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The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM

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

#171

Post by gurkendoktor »

howlgram wrote: post #99
telesilla wrote: post #54

Let's turn the argument on it's head. Statistics say boys are more heavily inclined to have a STEM career. Does this mean they feel they cannot consider a career in other fields like teaching, nursing or other female-dominated fields? As a woman I often wonder, what's so great about STEM aside from the paycheck? It depends on your bosses (or being your own if you are lucky and that way inclined), but I don't think we…

Yes thank you, people seem to forget that the reason why STEM gets a higher paycheck is because there's less people willing to go for it, both female and male, the paycheck is not a prize you get for being male, it's a prize you get for the sacrifice you make. Look at it this way: no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

Citation needed; I don't buy that men in STEM generally consider it a sacrifice compared to working other jobs. I am lucky to have an entertaining IT job that happens to be extremely well paid. I never wish I was a nurse working my ass off on a night shift, or any other less well paid profession.

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

#172

Post by dwaltrip »

Hextinium wrote: post #93
taneq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This, and similar research I'd seen before seems to point to women being equal or better at STEM than men (and also being better at non-STEM stuff) What I find onerous is that it's perfectly acceptable to make blanket statements about women being better at things than men, while it's now literally a sackable offense at many major tech companies to even imply the opposite. This doesn't seem like "progress towards eq…

I said that women usually have a lower understanding of mechanics than men do in conversation and the other person looked at me shocked like I had just killed a puppy. I then said that very often dad's will teach their sons how to mechanically work on things as a basis for this conclusion and they where understanding of that, but not my original point. I find it frustrating that I can't make a statement without first…

The way I see it, society is kind of like a person.

When an individual is going through a difficult time, it's normal and considerate to be sensitive to that.

Society is currently going through a difficult period of transformation regarding its perspective on women. During this time, sensitivity is much appreciated. It might be frustrating in some cases, but viewing society as a person makes this more understandable, at least for me.

One easy way to have done this is by starting with your explanation before saying the thing that could be perceived poorly in the current context.

In the future, when this current period has mostly ended, it may be easier to speak more frankly on formerly sensitive topics.

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

#173

Post by lliamander »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #87
lliamander wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slightly baffling to see this celebrated by men in these careers as some kind of vindication. An amusing and insightful observation. I would say it's baffling until you realize that the alternative is that the whole the gap in female STEM employment continues to be attributed solely to male sexism. It's better to be perceived as stupid than evil. Also, are we all now in agreement that there are likely cognitive dif…

I thought the three alternatives were "women are bad at it", "women don't enjoy it", "women are being actively put off it by the men being even more sexist than the sexism baseline of men in other career options". If this is claiming they're actually better skilled than the men, then it opens up more space for the comparative sexism option I would have thought? Just the fact that it contradicts the common wisdom that…

> I thought the three alternatives were "women are bad at it", "women don't enjoy it", "women are being actively put off it by the men being even more sexist than the sexism baseline of men in other career options".

It seemed like it was "women don't enjoy it" was largely the point. That even if women are just as good at math and science as men, that they are even better at other things, and that in societies with greater equality of opportunity women prefer to work at those other things.

> If this is claiming they're actually better skilled than the men, then it opens up more space for the comparative sexism option I would have thought?

Again, it the article emphasizes that women are better at other things, not necessarily science or mathematics (in some countries they are, but not all).

> Just the fact that it contradicts the common wisdom that "women aren't capable of STEM" seems to lend some support to sexism clouding people's objective evaluations.

Perhaps people are misreading a lack of interest as a lack of ability. In any case, it weakens the notion of sexism as a causal factor in the employment gap.

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

#174

Post by kurthr »

kurthr wrote: post #167
pedrosorio wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well they might act differently, unless they're from a country like Hungary, Russia, or Sweden, and then they are just like men in math. Could you clarify what does this mean (what is special about Hungary, Russia, Sweden)?

In those countries women succeed in math and sciences at the same rate as men... Hungary is known for its mathematicians, and just about half are women. Unfortunately, they have to undergo genetic modification at the border.

Just today's latest article:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/globally-women-tend-...

based on:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797617741719

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

#175

Post by heedlessly2 »

howlgram wrote: post #99
telesilla wrote: post #54

Let's turn the argument on it's head. Statistics say boys are more heavily inclined to have a STEM career. Does this mean they feel they cannot consider a career in other fields like teaching, nursing or other female-dominated fields? As a woman I often wonder, what's so great about STEM aside from the paycheck? It depends on your bosses (or being your own if you are lucky and that way inclined), but I don't think we…

Yes thank you, people seem to forget that the reason why STEM gets a higher paycheck is because there's less people willing to go for it, both female and male, the paycheck is not a prize you get for being male, it's a prize you get for the sacrifice you make. Look at it this way: no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

>no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

Gender equality in STEM is more about just getting them in.

