3 ms·

> Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? This guy actually put some pretty decent work into researching this - he found that women

> Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? This guy actually put some pretty decent work into researching this - he found that women dominate "sociable" STEM fields like veterinary sciences and obstetrics, while men dominate the "cold" STEM branches like surgery and computer science. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

tptacek 9y ago
Alexander believes a lot of things. But you can just look up the stats on STEM fields yourself; they're not hard to find. There are STEM fields that approach parity, there are a couple in which women slightly lead men, and there are a bunch with more men than women. But CS is, by what to a casual glance looks like multiple stddevs, worse than the rest. Unless math is "warmer" than CS --- it isn't --- this explanation doesn't hold much water.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Maths is clearly warmer. Go look at the stats for undergrad vs postgrad. There's a huge difference. Women get maths degrees to become teachers, more or less.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Women do not get math PhD's to become math teachers, nor do they publish cryptography research to do that.
    - dllthomas 9y ago
      Playing devil's advocate, it's possible that someone winds up getting a PhD or publishing crypto research after finding out that they really like doing math, after initially choosing it with the intent to teach. I have absolutely no idea whether that matches reality for enough people to make any kind of a difference.
- Veelox 9y ago
  He address that in the article "Women are around 20% of CS majors, physics majors, engineering majors, etc – but almost half of math majors" ... "I was totally confused by this for a while until a commenter directed me to the data on what people actually do with math degrees. The answer is mostly: they become math teachers. They work in elementary schools and high schools, with people. Then all those future math teachers leave for the schools after undergrad, and so math grad school ends up with pretty much the same male-tilted gender balance as CS, physics, and engineering grad school."
  - tptacek 9y ago
    No, the numbers hold up all the way to PhDs. Women aren't obtaining math PhD's to become "math teachers" (and, if you read my original comment, you can also predict that they aren't doing academic crypto research to go teach math either).
    - chillee 9y ago
      Could you provide a citation on "the numbers hold up all the way to PhDs"? I found https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-phd.cfm https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-p... Vs https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajors.cfm https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajor... Over 40% undergraduate degrees go to women, while less than 30% of doctorates.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        https://imgur.com/a/nNHqwsP https://imgur.com/a/nNHqwsP Science Magazine, "Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines", vertical axis is PhDs, 2011 numbers. If nothing else at this point I think we can put a bullet in the "they just want to be math teachers" hypothesis.
        aptwebapps 9y ago
        That url works, but no image loads.

tptacek 9y ago

Alexander believes a lot of things. But you can just look up the stats on STEM fields yourself; they're not hard to find. There are STEM fields that approach parity, there are a couple in which women slightly lead men, and there are a bunch with more men than women. But CS is, by what to a casual glance looks like multiple stddevs, worse than the rest. Unless math is "warmer" than CS --- it isn't --- this explanation doesn't hold much water.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Maths is clearly warmer. Go look at the stats for undergrad vs postgrad. There's a huge difference. Women get maths degrees to become teachers, more or less.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Women do not get math PhD's to become math teachers, nor do they publish cryptography research to do that.
  - dllthomas 9y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, it's possible that someone winds up getting a PhD or publishing crypto research after finding out that they really like doing math, after initially choosing it with the intent to teach. I have absolutely no idea whether that matches reality for enough people to make any kind of a difference.
Veelox 9y ago
He address that in the article "Women are around 20% of CS majors, physics majors, engineering majors, etc – but almost half of math majors" ... "I was totally confused by this for a while until a commenter directed me to the data on what people actually do with math degrees. The answer is mostly: they become math teachers. They work in elementary schools and high schools, with people. Then all those future math teachers leave for the schools after undergrad, and so math grad school ends up with pretty much the same male-tilted gender balance as CS, physics, and engineering grad school."
- tptacek 9y ago
  No, the numbers hold up all the way to PhDs. Women aren't obtaining math PhD's to become "math teachers" (and, if you read my original comment, you can also predict that they aren't doing academic crypto research to go teach math either).
  - chillee 9y ago
    Could you provide a citation on "the numbers hold up all the way to PhDs"? I found https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-phd.cfm https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-p... Vs https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajors.cfm https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajor... Over 40% undergraduate degrees go to women, while less than 30% of doctorates.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      https://imgur.com/a/nNHqwsP https://imgur.com/a/nNHqwsP Science Magazine, "Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines", vertical axis is PhDs, 2011 numbers. If nothing else at this point I think we can put a bullet in the "they just want to be math teachers" hypothesis.
      - aptwebapps 9y ago
        That url works, but no image loads.