

Me: “So when you see a woman in tech, you assume she’s worse than the average man? Even though you know that she’s at Google, she would probably have to more to prove her credibility?

This is the point where the person usually stutters. (The “person” can be either male or female. Men are not necessarily any more sexist than women.) Arrington introduces this conversation with a comment about how he assumes that the acceptance rate for women-founded businesses in Y-Combinator is higher than that of men-founded businesses. Does the rest of this conversation follow? Most likely.

4. Early sexism is relevant.

There’s everything that happens before people become entrepreneurs. All the implicit sexism. The high school teachers who think maybe you want to be careful before taking that college level calculus class over the summer – it’s really hard, you know. The people who aren’t surprised when you struggle in math and science – who don’t expect as much of you. Young girls looking around and seeing the people like them working “normal jobs” rather than having super-successful careers. Arrington suggests that women are just inherently less inclined to be entrepreneurs, and completely ignores that maybe someone’s childhood affects their goals and values.

5. Women are genetically less and more inclined to be entrepreneurs.

Ok, Arrington doesn’t directly say this, but he certainly suggests it as a theory. People have been asserting things like “oh women are just inherently less inclined to do X,” only to have it equalize later on in life. I also know that there are just as many female math majors as male in the US, suggesting that it’s maybe not that women are inherently less quantitative.

Virtually every time people introduce some study to show why things are just as they should naturally be, the reasoning is flawed. It usually goes something like: “A study showed that men are better than women at X. X is a component of Y. Therefore, men are just inherently better at Y than women.” That only follows if X is the only component of Y. Let’s find some reasons why women should be naturally more inclined to be entrepreneurs, shall we?

Women are better multitaskers. [study]
Women make better managers. [study]
Women, more often than men, have a secondary source of income (yes, their spouses). Thus, a women pursuing entrepreneurship is less likely to be gambling their child’s education, family well-being, etc.

Now, those top two are according to just one study / article. There may be studies that contradict it. That’s part of the problem, after all. People bring one study to suggest that women are inherently less inclined in one aspect of entrepreneurship, and use it as a comprehensive explanation of a very complex problem. It doesn’t work like that.

I don’t know why there aren’t more women in tech or more women entrepreneurs. But I do know that it’s a really, really complex problem, and there’s a lot men and women can do to help solve it.

Supreme Court Ruling on School Strip Searches – And What It Means

Gayle — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:25:00 +0000

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that schools cannot strip search students, with Clarence Thomas as the lone dissenter. In the case, a 13 year old was accused of having ibuprofen by an ex-friend. Though the school never searched her locker or desk, they strip searched the girl. For ibuprofen.

Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.

“Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too,” Redding says.

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn’t see her fighting back tears.

I’ve already discussed why I feel that this was assault, so I won’t go into that again. The ruling, however, was interesting.

Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter, asserting “that the majority’s finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline ‘and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.’” What’s troubling here is two points:

He seems to feel that there’s something inherently wrong with second-guessing educators’ decisions. Why? Isn’t a wise to have someone double checking to make sure that people are doing the right thing?
He believes that a strip search helps “ensure the health and safety” of students, when quite the opposite is true. This strip search was extremely detrimental to the health and safety of the girl. She felt abused – which is exactly what she was. In the rare cases when a strip search is necessary, call trained professionals: the police.

The other interesting aspect of the ruling was that only two justices felt that the school administrators should not be shielded from liability. It is no shock at all that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman, was one of those two.

Justice Ginsburg singled out the assistant principal, noting that he had made Savana sit on a chair outside his office for more than two hours in what Justice Ginsburg called a “humiliating situation” when the case was argued.

“At no point did he attempt to call her parent,” Justice Ginsburg wrote on Thursday. “Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.”

Indeed. You don’t need to know the law to know that the following is completely inappropriate: searching a child’s panties for painkillers – but never, say, searching her locker or her desk – and never calling her parents. And then making the child sit outside the office even though they never found anything!

Unfortunately, only two of the seven judges could understand that the school administrators abused this girl.

This is why we need more women on the Supreme Court. Women will not only be more likely to understand issues like this, but through sharing their experiences, they can help men understand.

