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Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

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Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#31

Post by xienze »

Tehnix wrote: post #28
billfruit wrote: post #13

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards S…

> If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things.

Because that would require people to acknowledge that the theory that everyone is a blank slate with equal capabilities and that any differences in outcome are as a result of some sort of systemic oppression might not be entirely correct.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#32

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ikeyany wrote: post #26
vim_wannabe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>romantic interest Heh, I don't know about other STEM fields but I remember a lady attending a computer science freshman social event once. There were very few women there as the majority of women in CS are in HTI. After a while she said to my friend, "Why is everyone such a nerd." She left the field, men were at fault.

I'm not sure she's blaming men as much as she's confirming the existence of the culture around tech that non-traditional students (women or blacks/Latinos) feel very alienated from. That doesn't mean she thinks anyone is "to blame".

I don't think we should downvote here. As much as none of us nerds like nerd-punching, we should admit that nerd culture is a distinct thing unto itself, which co-clusters with other demographic factors (especially being middle-class with time for hobbies when you're young), and frankly isn't very welcoming in the adult stages of acculturation.

If we expect people to "enter into" nerd culture to join "nerdy" professions, we're basically expecting people to learn a new language and move into a semi-foreign country just to enter a job field.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#33

Post by leroy_masochist »

danieltillett wrote: post #4

I am not too sure I would agree with this statement from the abstract: "These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science.” It might be less worse to be a woman, but in the same way it is better to lose a leg below the knee than above the knee.

Everyday ableism....

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#34

Post by annabellish »

Tehnix wrote: post #28
billfruit wrote: post #13

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards S…

The danger there is in trying to explain a complicated social phenomenon with "it's free, so why wouldn't they do it?"

There's very little suggestion that the reason there aren't more women in tech is because they can't afford it. In reality, it's a thousand tiny factors from a thousand people, none/few of them actively trying to do harm. As an offhand, personal example, my sister isn't in tech because she was told CS "wouldn't be her thing" despite being just as good as any of the boys. Because of that, and similar discouragement, she ended up not going into tech whereas she otherwise _might_ have.

It's all statistical, lots of "maybes", "mights", and "coulds", but it adds up over the population. There may well be dispositions which align primarily along gender bounds, but there's not much indication this is one - but neither is it an organized conspiracy. It's just the sum total of thousands of tiny factors.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#35

Post by peoplewindow »

annabellish wrote: post #34
Tehnix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards S…

The danger there is in trying to explain a complicated social phenomenon with "it's free, so why wouldn't they do it?" There's very little suggestion that the reason there aren't more women in tech is because they can't afford it. In reality, it's a thousand tiny factors from a thousand people, none/few of them actively trying to do harm. As an offhand, personal example, my sister isn't in tech because she was told C…

Because of that, and similar discouragement, she ended up not going into tech whereas she otherwise _might_ have

I realise it's your sister, but do you know that for sure? Or is that more like a hope you have yourself, based on your own beliefs about women in tech?

It's quite possible that the person who told her CS "wouldn't be your thing" was giving genuine advice based on actually knowing her and her preferences, useful advice that stopped her making a mistake, and was not attempting to discourage her from CS specifically but rather, ensure she would study something she'd enjoy.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#36

Post by seanmcdirmid »

programmertote wrote: post #29
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has similar, if not worse problems, as the USA. The lab I worked for in Beijing made lots of effort to attract female researchers, and it was still very lopsided.

From my graduate CS classes in the US, most women are from foreign countries. I notice the same in other US grad schools as well. From that, I am led to believe that women from developing nations (which kind of includes China) still choose STEM careers (most likely for practical purpose of making money).

There is a lot of selection bias in who comes to the USA to study and work. But also, in china, women don’t drop out of the field all together, but rather tend to move into less technical ones (e.g. PM), and are less likely to get the PhD needed to be a researcher. There are likewise cultural issues that make this hard (e.g. China’s leftover women problem). There has also been a lot less outreach compared to the west because communism was already supposed to have fixed these problems (this is changing of course), while the west has been perversely drawing away a lot of gender diversity at the high end with their current hiring practices.

