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Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

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Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#251

Post by rayiner »

redwood wrote: post #246
rayiner wrote: post #151

How do you define which countries have “more gender equality?” It seems like begging the question. My family immigrated from Bangladesh to America. In most ways, obviously, America is a lot more equal. But my mom and her sisters have STEM degrees, and that wasn’t all that unusual for a wealthy Bangladeshi family at the time. Bangladeshis perceive STEM as important, and encourage both girls and boys to pursue it (even…

In developing countries where women (and men frankly) study STEM in higher numbers it's likely that those women come from elite families (considering the vast majority of population in these countries do not have a chance to pursue higher ed). As a result we're looking at a an elite microcosm that is, by virtue of its own access to education and enthusiasm for remaining (recognizing fierce competition) in the elite t…

Yes, obviously, Bangladesh as a whole is a much more gendered society than the U.S. But it's still an interesting microcosm to look at because it's one where both boys and girls are intensely encouraged to pursue STEM. And in India, we see much higher rates of women participating in STEM (despite India being a much more gendered society overall): http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf (45% women with CS degrees, versus 21% in the U.S.).

And even though these folks are elite relative to their own societies, in absolute terms, even a rich Bangladeshi has a similar level of material wealth as a middle class or upper middle class American. It's a microcosm that's still in a mode of striving to protect and enhance their material prosperity, and may be less able to indulge in the "benign" sexism of having lower expectations for girls. (Specifically, having lower expectations for them to go into fields like STEM necessary for both their own economic prosperity and the nation's) than for boys.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#252

Post by mbo »

depressedpanda wrote: post #241
tptacek wrote: post #141

This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. The article does not accomplish that. Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low ; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for ge…

> Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for gender disparity. So, basically you're saying that the more technical a field is, the less women will be inclined to pursue a career in it? Aside from your tiresome bias coming from obvious ideology, I actually agree with you.

What makes MechE, CS and physics more "technical" than other STEM sub-fields?

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#253

Post by mbo »

mpweiher wrote: post #178
tptacek wrote: post #141

This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. The article does not accomplish that. Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low ; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for ge…

> uniquely low; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for gender disparity. So it is not, in fact, "uniquely" low. It is about the same as other engineering. Hmm...maybe because it is like other engineering? > Whatever is keeping women to 20% of our field is artificial, and a travesty. You claim without a shred of evidence, while poo-pooing the actual evidence to the contrary. It is a simple fact that most people r…

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

I mean, it looks like an artificial phenomenon.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#254

Post by mijowi »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #223
kenning wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. bricklayers vs nurses) How about doctors vs nurses? I think this is a much more relevant comparison. In the united states (sorry) male doctors outnumber female by about 2:1 [1], while female nurses outnumber male nurses by more than 10:1 [2]. Comparing these two professions it's a lot easier to make the argument that women are implicitly encouraged to set their expectations lower than men, who actually may fe…

Why the assumption that nurses are "lower" than doctors?

Well, doctors are in charge of nurses. They have superior training. In increasing superiority, you have EMTs, then nurses, then doctors.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#255

Post by lambdadmitry »

tptacek wrote: post #141

This is on the front page of Hacker News because people here believe it bolsters arguments about the underlying fairness of our field, in which women make up something like 20% of the workforce. The article does not accomplish that. Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low ; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for ge…

I don't think you identified the right reason. Sure, people may be sexist and stuff, but I believe most people here are smart enough to notice their own biases if they are gently pointed at.

However, what probably adds the majority of fuel to the fire is a total lack of discussion around current situation, if the measures that are taken (e.g quotas) are adequate and what are the criteria of their termination (quotas without termination criteria are just discrimination, not an instrument to solve the chicken-and-egg problem of power imbalance). People having to try and have that discussion are actively shut down and while it is effective in short term, in the long term that strategy just breeds more resentment. The message of equal opportunity gets substituted by "50% or it's sexist", and that's what people hear and that's why people upvote the post.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#256

Post by depressedpanda »

aspaceman wrote: post #191
neaanopri wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP's scenario: 1. There are a minority of women in tech. 2. Trying to correct (1) will do more harm than good. aspaceman's scenario: 1. There are a minority of women in tech, because on the whole, more men like tech jobs than women. NOT that NO women would do tech jobs, but in the "absence of discrimination", maybe gender ratios would be 60-40 men or something. 2. Because women are in the minority, male co-workers ta…

I completely agree with this description of my point, and would only add that this sentence "the root of this problem is men not taking women seriously" is what I find to be the most important takeaway. As a person in STEM, you need to take women seriously when they talk about this stuff. Ask yourself why you're so quick to dismiss the "minority of women" and "activists'" experiences.

