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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)

#241

Post by manfredo »

foldr wrote: post #239
manfredo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Elaborate. What are the "serious efforts" made by medical and law industries that got women into these professions that STEM has not employed?

Furthermore, do you care to identify what in this discussion makes it so clear why women would not go into STEM?

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

#242

Post by cortesoft »

a1369209993 wrote: post #210
cortesoft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but medicine is part of science.... would you argue that a Physics major isn't in STEM because P is not one of the letters of STEM?

No, it isn't; Biology is a part of science. Medicine is, as DuskStar put it, "[Science/]STEM adjacent".

How is it not a part of science? What does a field need to have to be included in STEM?

Just because there are other skills needed besides science based ones doesn't mean it isn't a science field.

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

#243

Post by TulliusCicero »

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.

So you're suggesting the lawyers and doctors in charge back in the 60's and 70's were more progressive and less sexist than engineers in 2019? Really? That's what you're going with?

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

#244

Post by pj_mukh »

lgleason wrote: post #130

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 l…

"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"

This is a red herring. If you ask women they won't say their bosses were "jerks" or "toxic" (though a lot of time they are), they'll say they made them "uncomfortable", "un-accommodating".

It reminds me of a friend who got pregnant and left the STEM field because the dudes at her office made her feel like she was SUCH a huge drag on them. None of them were jerks, just not accommodating. Its a subtle but substantial difference.

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

Actually, its the top comment, the popularity of this opinion among programmers is the crux of the issue. Nobody wants to work at a company where a majority of people think you are "unnatural" or an "outlier" for being there.

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

#245

Post by downerending »

I have no doubt that women face adversity, often in the form of sh__ty behavior during their STEM careers, so I'm not particularly surprised by accounts of it. I'm far less sanguine about the idea that they face more of it than men, as I've been on the receiving end of a lot of it myself (some life-changing).

It'd be interesting to see this studied.

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

#246

Post by TulliusCicero »

jimbokun wrote: post #221
TulliusCicero wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I suspect - but didn't check - that if you expand the definition of "software" to include supporting fields like design, UX and testing, the overall gender ratio will be much closer to 1:1. Could also look at careers like "developer evangelist" and "solutions engineer", both of which are technical but much more people-oriented than being a regular software engineer.

Are women better represented in those roles?

Anecdotally, it seems like it at least for developer evangelist. But I haven't seen any hard data.

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

#247

Post by cortesoft »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #117
cortesoft wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering and Math are the only two of those letters that have an actual college major with the same name..... you can't major in 'science', you major in one of the subfields of science. In fact, medicine isn't even an undergraduate major (although some universities will offer a 'pre-med' major, but not many). Many people who go on to go to medical school will major in a STEM subject in undergrad (like biology or s…

> In fact, medicine isn't even an undergraduate major (although some universities will offer a 'pre-med' major, but not many). This is a US-centric view - most people do in fact study medicine right out of school. It is interesting though that the definition of what constitutes a field vary quite greaty around the globe.

It was using the example of US colleges to make the point that it is too narrow a definition to say only fields that are pure science count as STEM. There are very few pure science or math fields, but I don't think you need to be 'pure' to be considered STEM.

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

#248

Post by mixmastamyk »

viggity wrote: post #91
omarhaneef wrote: post #52

"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…

"STEM" was this thing that was invented to drum up interest in fields that were in high demand. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of scientists, engineers, or mathematicians. The shortage is in technology.

And no shortage there either. Or rather the shortage is in efficient interviewing techniques and interviewers.

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

#249

Post by foldr »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #243
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.

So you're suggesting the lawyers and doctors in charge back in the 60's and 70's were more progressive and less sexist than engineers in 2019? Really? That's what you're going with?

No? Where do I say that?

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

#250

Post by TulliusCicero »

jimbokun wrote: post #206
TulliusCicero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Are we talking about programming, specifically? Programmers are paid relatively well because 1. Software is "eating the world", so a lot of software is being written leading to demand for programmers. 2. Programming scales really well. Software has zero reproduction cost and can reach a global audience almost instantaneously. So software companies can make a lot of money with relatively few employees. What would be t…

> Some global masterminds reducing pay across multiple corporations across the board when they find out women are being hired in that industry?

No coordination is necessary. People will simply start to view the role as less valuable or skilled due to more women being in it.

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