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Girls didn't want to pursue science because it has had a severe social stigma attached to it. This created a self-fulfilling prophesy that ensured only social o

Girls didn't want to pursue science because it has had a severe social stigma attached to it. This created a self-fulfilling prophesy that ensured only social outcasts with no social standing to lose would consider being interested in it. Boys have much greater range of higher ceilings and lower floors than girls did in the past (and still today, just less so), so the people at the bottom are overwhelmingly male. The door has been just as open to women as in any other field - the difference with science/tech is that (according to perception) only social outcasts are on the other side. Even in 2015 GE was running those ads that make engineers looks like effeminate men who can't work with "real" tools, and that was from a someone trying to make their tech look good!

gaius 10y ago
The elephant in the corner of the room is: there is no shortage of scientists. The great universities of the West churn out far, far more PhDs than there are post-doc positions for, let alone tenure-track. This has been true for decades at least. I probably know a few dozen PhD holders personally, and I can count on one hand the number actually working in academia... Maybe what's really happening is that boys are impulsive enough to let their love of a subject overwhelm their better judgement, and girls take an objective look at long-term career prospects, then sign up for law or med school, both of which have very high female participation.
- blacksmythe 10y ago
  >> The great universities of the West churn out far, far more PhDs than there are post-doc positions for, let alone tenure-track. In steady state, each professor, on average, can only produce one student who goes on to be a professor.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    And how many more to work in industry or government?
    - gaius 10y ago
      They are not professors... And in many if not most cases are doing work that could be done by anyone with a good Bachelors or Masters degree.
      - leereeves 10y ago
        Any work, including being a professor, could be done by someone with a good Bachelors or Masters degree. Or no degree at all, but self-taught diligently. The PhD is just one road to learning, which still has value for those who choose to pursue it.
- zafka 10y ago
  Strictly from the point of the people who have acquired a STEM degree ( and perhaps have not found a job, or feel they are under-compensated), but only a small percentage of those who spend their career in research will have the skill needed to discover awesome stuff. And the more who go into research the better chance society as a whole has.
  - gaius 10y ago
    And the more who go into research the better chance society as a whole has. That's very easy to say but where are the jobs for these people? http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html We would be better off identifying areas where there truly is a shortage of people (if any) and directing talented people there instead (and no, programming is not one of them).
- danielam 10y ago
  It would be interesting to know how IQ distribution relates to the distribution of males and females among those with PhDs and other advanced degrees, perhaps across various fields. Male IQs tend to aggregate at the lower and higher ends of the scale while female IQs tend to aggregate around the average. If IQ is a deciding factor in who lands a job in academia, I would expect the male to female ratio to be exaggerated in favor of males the more selective things get, at least in an idealized case. In practice, other factors may dampen that effect or exaggerate that effect further (e.g., females outperform males in school, fewer women may pursue academic jobs than men, etc).
- drbigglesworth 10y ago
  I'm in this boat now: engineering PhD 5 years ago, well-published at the end of my PhD (sufficient for a faculty application) but instead created a startup to commercialize cancer surgery tech I invented, startup folded beginning of this year and I'm still unemployed after sending out several hundred applications. For each 100 targeted applications in industry/gov't I've sent out, I get around 6 responses, and 1 interview. It's soul-crushing. There just aren't many jobs out there that require a PhD, and for the jobs that don't require a PhD there's a stigma associated with having one. I enjoyed the work leading to my PhD and the time spent at the startup was educational, but I have to conclude that pursuing the PhD was overall a mistake. I like the idea of the diversity of the sciences better reflecting the population at large, but I'm very angry that expensive education for a career with lousy prospects is being advocated. Considering the career outlook, poor pay relative to demands, and the disproportionate burden of child-rearing placed upon them, I see avoiding a career in the sciences as a rational choice for anyone, especially women.

gaius 10y ago

The elephant in the corner of the room is: there is no shortage of scientists. The great universities of the West churn out far, far more PhDs than there are post-doc positions for, let alone tenure-track. This has been true for decades at least. I probably know a few dozen PhD holders personally, and I can count on one hand the number actually working in academia... Maybe what's really happening is that boys are impulsive enough to let their love of a subject overwhelm their better judgement, and girls take an objective look at long-term career prospects, then sign up for law or med school, both of which have very high female participation.

blacksmythe 10y ago
>> The great universities of the West churn out far, far more PhDs than there are post-doc positions for, let alone tenure-track. In steady state, each professor, on average, can only produce one student who goes on to be a professor.
- leereeves 10y ago
  And how many more to work in industry or government?
  - gaius 10y ago
    They are not professors... And in many if not most cases are doing work that could be done by anyone with a good Bachelors or Masters degree.
    - leereeves 10y ago
      Any work, including being a professor, could be done by someone with a good Bachelors or Masters degree. Or no degree at all, but self-taught diligently. The PhD is just one road to learning, which still has value for those who choose to pursue it.
zafka 10y ago
Strictly from the point of the people who have acquired a STEM degree ( and perhaps have not found a job, or feel they are under-compensated), but only a small percentage of those who spend their career in research will have the skill needed to discover awesome stuff. And the more who go into research the better chance society as a whole has.
- gaius 10y ago
  And the more who go into research the better chance society as a whole has. That's very easy to say but where are the jobs for these people? http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html We would be better off identifying areas where there truly is a shortage of people (if any) and directing talented people there instead (and no, programming is not one of them).
danielam 10y ago
It would be interesting to know how IQ distribution relates to the distribution of males and females among those with PhDs and other advanced degrees, perhaps across various fields. Male IQs tend to aggregate at the lower and higher ends of the scale while female IQs tend to aggregate around the average. If IQ is a deciding factor in who lands a job in academia, I would expect the male to female ratio to be exaggerated in favor of males the more selective things get, at least in an idealized case. In practice, other factors may dampen that effect or exaggerate that effect further (e.g., females outperform males in school, fewer women may pursue academic jobs than men, etc).
drbigglesworth 10y ago
I'm in this boat now: engineering PhD 5 years ago, well-published at the end of my PhD (sufficient for a faculty application) but instead created a startup to commercialize cancer surgery tech I invented, startup folded beginning of this year and I'm still unemployed after sending out several hundred applications. For each 100 targeted applications in industry/gov't I've sent out, I get around 6 responses, and 1 interview. It's soul-crushing. There just aren't many jobs out there that require a PhD, and for the jobs that don't require a PhD there's a stigma associated with having one. I enjoyed the work leading to my PhD and the time spent at the startup was educational, but I have to conclude that pursuing the PhD was overall a mistake. I like the idea of the diversity of the sciences better reflecting the population at large, but I'm very angry that expensive education for a career with lousy prospects is being advocated. Considering the career outlook, poor pay relative to demands, and the disproportionate burden of child-rearing placed upon them, I see avoiding a career in the sciences as a rational choice for anyone, especially women.