Perhaps India does a bit better? When I visited Microsoft research Bangalore, it seemed a bit more diverse than Microsoft research Beijing.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#37

Post by talmand »

Tehnix wrote: post #28
billfruit wrote: post #13

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards S…

Be careful there or Google will fire you.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#38

Post by hamax »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #25
billfruit wrote: post #13

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

It is. In countries where women have the freedom of choice due to political and economical circumstances, the gender imbalance is more pronounced. Basically, most women choose to not pursue engineering if they don't have to (unfortunately, I'm glad we have some women at the office).

This is often repeated but the data is way more noisy than this comment implies.

For example this chart for Asian countries does have Iran on one side and Japan on the other, but it also have Korea way higher than Japan and Cambodia way lower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/Fi...

In europe Norway has the fewest women in stem and Croatia the highest, but there are a lot of cases where the correlation isn't there. Hungary is very low and Luxembourg is very high. Ireland and Italy are high but Slovenia is low.

https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/...

Correlation definitely exists but there are a lot of other factors at play too.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#39

Post by LeifCarrotson »

linkmotif wrote: post #27
megaman22 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chances of that happening with your typical Dilbertian white male software engineer are vanishingly small.

And then there is reality: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides... , etc.

The parent said that the chances of that happening are vanishingly small. Your source (and your source's source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6628a1.htm) support that statement:

> The CDC analyzed the murders of women in 18 states from 2003 to 2014, finding a total of 10,018 deaths.

> The overall age-adjusted homicide rate was 2.0 per 100,000 women.

18 states, tens of millions of people, and an inconceivably small number of homicides in reality. The overwhelming majority of women are not murdered by men, but live a long life and die of heart disease, cancer, or other old-age diseases.

Even when you only consider the age range in question - call it 18-64 - the leading causes of death are still unintentional injuries, cancer, heart disease, and suicide: https://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2014/all-females/index.htm There is a spike in homicides up to a staggering 7% of all deaths for the 15-24 age group, but that's only because young women almost never die, there's little real danger but an awful lot of fear surrounding this topic.

Re: Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

#40

Post by peoplewindow »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #32
ikeyany wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure she's blaming men as much as she's confirming the existence of the culture around tech that non-traditional students (women or blacks/Latinos) feel very alienated from. That doesn't mean she thinks anyone is "to blame".

I don't think we should downvote here. As much as none of us nerds like nerd-punching, we should admit that nerd culture is a distinct thing unto itself, which co-clusters with other demographic factors (especially being middle-class with time for hobbies when you're young), and frankly isn't very welcoming in the adult stages of acculturation. If we expect people to "enter into" nerd culture to join "nerdy" professi…

"Nerd" isn't a culture anymore than "geekyness" is a culture. It's a pejorative, an insult intended to shame the person it's applied to by suggesting they are slightly disgusting, socially disagreeable, ugly, uninteresting etc.

When the woman turned up to a social event and said, "why are the men such nerds" and walked away, that wasn't the men's fault or problem actually (unless they wanted to date her). That's her problem: she's the one lobbing insults against an entire group despite not knowing the individuals in question. They do not need to do anything to welcome such a person into their "culture" because she wasn't talking about a culture to begin with.

The story given above, assuming the last "men were at fault" statement is related to the first part, is sadly reflective of all the worst stereotypes of young women. The woman in question decided what career to pursue because she didn't want to be seen as hanging out with uncool people during her studies. Guess what - nerds would be happy to hang out with "non nerds" too, if they came to their events and didn't act all judgey and superior. This is not something unique to women, it's rather, that men seem more willing to either embrace it or tolerate it.

Presumably she is now in a field with fewer "nerds", but quite possibly earning less money than if she'd stuck with CS. Too bad for her.

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