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so would you say those fields that have >50% women would need to work on their gender diversity to include more men?
by ohstopitu 9y ago
so would you say those fields that have >50% women would need to work on their gender diversity to include more men?
- tptacek 9y agoSince molecular biology has something like a 54/46 distribution and tech has something like a 19/81 distribution I'd probably tell anyone who told me I should focus on the injustices of molecular biology to shove it up their ass.
- stagbeetle 9y agoWhat about registered nurses? It's a 91/9 spit.
- tptacek 9y agoThis rebuttal is so tired that it's actually (search for it in Dan and Scott's comments) banned from the site, but I think that's a mistake, because it is in fact a huge problem that there is a 91/9 split in nursing. A bigger problem than tech's disparity. The status-shifting we've done with "nursing" has resulted in scarce and expensive medical doctors being (almost always pointlessly) our first line of health care in the US. We should rename "nurse practitioners" to "associate physicians", discarding the gender-inflected term "nurse".
- vermontdevil 9y agoAnd why do you think it came to this point? Hint - it has to do with getting in the medical school.
- justin66 9y agoAs far as I can tell, hospitals recognize it's a problem and are doing what they can in terms of recruitment.
- nommm-nommm 9y agoIt's not even just hospitals The American Association of Men in Nursing: http://www.aamn.org/ http://www.aamn.org/ The Campaign for Nursing’s Future: https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing Minority Nurse: http://minoritynurse.com/ http://minoritynurse.com/ Oregon Center for Nursing: http://oregoncenterfornursing.org/nursing-posters/ http://oregoncenterfornursing.org/nursing-posters/
- dragonwriter 9y agoYes, and that's recognized as a huge problem in that field. Were we in a nursing-focussed discussion forum, there's probably be a lot of talk about it. It is a direct result of patriarchal social attitudes combined with the fact that nursing is perceived as a subordinate role to medicine, and therefore beneath men. So it's actually a manifestation of the same broad social problem as the disparity in tech, rather than the mirror image.
- bigtimeidiot 9y ago>shove it up their ass. So edgy. What about nursing? Should we shove that up our ass too? http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk/gender-ratio-of-nurses-across-50-states.html http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk/...
- belorn 9y ago54/46 is considered gender equal ratio in Sweden as its within the 40%/40% line. However the argument that we should put our focus based on how high the gender unequal distribution is is an fascinating argument since here in Sweden we have a perfect record of every employed person profession (as part of the tax record). We can list every professions and their gender distribution, and naturally very few of the stem professions are at top or even in the top 20. Worst two professions (of each gender) had midwife and floor tile worker at both >99.4% of each representative gender. The data for female dominated professions was midwife and dentist at 99.6% and above, with pediatric at 98%. For male dominated profession at 99%-98% it is tile worker, mechanic, thin plate worker, carpenter, concrete worker, electrician, and last plumber. With 90% of people working in a profession with less than 40% women or 40% men, IT with a distribution of 81%/19% is quite average and unremarkable on the list. molecular biology, being in that small 10%, is much more remarkable because it actually has a gender equal distribution.
- tptacek 9y agoIn case this needs to be spelled out for you, and I apologize if it doesn't, but the subtext of there being a unique gender disparity in tech not shared by thematically similar STEM fields, let alone STEM in general, is that the causal agent is misogyny.
- Neliquat 9y agoIf you have any facts to back up that strong assertion, I am sure people are interested. Otherwise, a blanket accusal of 'misogyny' is asinine and nonproductive.
- JabavuAdams 9y ago> to shove it up their ass. C'mon man. You're better than that.
- reitanqild 9y agoGiving you an upvote (yep, parent was downvoted for some reason) and say agree: I too have seen tptacek communicate a lot better than today.
- BearGoesChirp 9y agoPeople who care about a 19/81 split in one field in college when college as a whole is a 66/33 split should... well you already offered a suggestion at what they should do. Or we could stop acting as if the metric at the end is what we need to equalize, look at it only as an indicator, and then find issues to fix. If 19/81 is caused by some actual sort of discrimination, we can fix which ever issues we identify. Just as we can with the 66/33 split.
- moopling 9y agoWhere are you going to expend your energy? The whole world is full of misogency, do you spend your time trying to fix that, or worry about the compartively small number of times men face unfairness?
- nnfy 9y agoYour view needs to be deliberately myopic to seriously believe that a woman's life in a modern first world country is somehow more unfair than a man's. If you're seriously going to play this game regarding fairness of life in general, consider the immense disparity in social and especially sexual capital that women generally hold over and use against men. Not to mention the unspoken preference with which they're hired and retained in the work place. If you insist on looking at this as an us vs them problem, then most of the remaining problems are self imposed-i.e. the primary ones limiting women from playing with male toys, or going into stem, or dressing in a certain way, are other women. Such is culture. Edit: my comment has been flagged for daring to espouse the wrong opinion. This is how progress dies, when discussion is stifled. This is, ironically, bias. Why do people believe that moderating unpopular viewpoints makes them disappear?
- Chris2048 9y agoFlip this same argument around, and you get accused of derailing/silencing: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Misdirected_feminism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Misdirected_feminism
- moopling 9y agoHmmmmm, that's a really good point. I suppose I agree that in general an argument that there is worse shit in the world is probably a bad reason to ignore other problems. In this case however it'd be difficult to do anything about biases against men without exacerbating sexism further. If you can think of a way of making things fairer for men, without making things worse for women at the same time I'm all for it.
- Chris2048 9y ago
- 77pt77 9y ago> so would you say those fields that have >50% Notice what was written. It was not >50%. It was better than 50%
- bkkssnn 9y agoWhat is better than 50 % ?
- 77pt77 9y agoThe original comment was: > and some STEM fields, like molecular biology, have better than 50% representation of women. not ">50%" not "more than 50%" not "higher than 50%" but "better than 50%" Of all the variations, only the last one has a moral value attached to it.
- tptacek 9y agoIt's like the beginning of the Malcolm X movie here with you. I like it.
- Chris2048 9y agoIt's either greater or lesser than 50%. If so if not greater, then you are saying lesser than can be "better"?