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> discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. Is there any evidence that this is happening, though? I've never seen anybody, even an

> discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. Is there any evidence that this is happening, though? I've never seen anybody, even anecdotally claim "I'm a woman (who is qualified) and I've been unable to find employment". Mostly what I see is people trying to work backwards and say, "if group X makes up Y% of the population and only Z% of programmers, that in itself must be evidence of discrimination".

nck4222 8y ago
It doesn't have to be overt, or even knowingly done. Children are frequently subtly pushed towards different careers because of their gender, many times by their devoted parents. It's a societal problem. EDIT: Here's one paper that talks about how "widely shared cultural beliefs about gender" affect early decisions people make wrt to their careers https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/publications/gender_and_the_career_choice_process-_the_role_of_biased_self-assessments.pdf https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/pu... "The results of this study show that males assess their own mathematical competence higher than their otherwise equal female counterparts" "self-assessments of task competence were found to influence career-relevant decisions, even when controlling for commonly accepted measures of ability. For males and females, the higher they rate their mathematical competence, the greater the odds that they will continue on the path leading to careers in the quantitative professions. However, since males tend to overestimate their mathematical competence relative to females, males are also more likely to pursue activities leading down a path toward a career in science, math, and engineering."
- r_smart 8y ago
  My GF demonstrated an aptitude for STEM at an early age. She received an enormous amount of pressure to continue down that track despite not being interested in it as a career. Your claim may have been true at one time, but I don't think it has been for awhile now. *Edit: In response to your paper: It looks like it's a research paper, not a study, written almost 20 years ago, referencing material that was ~10 years old at the time of its publication. It well may have been true, but the time the original research was collected (in the 90s) is about the time I'd argue a major cultural shift happened.
  - nck4222 8y ago
    I mean I'm not arguing that all women are discouraged from STEM, and I agree attitudes are changing, which is a good thing. I wouldn't say that the problem is solved and it doesn't happen anymore though. I provided one study above, feel free to look up more, there are plenty. Something like 80% of STEM jobs are still held by men, and obviously that's not totally a result of discouragement, but seems likely to me that part of it is.
SolaceQuantum 8y ago
Hi I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in engineering be denied opportunities for internships because the employer only wanted to hire pretty girls- a standard not extended to men. I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in software engineering be discouraged from learning software engineering at the undergraduate level, often from TAs/Professors. I can also point to other reported anecdotes, such as the big Riot Games article, several blogs/tweets confirming the article, the Uber NYT article, etc. The literal quote 'unable to find employment' does not coincide with the quoted portion 'discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied'. Employment is one of the last opportunities that can be denied or discouraged towards women- we have a wealth of educational, internship, volunteering, etc. opportunities that can serve to winnow the pipeline of appropriate female candidates before discussing employment. Note: I'm not arguing that this is universal to all women in the engineering field, merely providing some response to "I have never even heard of this phenomenon anecdotally".
UncleMeat 8y ago
I was once sitting on a plane wearing a shirt branded with a major tech company. The person next to me asked if I was a software engineer and I said yes. They excitedly started telling me about how they were doing all this work to groom their young son (age like 6) to go into tech. This person also had a similarly aged daughter and he was doing none of this for her. Perhaps the son really did love this stuff and perhaps the daughter was given the opportunity to do other things. Perhaps this was a one-off coincidence. But my experience is littered with this stuff. It happened even to me. I've got two parents who were both software engineers and I was given toys as a child that were designed to develop technical skills and my sister wasn't. The research community does not have a better explanation for the disparity than social bias.
- tomp 8y ago
  > They excitedly started telling me about how they were doing all this work to groom their young son (age like 6) to go into tech. Does this actually work though? My whole life, I've been weakly encouraged, mainly by my parents, to study economics and/or law, and discouraged (weakly by my parents, and strongly by society and bullies) from being a geek / programmer / mathematician... But in the end, I picked the latter.
  - UncleMeat 8y ago
    At an individual level it probably fails more often than it succeeds. But a small effect across a broad population can lead to real distribution differences.
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  > The research community does not have a better explanation for the disparity than social bias That's not really true. There is a lot of research showing that men and women have different interests and make different life choices, and that these choices impact career demographics. One of the most well-researched differences is that men tend to be more interested in "things", especially mechanical things, and women tend to be more interested in "people". Here is a journal article from Frontiers in Psychology that investigates how these differences-in-interest impact STEM field participation: "All STEM fields are not created equal: People and things interests explain gender disparities across STEM fields" (1): > In the current study, we investigated the gender differences in interests as an explanation for the differential distribution of women across sub-disciplines of STEM as well as the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. (...) We found gender differences in interests to vary largely by STEM field, with the largest gender differences in interests favoring men observed in engineering disciplines (d = 0.83–1.21), and in contrast, gender differences in interests favoring women in social sciences and medical services (d = −0.33 and −0.40, respectively). > Importantly, the gender composition (percentages of women) in STEM fields reflects these gender differences in interests. The patterns of gender differences in interests and the actual gender composition in STEM fields were explained by the people-orientation and things-orientation of work environments, and were not associated with the level of quantitative ability required. (...) Some studies show that these things-vs-people differences begin to manifest extremely early in life, before humans could be influenced by social factors. One famous study of this phenomenon is "Sex differences in human neonatal social perception" (2): > Sexual dimorphism in sociability has been documented in humans. The present study aimed to ascertain whether the sexual dimorphism is a result of biological or sociocultural differences between the two sexes. 102 human neonates, who by definition have not yet been influenced by social and cultural factors, were tested to see if there was a difference in looking time at a face (social object) and a mobile (physical-mechanical object). Results showed that the male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results of this research clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in part biological in origin. It is also known that testosterone levels affect decision-making and career choices, and that women tend to be more financially risk-averse than men. Since men's testosterone levels tend to be much higher than women's, and since men are less risk-averse, that results in demographic differences. For an investigation of this, see the article "Gender differences in financial risk aversion and career choices are affected by testosterone" (3). For another study on sex and brain differences see (4). There is a lot of research out there exploring the differences between men and women, and how those differences play out in our lives. Every person should be supported in choosing whatever career interests them, and should not be judged based on demographics. I'm not advocating for any kind of discrimination. I am just observing that even with total equality of opportunity, if there are biological trends in interest differences, then we will see differences in overall job demographics. (1) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018... (2) https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf (3) https://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268.full https://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268.full (4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/
QualityReboot 8y ago
I've observed the same thing. Personally, I've been pressured to hire less qualified women candidates to make the team more diverse. I've never been pressured not to hire a woman because she's a woman.

