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Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

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Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#71

Post by _jal »

dnautics wrote: post #63
rdtsc wrote: post #51

> Research on actual hiring shows female Ph.D.s are disproportionately less likely to apply for tenure-track positions, but if they do apply, they are more likely to be hired, sometimes by a 2:1 ratio. I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc. Not just lip service but change the stories, the cartoons, movies, games etc. Fo…

>I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc I keep being reminded of Phillip greenspun's quip: "A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid As…

Like a lot of things he says, it is a cute just-so story, but obscures more than it reveals. Just a few things to try to slot in: differences in participation in "male" professions over short time periods, differences between cultures, differences between STEM and non-STEM higher ed with very similar same economic outcomes.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#72

Post by troupe »

rdtsc wrote: post #51

> Research on actual hiring shows female Ph.D.s are disproportionately less likely to apply for tenure-track positions, but if they do apply, they are more likely to be hired, sometimes by a 2:1 ratio. I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc. Not just lip service but change the stories, the cartoons, movies, games etc. Fo…

> maybe those other are more likely to be women. Is that controversial to say?

James Damore can probably tell you if people find this type of statement controversial or not. :)

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#73

Post by _jal »

blattimwind wrote: post #65
godelski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of a (near) 50/50 split is that if there were absolutely no biases or differences then you would see approximately this distribution. But we don't. We do know there are social biases, and thus these are being scrutinized much more. Certainly there can biological biases, but is is absurd to believe that is the only factor involved. My guess is that there is a whole complicated mess of problems and not…

Why is it a problem if men and women aren't doing the exact same thing on average (i.e. professions distributed 50/50 by sex)?

There tend to be self-reinforcing trends in human behavior. Jobs that are highly gendered frequently stay that way, making it harder for the categorically-challenged to partake for purely social reasons.

So there are two easily identifiable reasons: One, we should want a society more free from constraints on individual self-realization than less[1]. And for those who lean less cuddly, two, it is economically inefficient to exclude market participants on factors unrelated to performance[2].

[1] Well, I think we should want to optimize that; if you disagree, we have a far more fundamental disconnect.

[2] Ironically, this is also an argument people use to claim that sexism and racism in the work place can't exist, in that annoying way some economists do.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#74

Post by troupe »

gaius wrote: post #24
forestdev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without this being a double-blind experiment, than it is highly questionable. People over-compensate for bias if you tell them you're testing their bias. The fact that the abstract makes no mention of this is highly suspect.

Blind recruiting had some unintended consequences http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

Doesn't that study basically suggests that there is institutional sexism against males?

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#75

Post by troupe »

linkmotif wrote: post #18
cristianpascu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever considered things that men have to deal with and are not being able to put them in terms of 'being male in the X industry/community/field"? This is not to minimize anything a woman has to go through, but let's, at least, not compare as if it's on equal terms. If we're able to talk about women issues at all, isn't that because women and men are different? Why compare it so easily and uni-dimensionally? B…

A man worries a woman won’t like him. A woman worries a man will kill her.

Lisa Nowak

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#76

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

_jal wrote: post #73
blattimwind wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a problem if men and women aren't doing the exact same thing on average (i.e. professions distributed 50/50 by sex)?

There tend to be self-reinforcing trends in human behavior. Jobs that are highly gendered frequently stay that way, making it harder for the categorically-challenged to partake for purely social reasons. So there are two easily identifiable reasons: One, we should want a society more free from constraints on individual self-realization than less[1]. And for those who lean less cuddly, two, it is economically ineffici…

> One, we should want a society more free from constraints on individual self-realization than less.

I don't think pushing women into a field that they overall don't want to do will help them earn self-realization. How would this work?

> it is economically inefficient to exclude market participants on factors unrelated to performance

The cynical side of me thinks that this is the real reason for the widespread push for diversity. A larger labor pool deleverages some of the highest paid employees in the world, thus increasing profits.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#77

Post by blattimwind »

_jal wrote: post #73
blattimwind wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a problem if men and women aren't doing the exact same thing on average (i.e. professions distributed 50/50 by sex)?

There tend to be self-reinforcing trends in human behavior. Jobs that are highly gendered frequently stay that way, making it harder for the categorically-challenged to partake for purely social reasons. So there are two easily identifiable reasons: One, we should want a society more free from constraints on individual self-realization than less[1]. And for those who lean less cuddly, two, it is economically ineffici…

> There tend to be self-reinforcing trends in human behavior.

But we also know how quickly human behaviour changes and adapts to new circumstances.

> Jobs that are highly gendered frequently stay that way, making it harder for the categorically-challenged to partake for purely social reasons.

I can think of many jobs where this is true (for either sex), but software engineering doesn't seem to fit in this category. In STEM about 30-40 % of students are female; less at trade schools (=lower educational attainment). About 25 % of the IT workforce is female.

> One, we should want a society more free from constraints on individual self-realization than less.

Absolutely.

> Ironically, this is also an argument people use to claim that sexism and racism in the work place can't exist, in that annoying way some economists do.

I think the classical Friedmann argument was that there is a cost to biasing against competent people. It doesn't really say anything about what people will actually do (like much of economic theory), since they might be (1) not aware of the cost [and indeed it would be difficult to quantify] (2) valuing their *isms above that that cost.

As far as classic economic theory goes, the argument seems to be correct, it's just a poor predictor for what humans will do.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#78

Post by katrinamo »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #67

At an academic institute I used to work at they hired a woman whose job was to improve equality for women. One of the specific tasks was finding out why there were fewer women in the institute. She gave a long presentation showing all kinds of statistics and bizarre graphics comparing job adverts to Playstation controllers (which only appeal to men, apparently). The talk concluded with a figure comparing number of wo…

> Same goes for the wage gap. We know there is no gap.

I'm curious how you've come to this conclusion considering the preponderance of studies that say otherwise.

This article by the Washington Post examines a few claims regarding the wage gap if you are interested:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-...

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#79

Post by dnautics »

_jal wrote: post #71
dnautics wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc I keep being reminded of Phillip greenspun's quip: "A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid As…

Like a lot of things he says, it is a cute just-so story, but obscures more than it reveals. Just a few things to try to slot in: differences in participation in "male" professions over short time periods, differences between cultures, differences between STEM and non-STEM higher ed with very similar same economic outcomes.

It is a just so story, but we also should ask ourselves, do we want to be encouraging women (or men for that matter) into a life of misery?

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#80

Post by vixen99 »

_jal wrote: post #71
dnautics wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc I keep being reminded of Phillip greenspun's quip: "A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid As…

Like a lot of things he says, it is a cute just-so story, but obscures more than it reveals. Just a few things to try to slot in: differences in participation in "male" professions over short time periods, differences between cultures, differences between STEM and non-STEM higher ed with very similar same economic outcomes.

Please do share the specifics of these 'cute just-so stories' so we're assured you're not just making a suggestive generalization.
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