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An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

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Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#521

Post by chongli »

celticmusic wrote: post #462
chongli wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that means the mother needs time and a discreet place to pump at work. If it’s a job where she’s on her feet all day, that may not be possible.

Short of some form of difficult manual labor, I've never experienced a workplace that doesn't allow a woman to pump. This is certainly not going to be the norm.

It's not a matter of being disallowed, it's a matter of convenience and comfort. If a woman is working a factory or a large department store, she may have to pump in the restroom. That's not exactly a comfortable or convenient place for it. Far different from an office which offers a quiet room with a comfortable chair or couch for her use.

Beyond that, there's also the matter of storage. Breastmilk is unpasteurized and needs to be refrigerated immediately for safety reasons. In an office, it can be as easy as putting the bottle in the fridge in the staff room. A fridge may not be available in other workplaces.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#522

Post by n4r9 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #501
n4r9 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't justify that sort of systematic pressure. An African American is much more likely to be a [edit: convicted] murderer than a white American, but that doesn't make it ok to cross the road whenever you see one.

> An African American is much more likely to be a murderer than a white American [citation needed] It is true that a black man is more likely to be prosecuted for murder but that’s a wholly different statistic.

Fair point, but it equally applies to OP's assertion about men being more likely to be prosecuted for sex offenses.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#523

Post by ByzantineO6 »

entee wrote: post #220
detoxdetox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost in the modern rush for status and money, "obscenely convenient high quality daycare" used to be called "Motherhood" and was supplied by Mothers themselves. Some would argue, the most valuable contribution to society, even if not directly monetized. To sustain a healthy population, we used to need 10 children per fertile woman, which made "stay at home Mother" an obvious necessity for the vast majority of women.…

Not sure I follow. Given two mothers (gonna leave aside some of the baggage here, fathers can do child care, not all women/people are straight or fit in the conventional framework): Amanda wants to have kids but also wants to be a Supreme Court litigator. Jane wants kids and wants to stay at home to raise them. Why is giving Amanda the option hurting Jane’s ability to chose her preferred outcome? Should we force Aman…

Amanda wants two incompatible things. You propose to divert resources to her so she can have her way. These resources do not magically appear; they are diverted from someone else, possibly by state minions backed by the threat of deadly force(tax collectors). That's not all that empowering to the divertee; in fact, it rather resembles either theft or enslavement from that pov.

"We" have no duty to shield Amanda from the pain of unsatisfied greed. Unless you want to introduce a principle that "The Princess Must Be Appeased"? (this is the principle commonly euphemistically rendered as "empowerment"). We should reject this vile notion!

Amanda must choose."We"(and when you say "we" I'm sure you aren't planning to be yourself among the compulsory donors) have no duty to shield Amanda from the pain of unsatisfied greed. To frame this as "force" is grotesque given your willingness to rob or enslave non-princesses.

To summarize, your attempt to privilege this whiny winner stands exposed as 100% pure emotional manipulation with a side of gynocratic entitlement. Shame! Shame!

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#524

Post by uncle_j »

n4r9 wrote: post #522
erikpukinskis wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An African American is much more likely to be a murderer than a white American [citation needed] It is true that a black man is more likely to be prosecuted for murder but that’s a wholly different statistic.

Fair point, but it equally applies to OP's assertion about men being more likely to be prosecuted for sex offenses.

It isn't my assertion. The crime statistics in both the UK and the USA back this up. It is something like 96% of all prosecutions of sexual assault are men.

EDIT: In fact it is higher at least in the UK

> In 2011, males accounted for the vast majority of prosecutions for sexual offences (98.2 per cent).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#525

Post by hinkley »

fnord77 wrote: post #284
hinkley wrote: post #87

I can't speak for women, and I'm just smart enough not to try. But what I can say is that I don't hold all of the values that I did as a young man. I'm not excited about the same things, and today I find some of those ideas uncomfortably naive or even off-putting. As I've engaged in more activities, as I've socialized with more people, I've encountered many more ideas and a lot of nuance. Nothing has simple answers a…

> you have some unresolved issues that you need to work through if you so desperately need to believe how transformative your work is going to be. I think those issues are called narcissism.