Proposition 8: How Wording Made All the Difference

Gayle — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:34:00 +0000

In an upsetting – but expected ruling – the CA Supreme Court voted to uphold Proposition 8, which reads:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Wording like this would have been torn to shreds by my high school debate team (which once, rather infamously, defined Huckleberry Finn, in the statement “Episcopal Academy should ban Huckleberry Finn,” as the character himself. The team then argued that to ban a character, but not the book itself, is absurd. They nearly won.). But I disgress…

Proposition 8 was awkwardly written, and intentionally so. Consider some intepretations:

Only (marriage between a man and a woman) is valid or recognized in California. Nothing else – nothing at all – is valid.
(Only marriage) between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Of all legal or other agreements between a man and a woman, marriage is the only one that’s valid.
[No parenthetical equivalent] Pair “only” with “a man and a woman” to imply that no other marriages are valid. This says nothing about other, non-marriage contracts.

Proposition 8 wants you, of course, to select the third option. But should we? Consider an analogy: “Only boys between the ages of 10 and 15 can apply.”

Common sense suggests that we parse the sentence as “Only (boys between the ages of 10 and 15) can apply.” Thus, no girls allowed. Proposition 8, however, would have us pair “only” with “between the ages of 10 and 15″ to imply that no other boys are able to apply. This says nothing about other, non-boy applicants. Girls are allowed, then?

Given the awkward, ambiguous wording, why didn’t Proposition 8 say what it meant? Why wasn’t it written as “ban same-sex marriage” or “marriages between same-sex couples are not valid or recognized.”? Because wording matters.

Proposition 8 almost certainly would not have passed had it said what it meant: ban same-sex marriage.

From National Organization for Marriage’s talking points:

Language to avoid at all costs: “Ban same-sex marriage.” Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”

52% of voters voted for Proposition 8; by NOM’s own admission, only 42% would have voted for it had it been clearly written. It should have been a resounding failure, not a narrow success.

So, please, do not let anyone tell you that “the people of California have spoken.” First, the voters spoke, not the people (voters do not accurately represent the people). Second, the voters voted to support Prop 8, not to ban same-sex marriage. There’s a big difference – a 10 percentage point difference.

Wording matters. It made all the difference in passing Proposition 8.

Plan B for 17 year olds: Risky?

Gayle — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Mike Galanos wrote an opinion piece for the CNN asserting that Plan B is risky for 17 year olds. His argument, however, doesn’t hold water. Let’s take a look at it, bit by bit:

Think of a 17-year-old girl. Most of the time she’s a high school senior, still living at home with Mom and Dad.

Ok, thinking, thinking… got it: A 17 year old girl, terrified to admit to her parents that she not only has sex (gasp!), but had unprotected sex. Will she take the chance at pregnancy to avoid telling her parents? Yeah, probably.

She still needs her parents in the tough times. But they will be cut out of a traumatic situation.

Wait, what’s traumatic here? The sex? That’s not traumatic. Unprotected sex? Not traumatic, as long as it doesn’t result in pregnancy. So, actually, we’re preventing a traumatic situation.

Now keep in mind birth control pills require a doctor’s prescription, but a drug that is more powerful doesn’t?

Ok – so maybe we should make birth control pills over the counter too? And, also, while Plan B is more powerful per pill, but birth control is a much more serious health concern because you’re on it for weeks, months, years. The depression and other things that can result from birth control isn’t really a risk with Plan B.

Some argue that a girl can get an abortion without parental notification in some states, so why not Plan B? But just because those states got it wrong by leaving parents out of the loop doesn’t mean others should follow suit.

Let’s make sure we can follow his argument here (where the “>” means “more serious than”): Abortion > Plan B > Birth control pills. States allow abortion without parental consent, but that doesn’t imply allowing Plan B. But, earlier, he basically used the opposite logic: if states don’t allow birth control, why would they allow a more serious drug? Inconsistent logic.

In most states, minors can’t get a tattoo, body piercings or go to a tanning salon without a parent’s permission, but we are going to leave them alone to take Plan B.

Well, yes, this makes sense because of the consequences of not providing access to Plan B: pregnancy. What’s the consequence of not providing access to tattoos?

Timing is essential to the drug’s effectiveness, Plan B supporters say, so getting parents and doctors involved would unnecessarily delay the teen’s ability to pop the pill the “morning after.” Does it really take that long to get a prescription?

First, it can take a while if it’s on a weekend (and teens do have this tendency to have sex on weekends). Second, it would unnecessarily prevent the teen from telling her parents. Do you not know teenage girls? They don’t really like getting grounded or barred from seeing their boyfriends.

The New York Times reports that since 18-year-olds were allowed to get Plan B without a prescription in 2006, there has been no evidence of it having an effect on the country’s teen pregnancy or abortion rates.

