Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 91 posts

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#61

Post by macspoofing »

watwut wrote: post #59
macspoofing wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that OPs perspective is wrong? Because that was the implicit perception in my friend and familial circle. Between friends, cousins and siblings, the boys were by and large fuck-ups and girls were responsible. Almost every girl I knew went to university, whereas (maybe) half the boys did. Most in my circle did well in life, but the ones that didn't were guys. Things just aren't that simple, and there is…

No, I am saying that the stereotype he detected really exists and somehow happily coexist with other stereotypes. That the stereotypes when combined into one person become inconsistent. Personally I knew plenty of boys that were not fuckups. I know also boys who are fuckups or went through periods where they as kids were troubles, but I know also plenty of perfectly fine boys.

>I am saying that the stereotype he detected really exists and somehow happily coexist with other stereotypes.

Of course each of us has to deal with a plethora of cultural influences and pressures, but in this case you're just asserting things and maybe gaslighting a little. Someone shared an anecdote that counteracts your assertion and you go and post hoc fit your conclusion by claiming there are in fact other secret stereotypes that must be there as well. Maybe they aren't there.

>Personally I knew plenty of boys that were not fuckups.

So do I.

In my case, however, all the fuckups I know are boys. All of them. I don't know what that anecdote says, but it says something.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#62

Post by bonoboTP »

jakubp wrote: post #31
lruor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>imagine being a teenage girl and overhearing boys talk about how girls are dumb What do you think girls think and say of boys? This is just stupid (and incorrect) victimism, directed at a gender, when the other one acts the same. Someone using that argument is either 1) completely unaware of the experiences of the other gender or 2) being dishonest.

Not sure what culture you are from, but in Poland at least I have almost never heard girls (or anyone!) say anything particularly bad of that sort to boys, but I sure have heard said a lot to girls. There's definitely still a strong 'boyish' culture where boys can say almost anything they like and it's OK, but girls (for whatever reason) won't. It's not about who's better - it's about what we let people get away with…

I remember from my childhood that boys were always treated as silly clowns with no patience, responsibility and conscience. (Not saying there's no biological basis for this, girls do mature faster as far as I know)

School was much more set up for girls and they were more successful on average.

I don't remember boys saying girls are dumb or the reverse. The stereotype was more about girls being obedient and tidy and organized and serious while boys are messy, forgetful, chaotic and mischievous.

Edit: this last point also makes it weird for me when people equate male with order and female with chaos. I guess the stereotype may have reversed since then? Or the adult stereotype is the reverse of the child stereotype?

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#63

Post by growlist »

areoform wrote: post #13

It is hard to do the things you love when you aren't wanted. Setting aside the statistics for a moment, imagine being a teenage girl and overhearing boys talk about how girls are dumb. Brainless machines of no consequence. That women can't code or contribute much in fields like math. "They just don't have the brain for it." These moments stay with you and they impede you at moments when you need to be free. They push…

Men and boys are demonised and ridiculed daily all across our media, and education is in my experience biased towards males also. Teachers are mostly female, and I remember at school normal male behaviour being criticised, and a general attitude of 'girls work harder than boys', 'girls are better behaved than boys' etc.

If you want some hard data to back this up, take a look at the stats about male/female university attendance in the UK. You'll see it's becoming ever more weighted towards women. I cannot browse the web or social media without being bombarded with pro-female propaganda. And yet it's women that are being discriminated against?!

Bonkers.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#64

Post by growlist »

xondono wrote: post #23
areoform wrote: post #13

It is hard to do the things you love when you aren't wanted. Setting aside the statistics for a moment, imagine being a teenage girl and overhearing boys talk about how girls are dumb. Brainless machines of no consequence. That women can't code or contribute much in fields like math. "They just don't have the brain for it." These moments stay with you and they impede you at moments when you need to be free. They push…

Maybe Spain (of all places) is super-progressive, but I can't recall a single instance of anyone saying anything similar to "Women can't code" or "Women can't do math". In fact, for most of my educational life the "top student of the class" has been female, even through engineering and maths. Am I some kind of odd outlier? is the experience on other countries different? I'm genouinly curious.

Studies show that when it comes to IQ, women cluster around the mean. As you go upwards to higher levels of IQ you find fewer and fewer women compared to the number of men. Somewhat debatable whether this correlates to achievement or exactly what IQ means though.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#65

Post by bonoboTP »

wvh wrote: post #55
xondono wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Spain (of all places) is super-progressive, but I can't recall a single instance of anyone saying anything similar to "Women can't code" or "Women can't do math". In fact, for most of my educational life the "top student of the class" has been female, even through engineering and maths. Am I some kind of odd outlier? is the experience on other countries different? I'm genouinly curious.

