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> Unless you think there is some sort of overt discrimination happening that's stopping females becoming senior engineers, in which case you'll need to define i

> Unless you think there is some sort of overt discrimination happening that's stopping females becoming senior engineers, in which case you'll need to define it. I think it's pretty likely that the environmental conditions that hinder women from ever becoming engineers in the first place don't all suddenly go away for the ones who manage to do it anyway. Or are we talking about first principles here? Because I also think that a lot of maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination hinders young girls from having early lifestyles that lead to becoming women engineers. I don't really see how one could reasonably argue otherwise. And if discrimination prevents LARGE_% of A, and B requires A, then discrimination has almost certainly also prevented SOME_% of B. That's just basic middle school math.

hyperdunc 10y ago
"maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination" is so vague it can be immediately dismissed. If you're talking about culture or traditional gender roles, then I put forward that these are not primarily a result of discrimination but mostly evolved over quite a long time based on biological differences. If we are going to deconstruct aspects of culture because we consider them unjust, we'd better be honest about why things are and what we might lose if we try to force certain outcomes. A recent examination of a Scandinavian country purported to be globally the least discriminatory (Denmark or Norway - I don't recall which) of gender distributions in different fields showed increased unevenness. In other words, given the agency by their culture, women tend to avoid STEM fields. I think it's fair to say that everyone should be given the opportunities and challenges they can rise to, but no one should be coerced into any role for the sake of an asinine idea like "gender representation".

hyperdunc 10y ago

"maybe-not-intentional-but-pretty-much-everywhere-nonetheless discrimination" is so vague it can be immediately dismissed. If you're talking about culture or traditional gender roles, then I put forward that these are not primarily a result of discrimination but mostly evolved over quite a long time based on biological differences. If we are going to deconstruct aspects of culture because we consider them unjust, we'd better be honest about why things are and what we might lose if we try to force certain outcomes. A recent examination of a Scandinavian country purported to be globally the least discriminatory (Denmark or Norway - I don't recall which) of gender distributions in different fields showed increased unevenness. In other words, given the agency by their culture, women tend to avoid STEM fields. I think it's fair to say that everyone should be given the opportunities and challenges they can rise to, but no one should be coerced into any role for the sake of an asinine idea like "gender representation".