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What's really annoying about this is that women are not underrepresented in STEM careers! The article mentions if anything, they are overrepresented in the life

by Noos 9y ago

What's really annoying about this is that women are not underrepresented in STEM careers! The article mentions if anything, they are overrepresented in the life sciences, and are only underrepresented in math at the doctoral level. The issue is that we are suddenly defining STEM as computer science and engineering only, and that those are apparently the only worthwhile aspects of STEM. The sexism thing and message thing is odd when you realize women in general can make up to two thirds of science teachers. I think the problem with computer science in general is that it's one of the few careers you need to like at an early age and do a lot of self-directed study before you even enter college, or you are at a disadvantage compared to others. This affects both men and women, and keep in mind most men aren't interested in those fields either.

ghaff 9y ago
>I think the problem with computer science in general is that it's one of the few careers you need to like at an early age and do a lot of self-directed study before you even enter college, or you are at a disadvantage compared to others. I do strongly suspect that has a lot to do with the fall-off in women working in CS. (It's probably not limited to that though it probably also leads to some self-perpetuating feedback loops.) It's almost unique among careers in that regard with the arts (playing music, etc.) or sports being the only other major exceptions. You don't just decide in high school you'd like to do the violin thing and apply to Juilliard. But it's considered perfectly normal to decide you really liked high school chemistry, even if that's the extent of your exposure to it, and consider majoring in it once you hit college. On the other hand, I've taken a couple of programming MOOCs based on intro programming courses at a couple of elite schools. The idea that I could have made it through them as a freshman never having touched a text editor/IDE is farcical. Yet [EDITED for clarity: when I took an intro programming course as a mechanical engineer in college way back when there was no expectation that I had ever touched a computer]. (I had done a little BASIC programming in high school but it was very rudimentary.)
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
I don't think it's just Engineering and Maths that have a problem. There's this joke where someone says "A man and his son are in a car crash and they're taken to hospital. The doctor sees the child and goes 'Oh no! It's my son!'". Then they ask you "who is the doctor"? The point is that you are supposed to struggle with the answer because you can't imagine the doctor to be the boy's mother. That there exists an assumption that people will find this difficult to answer suggests that there is some sort of expected cultural bias about doctors being male or female. An anecodte, of course- literally.
- matthew349hall 9y ago
  What if it's a gay couple? Kind of subverts the joke. Interesting how the joke only works when we lock ourselves in the past.
- bloak 9y ago
  That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    I dunno, it threw me off for a bit - "doctor" still has a very male connotation with me. Mind you I've not seen one in forever.
    - err4nt 9y ago
      In english 'Doctor' is a word that at one time exclusively did refer only to males. A word used for females was 'Doctress' http://doctordoctress.org http://doctordoctress.org
      - bloak 9y ago
        That could be relevant. Also the word "actor", with the same ending, is sometimes (by some newspapers, for example) reserved for men. Sometimes a similar trick anecdote is told about a "German". There's a suspicion that the ending "man" in "German" primes the listener to imagine a man.
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    My kid sister is a critical care-trauma surgeon. One of her (least) favourite stories when she worked in the South was when she took care of a rather complex ICU case. At the end of it the patient said, "I just want you to know that you were great, but I never saw the doctor once." My sister is rarely at a loss for words but I'm not sure _she_ even knew what to say to that.
- 9y ago

by Noos 9y ago

ghaff 9y ago

>I think the problem with computer science in general is that it's one of the few careers you need to like at an early age and do a lot of self-directed study before you even enter college, or you are at a disadvantage compared to others. I do strongly suspect that has a lot to do with the fall-off in women working in CS. (It's probably not limited to that though it probably also leads to some self-perpetuating feedback loops.) It's almost unique among careers in that regard with the arts (playing music, etc.) or sports being the only other major exceptions. You don't just decide in high school you'd like to do the violin thing and apply to Juilliard. But it's considered perfectly normal to decide you really liked high school chemistry, even if that's the extent of your exposure to it, and consider majoring in it once you hit college. On the other hand, I've taken a couple of programming MOOCs based on intro programming courses at a couple of elite schools. The idea that I could have made it through them as a freshman never having touched a text editor/IDE is farcical. Yet [EDITED for clarity: when I took an intro programming course as a mechanical engineer in college way back when there was no expectation that I had ever touched a computer]. (I had done a little BASIC programming in high school but it was very rudimentary.)

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

I don't think it's just Engineering and Maths that have a problem. There's this joke where someone says "A man and his son are in a car crash and they're taken to hospital. The doctor sees the child and goes 'Oh no! It's my son!'". Then they ask you "who is the doctor"? The point is that you are supposed to struggle with the answer because you can't imagine the doctor to be the boy's mother. That there exists an assumption that people will find this difficult to answer suggests that there is some sort of expected cultural bias about doctors being male or female. An anecodte, of course- literally.

matthew349hall 9y ago
What if it's a gay couple? Kind of subverts the joke. Interesting how the joke only works when we lock ourselves in the past.
bloak 9y ago
That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  I dunno, it threw me off for a bit - "doctor" still has a very male connotation with me. Mind you I've not seen one in forever.
  - err4nt 9y ago
    In english 'Doctor' is a word that at one time exclusively did refer only to males. A word used for females was 'Doctress' http://doctordoctress.org http://doctordoctress.org
    - bloak 9y ago
      That could be relevant. Also the word "actor", with the same ending, is sometimes (by some newspapers, for example) reserved for men. Sometimes a similar trick anecdote is told about a "German". There's a suspicion that the ending "man" in "German" primes the listener to imagine a man.
- classichasclass 9y ago
  My kid sister is a critical care-trauma surgeon. One of her (least) favourite stories when she worked in the South was when she took care of a rather complex ICU case. At the end of it the patient said, "I just want you to know that you were great, but I never saw the doctor once." My sister is rarely at a loss for words but I'm not sure _she_ even knew what to say to that.
9y ago