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Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

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Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#11

Post by DiggyJohnson »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #8
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

While I agree that there are certainly different interests and other various non-nefarious reasons for why we won’t get a 50/50 gender division in all possible fields, I’d suggest you rethink the idea that women can’t handle stress. For one thing, nursing is usually almost exclusively women and I don’t think that can be called a stress free environment.

Is significantly more related to physical and emotional stress than the stress of white boarding the next release with your coworker that has tone problems, but is otherwise effective.

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#12

Post by jleyank »

nils-m-holm wrote: post #9
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

> the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress Or, maybe, they just know better that enduring acute stress is a bad career choice.

People who are female, smart, unhindered by their society and sufficiency wealthy to have agency can choose what they want to do. Why choose software development when medicine, finance and science are open? Yeah, some are introverted and are into programming but even for those, there’s way easier money owning the developers than being one. Far too many “fail” the last two criteria.

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#13

Post by KuiN »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

> the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress

Do you have a source for this alleged fact?

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#14

Post by spzb »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

> females are worse at handling acute stress

Every time this kind of issue comes up on HN there's someone who comes along to mansplain why women are inherently less able to do tech jobs. It's not a good look for our profession and we really should be above this by now.

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#15

Post by Tarsul »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

btw. for the other readers: the 48% f/m in STEM is split as follows according to the linked study above: 74% (f/m) in health sciences; 27% in engineering; 32% in information technology; 60% in natural, physical and mathematical sciences.

I think the most relevant sentence comes on page 8: "In short, data tell us that the gender gap is not consistent across STEM disciplines. Women generally prefer STEM studies and careers which are people-oriented (e.g., medical science) over careers which are things-oriented (e.g., many branches of engineering) (Su & Rounds, 2015)."

Stress is probably not the most important factor; at least it's not in this study. I'd argue that women simply know that people are more important than money.

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#16

Post by throw_bin_hat »

spzb wrote: post #14
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

> females are worse at handling acute stress Every time this kind of issue comes up on HN there's someone who comes along to mansplain why women are inherently less able to do tech jobs. It's not a good look for our profession and we really should be above this by now.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#17

Post by Traubenfuchs »

KuiN wrote: post #13
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #7

Singapore is 48.25% women in STEM vs 28% globally. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... However that number drops after graduation until it reaches a low 13.1 percent in management. The fact of the matter is that it isn't the lack of jobs or role models etc that's causing the issue, its the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress which is associated with STEM related jobs. Wome…

> the fact that females are worse at handling acute stress Do you have a source for this alleged fact?

There are countless studies you can find with a quick google search for

stress women men study

Re: Why don’t European girls like science or technology? (2017)

#19

Post by yrgulation »

I'll drop the bomb and confidently say that soon this question will be rephrased to "why don't people like science or technology".

Because there isn't much science in either.

The tendency is to move towards assembly lines, where "workers" are expected to chase tickets and churn out features. A slippage in production will quickly be noticed on a story point chart and an eager manager will happily pass on negative reviews and replace the "resource" on a whim.

Naturally there are exceptions, but at least the software world is saturated with software to the point where it's become free. Many will be replaced by ai autocomplete functions because their jobs are repetitive and boring and those financing tech know it.

So if we want more people in tech we need find and develop new tech areas to generate value. Just like software, in their early stages these will be fun and people will take interest in them until they become the chryslers and fords of yesterday or the facebooks and googles of today. Boring and repetitive.

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