It's about social mobility for women. Which is why nobody cares about getting women as miners, plumbers and getting men as social workers.

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

#176

Post by heedlessly2 »

throwaway1748 wrote: post #101
gonvaled wrote: post #10

I would take the whole equality movement more seriously if I had been able, in the past decade, to spot a negative news article / report on women. When you get all the time exclusively negative news about men, you could start thinking that this is a coordinated (or emergent?) campaign.

Yep, the "women are wonderful" trope is extremely widespread in the media. I've seen dozens of articles with a headline like "women are better than men at investing" or "women make for better leaders". You never read anything saying "men are better than women at X", not that they'd be any more socially beneficial than the toxic male-bashing that occurs today.

>"men are better than women at X"

You don't have to read about it. Most people already think men are better at everything. Most CEOs, established scientists, famous chefs, and philosophers are almost all men.

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

#177

Post by RyanZAG »

sharpneli wrote: post #118
RyanZAG wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming an internal company culture couldn't be created based on shared understanding that would lead to competitive advantage. Eg, if you create a company with only black women, you may not necessarily get the very best individuals, but you could create a very unique culture. That culture could empower the whole team to work better with each other with the end result being a more productive team even though…

I tend to use a simple method to analyze a post. Switch the races and genders around. If in your post one would switch the term black woman into white man it would become "If you create a company with only white men.... you could create a very unique culture.". etc That kind of post would cause a massive uproar for rather obvious reasons. Yet it's interesting that these kind of posts don't.

Yeah, it's unfortunate and that kind of uproar doesn't do anybody much good. I chose black female on purpose for that reason, obviously, as it's acceptable to consider such things intellectually in today's world.

We've stopped discussing some key concepts just because it's not allowed anymore. I guess we need the bravery of enlightenment era philosophers once again - to stand up to social pressure in the name of open ideas.

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

#178

Post by RyanZAG »

TuringTest wrote: post #125
RyanZAG wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most studies on this seem to show that gender based preferences can be at least partially explained from birth before any environmental factors play a part in it. People have been doing these studies for a long time now, but they get ignored because we don't like the results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/ And of course, far more studies that have been going on for decades.

Biological preferences don't explain why careers preferred by women have less average pay than careers preferred by men.

I'm not entirely sure on which angle you're trying to discuss here. That biological preferences don't impact on the free market choice of employee-employer contracts? Or that biological preferences aren't overridden by a desire to earn higher wages?

For free market choice on which jobs pay more -- I think this one is pretty clear. Do you think differently?

As for biological preference, I don't think it takes into account the average pay at all. Career path is usually chosen at a younger and more idealistic age, and probably more importantly - poorer countries have women overriding their preferences and going into higher paid lines of work, while richer countries let women do what they want. As per this very study. In the case where money doesn't matter because your family is rich, biological preferences become more important and people stop choosing based on average pay. So the biological differences seem to explain it really well.

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

#179

Post by vilmosi »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #168
ac29 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these "non-traditional" life/career choices you think are adversely affecting men's life outcomes due to "female mating behaviour"? Your comments read as weirdly patriarchal, and dont reflect at all close to my experience with women.

Income is a more important factor in rating men's attractiveness compared to women. Here is just one study I quickly dug up, there are others confirming this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811... Another one: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?0::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:113754 I don't understand whats patriarchal about my comment, care to elaborate? If you have a more solid data point than "thats n…

>>> Income is a more important factor in rating men's attractiveness compared to women.

>>> I don't understand whats patriarchal about my comment, care to elaborate

I mean seriously, the answer is in your own comment.

Edit: I don't understand the downvotes.

His own comment implies income is an important factor to attractiveness for men then asks why is that a patriarchal thing. I'm not being patronising but it's obvious that it's expected for the man to be the bread winner which is patriarchal in nature. The man doesn't have to be the bread winner.

Why isn't a high income woman attractive?

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

#180

Post by pedrosorio »

kurthr wrote: post #167
pedrosorio wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well they might act differently, unless they're from a country like Hungary, Russia, or Sweden, and then they are just like men in math. Could you clarify what does this mean (what is special about Hungary, Russia, Sweden)?

In those countries women succeed in math and sciences at the same rate as men... Hungary is known for its mathematicians, and just about half are women. Unfortunately, they have to undergo genetic modification at the border.

I know the old guys - Erdos, Polya, Von Neumann, etc. Who are the up-and-coming Hungarian mathematicians in the 21st century?
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