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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)

#551

Post by funcDropShadow »

Doingmything123 wrote: post #120
zarkov99 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a theory, perhaps you could comment on how if fits your experience: Women are less inclined than men to choose STEM Fields, for biological reasons, that is they tend to be more interested in people than things. Because of this STEM fields are dominated by men, who, because of sheer numbers alone, end up shaping the culture to be more masculine. This makes STEM even less appealing for the relatively rare women…

Robert Martin talks about how in the 60's and 70's women made up a large amount of the worlds programmers. It would seem somewhere along the way we found ways to significantly reduce the number of women entering the profession. I would argue that any biological reasons have little to no influence compared to social factors. If we accept this alternative theory, then the solution is to change the social culture around…

> It would seem somewhere along the way we found ways to significantly reduce the number of women entering the profession.

In absolute numbers, the number of men entering computer science just grew faster, than the number of women. Don't forget that 50 years ago, there were fewer people in CS or programming than today.

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

#552

Post by funcDropShadow »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #205
reroute1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Ask People? What does any of that have to do with being a woman? Just blanket 'patriarchy bs'?

Well, you know, if the question is "Why are there so few women in STEM?", then specifically asking women might make some sense...

Not, necessarily. The question could also be, why are there so many men in STEM? Because, the perceived problem, some activists try to fix is, the ratio of women vs. men in STEM. The silent assumption is often, that a ration far away from 1:1 is an indicator for blatant sexism.

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

#553

Post by SolaceQuantum »

showingdead wrote: post #486
tptacek wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent the last 15 years of my life working with engineering teams, hundreds of them, and I've never met a single one that worked this way. The opposite thing is true, unless you're fixated on literal in-the-same-room face-to-face interactions, in which case, what's your point?

The core activity of software engineering, programming, writing code, is a solitary activity. It's what people think of when they think of programming. It's what we spend hours being trained for, getting good at. Yes, in between writing software, we need to coordinate with others, so we have meetings. You'd really describe this overall process as being more people-oriented than thing-oriented? I've heard the argument…

Does this apply to other solitary activities, like writing prose (majority women), painting and drawing, poetry, creating clothes & other fashion?

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

#554

Post by holstvoogd »

silveroriole wrote: post #513
tmh79 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As to the men being jerks/toxic etc argument... I think its a lot more complicated than this. Yes, men and women can be jerks. The bigger issues seem to be when a team is 80%+ one gender or another, and the issues aren't about "being mean" the issues are about the dominant group being blind to and then not accommodating the nondominant group's needs. A huge problem is that we have a lot of 6 person tech teams with…

> the women naturally feel alienated Why “naturally”? Is it really natural for men and women to alienate each other just by existing?

yes! now get back into your box! ;)

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

#555

Post by foldr »

aantix wrote: post #339
whack wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this pervasive opinion that women are leaving STEM fields because of toxic behavior feels more sexist to me than anything else I don't think it is sexist at all to claim that some people would not want to be in a field because of its hostile work environment. I sure wouldn't. Factually debatable? Sure. But sexist? > It might sound harsh, but I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping these displaced women in STE…

To further complicate the matter, the idea of a "bad" environment is relative. I've been on many all-male programming teams. Played football in high school. From my experiences, those men tend to make fun of, poke, prod, and occasionally fight their way to agreement. Comments were very direct. Abrasive at times. But usually got straight to the point. I don't think I ever thought of any of it as needing "fixing". Quit…

>and occasionally fight their way to agreement.

If you literally mean 'fight', then that's just a bad work environment.

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

#556

Post by foldr »

throwaway09851 wrote: post #327
whack wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this pervasive opinion that women are leaving STEM fields because of toxic behavior feels more sexist to me than anything else I don't think it is sexist at all to claim that some people would not want to be in a field because of its hostile work environment. I sure wouldn't. Factually debatable? Sure. But sexist? > It might sound harsh, but I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping these displaced women in STE…

> If they aren't interested enough to put up with racism, they shouldn't be here to begin with I did not say "put up with", I said "deal with", which includes many options other than accepting what you're given. If your workplace discriminates on the basis of race, you could report them for violation of anti-discrimination laws, lobby for stronger laws, leave the workplace for a better one, etc. > It is their own res…

>I am not suggesting that the responsibility falls solely on women or minorities to deal with their own problems at all, but I am suggesting that they should take some agency of their own.

Great idea! Perhaps following your comment, women and minority groups will start to organize to protest against unfair and illegal treatment.

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

#557

Post by mapleshamrock »

liziwizi wrote: post #540
partiallypro wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i hate this argument so much! it has been thrown in my face soooooooo many times... it's the go-to excuse managers and sales people use to tell a woman in IT that she's weird for doing what she does. even in teams with 90% men, it was almost never the men in the team that were the problem, but almost always those looking in on the team: managers, sales people, marketeers, project managers, journalists, ... please, st…

Woah there, the person you're replying to didn't once use the word "weird" or any synonyms thereof.

They said that men and women tend to have different broad interests. But that doesn't preclude women from having an interest in tech. He's making a statement on statistics, not making a value judgement about anybody.

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

#558

Post by foldr »

toxik wrote: post #428
tj-teej wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

It's not patronizing. We have, e.g., men in nursing conferences (https://www.aamn.org/2019-annual-conference). I don't find that patronizing as a man. It makes sense for a field where men are a minority.

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

#559

Post by garrettdc »

liziwizi wrote: post #540
partiallypro wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i hate this argument so much! it has been thrown in my face soooooooo many times... it's the go-to excuse managers and sales people use to tell a woman in IT that she's weird for doing what she does. even in teams with 90% men, it was almost never the men in the team that were the problem, but almost always those looking in on the team: managers, sales people, marketeers, project managers, journalists, ... please, st…

I don't think that the comment above was speaking in hard and fast rules. They were more making the point that men and women may generally have different interests and that those interests will impact career choices. There wasn't any value judgement about women getting into IT being weird, but more a statement that a 50/50 split may not be feasible if the incoming pipeline is 70/30 due to the interests of those respective individuals.

If you have people telling you that you're weird for your interests, then they're likely either self-conscious or an ass. That goes for most generalizations that evaluate skill or ideas based on the attributes of the person vs. the merit of the idea itself... but that is a different discussion :)

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

#560

Post by aantix »

foldr wrote: post #555
aantix wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To further complicate the matter, the idea of a "bad" environment is relative. I've been on many all-male programming teams. Played football in high school. From my experiences, those men tend to make fun of, poke, prod, and occasionally fight their way to agreement. Comments were very direct. Abrasive at times. But usually got straight to the point. I don't think I ever thought of any of it as needing "fixing". Quit…

>and occasionally fight their way to agreement. If you literally mean 'fight', then that's just a bad work environment.

I’ve seen fist fights on sports teams when I was younger or blow out arguments in my marriage finally clear the air where a hundred previous logical, empathetic discussions only let the feelings fester.

There is something liberating about finally embracing the anger, rage and resentment that you feel and just letting it all out. Unfiltered.

And strangely, as I get older, I take it less personally if I’m on the receiving end. Sometimes people are overwhelmed and tired of doing mental gymnastics to keep things “nice”. I sorta get that now.

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