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Convincing women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any other career dominated by women are w

Convincing women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any other career dominated by women are wrong choices. I don't believe that, they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads at Google and Facebook.

whowouldathunk 9y ago
There is a lot of technology involved in healthcare and teaching.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  In fact, healthcare technology, specifically user interfaces, needs all of the brilliant people it can get.
  - olewhalehunter 9y ago
    As a former medical tech developer, the problems in healthcare are almost entirely social/political and the healthcare tech business is making things worse in most respects.
    - whowouldathunk 9y ago
      New drugs are making things worse? Tell that to my oncologist friends. STEM is more than CRUD apps.
      - olewhalehunter 9y ago
        Fetanyl was a new drug at some point. Pharmaceuticals are over prescribed, healthcare businesses are a leech on the infrastructure, American lifestyles are inherently unhealthy, and no amount of new drug patents are going to fix those problems. Your oncologist friends might have new drugs to prescribe but that doesn't change the core problem of soaring cancer rates due to lifestyle and environmental issues.
      - Spivak 9y ago
        Okay, you know exactly what is meant when people in this forum talk about tech. Being pedantic about the word technology isn't helping this discussion.
- EduardoBautista 9y ago
  That doesn't make school teachers or nurses any less important or necessary.
  - whowouldathunk 9y ago
    If a nursing school made a push for recruiting more male nurses I wouldn't feel like my software engineering career was a wrong choice.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      You do know that is exactly what's going on, right? There are plenty of male only scholarships in nursing school and schools put forth considerable effort to assuage the fears that men have entering the field and provide special accommodations and support for them including campaigns to get their co-workers to stop calling them 'male nurses'.
      - whowouldathunk 9y ago
        Yes, and I'm saying I don't see anything wrong with that.
  - wan23 9y ago
    Meanwhile, nursing as a profession is seeking more men to increase diversity as well.
eganist 9y ago
That's not the argument being made by advocates for women in STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it) is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing not to pursue it because of socioeconomic blockers. Blockers such as this guy. Anyway, the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and biases against them solely because of gender. Male nurses are an example in the reverse direction.
- UK-AL 9y ago
  The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.
  - peeters 9y ago
    What evidence do we have of that?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - whowouldathunk 9y ago
    > there preferences will be set either by nature or culture. Culture is something that hiring practices can change.
  - thatfrenchguy 9y ago
    The thing being that people are everything but free and equal in our societies today.
  - anonymouskimmer 9y ago
samstave 9y ago
+1 Look at the output of ones work. If the output of ones work is positive, then it doesn't really matter how they got there or what they do. The elephant wrt to "women are under-represented in stem careers" is that education is not universally applied/available. Gender should not matter. Provide universal education from birth to all minds and let those minds "mind their own business" as it were... If people land in places due to their own thought, that is a true democracy of thought and freedom - but poor choices only ever occur based on poor information.
pinaceae 9y ago
So why not encourage men to pursue careers in nursing and teaching?
- EduardoBautista 9y ago
  I would go ahead and say because men are just not interested in those careers as much as women. That's the whole point. And that is fine.
  - whowouldathunk 9y ago
    The point is disputed: to what extent are the differences biological vs. environmental? Hiring practices could influence preferences.
  - hrktb 9y ago
    There were more men in these roles when it was more respected and well paid. As the relative wages and notarity declined, men started targetting ‘higher jobs’ For instance these are the numbers for teachers for the last decades: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.a...
  - busterarm 9y ago
    If you talk to men who worked as primary school teachers (within the last 20 years) and then changed careers, you'll hear a lot of interesting stories of discrimination.
  - lobotryas 9y ago
    Exactly. No one's worried that we have too few female coal miners or garbage collectors. These are physically demanding, not prestigious and often low-paying jobs. Hell, no one's worried that we have too few female oil rig workers and these ARE (in my understanding) high paying jobs. But STEM? That's somehow different.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      > Exactly. No one's worried that we have too few female coal miners > Hell, no one's worried that we have too few female oil rig workers There are programmes to increase the numbers of women in both those industries. There's news media coverage of it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2016/12/07/the-energy-gender-gap-still-a-long-road-ahead/#46a3ec282cad https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2016/12/07/the-energy-... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11620315/Building-and-construction-industry-must-nail-the-gender-imbalance.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11620315/Bu... There's research on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279861/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279861/
deleted 9y ago
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dogecoinbase 9y ago
they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads Then they should be more respected and be paid more. Until they are, asking people to go into them when better, easier jobs exist is patronizing.
- rednerrus 9y ago
  Is your assertion that being a teacher or a nurse is easier than SWE?
  - avs733 9y ago
    read it again...the argument is the opposite. And speaking for the OP, I would imagine 'easy' in this context likely includes many elements but is strongly influenced by physical demand of these activities.
hrktb 9y ago
Objectively these careers are less well paid. We all have our opinions, but money is society’s way of prioritizing activities. And these jobs as essential as they should be, also get shittier shittier in average , as time goes on, which doesn’t help.
- godd2 9y ago
  The median income for a pediatrician is ~170k vs the median income of software engineer at ~80k, but 75% of pediatricians are women. So no, it's not only the "less well-paid" jobs. And even if it were, a lot of the lowest paid jobs are almost entirely men, like garbage collectors and construction workers.
  - ebola1717 9y ago
    This is a ridiculously cherry-picked statistic. Pediatricians are the worst paid doctors. In fact, most of the specialties in which women are more common are lower paid: https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-vary-gender https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/07/20/the-best-and-worst-paying-jobs-for-doctors-2/2/#27b9e6274d4c https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/07/20/the-b...
  - hrktb 9y ago
    I’m not familiar enough with the field, but from what I get scanning payscale.com: - general physician: 60% women, 137k in average - pediatricians: 80% women, 144k in average - obstetricians/gynecologists: 70% women, 205k in average - radiologist: 20% women, 300k in average Basically, in the doctors field pediatrician or gynecologist are middle range salary. Nothing to sneeze at, but the more lucrative areas pay way more and are dominated by men. And honestly I don’t think the requirements for radiologist is so much harder than gynecologists, or is it ? (I am no radiologist, that’s just my impression)
    - MagnumOpus 9y ago
      Since there isn't much difference in required skill or credentials or prerequisites (let's assume there isn't) we are back to preferences. What do we observe? The top three are high-social-interaction, nurturing-type jobs, the bottom one is technology-heavy and more solitary. So we are back at the point that the document made - differing preferences are a far more likely explanation than discrimination.
ebola1717 9y ago
The fact that those fields are undervalued (and often underpaid) is a huge part of this discussion that anyone who fights for diversity in tech is well aware of and has been saying long before this memo was released.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