nck4222 8y ago

It doesn't have to be overt, or even knowingly done. Children are frequently subtly pushed towards different careers because of their gender, many times by their devoted parents. It's a societal problem. EDIT: Here's one paper that talks about how "widely shared cultural beliefs about gender" affect early decisions people make wrt to their careers https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/publications/gender_and_the_career_choice_process-_the_role_of_biased_self-assessments.pdf https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/pu... "The results of this study show that males assess their own mathematical competence higher than their otherwise equal female counterparts" "self-assessments of task competence were found to influence career-relevant decisions, even when controlling for commonly accepted measures of ability. For males and females, the higher they rate their mathematical competence, the greater the odds that they will continue on the path leading to careers in the quantitative professions. However, since males tend to overestimate their mathematical competence relative to females, males are also more likely to pursue activities leading down a path toward a career in science, math, and engineering."

r_smart 8y ago
My GF demonstrated an aptitude for STEM at an early age. She received an enormous amount of pressure to continue down that track despite not being interested in it as a career. Your claim may have been true at one time, but I don't think it has been for awhile now. *Edit: In response to your paper: It looks like it's a research paper, not a study, written almost 20 years ago, referencing material that was ~10 years old at the time of its publication. It well may have been true, but the time the original research was collected (in the 90s) is about the time I'd argue a major cultural shift happened.
- nck4222 8y ago
  I mean I'm not arguing that all women are discouraged from STEM, and I agree attitudes are changing, which is a good thing. I wouldn't say that the problem is solved and it doesn't happen anymore though. I provided one study above, feel free to look up more, there are plenty. Something like 80% of STEM jobs are still held by men, and obviously that's not totally a result of discouragement, but seems likely to me that part of it is.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago

Hi I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in engineering be denied opportunities for internships because the employer only wanted to hire pretty girls- a standard not extended to men. I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in software engineering be discouraged from learning software engineering at the undergraduate level, often from TAs/Professors. I can also point to other reported anecdotes, such as the big Riot Games article, several blogs/tweets confirming the article, the Uber NYT article, etc. The literal quote 'unable to find employment' does not coincide with the quoted portion 'discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied'. Employment is one of the last opportunities that can be denied or discouraged towards women- we have a wealth of educational, internship, volunteering, etc. opportunities that can serve to winnow the pipeline of appropriate female candidates before discussing employment. Note: I'm not arguing that this is universal to all women in the engineering field, merely providing some response to "I have never even heard of this phenomenon anecdotally".

