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The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM

theatlantic.com

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

#181

Post by zumu »

K0nserv wrote: post #65
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…

Boys desire for large pay checks could be explained by patriarchal/societal expectations that they must be the main bread winner in a household

Most men I know aren't in it for the paycheck.

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

#182

Post by throwaway1748 »

heedlessly2 wrote: post #176
throwaway1748 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not the conclusion I would draw from reading sites like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, or even mainstream news like NYT or The Washington Post.

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

#183

Post by pas »

palunon wrote: post #141
rimliu wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are we all now in agreement that there are likely > cognitive differences between men and women Alas, far from it I am afraid. Which is very puzzling. Not many will argue that men and women have different physiology, different physical build. But god forbid from making the assumption that cognitive interests may also differ.

Do you have relevant scientific literature to back that claim ?

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

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

#184

Post by heedlessly2 »

throwaway1748 wrote: post #182
heedlessly2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

That's not the conclusion I would draw from reading sites like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, or even mainstream news like NYT or The Washington Post.

Buzzfeed and HuffPo have an agenda to be very liberal and uses sensational articles to get attention because it goes against what most people historically think

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

#185

Post by cholantesh »

howlgram wrote: post #63
hackpert wrote: post #60

Whenever such studies or analyses come up in the media, I find that people are often eager to jump to causative conclusions on the lines of "oh females must have a natural inclination towards 'softer' fields" or (as in case of this article) "In wealthy nations, they believe that they have the freedom to pursue those alternatives and not worry so much that they pay less." However, even if we ignore the obvious correla…

are you implying that male students who go for stem don't face bullying akin to being "geeky" or "nerds"? Please...

I would emphatically say that this isn't a thing in 2018.

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

#186

Post by lr4444lr »

zerr wrote: post #166
nukeop wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be true, assuming USA is a poor/developing country.

The absence of a good welfare/healthcare system is one of the main reason I'm reluctant to moving to US - while personally I might be well off, assuming "big 4" (or 10, whatever) provide good insurance for developers - what if my children won't want to became developers but e.g. musician, literature school teacher, artist, etc... they would be doomed in US. So yes, when it comes to healthcare and affordable education…

If they want to become teachers, they will have very good social benefits in terms of pensions, affordable health insurance, and many work protections. Our government sector in most states is generally quite good on the benefits side, relatively speaking.

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

#187

Post by lr4444lr »

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…

There is a significant prestige factor to working in most STEM professions. The barrier isn't just that it's boring; it's exacting, requires significant foundational knowledge and builds in levels of understanding, and not getting any easier in terms of the work demands for things to be better, smaller, more efficient, and cheaper.

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

#188

Post by whatshisface »

cholantesh wrote: post #185
howlgram wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you implying that male students who go for stem don't face bullying akin to being "geeky" or "nerds"? Please...

I would emphatically say that this isn't a thing in 2018.

How could you even know that it wasn't? Besides, kids never got bullied for wanting to become engineers, kids got bullied for all of the hyper-focused interests and trait expressions that makes them in to good engineers.

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

#189

Post by foobardeveloper »

TuringTest wrote: post #158
TuringTest wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, isn't it wonderful that when you factor out the discriminating variables, discrimination all but disappears? Choices made by women are influenced by the glass ceiling, society expectations that women will take care of children and the elderly, and the traditional fields where they're expected to work. The decision to measure the gender gap by comparing equal working hours and equal job positions is not innocent…

Can people downvoting explain what part of my post you disagree with? I'd like to have a rational debate and maybe learn if there's something wrong in my assumptions, rather than discussion being suppressed by knee-jerk reactions.

I wonder how much of this is a result of female sexual selection pressure?

It is seen in human beings and animals that statistically females mate sidewards or upwards in terms of providability. This in turn applies a pressure on males to compete for more and accumulate more resources, whereas females are not measured by males on their providability hence have no pressure on them to fight for the same resources. So, men will always compete more to get a greater share of the pie, this combined with capitalism explains whatever income gap remains after attaining equality of opportunity. Shouldn't the underlying metrics of mating preferences also be taken into account before putting it all under male sexism and patriarch umbrella ?

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

#190

Post by TuringTest »

foobardeveloper wrote: post #189
TuringTest wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can people downvoting explain what part of my post you disagree with? I'd like to have a rational debate and maybe learn if there's something wrong in my assumptions, rather than discussion being suppressed by knee-jerk reactions.

I wonder how much of this is a result of female sexual selection pressure? It is seen in human beings and animals that statistically females mate sidewards or upwards in terms of providability. This in turn applies a pressure on males to compete for more and accumulate more resources, whereas females are not measured by males on their providability hence have no pressure on them to fight for the same resources. So, m…

You would first need to achieve equality of opportunity, which is not the current starting point.

You can't ignore that we come from a culture with a tradition of 60+ centuries of male-favouring sexism and patriarchy, which has not vanished merely because of a theoretical solution to it (legal equality) has been formally declared. There's a lot of social inertia introducing biases in the opportunities available to women.

You can take into account mating preferences all you want, but how do those affect choices of job positions other than very indirectly? On the other hand, irrational prejudices in recruitment and career advancement processes have a direct impact on the quality of job positions that women have access to, and therefore in their opportunities. Unless you're downright denying that such prejudices exist, this cultural factor would have a larger influence than biology.

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