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Gender and Career Choice

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Re: Gender and Career Choice

#51

Post by bweitzman »

rubergly wrote: post #38

In case it wasn't obvious, the word "female" is an adjective, and referring to a group of people by an adjective instead of a noun has a demeaning connotation in English, especially when it's primarily used for one group and not another. Notice how the word "male" is only mentioned in this article as an adjective ("male/female mix", "male/female interests"), but "females" is often used as a synonym for "women" ("% of…

Sorry for being pedantic but "male/female mix" is actually using both "male" and "female" as nouns in the same way that "sugar/salt mix" is using "sugar" and "salt" as nouns.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#52

Post by beat »

NTDF9 wrote: post #48
beat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to critique this argument, but then my mouth just open and closed over and over, silently. Really? You're serious? Women aren't as smart (or competent, to use your euphemism) as men because they would rather be popular and pretty? That men do the "hard stuff" while women stop themselves? You're serious ? Oh, dude. You really need to talk to some women.

>> Really? You're serious? Women aren't as smart (or competent, to use your euphemism) as men because they would rather be popular and pretty? That men do the "hard stuff" while women stop themselves? Not all men do the "hard stuff". There are enough men who don't put in the work in their formative years. Those men don't get to cry unfair. These men know that they spent their time partying, fooling around and general…

Be sure to ask her if she thinks she was ever discouraged from entering male dominated fields, if she gave up academics in favor of popularity, and if she's ever faced sexism as an adult.

You might be surprised.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#53

Post by oldmanjay »

tedks wrote: post #25

This ignores the fact that discrimination in a career field deters women from being interested in the field to begin with, creating a self-sustaining vicious cycle. Within broad notions of a career, for example a "career in law" or a "career in medicine", we see much more equal numbers for men and women, but when we look at the jobs women actually have, we see that women occupy low status jobs (like paralegal and nur…

I find it disappointing to read any comments on feminism anywhere on the internet, from almost any angle. Between the outright attacks, debate framing, emotional reasoning, and near-religious adherence to party lines on things like redefinitions of the word "violence", it's impossible to have any sort of real conversation. This is without even considering the input of the trolls who just want to watch the world burn. The most you can do is nod along in an echo chamber, or see who can yell out their "facts" the loudest.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#54

Post by Nadya »

rcoder wrote: post #50
Nadya wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While only 22% of CS PhDs were given to women, they made up an even more minuscule 14% of CS faculty. Not everyone who obtains a degree later chooses to enter their field of study. A degree also does not guarantee a job. This is yet another example of trying to misuse statistics as a form of confirmation bias. Looking at statistics from this Slate article [0], since 2003 only beyond obtaining the degree. Given the d…

I know I'm feeding the trolls here, but this just demands an answer: "Given the data is 3 years out of date, it's possible employment rate has jumped to 63% (the highest its been since 1998!) and that 14% is exactly on-par for the course for having no gender discrimination (against or in favor of) women." This is basically middle-school level math and you're doing it wrong. Whatever percentage of newly-minted CS PhDs…

Wow, I had a mental failure there (way to add up to 50% instead of 100% Nadya!) I apologize for that and thank you for pointing out that bullshit. Juggling work and a few convos and did indeed make a major blunder in my math there. (Embarrassingly so...)

>In a truly fair world those numbers would be much closer to 50/50, but that's a separate discussion.

This completely disregards any and all preference for genders when it comes to these positions. There are personal preference for jobs and only in a truly unfair and heavily regulated world that does not account for human factors and gender preferences would it ever be 50/50.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#55

Post by Nadya »

jacalata wrote: post #47
Nadya wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a majority of majors going to Health professions, Psychology, English, Biology, Arts, Social Sciences, etc and few going to Engineering. It's not a big surprise that, although many claim an "interest" in Engineering that many are also unqualified to hold a position as an Engineer [0]. Having an interest in something and being qualified for the position are two entirely different things. Being qualified has a lar…

So your proposition is that interest is 100% irrelevant to eventual career path? That's the only scenario where this data is irrelevant. I didn't notice the article saying "interest should correlate 100% with career and any difference is just sexism", which seems to be the straw man you're putting up.

Perhaps my choice of using "irrelevant" wasn't the the best. I should have said "completely meaningless". Close meanings but the nuance is a bit different.

My proposition is that interest is only a small factor in eventual career path and that interest alone won't land you many jobs. You have to put effort into obtaining the necessary credentials (be it academic or otherwise). Did you put that effort in because of interest? Sure, I can't argue that interest would play a factor into motivation but interest alone is completely meaningless.

An even better example would be "astronaut". Everyone I know thinks its the damnest coolest job a human being could ever have! I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in my office who wouldn't want to be an astronaut! But how many people become astronauts? Is it because it discriminates towards them or because its a lot of hard work and years of training that they haven't put the effort in to do? Or is it because interest alone is an irrelevant factor into eventual employment as an astronaut?

