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Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

economist.com

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Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#101

Post by endisneigh »

throwaway53086 wrote: post #31

Anyone with young boys and girls will notice that girls are much more likely to obey rules and instructions. A lot of doing well in school is about following rules and instructions, and it seems pretty natural that girls will do better. Also, most teachers are women. I haven't checked, but I'd assume most school administrators are women. It seems natural that they'd construct a system that's more suited for females t…

I've seen this take a few times and I don't really buy it. How exactly is school setup in a way that's more suitable for women compared to men?

Everything you've stated (following rules and instructions, etc.) also applies in the workplace, so if you were correct you would the same sort of discrepancy in the workforce.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#102

Post by jhasse »

iagovar wrote: post #59
aklemm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having babies and raising them fully--especially doing it well--is not avoiding work.

You're right, but you ain't making the big bucks. Even then, they seem to find it rewarding enough. If I was woman and I decided to have baby, I'd probably be either very stressed with my current job, or looking for something part time. Now imagine if I live in Sweden or the like where the state hands out money for raising children.

wait, there are countries where the state does NOT hand out money for raising children?

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#103

Post by asdff »

dekhn wrote: post #42
endisneigh wrote: post #2

How is it possible that girls perform better academically (in 2015) yet are under represented in the top tier of jobs? Either women have no interest in money, academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs, or discrimination is more prevalent then you’d think. I suppose all three could be true.

In many subfields of biology, women have achieved numerical parity at all levels (IE, there are roughly 50% women in entry and leadership positions). It seems like some highly quantitative fields which have traditionally been male-dominated (CS, physics) may very well be practicing some sort of entry discrimination. It's unclear what the full set of contributing factors are.

I think the training environment at the undergraduate level is still toxic for women. I graduated 4 years ago, and while I wasn't in the CS program I had a female friend who was and she often lamented how isolating that program could be. This was a huge program at a huge school (50k undergrad), yet she was often one of only a few women in the program, and as she progressed she became even more of a minority as others switched majors. Of course there were hardly any women professors or role models as well.

Engineering is a field that selects for a certain personality, not all the time, but I think everyone here knows at least a couple classmates like this who are pretty arrogant, stubborn, self validating, the type to argue with the TA over their wrong homework answer for half the class, and never one to admit shortcomings. It's also a major that encourages regular group projects, where you might be stuck with personalities like this, or legitimately total creeps with questionable hygiene (I've seen all of this even outside CSE in my program). I think we all remember a few creeps from the undergrad days, too. Frankly, many of these men, especially in that age between 18-22 when you are basically a high schooler in maturity and might never had a female friend before due to social awkwardness, are overtly misogynistic, maybe without even knowing it just by cracking dumb jokes for cheap laughs among their male friends.

In majors with more representation among women, you are less likely to be saddled with these personalities (or even have to do massively weighted capstone group projects), and more likely to have camaraderie among people in the same boat as you, and are more likely to see through the major without switching to another one.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#104

Post by renewiltord »

curiousgal wrote: post #9
endisneigh wrote: post #2

How is it possible that girls perform better academically (in 2015) yet are under represented in the top tier of jobs? Either women have no interest in money, academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs, or discrimination is more prevalent then you’d think. I suppose all three could be true.

I think the answer lies in the fact that in countries like Tunisia for example, women represent over 60% of people working in STEM. Why? Because STEM jobs are the highest paying jobs. So from my perspective, the lack of women in STEM in the U.S. is not an issue but a symptom of a strong economy, as in you don't have to decipher someone's spaghetti code for a living, you can pay the bills doing other things that you a…

Related reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#105

Post by xenihn »

endisneigh wrote: post #2

How is it possible that girls perform better academically (in 2015) yet are under represented in the top tier of jobs? Either women have no interest in money, academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs, or discrimination is more prevalent then you’d think. I suppose all three could be true.

>academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs

This is a big part of it. Let's look at what "academic skills" means specifically in the US:

- you perform well on standardized tests - you perform well on rubric-graded essays - you do all of your homework, and you get As on every assignment

this leads to:

- you get into a good university - you (presumably) perform adequately or well at said university

Every student who performs well academically has a similar path to this point, but then there's divergency.

Tech is the only top tier job where your educational pedigree is not going to hold you back throughout your entire career. It's not going to hurt to have a degree from a top school, but it won't cripple your opportunities, unlike finance, law, and medicine.

Based on how top tier tech companies hire for engineering positions that aren't internships, it seems that they do not see a link between academic performance and engineering competency.

I agree with the approach taken by said companies. Thus (imo) for tech, it is fully expected for there to be no correlation between academic performance and representation in the top tier of jobs, because tech is the most meritocratic top tier industry. It's obviously not perfect, but it's leagues ahead of the other big industries.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#108

Post by pseudalopex »

renewiltord wrote: post #79
Kluny wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do we really expect women to have a similar behaviour of men about work, when they have a socially aceptable and now economical venue to avoid it. Baby raising is quite important work. I would argue that raising the next generation of workers, taxpayer, customers and pension fund contributors is the most important work of all.

Sure. You can replace "work" in his text with "work for hire" or something else if it helps you understand what he meant.

Critiquing the framing doesn't mean they didn't understand.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#109

Post by rajin444 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #80
rajin444 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know 50% is the correct amount of women at all levels?

They didn't say it is.

> It seems like some highly quantitative fields which have traditionally been male-dominated (CS, physics) may very well be practicing some sort of entry discrimination

Maybe I misread, but I interpreted this follow up statement as "50% is correct, here's why (CS, physics) may not be at this level".

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#110

Post by tshaddox »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #29
endisneigh wrote: post #2

How is it possible that girls perform better academically (in 2015) yet are under represented in the top tier of jobs? Either women have no interest in money, academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs, or discrimination is more prevalent then you’d think. I suppose all three could be true.

Having Babies. Really, being a mother is what skews most stats about women on money issues. There has been policymaking about this in a bunch of european countries, and if they are released from financial constrains (handouts, public housing, whatever) they seem to double down on it. Let's face it, working, for most people, is something you do out of necessity. Why do we really expect women to have a similar behaviou…

In the United States in the last 30 years, the percentage of women working in computing fields has decreased significantly. In that same time period, births per women has decreased and the age of first-time mothers has increased.
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