The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by smackay » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #76

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 an…

Therein lie the dangers of categorical thinking, https://www.newyorker.com/business/james-surowiecki/categori.... Gender is probably the most loaded category there is (except for the other one). There is some movement on this front with acceptance of different gender identities but until society (in all its forms) can ditch categorical thinking and accept that all things in nature exist in distributions, I don't think there will be much progress on this - there's simply too capital to be made by perpetuating strict divisions which everybody must be crammed into in order to simplify the debate and upset everyone in the process.

Robert Sapolsky - we need you now more than ever, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky

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

#92

Post by mpweiher » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:10 AM UTC

rectang wrote: post #88

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.)

Women get paid less than men for doing the same work, across all industries. Pay them the same and the "confusion" will diminish.

This is a common talking point of the dominant narrative but simply not true.

When you average all women and all men, you get a "gap". However, like the imbalance in fields, this is almost entirely due to different choices. When you control for factors such as field, hours worked, years worked the gap effectively disappears.

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

#93

Post by Hextinium » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:10 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #28

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…

> 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 explaining the examples too.

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

#94

Post by moosekaka » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:10 AM UTC

rectang wrote: post #88

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.)

Women get paid less than men for doing the same work, across all industries. Pay them the same and the "confusion" will diminish.

a radical thought along the lines you are going....instead of striving to bring up the numbers of underrepresented group X in field Y, how about we strive to bring up the salaries/status of field Z (etc.) where group X is over represented?

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

#95

Post by LunaSea » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:10 AM UTC

rectang wrote: post #88

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.)

Women get paid less than men for doing the same work, across all industries. Pay them the same and the "confusion" will diminish.

The wage gap myth has been debunked time and time again.

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

#96

Post by mamon » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #67

tanilama wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article simply means when equal opportunity is offered, there are still fewer women choose to take STEM as their career. Vindictive? No really. The research seems to suggest woman prefers STEM more, when there is no other viable economic opportunity, which makes such choice a conscious calculation, and do render the past accusation that there is an systematic oppression in the society to keep women away from tak…

> the current diversity program is incapable to achieve its own goal What exactly is the goal of this "diversity program"? Maybe they are completely capable of achieving their goal, it's just not the one you think it is. (This is the curse of technical people: when you spend so much time thinking and solving problems rationally, it's easy to assume all situations can be approached in this way.)

Most diversity programs state 50/50 man/women ratio as their goal, which, according to the article is counterproductive.

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

#97

Post by groovy2shoes » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

telesilla wrote: post #57

dontcare25 wrote: post #12

Career Successful women in stem told me that she would have pursed for a different career if she wasn't the daughter of immigrants. She was destined to be an engineer or a doctor.

>engineer or a doctor These are both STEM fields (Science, technology, engineering, mathematics). Doctor is a crossover in my view, anyway. Sounds like she would like more autonomy with her career choices, rather than not be in a STEM field.

I think GP means that she felt like engineer and doctor were the only options she could choose from, and therefore she was effectively dragooned into a STEM career. That is, if she'd been dealt a different hand, she would've preferred a career in something other than engineering or medicine.

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

#98

Post by mpweiher » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:13 AM UTC

platz wrote: post #25

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.)

Preferences aren't static, and are part of a dynamical system. It needs to be explained why preferences are the way they are. Environment could be changed to address causes of preference

Sure, and the study quoted in the article shows that. Environment is a factor, it just points in the other direction.

So if you assert that discrimination is the cause for the imbalance, the evidence shows that your assertion is wrong, because it makes the wrong prediction.

This is not just a matter of degrees it is a matter of sign (the arrow is pointing in the wrong direction).

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

#99

Post by howlgram » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

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.

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

#100

Post by Hextinium » Mon, Feb 19, 2018, 9:15 AM UTC

moosekaka wrote: post #74

jochung wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mone…

As someone in university and talking to a lot of both genders why they want to join engineering I get a lot of nebulous answers that don't really traceback to a main character trait or reason. Which is fine you don't have a totally define answer but I am kinda perplexed by the desire to do something with seeming no reason.

As a side note I see a lot of women engineers start out as saying they want to do Biomed and the switching to something else. Not totally sure why but I find it interesting.