Same for Northern Europe. Most of the smart kids in high school were girls. Some went on to study science, but I don't think any of them were interested in computers or went for CS degrees. In fact I know way more women with math and other science degrees; I am not sure why those women did not show interest in specifically engineering or CS, which do have low numbers of female students. Perhaps those fields are perce…

I don't know where this non-welcoming stereotype comes from. CompSci is not the same as gamer culture or techies. In fact, in my Hungarian Uni, there were many people who had liked tinkering and modding their computer (without really knowing what the parts did or what the numbers meant) for the newest games and knew how to set up routers etc thought that CS is surely what they should study. Many quickly dropped out when they realized there's so much math involved and it's not all about creating apps etc. So so many complaints about who needs math, why learn these old topics, why not the newest tech which you actually use in real jobs (there were electives covering those).

Those who survived this filter tend to be less of the tech fan boy culture.

Of course being a girl had a special status, there's just no way around that when they are below 10%. There were many cases when a class had only 1 or 2 girls, or I remember when the game design class had their first ever female student, whom I knew. She didn't recall any inappropriate things said to her. But you have to have a really strong interest in the topic to accept being the only girl in so many situations and groups. Just "going with the flow" won't carry you there.

This whole thing must have some deeper roots than what it's being reduced to today, because the effect comes up in many countries even before US influence became this strong. In fact in the former Eastern Bloc countries there was a lot of encouragement for women getting educated and getting more traditionally male jobs.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#66

Post by faissaloo »

ifianassa wrote: post #30

I too never thought I was smart enough - in my case, for computers. Nothing to do with my gender. My father bought me my first computer at 10. But, others said that I can't learn programming if I don't know maths, and I was crap at maths. So I didn't learn to program. Not until I went to university, to study computer science, of all things. I was good at language, so I treated programming as a language problem. I lea…

As I quickly found out after leaving education: I didn't actually hate maths, I just hated being taught maths.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#67

Post by eecc »

gdy wrote: post #52
eecc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There, that’s one of those “knock down” the article is about. There’s this point I heard someone made about internet toxicity: “it used to be that if you didn’t have anything positive to say you’d just shit up and move on; if anything to avoid a bitter quarrel in person. On the internet, the lack of any immediate personal consequence removed this restraint, allowing the worst thoughts to pour out, and drown whatever…

You comment is anything but positive, and yet you have written it. The last paragraph ("Thanks, for being today’s example. Now can you please make the effort next time?") is downright nasty. My impression from people like you is that your kind loves writing toxic comments but thinks that covering them with a fig leaf of a supposedly 'good' cause and high moral ground somehow makes that acceptable.

On the contrary, I do think that calling out nasty behavior is a net positive. Yes, a reproach is a reproach... no need to sugar coat it, but you'd expect the same if you farted or belched in public.

Now, have a good day.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#68

Post by eecc »

treerock wrote: post #34
eecc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There, that’s one of those “knock down” the article is about. There’s this point I heard someone made about internet toxicity: “it used to be that if you didn’t have anything positive to say you’d just shit up and move on; if anything to avoid a bitter quarrel in person. On the internet, the lack of any immediate personal consequence removed this restraint, allowing the worst thoughts to pour out, and drown whatever…

> it used to be that if you didn’t have anything positive to say you’d just shut up and move on While that's an attitude I've learned to follow ("If you'd don't have anything nice to say, don't say it." as my maw would put it) I'm not sure it's actually that healthy. It shuts down all possibility of (negative) criticism for fear of causing offense, or bad feeling.

Sorry, I might have worded it too generally; imho a well reasoned criticism falls under the "positive" side, unlike Evil quips and disparaging remarks.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#69

Post by faissaloo »

gdy wrote: post #46
xondono wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Spain (of all places) is super-progressive, but I can't recall a single instance of anyone saying anything similar to "Women can't code" or "Women can't do math". In fact, for most of my educational life the "top student of the class" has been female, even through engineering and maths. Am I some kind of odd outlier? is the experience on other countries different? I'm genouinly curious.

It's the same with Iran: "70% of Iran’s science and engineering students are women" [0] [0] https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com...

More conservative countries are known for having lots of women in STEM though, take a look at Saudi

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#70

Post by mar77i »

The videos I watch online include several game streamers who like to talk about their STEM careers. One of them in particular keeps emphasizing how to them, studying their field did not come easy to them, but they had luckily realized soon enough that working in a lab was what they wanted and loved to do. So they chewed through the academic career. In short, do not exclusively measure your chances for success by how well you do in school.

Myself I haven't had a very successful academic career, and even a decade later I'm still a mediocre programmer struggling to get things done for perfectionism reasons. But I persevere and don't stop learning things. That lead to me getting a job in the industry a few years back, now carrying a comparably big responsibility in my current position.

I very much encourage women to pursue the career they consider the most thrilling. But I can also see that for women, needing more stability sooner in life may make it less appealing to chew through an academic career in a field when they're not sure if they can get good at it.

Post reply on HN