4 ms·

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have bee

"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – women shouldn’t be in law because it’s too competitive and high-pressure; women shouldn’t be in medicine because they’re fragile and will faint at the sight of blood; et cetera. "As the feminist movement gradually took hold, women conquered one of these fields after another. 51% of law students are now female. So are 49.8% of medical students, 45% of math majors, 60% of linguistics majors, 60% of journalism majors, 75% of psychology majors, and 60% of biology postdocs. Yet for some reason, engineering remains only about 20% female. "And everyone says “Aha! I bet it’s because of negative stereotypes!” "This makes no sense. There were negative stereotypes about everything! Somebody has to explain why the equal and greater negative stereotypes against women in law, medicine, etc were completely powerless, yet for some reason the negative stereotypes in engineering were the ones that took hold and prevented women from succeeding there."

RodericDay 9y ago
Here's an explanation. Doctors and lawyers make for great television and movies, because of the drama involved and the ease of portraying it. Pretty girls are also a requirement for entertainment, for <reasons>. So many doctor and lawyer TV shows were cast with women in them. And then many girls aspired to be doctors and lawyers, because they saw a viable path that way. Also, secretaries and nurses worked close to doctors and lawyers and businessmen, tech was more isolated. Again, less bridge, less role model. Culture > everything.
- peacetreefrog 9y ago
  It's definitely a hypothesis, seems testable too. Not a ton of vet or linguistic or biology shows though.
edmccard 9y ago
why the equal and greater negative stereotypes against women in law, medicine, etc were completely powerless They weren't powerless; it took several class-action lawsuits and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints in the 70's to increase the number of women lawyers.[1] I've also heard, for example from some comments by 'rayiner here on HN, that law schools made deliberate changes to their admission policies yet for some reason the negative stereotypes in engineering were the ones that took hold and prevented women from succeeding there Maybe because tech, both industry and academia, hasn't made the same efforts that the legal profession did? [1] http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... (p.14 ff)
my_first_acct 9y ago
> In the year 1850... The first women were admitted to Harvard Business School in 1963 [1], which is a couple of years after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the earth. The first women were admitted as undergraduates to Caltech in 1970 [2], which is a year after the first moon landing. > As the feminist movement gradually took hold... "Gradually" seems to be the right word. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School [2] http://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html http://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  He's also talking about a field being "conquered" by quoting stats on graduating students. I would guess the split in law is less for Judges, in business for CEOs etc. so if this process is happening, then it's still in progress in all of those fields, and I'd guess you could look into each one in turn and find that some started earlier and progressed faster than others. Be interesting to see what the common points for the laggards are. I don't see any great case being made for computing to be an outlier that's different in kind rather than simply degree. I googled some stats on judges, I was correct that it lags student numbers (I say "lags" on the optimistic assumption that those students will eventually go on to be judges in similar quantities. Possibly a judge will release a 10 page manifesto about how the marxist left is forcing women to be judges when they're rather be baking cakes though, so maybe we shouldn't count our chickens until they've hatched): http://gavelgap.org/ http://gavelgap.org/ in particular this infographic which points out that women have been 50% of the students for 2 decades now, but still only 36% of the profession, and only 30% of state judges. http://gavelgap.org/assets/infographic-3-c78b5c8147005783a23e4bef667a804feb2b52bb357ec10ad984c3bec12c6a6c.jpg http://gavelgap.org/assets/infographic-3-c78b5c8147005783a23... So it seems my use of "lags" was over optimistic and student numbers aren't a great predictor, even after two decades.

RodericDay 9y ago

Here's an explanation. Doctors and lawyers make for great television and movies, because of the drama involved and the ease of portraying it. Pretty girls are also a requirement for entertainment, for <reasons>. So many doctor and lawyer TV shows were cast with women in them. And then many girls aspired to be doctors and lawyers, because they saw a viable path that way. Also, secretaries and nurses worked close to doctors and lawyers and businessmen, tech was more isolated. Again, less bridge, less role model. Culture > everything.

peacetreefrog 9y ago
It's definitely a hypothesis, seems testable too. Not a ton of vet or linguistic or biology shows though.

edmccard 9y ago

why the equal and greater negative stereotypes against women in law, medicine, etc were completely powerless They weren't powerless; it took several class-action lawsuits and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints in the 70's to increase the number of women lawyers.[1] I've also heard, for example from some comments by 'rayiner here on HN, that law schools made deliberate changes to their admission policies yet for some reason the negative stereotypes in engineering were the ones that took hold and prevented women from succeeding there Maybe because tech, both industry and academia, hasn't made the same efforts that the legal profession did? [1] http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... (p.14 ff)

my_first_acct 9y ago

> In the year 1850... The first women were admitted to Harvard Business School in 1963 [1], which is a couple of years after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the earth. The first women were admitted as undergraduates to Caltech in 1970 [2], which is a year after the first moon landing. > As the feminist movement gradually took hold... "Gradually" seems to be the right word. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School [2] http://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html http://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
He's also talking about a field being "conquered" by quoting stats on graduating students. I would guess the split in law is less for Judges, in business for CEOs etc. so if this process is happening, then it's still in progress in all of those fields, and I'd guess you could look into each one in turn and find that some started earlier and progressed faster than others. Be interesting to see what the common points for the laggards are. I don't see any great case being made for computing to be an outlier that's different in kind rather than simply degree. I googled some stats on judges, I was correct that it lags student numbers (I say "lags" on the optimistic assumption that those students will eventually go on to be judges in similar quantities. Possibly a judge will release a 10 page manifesto about how the marxist left is forcing women to be judges when they're rather be baking cakes though, so maybe we shouldn't count our chickens until they've hatched): http://gavelgap.org/ http://gavelgap.org/ in particular this infographic which points out that women have been 50% of the students for 2 decades now, but still only 36% of the profession, and only 30% of state judges. http://gavelgap.org/assets/infographic-3-c78b5c8147005783a23e4bef667a804feb2b52bb357ec10ad984c3bec12c6a6c.jpg http://gavelgap.org/assets/infographic-3-c78b5c8147005783a23... So it seems my use of "lags" was over optimistic and student numbers aren't a great predictor, even after two decades.