"Whenever the subject of women in science comes up, there are people fiercely committed to the idea that sexism does not exist. They will point to everything and anything else to explain differences while becoming angry and condescending if you even suggest that discrimination could be a factor. But these people are wrong. This data shows they are wrong. And if you encounter them, you can now use this study to inform them they’re wrong. You can say that a study found that absolutely all other factors held equal, females are discriminated against in science. Sexism exists. It’s real. Certainly, you cannot and should not argue it’s everything. But no longer can you argue it’s nothing."

"The reality is that despite the very real, the very necessary, and the very life-changing progress we have made in this country in treating people across the sexual orientation spectrum with dignity and respect, America—the world—is not fully represented by Chelsea in New York City. It’s not fully represented by DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.; the Castro; or West Hollywood. Hell, it’s not even Ft. Lauderdale and its Wilton Manors or Denver’s Capital Hill neighborhood. America is, in large part, small towns like Oxnard, Calif. It’s Sevierville, Tenn. It’s Laramie, Wyo. And it’s Wichita, Kan., where I was eating recently at a local diner and a patron asked me, “Kathy, how do you deal with so many goddamned fags?"

"Dark skin may slow the pace of receiving money through Kiva, but being from Africa helps enormously. Loans to Kenya fund several times faster than loans to Bulgaria on the platform. Geographic discrimination is far more important than skin tone. Users tend to believe there is more need in poorer countries, and African countries tend to be poorer. Lenders may also feel their dollars will go farther with a microloan to Africa than elsewhere. On Kiva, the skin tone bias only crops up strongly after other factors are accounted for. While a litany of microfinance literature recommends lending to women over men—to counteract discrimination and because women tend to use money more prudently—the measurable presence of race bias serves as a warning to crowdfunding sites and donors alike. This sector is booming now, powered by promises to democratize lending and open doors to those excluded or discriminated against by traditional banking. Baked-in bias in peer-to-peer choices could undermine the very idea of a financial solution to unfairness."

"stereotyping only makes sense in the absence of better data. In the case of Jeremy Lin, publicly available statistics proclaimed his value, but scouts preferred believing in stereotypes to trusting in data. Sadly, this kind of bigotry isn’t limited to the world of sports. Even here in Silicon Valley, where we like to think of ourselves as a meritocracy, we practice a particularly pernicious form of stereotyping on a daily basis…Indeed, I like to describe the default investing strategy of Silicon Valley as “invest in charismatic 20something Computer Science graduates from Stanford, MIT, and CMU (with Berkeley, UIUC, and Harvard as fallbacks), as long as they’re male and either Caucasian or Asian."