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#56

Post by NTDF9 »

beat wrote: post #52
NTDF9 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Really? You're serious? Women aren't as smart (or competent, to use your euphemism) as men because they would rather be popular and pretty? That men do the "hard stuff" while women stop themselves? Not all men do the "hard stuff". There are enough men who don't put in the work in their formative years. Those men don't get to cry unfair. These men know that they spent their time partying, fooling around and general…

Be sure to ask her if she thinks she was ever discouraged from entering male dominated fields, if she gave up academics in favor of popularity, and if she's ever faced sexism as an adult. You might be surprised.

You mean I should ask her why she's taking advanced stats classes in her male-dominated PhD program? Clearly she saw the opportunity and took it instead of complaining. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up being very successful. She's doing more than most people (men or women).

Also, thanks for reminding me why I like her.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#57

Post by jacalata »

Nadya wrote: post #55
jacalata wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your proposition is that interest is 100% irrelevant to eventual career path? That's the only scenario where this data is irrelevant. I didn't notice the article saying "interest should correlate 100% with career and any difference is just sexism", which seems to be the straw man you're putting up.

Perhaps my choice of using "irrelevant" wasn't the the best. I should have said "completely meaningless". Close meanings but the nuance is a bit different. My proposition is that interest is only a small factor in eventual career path and that interest alone won't land you many jobs. You have to put effort into obtaining the necessary credentials (be it academic or otherwise). Did you put that effort in because of in…

Ok, so what if I told you that "people in your office aren't astronauts because they aren't interested in being astronauts"? You'd say that was wrong, but could you prove it? That's what this article is trying to do - refute people who say "women aren't engineers because they aren't interested in being engineers". I don't understand why you are leaping straight over this point.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#58

Post by vonmoltke »

chrisBob wrote: post #8
protomyth wrote: post #6

I'm not sure they really went deep enough to look at the external factors. For instance, the difference as related to pilots can be traced back to the military where most pilots get their training. Also, focusing on one section, here are some interesting stats: Job Stats 2014 http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm total women Preschool and kindergarten teachers 664 K 97.2% Elementary and middle school teachers 3,102 K 8…

I am not sure I understand. You can't major in math and teach middle school math. You have to major in education to teach middle school math.

No you don't. You only need a Bachelor's degree, state certification, and certification that you are qualified to teach the subject area at the level you want. The Education degree exists for people who want to teach but do not want to delve into the depths of a particular subject that a degree in it would require.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#59

Post by oldmanjay »

rcoder wrote: post #50
Nadya wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While only 22% of CS PhDs were given to women, they made up an even more minuscule 14% of CS faculty. Not everyone who obtains a degree later chooses to enter their field of study. A degree also does not guarantee a job. This is yet another example of trying to misuse statistics as a form of confirmation bias. Looking at statistics from this Slate article [0], since 2003 only beyond obtaining the degree. Given the d…

I know I'm feeding the trolls here, but this just demands an answer: "Given the data is 3 years out of date, it's possible employment rate has jumped to 63% (the highest its been since 1998!) and that 14% is exactly on-par for the course for having no gender discrimination (against or in favor of) women." This is basically middle-school level math and you're doing it wrong. Whatever percentage of newly-minted CS PhDs…

Sighing in text and accusing people of trolling make me assume your point needs bolstering by emotional resonance.

Your hypothesis of naive proportions may well be correct, but you certainly didn't make much an argument beyond stating the premise.

I personally see no particular reason that interest in engineering has a need to be distributed equally across any human grouping. Fairness as a concept aside, there are clear differences in humans that are driven by gender. Desiring to assume these differences can't affect interests is fine, but it's far from proven by any empirical data. In fact, this article potentially contradicts that notion with actual numbers - although it's impossible to draw a line between inbuilt differences and external influence here.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#60

Post by oldmanjay »

beat wrote: post #45
NTDF9 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is perilously close to arguing that women don't do engineering because they're not as smart as men. Smart is the wrong word. It gives the analysis a different connotation. I think the word we are looking for is aptitude. Among men, there are many who have the aptitude to do STEM. Then there are other men who don't....and that is fine. I think the same goes for women. Many women have the aptitude...but many do…

I was going to critique this argument, but then my mouth just open and closed over and over, silently. Really? You're serious? Women aren't as smart (or competent, to use your euphemism) as men because they would rather be popular and pretty? That men do the "hard stuff" while women stop themselves? You're serious ? Oh, dude. You really need to talk to some women.

Instead of alluding to a mysterious critique that refuted anything, you should have delivered it, because this post was not only sexist but you appear to have entirely missed the point in your fervor to demonstrate your "right" thinking.
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