whowouldathunk 9y ago

There is a lot of technology involved in healthcare and teaching.

FLUX-YOU 9y ago
In fact, healthcare technology, specifically user interfaces, needs all of the brilliant people it can get.
- olewhalehunter 9y ago
  As a former medical tech developer, the problems in healthcare are almost entirely social/political and the healthcare tech business is making things worse in most respects.
  - whowouldathunk 9y ago
    New drugs are making things worse? Tell that to my oncologist friends. STEM is more than CRUD apps.
    - olewhalehunter 9y ago
      Fetanyl was a new drug at some point. Pharmaceuticals are over prescribed, healthcare businesses are a leech on the infrastructure, American lifestyles are inherently unhealthy, and no amount of new drug patents are going to fix those problems. Your oncologist friends might have new drugs to prescribe but that doesn't change the core problem of soaring cancer rates due to lifestyle and environmental issues.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      Okay, you know exactly what is meant when people in this forum talk about tech. Being pedantic about the word technology isn't helping this discussion.
EduardoBautista 9y ago
That doesn't make school teachers or nurses any less important or necessary.
- whowouldathunk 9y ago
  If a nursing school made a push for recruiting more male nurses I wouldn't feel like my software engineering career was a wrong choice.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    You do know that is exactly what's going on, right? There are plenty of male only scholarships in nursing school and schools put forth considerable effort to assuage the fears that men have entering the field and provide special accommodations and support for them including campaigns to get their co-workers to stop calling them 'male nurses'.
    - whowouldathunk 9y ago
      Yes, and I'm saying I don't see anything wrong with that.
- wan23 9y ago
  Meanwhile, nursing as a profession is seeking more men to increase diversity as well.

eganist 9y ago

That's not the argument being made by advocates for women in STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it) is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing not to pursue it because of socioeconomic blockers. Blockers such as this guy. Anyway, the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and biases against them solely because of gender. Male nurses are an example in the reverse direction.