> Ask yourself why you're so quick to dismiss the "minority of women" and "activists'" experiences.

That's a good question. Personally, I take people seriously if they take the problem seriously. I don't take activists seriously because too many of the them come from a subjective "feels before facts" place, and my strong belief that the main reason there is a gender disparity in tech is that women simply aren't interested (which TFA proves).

I emphatically think that tech would greatly benefit from having a more equal gender ratio, but I think that the programs and solutions activists want to implement -- and have implemented, like affirmative action -- and the impossibility of discussing their validity is absurd.

What we should focus on is the reasons behind women's disinterest in engineering fields. What are they?

None of their friends want to pursue the field? Culture? Biology? Lack of role models? That they simply, given the chance, would rather do something else?

Perhaps a mix of the above?

Once we've identified what the reasons are, and which reasons we can actually do something about, we should use this information to eliminate any external obstacles preventing women to choose a tech career.

My sad anecdotal experience from asking many brilliant women why they wouldn't pursue a career in IT even though they clearly possess the potential for it, is that because they are brilliant they can choose any career path they want, and they are more interested in things that are not tech, because tech is not social enough.

In the end, I believe much of it is a PR issue; we need to get rid of the cultural idea that IT is only for the anti-social 80s hacker living in his mom's basement.

Affirmative action, e.g., "positive" discrimination, may indirectly deal with this PR issue, but surely there are many, many methods that are better and more fair to everyone?

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#257

Post by depressedpanda »

mbo wrote: post #252
depressedpanda wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite an overall trend in STEM throughout the western world for greater male participation than female, computer science is uniquely low; it is rivaled only by physics and MechE for gender disparity. So, basically you're saying that the more technical a field is, the less women will be inclined to pursue a career in it? Aside from your tiresome bias coming from obvious ideology, I actually agree with you.

What makes MechE, CS and physics more "technical" than other STEM sub-fields?

Cultural perception: The more a field is perceived to be about "things" instead of "people", the more technical it is.

I posit that MechE, CS and physics (to an extent) are very much culturally perceived to be more about "things" and less about "people".

To me it is obvious that women in general to a greater extent than men want to do work with a more significant social component.

Hence, it follows naturally that the more specifically technical a field is perceived to be, the less likely women are to pursue a career in said field.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#258

Post by [deleted] »

aspaceman wrote: post #56
nicolashahn wrote: post #9

I wonder if it's possible that men and women, on average, have differing criteria for choosing careers, and artificially forcing the distributions towards the middle might do more harm than good.

As expected, this is the top comment on an article practically built for this argument. It may very well be that men and women have different criteria, but that is completely irrelevant, and I find this line of argumentation very frustrating as it completely ignores the actual complaints at hand. Women in STEM complain that they have less job prospects and feel uncomfortable in their positions. Many women feel they a…

[deleted]

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#259

Post by dkoubsky »

depressedpanda wrote: post #69

Given a choice, more women than men will go for non-STEM careers, so in rich countries you will find way more STEM-proficient men than women. This has been known for quite some time. But take care not to mention this at workplaces where they use diversity hiring practices to try to artificially and unfairly inflate their percentage of women compared to the field as a whole. It will get you fired.

This seems like it may be appropriate: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#260

Post by dkoubsky »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #228
kenning wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. bricklayers vs nurses) How about doctors vs nurses? I think this is a much more relevant comparison. In the united states (sorry) male doctors outnumber female by about 2:1 [1], while female nurses outnumber male nurses by more than 10:1 [2]. Comparing these two professions it's a lot easier to make the argument that women are implicitly encouraged to set their expectations lower than men, who actually may fe…

Let's explore some other possible theories for the gender ratio of doctors and nurses. What if it was the case that men more than women are attracted to the most demanding jobs? And women more than men favor family-friendly hours and work life-balance? If that was the case, then it could explain why men more than women become doctors, and women nurses: because becoming a doctor is significantly more demanding than be…

I've heard this phrased in another way. The question isn't why many women seek more balance, it's why some men are insane enough to want to work such intense hours.
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