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Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#21

Post by jankotek »

gambiting wrote: post #16
jankotek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If woman gets high paying job, she makes less money for the same work. Also women have more expenses than men (ping tax, daycare...). Big cities are unaffordable even at the same salary.

>>Also women have more expenses than men (ping tax, daycare...). What's ping tax? How is daycare more expensive for women? Surely, a man raising a child on their own will pay exactly the same amount of money for daycare? In a normal case, where partners raise children together, they surely pay for daycare from a shared budget, not just from the woman's salary(that would be just bizarre). >> If woman gets high paying…

> What's ping tax?

Google that...

> How is daycare more expensive for women? Surely, a man raising a child on their own will pay exactly the same amount

Most primary care givers are women. Women are hurt by that more.

> In a normal case

Single mother is normal case. Look at stats and trends.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#22

Post by shard972 »

natch wrote: post #9

it’s fine and valid to research whether people encounter improper bias in their careers, which is clearly often the case. But their discussion is incomplete without at least recognition of another possible partial cause of gender disparity in tech, the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon. These cues are delivered by parents, te…

> the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon.

Would you say that is a problem that can or should be fixed after the fact? For instance, if we assume that we know the major cause to be social conditioning at young ages should we then try to correct that after they leave education?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#23

Post by jakecopp »

I'm sure it starts from before university and careers.

I was lucky enough to take a Mechatronics class (software + electronics) in high school a couple of years ago (Australia, year 11). One (very talented) female chose to take the class along with probably 15 males, though physics & maths seemed about a 50/50 split.

That's an even worse percentage than the engineering faculty at my university, which at 23% has the highest ratio of women in engineering faculties nationally.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#24

Post by imartin2k »

shard972 wrote: post #20
imartin2k wrote: post #17

It’s important to investigate this topic from various perspectives, and the text contains a couple of important points (which of course are not new to anyone who’s been following this debate). However, right at the beginning, this is really a bad argument: “There is particular concern about the lack of women in prestigious STEM fields, such as Ph.D.-level faculty positions, but surprisingly there is no concern about…

> This can hardly be surprising to the authors. People in lower-level technical jobs don’t have as much power over society at large as those in high-level positions. Thus gender inbalances there don’t have the same supposed impact and perpetuating effect on structural inbalances. Thus they are not considered as harmful in the grand scheme of things. I'm not trying to misrepresent you but are you making the claim that…

Neither. I only was critizing what I think is a flawed argument, nothing else. I didn’t make any mental connection to what you bring up. I understand why your impression is that I must have meant something more, as this usually is the case with comments about polarizing topics like this.

That aside (and not meant as criticism against you), it’s super frustrating how when it comes to this specific topic, it’s unbelievably hard to express a thought in a way which is not being misunderstood by others. We all seem to have a mental concept of the debate in mind and then just match everything we read to this existing concept, which leads to all kinds of misrepresentations.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#25

Post by romanovcode »

jankotek wrote: post #13
OscarCunningham wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first two sentences seem like a circular argument. Women can't get the high paying jobs because they don't live in the right places, they can't live in the right places because they can't get the high paying jobs.

Not really. If woman gets high paying job, she makes less money for the same work. Also women have more expenses than men (ping tax, daycare...). Big cities are unaffordable even at the same salary.

If one doesn't want to do daycare he/she should not have children. This applies for both men and women.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#26

Post by scarmig »

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today.

It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. In many metro areas, single women out earn single men.

And so I came across this paper[0], which had some interesting research about that. And what struck me was this: there's an explicit assumption that men have worse socio-emotional skills than women, and that can be used to explain the gap.

By itself, I don't take any issue with it. It's true. But if you turned it around and explained the CS gap starting from the assumption that men are disproportionately represented among the upper levels of spatial and mathematical abstraction skills, there'd be an uproar. Petitions would be signed, scalps would be taken. I say that as someone who thinks much of those differences can be explained by childhood socialization.

And you're not even allowed to talk about it. I'm hesitant to post this comment, for fear someone might hunt me down and dox me to my employer. (Even now, I ponder if I should be making a throwaway account.)

In real life, I had been willing to have conversations about this because I find it an interesting and nuanced topic. But now both sides have taken to treating anyone who doesn't take a stance of complete agreement with their respective ideologies as the Enemy.

It's creating a class of people who know just to shut up and withdraw from any discussion about the topic, because there's clearly no good that can come from it, either socially or professionally. Even academics. And I genuinely don't get why anyone would want that.

[0] http://www.nber.org/papers/w24274

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#27

Post by shard972 »

jankotek wrote: post #21
gambiting wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Also women have more expenses than men (ping tax, daycare...). What's ping tax? How is daycare more expensive for women? Surely, a man raising a child on their own will pay exactly the same amount of money for daycare? In a normal case, where partners raise children together, they surely pay for daycare from a shared budget, not just from the woman's salary(that would be just bizarre). >> If woman gets high paying…

> What's ping tax? Google that... > How is daycare more expensive for women? Surely, a man raising a child on their own will pay exactly the same amount Most primary care givers are women. Women are hurt by that more. > In a normal case Single mother is normal case. Look at stats and trends.

I hate to be rude but I googled for a ping tax and maybe it's because I live in Australia, but all I can find is the ato answering questions about ping-pong tables and otherwise random economics subjects from china that use the word ping (eg: "Ping insurance", Gui Ping Wu).

I can't find anything specific to women.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#28

Post by joshvm »

natch wrote: post #9

it’s fine and valid to research whether people encounter improper bias in their careers, which is clearly often the case. But their discussion is incomplete without at least recognition of another possible partial cause of gender disparity in tech, the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon. These cues are delivered by parents, te…

The authors describe this as microagression.

>Microaggressions are subtle behaviors (e.g., facial expressions) or statements that are not explicitly hostile but are nevertheless interpreted by the receiver as conveying contempt, stereotypical attitudes, or other negative beliefs.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#29

Post by tom_mellior »

jankotek wrote: post #13
OscarCunningham wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first two sentences seem like a circular argument. Women can't get the high paying jobs because they don't live in the right places, they can't live in the right places because they can't get the high paying jobs.

Not really. If woman gets high paying job, she makes less money for the same work. Also women have more expenses than men (ping tax, daycare...). Big cities are unaffordable even at the same salary.

> If woman gets high paying job, she makes less money for the same work.

In other words, we have a sexism problem.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#30

Post by SidiousL »

imartin2k wrote: post #17

It’s important to investigate this topic from various perspectives, and the text contains a couple of important points (which of course are not new to anyone who’s been following this debate). However, right at the beginning, this is really a bad argument: “There is particular concern about the lack of women in prestigious STEM fields, such as Ph.D.-level faculty positions, but surprisingly there is no concern about…

Well, the argument feminists make is that inequality=injustice. For car mechanics, there is clearly inequality. Why aren't they rushing to fix the injustice? And by the way, this car mechanic supposed injustice, must affect more people since clearly there are more car mechanics than STEM PhD's.

> People in lower-level technical jobs don’t have as much power over society at large as those in high-level positions.

If you ask me, about the only people who have power in society are celebrities (singers, movie stars), politicians and journalists. And among people in academia, people in STEM fields have less power than economists, sociologists, political science, medical doctors. Notice how all these fields are not male dominated?

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