UK-AL 9y ago
The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.
- peeters 9y ago
  What evidence do we have of that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- whowouldathunk 9y ago
  > there preferences will be set either by nature or culture. Culture is something that hiring practices can change.
- thatfrenchguy 9y ago
  The thing being that people are everything but free and equal in our societies today.
- anonymouskimmer 9y ago

samstave 9y ago

+1 Look at the output of ones work. If the output of ones work is positive, then it doesn't really matter how they got there or what they do. The elephant wrt to "women are under-represented in stem careers" is that education is not universally applied/available. Gender should not matter. Provide universal education from birth to all minds and let those minds "mind their own business" as it were... If people land in places due to their own thought, that is a true democracy of thought and freedom - but poor choices only ever occur based on poor information.

pinaceae 9y ago

So why not encourage men to pursue careers in nursing and teaching?

EduardoBautista 9y ago
I would go ahead and say because men are just not interested in those careers as much as women. That's the whole point. And that is fine.
- whowouldathunk 9y ago
  The point is disputed: to what extent are the differences biological vs. environmental? Hiring practices could influence preferences.
- hrktb 9y ago
  There were more men in these roles when it was more respected and well paid. As the relative wages and notarity declined, men started targetting ‘higher jobs’ For instance these are the numbers for teachers for the last decades: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.a...
- busterarm 9y ago
  If you talk to men who worked as primary school teachers (within the last 20 years) and then changed careers, you'll hear a lot of interesting stories of discrimination.
- lobotryas 9y ago
  Exactly. No one's worried that we have too few female coal miners or garbage collectors. These are physically demanding, not prestigious and often low-paying jobs. Hell, no one's worried that we have too few female oil rig workers and these ARE (in my understanding) high paying jobs. But STEM? That's somehow different.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > Exactly. No one's worried that we have too few female coal miners > Hell, no one's worried that we have too few female oil rig workers There are programmes to increase the numbers of women in both those industries. There's news media coverage of it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2016/12/07/the-energy-gender-gap-still-a-long-road-ahead/#46a3ec282cad https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2016/12/07/the-energy-... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11620315/Building-and-construction-industry-must-nail-the-gender-imbalance.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11620315/Bu... There's research on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279861/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279861/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dogecoinbase 9y ago

they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads Then they should be more respected and be paid more. Until they are, asking people to go into them when better, easier jobs exist is patronizing.

rednerrus 9y ago
Is your assertion that being a teacher or a nurse is easier than SWE?
- avs733 9y ago
  read it again...the argument is the opposite. And speaking for the OP, I would imagine 'easy' in this context likely includes many elements but is strongly influenced by physical demand of these activities.

hrktb 9y ago

Objectively these careers are less well paid. We all have our opinions, but money is society’s way of prioritizing activities. And these jobs as essential as they should be, also get shittier shittier in average , as time goes on, which doesn’t help.

godd2 9y ago
The median income for a pediatrician is ~170k vs the median income of software engineer at ~80k, but 75% of pediatricians are women. So no, it's not only the "less well-paid" jobs. And even if it were, a lot of the lowest paid jobs are almost entirely men, like garbage collectors and construction workers.
- ebola1717 9y ago
  This is a ridiculously cherry-picked statistic. Pediatricians are the worst paid doctors. In fact, most of the specialties in which women are more common are lower paid: https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-vary-gender https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/07/20/the-best-and-worst-paying-jobs-for-doctors-2/2/#27b9e6274d4c https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/07/20/the-b...
- hrktb 9y ago
  I’m not familiar enough with the field, but from what I get scanning payscale.com: - general physician: 60% women, 137k in average - pediatricians: 80% women, 144k in average - obstetricians/gynecologists: 70% women, 205k in average - radiologist: 20% women, 300k in average Basically, in the doctors field pediatrician or gynecologist are middle range salary. Nothing to sneeze at, but the more lucrative areas pay way more and are dominated by men. And honestly I don’t think the requirements for radiologist is so much harder than gynecologists, or is it ? (I am no radiologist, that’s just my impression)
  - MagnumOpus 9y ago
    Since there isn't much difference in required skill or credentials or prerequisites (let's assume there isn't) we are back to preferences. What do we observe? The top three are high-social-interaction, nurturing-type jobs, the bottom one is technology-heavy and more solitary. So we are back at the point that the document made - differing preferences are a far more likely explanation than discrimination.

ebola1717 9y ago

The fact that those fields are undervalued (and often underpaid) is a huge part of this discussion that anyone who fights for diversity in tech is well aware of and has been saying long before this memo was released.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]