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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

#71

Post by Valmar »

nukeop wrote: post #19

Forcing people to change their interests based on an agenda only results in them being even less interested than they were in the first place. There is also the backlash to the nonstop pushing of politically-based hiring instead of meritocratic practices. Some even state "meritocracy" is outright oppressive and should never be applied.

> Some even state "meritocracy" is outright oppressive and should never be applied.

"Oppressive" only because they don't like to face reality, no matter whether it is told gently, supportively or bluntly. All they can do is self-deny, and then project their pain and self-blame onto others, because it is too much to accept, push through and go beyond, because that is the beginning of self-healing.

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

#72

Post by shostrift »

rimliu wrote: post #41
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…

> 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.

Not sure why you're down voted. You just need to read The Guardian and other liberal press to read how illiberal and intolerant many active feminists are.

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

#73

Post by shostrift »

mesozoic wrote: post #18
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #17

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), but actively avoiding it as a low-status role when they have better options. Slightly baffling to see this celebrated by men in these careers as some kind of vindication. The data appears to be saying you (we) suck, but that's a win if you think the data was going to sho…

I think men celebrate it in the hope that this may trigger a culture change where they don't have to be seen as less desirables or inherently sexist members of the patriarchy.

Nah, a lot of guys are just weak and will do anything if they think it'll get chicks to like them. It's all good saying you're a male feminist until you realise girls don't want a pussy as a boyfriend. If you want to get a girl hot, act like a man.

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

#74

Post by moosekaka »

jochung wrote: post #69
lsy wrote: post #50

Drawing conclusions about "innate" differences between men and women from this data doesn't seem valid. There's a lot of research left to eliminate confounding effects on participation that aren't covered or investigated by the "Global Gender Gap Index" (e.g. cultural attitudes towards women in STEM, or on-the-job discrimination). Scatter-plotting two datasets available on the internet doesn't feel like enough resear…

Evolution was opinionated enough to create measurable differences in spatial ability, personality, drives and so on, between genders and within genders. Its velocity is directly proportional to the variance that exists in the population: you need something to differentiate in order to have differential selection pressure. Your hypothesis is in fact the radical one: that programming is somehow such an unseen before ab…

I have often wondered if one day, the skill of underwater basket weaving was suddenly prized by society as highly as STEM jobs are today....would we see the same pressure to have more more X in underwater basket weaving (where X is your underrepresented group of choice).

A follow up question then to people pursuing STEM fields....are you in it because you're interested in the subject or because of the promise of money/status? An age old question I've heard since I was a young boy.

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

#75

Post by shostrift »

gonvaled wrote: post #23
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #17

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), but actively avoiding it as a low-status role when they have better options. Slightly baffling to see this celebrated by men in these careers as some kind of vindication. The data appears to be saying you (we) suck, but that's a win if you think the data was going to sho…

Being good and being capable are different things: I am very capable of cleaning toilets, but I am not very good at it since I do not do it with a passion. Edit: and I obviously do not imply with my tongue in cheek joke that women are the ones cleaning toilets. Just going the extra mile here to avoid offending anybody.

You joke, but women are the nest-makers biologically. You can see it in their typical enjoyment of shopping (which many guys aren't bothered about), and typically higher desire for cleanliness. Both these behaviours are beneficial from a survival perspective.

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

#76

Post by cm2187 »

dvt wrote: post #2

Equality of opportunity does not necessarily imply equality of outcome . This isn't a paradox. Why are still people still confused about this? (Actually, people aren't confused about this, but it makes for great clickbait articles and ad revenue because it fans the flames of both sides of the argument.)

One of the many simplifications in this debate. Another one: if someone is arguing that there is a difference in the distribution of a particular character between men and women. Immediatly I read comments jumping to the conclusion “my god it says women are more/less [whatever] than men”, as in “all women”. Lots of people seem to be incapable of thinking in term of distributions, which makes it really hard to have any discussion.

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

#77

Post by Sacho »

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…

> While of course anecdotal, several of my friends from these countries have talked about how they faced invisible, passive-aggressive forms of bullying from fellow students (a large majority of them reportedly female) for having 'geeky' interests such as math.

Sure, but we can also present similar anecdotal evidence of visible forms of bullying from fellow male students for having geeky interests. So, where does that leave us, really? Similar to your criticism about jumping to causative conclusions, you've determined that this passive-aggressive bullying is the case of gender roles rather than the more obvious case of bullying nerds.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

lliamander wrote: post #35
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #17

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), but actively avoiding it as a low-status role when they have better options. Slightly baffling to see this celebrated by men in these careers as some kind of vindication. The data appears to be saying you (we) suck, but that's a win if you think the data was going to sho…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by koonsolo »

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…

Ask around in your social circle, both men an women: "Would you like to have a job where you sit all day at the computer?". Then calculate the percentages.

That's "natural inclinations" for you.

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

#80

Post by bufferoverflow »

Valmar wrote: post #68
bufferoverflow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't treating women differently from men sexist by definition? If we want equality, let's treat everyone equally. No special programs for any gender. We're constantly told that men and women are the same, and that you can even switch between them any time you want, but then we hear the complaints that gender X does better/worse at task Z. This narrative doesn't make any sense to me.

Men and women obviously aren't the same, no matter how much gnashing of teeth of matter occurs, because both have their strengths in different areas, according to their overall psychology. Men and women are psychologically-different, and no amount of trying to force a desperate sameness will change that. In fact, it might even cause people to want to be even more different than before. The SJWs campaign for "sameness…

It's not just the SJWs though. Google recently fired a talented developer for essentially saying "Men and women obviously aren't the same".
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