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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)

#121

Post by jakelazaroff »

bluGill wrote: post #96
calibas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are observable differences not the basis of empirical science?

Which differences. There is the genitalia that nobody argues with. Likewise testosterone differences. Pretty much everything else isn't as clear cut. We know that more men than women go into STEM - but we don't know if it is because men fundamentally like those jobs better, or if it is because our culture makes it less acceptable for women to go into STEM. Often culture things are subtle and people will say things th…

That's not true. We know from history that a much larger percentage of programmers in the US were women before it became a lucrative career.

> Between 30 and 50 percent of programmers were women in the 1950s, and it was seen as a natural career for them, as evidenced by a 1967 Cosmopolitan feature about “Computer Girls.” [1]

[1] https://timeline.com/women-pioneered-computer-programming-th...

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

#122

Post by Nursie »

jl2718 wrote: post #94

Mostly because it’s not a very good job. The total hours, job security, and amortization of training time, are some of the worst of any profession.

That's nonsense. It pays very well and can give you great freedom to set your own path.

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

#123

Post by IAmEveryone »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #65
turc1656 wrote: post #40

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.

It's perfectly possible to consider traits to be culturally assigned to the genders and not biologically determined, and still complain about them. Complaining about innate (and therefore unchangeable) biological traits would actually be somewhat useless.

Besides, nobody denies the existence of biological differences. It's pretty obvious that women tend to have breasts and men tend not to. What's being criticised is:

- Misinterpreting culturally-enforced differences as biological and therefore fixed. Hair length, for example, could be misinterpreted as a difference between the sexes if any aliens did a quantitative study without ever noticing the barbers. Job choices could very well be similar, except the process how they are culturally reinforced are less obvious.

- Making decisions affecting individuals based on group differences (biological, culturally, or imagined): Even if women are 2% at picking stocks, using that information only to hire Alice and not Bob will lead to the wrong decision in 45% of cases because the differences between individuals swamp the group averages.

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

#124

Post by commandlinefan »

rayiner wrote: post #72
DuskStar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The legal profession is far ahead of STEM in addressing sexism. Many law firms have adopted the Mansfield Rule, which requires the pools of promotion candidates to comprise 30-50% women or other underrepresented groups: https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/09/06/more-firms-... . Major clients are imposing diversity criteria on outside counsel hired for their matters. Many major firms have 20% or more women in t…

> promotion candidates to comprise 30-50% women or other underrepresented groups

I think most tech companies would go into a full-blown panic if you imposed a quota of non-asians (who are something like 5% of the U.S. population) for technical positions.

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

#125

Post by bakuninsbart »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #77
maxnoe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOOO. Science, Technics, Engineering, Math. The M is not for Medicine

But science includes biology, chemistry, pharmacy and medical research (e.g. molecular biology, neurology,...). So just because it is not the M does not say it is not part of STEM. Actually, I am unsure how country specific this is and where to put medicine with respect to hard sciences, soft sciences, social sciences etc.

> Actually, I am unsure how country specific

It is kind of hilarious how different this works in a lot of countries. For example in German, the translation of science is 'Wissenschaft'. It would literally translate to "the thing you do to make knowledge". Humanities are called 'Geistes'wissenschaft and Law is called 'Rechts'wissenschaft'. Math is generally considered to be part of the humanities, and CS is usually either part of the math-department or very closely settled to the engineering department.

There's many more differences between the german and anglo academic culture, let alone all the other ones out there.

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

#126

Post by Doingmything123 »

throwaway8459 wrote: post #47
throwaway8548 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Men and women are optimised for _slightly_ different thinking that results in _huge_ divergences at scale?

Why do you think the issue is biological and not social? Isn't this the nature vs nurture debate?

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

#127

Post by jlebar »

If you look at the scatterplot excluding the four countries at the bottom right (Algeria, Turkey, Tunisia, UAE), you get basically a circle and (to my eye anyway) the trendline is horizontal, meaning, no correlation.

Moreover, there are two countries with approximately the same gender inequality but many fewer women in STEM, namely Qatar and Korea.

It seems to me that reducing this to "the more gender equality, the fewer women in tech" is a stretch! You could have just as easily written a headline to the effect of, "Turkey and three northern African countries have a higher percentage of women in STEM than almost anywhere in the world, including places that have the same gender (in)equality, like Qatar and S. Korea. Why is that?"

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

#128

Post by lowdose »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #102
TimTheTinker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the need to compete with boys, the girls developed their own leadership and competitive structures that they excelled at. I think there are several arenas where girls and women benefit when men are excluded; secondary education isn't the only one. A few others to mention: - Sports and physical competition. Excluding men enables women to compete on their own plane, set world records, etc. - Restrooms, locker…

Another one is public transport. I have been groped a few times during peak transit time in the BART. It was incredibly unpleasant and ruined the whole week for me. It’s creepy and the violation of personal space feels like rape.

So segregated public transport is the solution?

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

#129

Post by lawnchair_larry »

danbolt wrote: post #83
throwaway8548 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should rephrase. Why does it affect men disproportionately less?

My gut take is that our society is socialized to value men that have some sort of "breadwinner" status.

Not just society, but women especially. It’s not even an issue of socialization. Unemployed or underemployed men are heavily penalized in the dating pool. You don’t have to be a gold digger to value a stable provider as a partner. And women who are self-sufficient still generally tend to prefer men who are at least roughly equal in their ability to provide.

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

#130

Post by lgleason »

It all comes down to equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. When there is equality of opportunity women choose different fields...often (but not always) because of different interests. Equality of outcome forces people to do things that they may not have an interest in.

And that is before you get into interests vs natural talent and how that does or does not affect ones success in a field. On a fundamental level I personally prefer equality of opportunity and freedom of choice.

As to the men being jerks/toxic etc argument. Are there times when that is true? Absolutely. But, men do not have a monopoly on being jerks, creating toxic work environments or harassing people. Personally I've seen bad behavior from both sides. I've also seen exceptional talent, skill, empathy etc. come from both groups. Many corporate cultures are toxic to everybody, irregardless of your gender.

I'm sure this will be down voted, but it is what it is.

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