True, but they also showed no increase in risky behaviors. So, 1 point for each side here.

We’re enabling teenagers to act carelessly with an easy way out.

Yeah! Let’s punish them with unplanned pregnancy! Brilliant!

“Teenagers are known for thinking they’re untouchable and here we are saying that they can continue to do that and that there aren’t any consequences.”

Ah, so you admit that teens tend to think that nothing bad could happen to them? So, given that attitude, if they have unprotected sex, will they tell their parents so that they can get Plan B? I didn’t think so.

The boyfriend will talk his girlfriend into unprotected sex with the promise of buying the “morning after pill” the next day.

Please, show me some data stating that this is a concern. Last I checked, boys were also scared of pregnancy – especially since, as you stated, Plan B is only 89% effective. (In fact, boys might be more scared of pregnancy, since they don’t get any say in abortion.)

Yes, this could encourage unprotected sex and that means a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases.

(A) Studies have shown that it doesn’t increase promiscuity. (B) Isn’t Plan B like $40 a pop? I don’t think people are going to really rely on this as their sole method of birth control.

What about the 17-year-old girl who may get Plan B for her 15-year-old sophomore friend?

What about it? I’m ok with that, since it’s certainly better than the 15 year old not taking it at all.

Yes, teens have sex and difficult situations will arise, but should we open the door for our girls to go through this alone? That is not what is best for our daughters.

See, here’s the thing: Plan B supporters are trying to make sure your daughters don’t have to go through “this” at all (where “this” is an unplanned pregnancy).

And, allow me to make a few additional points:

The average age in the US for people to lose their virginity is about 17. So to say that parents need to be informed that their 17 year old is having sex is a little extreme. If you have a 17 year old, they’re probably having sex. This is not a crisis that needs to be averted. It’s normal.
When a 17 year old girl has to chose between taking Plan B and informing her parents, and not taking it at all, she just wouldn’t take Plan B. So, the parents won’t be informed that their teen is having sex anyway.
It’s not that I want parents to be uninformed. It’s that I don’t want unplanned pregnancies. Given that, I’ll take uninformed parents and fewer unplanned pregnancies.
In an entire article about why 17 year olds should need a prescription to get Plan B, Galanos never even responds to the core reason why many people disagree. That’s a rather glaring omission.

In Defense of Outsourcing

Gayle — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:54:00 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve started outsourcing. A lot. Most of the outsourcing goes to an (awesome) assistant in the Philippines, who does everything from online research to document editing. She’s great, and she’s quite literally changed my approach to working.

Although most people are merely intrigued by my hiring a remote assistant, a surprising number tell me that it’s unethical, supplying one of these reasons:

Exploitation: “You’re only hiring someone from because they’re cheap. You’re not even paying them minimum wage!”

While it’s true that some people I hire are paid well below US minimum wage (you can find assistants for as little as $1.50 per hour, though mine are paid considerably more), it’s hardly exploiting them. I do believe that employees should be paid a livable wage, but that means a livable wage for their country, not for the US.

It’s surprising to me that so many people would complain about this, when we’re all perfectly accustomed to salary adjustments based on cost of living. For example, Microsoft pays California employees 15% more for the same work than they do the Seattle employees. Likewise, they no doubt pay their India employees considerably less. Exploitative? Of course not.

Now, I’m not an expert in economics, but I would guess that, far from being exploitative, outsourcing is quite good for the target areas. You’re providing the people with work. Doesn’t that boost their economy? Isn’t that good?

Protectionism: “What about the US? You should be hiring US workers!”

Most outsourcing-supporting respond with the following:
1) “By outsourcing to India / Philippines / another country, we can expand our company and eventually hire more Americans.” I don’t know in which cases this argument is true, but I can certainly say that it’s been true in my case. The outsourced workers I’ve hired have been the reason that I’ve been able to generate revenue for CareerCup. It simply would not have been possible without them. This revenue, in turn, enables me to hire Americans for things that do need to be done in the US.
2) “Welcome to a global world. If you don’t operate efficiently, your competitors – who may not be American – will simply out perform you.” This is possibly the most compelling argument. A business has an obligation to its shareholders to operate efficiently. If it doesn’t operate efficiently, another company will. And then, if that happens, how have we helped the US?

