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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)

#271

Post by throwaway09851 »

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…

I am a woman, and this pervasive opinion that women are leaving STEM fields because of toxic behavior feels more sexist to me than anything else. It seems to me that if you have a genuine passion for STEM stuff, it takes a lot more than a bad environment to completely redirect your career path.

Every woman I know with a genuine and deep interest in STEM subjects has had to deal with some level of toxic/sexist/whatever stuff in their life, and they persevered and dealt with it because they weren't going to let it get in the way of their passion.

It might sound harsh, but I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping these displaced women in STEM; if their interest isn't strong enough to overcome a bad environment, then maybe they just weren't that interested to begin with. That's not a bad thing, it just means that they misjudged the interest:difficulty ratio.

Of the cases I know of personally, most of these women ended up in a job working fairly close with STEM stuff, writing manuals, doing graphic design, etc, and are perfectly fine with those jobs.

To be clear, I'm not accounting for cases where an entire university or business or whatever is made up of toxic sexism, but that's been pretty uncommon in my experience in the US.

Women of STEM: if you've got a bad environment, do something about it! Tell your higher-ups, talk to people directly, seek a different position, endure what you can, and for God's sake stand up for yourself.

tl;dr the implication that most women in STEM can't handle a toxic work environment without giving up entirely doesn't seem that progressive at all

NB disclaimer, most people I know are computer scientists, plus a few mathematicians, so maybe engineering is different

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

#273

Post by dwnvoted2hell »

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…

I too, look forward to being downvoted.

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

#274

Post by y4mi »

pj_mukh wrote: post #244
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 p…

> If you ask women they won't say their bosses were "jerks" or "toxic"

Most women I know do exactly that though if you speak with them in a private setting?

I'll have to take your word for the rest of your opinion, as I don't know your friend nor her colleagues.

I'm a little surprised you expect them to be totally accommodating though. It's a professional setting after all. It's nice if you can create good friendships there, but expecting it is just asking for trouble

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

#275

Post by xzcat »

lowdose wrote: post #128
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, that seems to be the policy solution that Japan picked. In addition to the cultural development of well-intentioned men holding their hands in the air on crowded mass-transit to prove their good intentions, and thus throwing suspicion on men who don't do the same.

Though it's worth noting that mass-transit in Japan is frequently packed so tight that if you don't have your hands up, you're literally touching someone else anyway. Not hard to see how that amplifies the molestation problem significantly in Japan even if other countries (presumably) have the same % of men with a propensity towards such actions.

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

#276

Post by bobthepanda »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #183
jayd16 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implicit bias also guides interests and choice. Many women I meet today simply did not consider the possibility of an engineering career, not that they were forced out of it. We look to outcome equality to gain some kind of insight into this.

> 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…

Media representation? Female lawyers and female doctors are fairly common in media. Female engineers, not so much, and definitely not in a context where the women are not deviating from social norms (you need to be a tomboy, you need to be geeky, you need to be "not like those other girls" etc.)

Representation is important - MLK convinced Nichelle Nichols to stay on Star Trek because she was, at the time, the only black educated woman in a leadership position on television.

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

#277

Post by foldr »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #253
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.

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.

I'm not saying that law and medicine are perfect. But they were once just as stereotypically male as tech is now, and yet have radically shifted their gender balance. Fifty years ago people would no doubt have told you that women just weren't interested in becoming lawyers or doctors. Now a majority of attorneys in the US are women, and more women are enrolling in medical school than men.

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

#278

Post by [deleted] »

sakopov wrote: post #30

> 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. I used to live in Russia in my teenage years and went to school there until grade 9. One thing that I remember being distinctly different from public education in the US is that the course selection was provided by the school each year and students had no say in thi…

[deleted]

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

#279

Post by mixmastamyk »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #162
blattimwind wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voice quivering, temple throbbing, blue vein screaming episode at a guy

Because of inappropriate touching, boundary testing conversation, bone headed adherence to defense of a lack of skill and zero inclination to accept sensible advice.

We don't know enough to form a useful judgement. But, taking your description at face value, it sounds like the employee needs to simply be let go.

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

#280

Post by bosie »

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?

TulliusCicero is saying that the 60s and 70s were the period when women entered those fields en masse. Hence you should compare the state of those fields in the 60s/70s to the CS field now if you wanna determine sexism as the cause of entering/not-entering a given field.
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