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

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

#231

Post by joelhoffman »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #203
kaitai wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people, period, are not interested in programming a computer all day. My girl child likes trucks, not Frozen, and the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting. Ugh.

> the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting Throw them out, seriously. I did when they got to be too large a portion of the toys.

I thought you meant the other adults at first, and I completely agreed!

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

#232

Post by jariel »

"A new study explores a strange paradox:"

It's not a paradox!!

That people refer to it as a 'paradox' only confirms their very entrenched, possibly ideological view of reality, to the point wherein 'real life data' that calls into question that view ... is considered 'strange'.

It's not a paradox, it's just reality, probably easily explained (in very crude terms) by the fact that men and women are different, ergo, different outcomes. 'Gender' is a very powerful construct with underlying physical aspects, and it's just a part of who we are.

So we can try to make sure everyone has a real chance (taking into account systematic issues i.e. it's really hard for the 'lone minority' in a group etc.), but going too far beyond that might be hard.

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

#233

Post by throwaway8459 »

Doingmything123 wrote: post #126
throwaway8459 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Like all things, it's not a black and white split between nature vs nurture, it's both.

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

#234

Post by Reedx »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #145
Reedx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in programming a computer all day. Which one could argue is a sane choice. If anything it's more sane. Stop trying to make them feel like something is wrong if they don't have this inclination. Males and females have different preferences on average, some as early as birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. For the ones that want to program all day, obviously they shoul…

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. Sure, but it seems more than a little convenient that the male-chosen professions seem to generally pay significantly more, on average, than the female-chosen ones. Haven't there been studies that showed that women moving into a profession was actually associated with pay dropping?

The other responses covered some reasons for this, but also men tend to accept more risk, more willing to devote their life to work or have a myopic focus. Again, less sane one could argue. It's a less balanced life.

Men hit the extremes more often and as a result occupy more of the outlier positions. They're also over represented at the bottom of the ladder. i.e., the homeless and prison populations. But I don't see anyone claiming it's a conspiracy that men over represent this end of the spectrum.

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

#235

Post by foldr »

zarkov99 wrote: post #213
tenpies wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hate that the emphasis seems to be strictly based on careers with high income. There is no focus spreading equality or equity or informing everyone when the career is about social good, life satisfaction, or blunt quality of life.

Yes, don't forget all the shitty careers, with long hours, danger, and significant health hazards. Not much equality of outcome on those either. Somehow no one is claiming sexism is the cause of disparity for those.

Actually, a lot of people are saying that sexism is the cause of disparity in those cases. It's a commonplace observation that sexism harms men as well as women.

Historically, the professions you're alluding to have been closed to women by men. So for example, the reason that women couldn't serve in the military until relatively recently is not that women used their power and influence within society to get a pass on military service. Rather, it's that men didn't want to let women serve.

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

#237

Post by manfredo »

foldr wrote: post #222
TulliusCicero wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many women I meet today simply did not consider the possibility of an engineering career And I'm sure many men simply did not consider the possibility of a career in female dominated professions, like nursing or elementary education. I think there's certainly something to the idea that we internalize stereotypes and that can restrict our options, but I'm skeptical that it generally explains large differences in car…

>For example, women were once stereotyped as not being doctors or lawyers, but that didn't seem to stop them from joining those fields en masse. If internalized stereotyping didn't matter enough to stop them then, for those fields, why does it matter now for engineering? The fields you mention made serious efforts to counter sexism. STEM hasn't, yet.

STEM hasn't made serious efforts to counter sexism? That starkly contrasts with my observations. For the entirety of my life (I'm over 25) that I can remember I've encountered programs and initiatives working towards getting women into STEM. All of the companies I've worked at instituted hiring policies that favor women (e.g. giving women 2 chances to pass a technical phone screen instead of one). And we're not alone in this. Microsoft and Intel have both instituted policies of witholding bonuses unless diversity quotas are met, and Facebook gives recruiters more points - which count towards performance reviews - for recruiting diverse candidates[1].

1. https://www.payscale.com/compensation-today/2019/03/tie-bonu...

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

#238

Post by jimbokun »

throwaway8548 wrote: post #114
oerpli wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would you argue the other side? - Women and men are equal! - But they behave differently - Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because they behave differently. What now?

- Because women are discriminated against - How do you know that? - Because women told us!!

> Because women told us!!

The frustrating thing is most of the analysis completely leaves this part out.

I would be interested to hear from women about ways they have been discriminated against, and how the industry can improve to make that less likely to happen.

But most analysis I see on line is just "Most programmers are men! That is sexist!" With no analysis going beyond that.

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

#239

Post by foldr »

manfredo wrote: post #237
foldr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, women were once stereotyped as not being doctors or lawyers, but that didn't seem to stop them from joining those fields en masse. If internalized stereotyping didn't matter enough to stop them then, for those fields, why does it matter now for engineering? The fields you mention made serious efforts to counter sexism. STEM hasn't, yet.

STEM hasn't made serious efforts to counter sexism? That starkly contrasts with my observations. For the entirety of my life (I'm over 25) that I can remember I've encountered programs and initiatives working towards getting women into STEM. All of the companies I've worked at instituted hiring policies that favor women (e.g. giving women 2 chances to pass a technical phone screen instead of one). And we're not alone…

These kinds of top-down initiatives are well and good, but the real problem is cultural. You only have to read this discussion to see why women don't want to work in STEM.

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

#240

Post by hailk »

pj_mukh wrote: 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…

My gf is in a community oriented job here in India. Dominated by women. Men are criticized much harshly, the environment is outright unprofessional with sex talk and gossip constantly at work. Every other day there is another girl crying because her work was criticized (fairly). Maybe try looking outside populist narratives with a more nuanced view, toxicity flows both ways.

tl;dr: Ask Men and Women.

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