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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)

#421

Post by Impossible »

jimbokun wrote: post #355
jayd16 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about internalizing the idea that it's a feasible choice you give actual thought to.

How to distinguish between "I didn't know that was a feasible choice for me" and "I know what programming is like and I don't want to do that as a career"? How many girls and women fall into each category?

The majority of people fall into the first category, regardless of sex. There are a lot of people who with exposure might consider software development as a career, but didn't think of it as an option. For various historical reasons (exposure to programmable computers, video games, adults that can explain or teach programming, access in school, peers that program, role models, etc) the people that tend to realize programming is a career option and understand what that career might entail tend to be white and asian males. That isn't to say there aren't many white and asian males that also don't know programming is a career option.

Now that "tech" is so important and lucrative I'm sure this is changing to some extent, but this is a recent trend that's probably 5 years old at most. Tech wasn't viewed the same as it was now in 2012-2014 and felt like a much more risky and inaccessible field. Now it looks a lot more like any other high paying corporate job.

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

#422

Post by stevenwoo »

briandear wrote: post #362
bobthepanda wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bl…

How many engineers are represented in the media in general? Has there been a hit TV show with male engineers as the main character?

How big a hit? Halt and Catch Fire fictionalized a lot but two of the four leads were software and hardware engineers, The Expanse has the primary hardware/software hacker on the ship as one of the four main characters but it's a woman, Person of Interest had two of the four main characters be software programmers, one a man and one a woman, Mr Robot has software developers for most roles besides gangster and law enforcement, one of the four or five primary characters on 12 Monkeys was a scientist/engineer but a woman, Westworld has the scientist as the main human character for the first season and a different one for the second, most of what they do looks like software programming, Chernobyl showed a lot of engineers in the nuclear control room, trying to fix things afterwards.

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

#423

Post by novok »

briandear wrote: post #352
CydeWeys wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And lots of people are investing lots of time and effort into trying to fix that problem in education, healthcare, etc.

> And lots of people are investing lots of time and effort into trying to fix that problem Are they? I worked in the mental health space for over 10 years and almost 80% of therapists are women -- and a vast majority of those are white women. There hasn't been any significant movement to "fix" that despite a very compelling argument that finding a therapist who is a good match to a patient is fundamental to the succe…

I think it comes from how software has become a financially lucrative profession in nice office environment with semi-flexible hours relatively recently. An overall attractive package with the corresponding political attention it gets as a result.

While all the other things you mentioned other than maybe oil field work are not as financially lucrative.

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

#425

Post by partiallypro »

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 don't understand why modern society doesn't understand/want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it's not all because of society.

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

#426

Post by throwaway8548 »

manfredo wrote: post #406
throwaway8548 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because differences are observed at birth, are relatively consistent across countries with vastly different cultures, I mean the article literally says different countries/cultures see vastly different results.

This is in reference to gender differences like extraversion, and make newborns dedicating more attention to things and female newborns dedicating more attention to people. As far as this post's article, the rates are not vastly different results, most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30%. If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology. That is not…

> most of the countries that observed fall within a range of 30%

That's huge

> If this were socially determined, we'd expect some countries to have 80-90% women in technology

That's assuming social pressures are randomly distributed. But we don't observe 50/50 split between patriarchy and matriarchy.

> Furthermore, what differences that are observed contradict the idea that rigid gender roles cause lower rates of women in tech

Maybe because it depends which gender roles are applied and not their rigidity?

The nerd/geek being an awkward boy with glasses troppe is specifically a western concept for example.

Women in Eastern Europe worked in factories side by side with men for generations.

Gender roles does not equal your concept of gender roles like women not liking/belonging/choosing not to be in tech.

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

#427

Post by banads »

tptacek wrote: post #418
banads wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think programmers spend more time having face to face (as opposed to face to computer) interactions than people in health care, child care, social work, or education?

I don't believe the distinction between face-to-face and screen-to-screen is at all relevant. But: the programmers I work with spend lots of time in meetings, too.

Why don't you believe there can be any relation between female infants preference towards faces and female adults preference towards occupations with more face to face, people oriented interactions?

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

#428

Post by toxik »

tj-teej wrote: post #420
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…

This article implies that the correlation between gender-opportunity and representation in STEM is a causation. Look at the chart in the article, look at the countries on each end of the opportunity spectrum. There are many obvious economic, societal, and cultural differences between the countries on one side and the other of that spectrum. To take this correlation and use it to forward a sexist idea (that women PREF…

Please don’t spread moral panic by labeling other people’s worldviews sexist. It does not sell your argument but only serves to polarize the debate.

I know a lot of women in tech who feel uncomfortable with all the special treatment they get — entire conferences dedicated to “women in tech.” I find the idea so patronizing, just like I would a “men in daycare” conference. It is an extension of coddling the incapable and meek servile woman. Get out of here.

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

#429

Post by aidenn0 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #256
aidenn0 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I (and others from looking at some sibling comments) didn't see your comment as being about gatekeepers, but rather about the environment being perceived as unfriendly towards, so women seeking out different fields.

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

#430

Post by malandrew »

james-mcelwain wrote: post #196
malandrew wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> _without artificial restraints_ What constitutes an artificial restraint? For classical liberals, that means being free from the constraint imposed by other individuals. Today the definition of "restraints" is being expanded beyond the artificial to the point where everything is being declared a "human right" without any consideration for the fact that some of those things can only be provided by taking from someon…

Taxation isn't bondage.

If I'm taxed at 100%, is it bondage?
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