The Thirty-Percent Solution To Scarcity of Women in Politics. A Repost.

I wrote this post in the past and my views may have evolved slightly.   But I still agree with its basic arguments.  I have come to appreciate the Virginia Valian theory much more, however.  It really makes a difference if you are not the only woman in the room because then you look like WOMAN! instead of you.  And gender stops being a signaling factor when there are sizable minorities of the other gender.  That's one of the reasons why more stay-at-home-dads would make labor market discrimination against women of child-bearing age less likely:  The employers wouldn't use gender to predict who might quit to stay at home.  Because gender IS now used as part of that prediction, all women in that group will be treated as if they are a higher risk to the firm than men of a similar age.