You're not wrong, but it has a different timbre when low self esteem is at the root of it, and that's what I was thinking of in particular.

You're basically attaching your identity (being okay with who you are, really) to a future event. One that you can influence but not really control. And I suspect it makes you easier to manipulate, and burnout all that much more powerful when it doesn't happen.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#527

Post by hinkley »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #282
hinkley wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been guilty of that myself. Question is, which problem ? There are so many problems (some of them personal, some of them management won't say out loud) and everyone has their own priority queue. Maybe the real problem isn't even technical. Maybe Jim and Tom just hate each other because something happened when they first met. We can keep arguing about haproxy vs nginx 'til the cows come home, or I could say to my…

> Question is, which problem ? My problems, of course.

Right? Except I have to politely disagree with you, because wait until you hear about my problems.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#528

Post by oefrha »

Fomite wrote: post #321
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should also add to this that increasingly, large tech companies have access to much better data for nearly any area that is interesting for research. Further, companies can go from research to product that ostensibly makes a difference at scale with a speed that absolutely no University could. I'm really not seeing any reason to stay in academia whatsoever if you want to do the most exciting applied research toda…

I work in the health sector and honestly, it comes down to a couple things: 1) They have more data. It's not clear that it's better. 2) That difference is, to the eyes of many of us, showing up, making things worse, and then "pivoting". 3) I get to decide what I want to do. I want to add a project on X? I go work on it.

I have a friend who’s a physicist-turned machine learning researcher working on health issues. I asked him about why he decided to say an academic researcher instead of going to the industry where (to me) there’s clearly more data. I was told that academic institutions tend to land better partnerships that companies don’t tend to get maybe due to privacy concerns.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#529

Post by username90 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #501
n4r9 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't justify that sort of systematic pressure. An African American is much more likely to be a [edit: convicted] murderer than a white American, but that doesn't make it ok to cross the road whenever you see one.

> An African American is much more likely to be a murderer than a white American [citation needed] It is true that a black man is more likely to be prosecuted for murder but that’s a wholly different statistic.

A majority of murders are solved so there is no room for the kind of bias you are suggesting.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#530

Post by allovernow »

deyouz wrote: post #506
allovernow wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? Consider the following non-inclusive list: 1. Differences in hormonal expression and response affecting behavior and interests, e.g. testosterone and competitiveness (biological) 2. Measured differences in performance in different types of intelligence, e.g. spatial reasoning (statistical) 3. Consistent differences in achievement and specialization between men and women across almost all soci…

If you are going to claim something as harmful as that, I want you to present clear evidence and peer reviewed studies to support your claims. What you were suggesting is that men are better than women at STEM. Simplg saying men have more testosterone doesn't cut it as evidence. (Besides, competitiveness doesn't make you a better researcher or employee, and can even be harmful in a team). I also need data for the num…

Start here [1]. This is delving dangerously close to flame war territory, so I probably won't respond further. But I'd like to point out that because of attitudes like this

>If you are going to continue with this subtle sexist talk (implying men are better than women at STEM)

You're probably unlikely to find too much on the subject - it's dangerous to academic careers to even propose research which could potentially justify any aspects of classical sexism. I'd just like to point out three things:

1. You're aware of the massive differences in physical capabilities, on average, between men and women, right? Which make men and women better suited, on average, to certain tasks? Why would sexually dimorphic specialization stop above the shoulders?

2. This isn't about inferiority, it's about specialization over thousands of generations. We see it in practically every other sexually reproducing species. The fact that humans have some ability to override instinct doesn't preclude gendered differences in average behavior.

3. This doesn't say anything about individual ability. We are talking about distribution statistics. What that means is that differences in average performance lead to different proportional representations in various fields. That doesn't justify discrimination or mistreatment, but it does suggest that, say, forcing gender parity in industry is unrealistic and potentially harmful.

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/male-female/201910/m...

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