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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)

#251

Post by TulliusCicero »

Thorentis wrote: post #212
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?

Men in general, are more aggressive and assertive when it comes to pay increases. If a male dominated industry has sustained pay increases year on year, this is probably why. Over time, female dominated professions have wages that do not increase at the same rate.

And women are punished for demanding pay increases, so they can't win either way.

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

#252

Post by manfredo »

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…

Your proposal is to force numeric parity through discrimination when women comprise 20% of the people entering the field? Of course people oppose this: it's blatant sexism, and it is illegal.

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

#253

Post by oarabbus_ »

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.

Medicine and Law have made serious efforts to counter sexism? Like what?

Law is essentially the definition of the "Old Boys Club" and as for Medicine... I used to work in the medical field for a while. Go ask any (female) surgical nurse about the supposed efforts to counter sexism in the OR.

I don't believe your claim is true.

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

#254

Post by TulliusCicero »

foldr wrote: post #216
TulliusCicero wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I'd say the bigger point against the idea that women aren't in CS purely* because of men being sexist, is that this implies that male doctors and lawyers in the 60's and 70's were less sexist than male engineers of today. Does anyone actually believe this? * of course, it may s…

>this implies that male doctors and lawyers in the 60's and 70's were less sexist than male engineers of today. I don't see how it implies this. The more relevant question is whether STEM has higher levels of sexism than other similarly attractive fields.

How could it not imply it? That's when women started entering those fields en masse and really increasing their numbers. Going by the "the problem is men being sexist" reasoning, that they were able to do this successfully implies that the lawyers and doctors in charge then were less sexist than engineers today.

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

#255

Post by Buldak »

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…

Practically no one endorses "equality of outcome" in itself. It's a question of whether disparate outcomes evidence disparate opportunities (findings like those in question suggest that they may not).

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

#256

Post by TulliusCicero »

aidenn0 wrote: post #225
TulliusCicero wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I'd say the bigger point against the idea that women aren't in CS purely* because of men being sexist, is that this implies that male doctors and lawyers in the 60's and 70's were less sexist than male engineers of today. Does anyone actually believe this? * of course, it may s…

Eh, pain is relative. If you think hospitals today are less sexist workplaces than software companies, you might pick med school. I hope that it's clear to most people that there isn't a single reason for the disparity though. People are complicated.

I'm not talking about hospitals today. I'm talking about potential gatekeepers in the 60's and 70's.

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

#257

Post by squidsurfer »

Wow, it turns out that much to the protestations of the left, women are in fact not men, and given more equality of opportunity and freedom to choose will gravitate more towards fields suited to their natures, on average. This was common sense a generation or two ago, but now feels like heresy to speak out loud. Certainly a fireable offense (just ask James Damore!)

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

#258

Post by lowdose »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #157
lowdose wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So segregated public transport is the solution?

It’s not suggested as a ‘solution’. It’s an ‘option’ some of us women would like...that’s all.

I am very sorry this happened to you, this kind of behaviour would not be tolerated in Europe. Could this be related to the fact POTUS literally said to "grab women by the pussy"?

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

#259

Post by TulliusCicero »

foldr wrote: post #249
TulliusCicero wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's implied by saying that those other fields made serious efforts to combat sexism back then, but CS hasn't made an equivalent effort now. What other reason would there be for such a discrepancy, other than being motivated by sexism?

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

#260

Post by jimbokun »

kaitai wrote: post #151
throwaway8548 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anythin…

Throwaway commenter, despite being downvoted, you're absolutely right! I'm a woman. I AM A WOMAN IN STEM. You know what makes my blood pressure rise? People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not suited to it, that I like people more than things. Go away! Shut the f(*& up! I want to sit here and deal with my code and not have people tell me that I either don't know what I like or I'm not a…

Hey, thanks for your input!

What I'm trying to better understand, is whether women who are not applying for programming jobs at the same rate as men, are due to lack of interest, or are they somehow being actively discouraged from the field?

I've worked with many women programmers, some of them better than me, so I know it's not the case women are inherently worse at programming than men. But I don't know the reason there are fewer women in the field.

Obviously you can't speak for all women, but maybe you have some insights as a woman that I don't as a man?

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