In addition to those two points, however, I’d like to make a third:
3) Why are Americans so important? Why is hiring an American inherently “better” (ethically speaking) than a hiring someone from India? Are we not all people? In fact, I could very well argue the opposite: supporting a person in a poorer country, whose children may struggle to eat or to get an education, is more ethical than hiring a comparatively wealthy American. (I’m not saying that that’s true; I’m merely arguing that the reverse isn’t necessarily true either.)

Suffice to say… I feel perfectly at easy with my decision to outsource. I’ve employed some extraordinarily talented people and rewarded them well for their work. I understand that there’s an awful lot I don’t understand about globalization, so perhaps someone will open my eyes to some horrible truths. Until that day, though, I will continue to use outsourced workers to build and expand new projects.

Strip Search at School: Was it assault?

Gayle — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:03:00 +0000

I often debate as to whether this blog should be strictly tech-based, but then I read these articles that, well, get to me. To change the statistic that 25% of women are sexually assaulted, people need to start talking about it.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard argument on a case where a 13 year old girl – an honor student who had never been in trouble – was strip searched at school because she was suspected of having ibuprofen. Now, if that doesn’t infuriate you already, listen to the facts of the case:

Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.

“Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too,” Redding says.

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn’t see her fighting back tears.

And all this for what is basically Advil. Ugh.

This was more than a strip search. This was assault:

A young girl was forced to show her private parts.
The school did not search the girl’s locker or desk, but they did search the girl’s crotch.
The harm in traumatizing a girl far outweighs the harm of a couple of students from taking ibuprofen.

When you look at these facts, you see that the school’s search was not conducted in a way to find the ibuprofen (since they didn’t search the girl’s locker or desk), nor did they balance the harm of an invasive search against the risks of mild pain killers. Thus, it seems that the administrators were on a powertrip that ended in assaulting a girl.

I hope that the Supreme Court makes the right decision. While there is a time and place to do strip searches (eg, in jail), school officials are not trained to do so. If you think a student poses that much of a danger that an invasive search is required, then call the cops. Strip searches should never be conducted by school officials.

"Gayle" is Not Hate Speech

Gayle — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:44:00 +0000

I’m banned for hate speech on WyldRyde. Yup. My name, you see, has the word “gay” in it, and thus “gayle” is hate speech.

This happens fairly often as it turns out. I’ve hit this issue on AOL, Microsoft’s theSpoke.com, planes with games on their lcd screens, etc.

I have to wonder though. Suppose my last name were “Straighth”, would I be banned as often? Why is “gay” considered hate speech?

(PS: I would check if WyldRyde banned “Straighth”, but it’s banned my computer completely. Anyone want to check any find out?)

A Googly Peek into Racism

Gayle — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:45:00 +0000

Racism is rampant. Maybe this election has made people less racist, maybe it hasn’t. At the very least, I hope that it has made people realize that, yes, racism is still very much alive. As a quick illustration, check out the top 10 Google search suggestions for Obama: 30% are race-related issues: “birth certificate”, “muslim” and “antichrist”.

The most frustrating part is that people don’t even see the racism and sexism. A Google coworker who had a “Hillary Nutcracker” displayed in his office window – he probably didn’t think about how that’s dripping with sexism. Nor did the Republican friend who asked online for one good thing that “Barack HUSSEIN Obama” has ever done. Nor does the other friend who asserts that Colin Powell only endorsed Barack Obama because he’s black.

We don’t see these things because we see them all too often. We’ve become immune to it. It’s time that we wake up and call these things out for the racist, sexist acts that they are.

Drink for the Cure / Bid for the Cure – Charity Auction

Gayle — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:13:00 +0000

I usually don’t cross-post Seattle Anti-Freeze events, but this one’s for a good cause…

Drink for the Cure / Bid for the Cure – Charity Auction
Oct 1, 2008 at 8pm (Location TBD – Belltown / Downtown)

Every three minutes, a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. One out of every eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. Seattle Anti-Freeze invites you to make a difference.

On Oct 1st, please join Seattle Anti-Freeze members for a silent auction to benefit Susan G. Komen foundation. Mix & mingle – drink & bid.

There is no cost for this event, but donations at the event for the Susan G. Komen foundation are, of course, appreciated.

DONATING ITEMS
Got something cool, funky, unique or useful that you’d be willing to part with? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy – all donations are appreciated! In return, you receive good karma, and two free tickets to a Seattle Anti-Freeze event of your choosing.

If you have something you could donate, I’d really appreciate it . Click here (or just shoot me an email).

Want to come? Join the Seattle Anti-Freeze list.