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The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#61
post #32
post #18

Gender equality means you can enter into whatever profession you choose and not be discriminated against. It's about equal rights, equal treatment, it does not mean that men and women are the same, it's not a mathematical equality. Seems to me people are confusing conformity with social/political equality.

This is exactly the point. Freedom to direct your energies toward your personal passion _without artificial restraints_ is equality.

> _without artificial restraints_

What constitutes an artificial restraint?

For classical liberals, that means being free from the constraint imposed by other individuals.

Today the definition of "restraints" is being expanded beyond the artificial to the point where everything is being declared a "human right" without any consideration for the fact that some of those things can only be provided by taking from someone else (resources and/or labor). Basically, more and more people feel that people should be free from natural restraints like the responsibility of having to provide for oneself (or at least trying to). But the rub is that the only way to free some people from those natural restraints is bondage of others to provide for them.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#62
post #35

Coming from one of these countries to America, the answer seems obvious. STEM jobs have a HUGE differential in stability and status in those countries, so women put up up with much more patriarchal BS at the workplace to hold on to them. My sister was a STEM worker in India. When she moved to America, she looked around to see writers with relatively safe, high-status job and switched out immediately. Yes, women in Am…

The problem I always have with this argument is "Why not medicine? Why not Law?" Why is it that two professions that you'd naively expect to be just as sexist, if not far more sexist than STEM (Higher status, more of an "old boys club", established hierarchy that has positions like nurses for women, etc) have achieved gender parity, while STEM hasn't?

[deleted]

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#63
post #18

Gender equality means you can enter into whatever profession you choose and not be discriminated against. It's about equal rights, equal treatment, it does not mean that men and women are the same, it's not a mathematical equality. Seems to me people are confusing conformity with social/political equality.

>It's about equal rights, equal treatment, it does not mean that men and women are the same, it's not a mathematical equality. Sure, perhaps in theory. In practice, the kind of differences in performance and achievement that would be explained by psychological and physiological differences between men and women are immediately blamed on discrimination and the like. There is an implicit assumption that men and women a…

> the kind of differences in performance and achievement that would be explained by psychological and physiological differences between men and women

That's a bit of circular reasoning though.

- Look how men and women behave differently!

- But why do they behave differently?

- Because they're different.

- How do you know that?

- Because they behave differently.

It's not logically consistent and doesn't answer anything.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#64
post #22

The most important thing that matters is ability to earn a decent living. Decent living is essentially ability to afford most things like a property in good neighborhoods, personal identity (clothes), transportation, quality education for children, and safety. People are really smart and they optimise for their own survival. Essentially - decent wage -> better options for partner -> better standard of living. In some…

> We would really like to find a non economic reason for some of these disparities I don't even know if we like to find a non-economic reason or if most people simply don't know economics well enough to reason through 2nd and 3rd order economic consequences. Since they can't reason through it they choose simple explanations despite it being wrong. This is the same reason why people used to believe that deities contro…

It is quite difficult to reason with people who would rather blame an invisible force. For example - most women did not work in factories until much later or even today. More Americans died in making stuff for the WW1 than in the actual war, as the conditions of factory work was brutal. Why would anyone want to subject themselves to that environment if they can avoid it?

Not even for a minute suggesting that women should not be allowed to work in dangerous environments. Having said that no one wants to subject themselves to dangerous work and it is perhaps slightly easier for women to avoid that.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#65

This isn't new information. Not even sort of new. This has been known for quite some time (20-30 YEARS). Jordan Peterson has also mentioned it numerous times over the years but the original studies are quite old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjvzH24Mwo Yet people are shocked to learn this because this data/facts aren't liked by politicians and even some scientists so it doesn't get discussed. Not sure why. There'…

The odd thing is that the same people who talk about there being no inherent biological differences between sexes then go ahead and talk about 'male aggression'. The amount of people that employ mental gymnastics to justify saying both these things is amazing. In fact the attacks I've seen on Peterson have bordered on the downright delusional/incoherent.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#66

This! I have said this so many times and all my girl friends hate me for it! I also believe in gender segregated schools(after HS and at university level). I am not advocating gender segregation but just gender segregated education. This is only a BS theory of mine..and so I am trying to work it into my hobby fiction writing. Please allow me to test it here for opinions. I think that in formative years, children shou…

How does this apply to nonbinary people? Not trying to poke holes just genuinely curious.

I don’t know. I have a few non binary friends. I find them more artistically inclined rather than STEM inclined.

I feel like creative pursuits tend be more collaborative and thrives better when there is more inter personal energy. Study(for me at least) is solitary. Artists and creative people flourish when there is a lot of back and forth of energies and they birth something from those interactions.

Within my circle of friends and acquaintances, I find that Uber-STEM thinking people are either asexual and/or autistic.(is there a correlation there? I don’t know..I haven’t looked into any studies about that) In my mind, I visualize both characteristics as though it is the blunt end of the emotional/social quotient. Obviously there are many who are in the middle and balanced, as it were..I am just picking on the ones see-sawing on both spectrums.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#67
post #56

"Just 18 percent of American computer-science college degrees go to women.... Meanwhile, in Algeria, 41 percent of college graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math—or “stem,” as it’s known—are female." Wait, so they're comparing computer science with all of STEM? That might obfuscate the picture. It should be STEM:STEM. Edit: Perhaps I am not being clear but computer science is a subset o…

I'm pretty sure it has been proven most genius women go into medicine and most genius men go into engineering. The genius part means you get to pick your path. Biological imperatives are at play.

There are absolutely zero "biological imperatives" here -- your take is some pretty low-effort, tired sexual discrimination.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#69
post #50

This! I have said this so many times and all my girl friends hate me for it! I also believe in gender segregated schools(after HS and at university level). I am not advocating gender segregation but just gender segregated education. This is only a BS theory of mine..and so I am trying to work it into my hobby fiction writing. Please allow me to test it here for opinions. I think that in formative years, children shou…

>This is not just in an intellectual setting. Last week I had a voice quivering, temple throbbing, blue vein screaming episode at a guy I hired to do some work. I just lost it. >It’s a constant battle of wits dealing with men that it’s exhausting. It’s even worse than in an office environment because men think the tasks that involve physical prowess is their domain. They simply will NOT take orders from a woman. And…

You could be right. I have considered that, but not wanting to be in a traditional manager position is one of the reasons I came to farming. I have since realized that it’s no better for women here too.

Re: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

#70
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why doesn't this affect men's decision making as well?

It absolutely does. I know many men in India who would rather do something else than do engineering. Look at the background of most standup comedians in India for example. Most of them come from engineering/stem background and use that to fulfill their side hustle to be a comic and then become full time comics if successful. I was personally far more interested in studying classic Sanskrit literature, but was talked…

I should rephrase.

Why does it affect men disproportionately less?

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