UncleMeat 8y ago

I was once sitting on a plane wearing a shirt branded with a major tech company. The person next to me asked if I was a software engineer and I said yes. They excitedly started telling me about how they were doing all this work to groom their young son (age like 6) to go into tech. This person also had a similarly aged daughter and he was doing none of this for her. Perhaps the son really did love this stuff and perhaps the daughter was given the opportunity to do other things. Perhaps this was a one-off coincidence. But my experience is littered with this stuff. It happened even to me. I've got two parents who were both software engineers and I was given toys as a child that were designed to develop technical skills and my sister wasn't. The research community does not have a better explanation for the disparity than social bias.

tomp 8y ago
> They excitedly started telling me about how they were doing all this work to groom their young son (age like 6) to go into tech. Does this actually work though? My whole life, I've been weakly encouraged, mainly by my parents, to study economics and/or law, and discouraged (weakly by my parents, and strongly by society and bullies) from being a geek / programmer / mathematician... But in the end, I picked the latter.
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  At an individual level it probably fails more often than it succeeds. But a small effect across a broad population can lead to real distribution differences.
Pyxl101 8y ago
> The research community does not have a better explanation for the disparity than social bias That's not really true. There is a lot of research showing that men and women have different interests and make different life choices, and that these choices impact career demographics. One of the most well-researched differences is that men tend to be more interested in "things", especially mechanical things, and women tend to be more interested in "people". Here is a journal article from Frontiers in Psychology that investigates how these differences-in-interest impact STEM field participation: "All STEM fields are not created equal: People and things interests explain gender disparities across STEM fields" (1): > In the current study, we investigated the gender differences in interests as an explanation for the differential distribution of women across sub-disciplines of STEM as well as the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. (...) We found gender differences in interests to vary largely by STEM field, with the largest gender differences in interests favoring men observed in engineering disciplines (d = 0.83–1.21), and in contrast, gender differences in interests favoring women in social sciences and medical services (d = −0.33 and −0.40, respectively). > Importantly, the gender composition (percentages of women) in STEM fields reflects these gender differences in interests. The patterns of gender differences in interests and the actual gender composition in STEM fields were explained by the people-orientation and things-orientation of work environments, and were not associated with the level of quantitative ability required. (...) Some studies show that these things-vs-people differences begin to manifest extremely early in life, before humans could be influenced by social factors. One famous study of this phenomenon is "Sex differences in human neonatal social perception" (2): > Sexual dimorphism in sociability has been documented in humans. The present study aimed to ascertain whether the sexual dimorphism is a result of biological or sociocultural differences between the two sexes. 102 human neonates, who by definition have not yet been influenced by social and cultural factors, were tested to see if there was a difference in looking time at a face (social object) and a mobile (physical-mechanical object). Results showed that the male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results of this research clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in part biological in origin. It is also known that testosterone levels affect decision-making and career choices, and that women tend to be more financially risk-averse than men. Since men's testosterone levels tend to be much higher than women's, and since men are less risk-averse, that results in demographic differences. For an investigation of this, see the article "Gender differences in financial risk aversion and career choices are affected by testosterone" (3). For another study on sex and brain differences see (4). There is a lot of research out there exploring the differences between men and women, and how those differences play out in our lives. Every person should be supported in choosing whatever career interests them, and should not be judged based on demographics. I'm not advocating for any kind of discrimination. I am just observing that even with total equality of opportunity, if there are biological trends in interest differences, then we will see differences in overall job demographics. (1) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018... (2) https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf (3) https://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268.full https://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268.full (4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/

QualityReboot 8y ago

I've observed the same thing. Personally, I've been pressured to hire less qualified women candidates to make the team more diverse. I've never been pressured not to hire a woman because she's a woman.