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You can take a look at https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/2019/EN_KV_BMBWF-GSD_BFREI_FINAL.pdf https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/20

You can take a look at https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/2019/EN_KV_BMBWF-GSD_BFREI_FINAL.pdf https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/2019/EN_KV_... Women are still fairly underrepresented in the pipeline converting undergrads to phds->postdocs->profs, with numbers dropping most of the way. I am pretty okay with affirmative action happening till those numbers are closer to 50% and then slowly phasing them out. As far as your cousin story goes, that exactly illustrates the problem. There is no reason a women could not have become a solar tech physicist. But the persistent misogyny that permeates academia, despite all these financial incentives from the top, stopped most women from taking that particular line. We need to fix the problem. You can argue that throwing money at women is perhaps not the best way, but then you have to present a method that works better at righting the wrongs in academia.

stakhanov 7y ago
You could also argue this: The part you stated before the "BUT" is a statement of fact. The part you stated after the "BUT" is complete speculation. I've never seen misogyny actually happen at any company I worked for, ever. Another piece of speculation: Women don't get those jobs because they DON'T WANT those jobs. So why throw these jobs at them, against their will? Why engage in some weird social engineering projects to make little girls want to build robots when, clearly, they don't?
- vertex-four 7y ago
  I’ve seen plenty of misogyny at nearly every tech event and gathering I’ve ever been to, as well as within the occasional work I’ve had, so either I’m going to the wrong places or you’re not looking very hard.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Or you two are working with different definitions of misogyny.
    - mhuffman 7y ago
      I suspect this is the case. One’s person’s “joking” or playful banter can be another person’s triggering misogyny!
  - Frondo 7y ago
    Agreed. If you follow any high-profile women in tech on Twitter, wade into their mentions to see sex-based harassment directed at them. It's consistent and ongoing and must be exhausting for them to deal with. (I know it would be for me.) If one's answer is that that's somehow not representative, I'd like to know why one thinks that shows up on a public forum but doesn't translate to any other parts of the industry.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      You really shouldn't believe anything someone (male or female) with a high profile on Twitter says. The more someone is driven by attention, the less trustworthy they are. They are outliers and not representative of the actual community or workforce.
      - Frondo 7y ago
        I'm not talking about anything they said. I said to look at the people responding to them with sexist harassment.
        malvosenior 7y ago
        I follow many tech leaders (men and women) on Twitter and have never seen this. If anything there's usually an massive wave of support in the replies.
        Frondo 7y ago
        I'm not sure how much time I'm willing to spend scrolling through and screencapping this stuff, but what you're saying doesn't match what I see at all. I also have all the quality filters off and often click the "show more" filter, though, and I seldom block people (and don't use any blocklists).
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  "The part you stated before the "BUT" is a statement of fact. The part you stated after the "BUT" is complete speculation." Yes, actually, this entire comment chain is speculation because the original comment was a speculation. If that means that these positions are less merit then this entire comment chain has less merit.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  You might find this illuminating https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/5#65 https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/5#65 For instance Fig 3-2 suggests that 40% of female graduate students have experienced some sort of sexist hostility. Which lines up pretty well with what I personally observed during my graduate program.
lr4444lr 7y ago
Don't you think taking off to have children might explain a lot of it? That academic path you're charting eats up almost all of the safe childbearing years.
- moosey 7y ago
  Having children should impact men as much as women, professionally and academically. The fact that it doesn't is a cultural decision, not a biological one. Why aren't men with children staying home with the kids and having the same thing happen to them? Sexism.
  - Der_Einzige 7y ago
    Lol it's both. Men don't get pregnant
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    If women want to stay home with children more than men do and successfully achieve that, it's quite the opposite of sexism. Most stay at home moms are doing exactly what they want and it's actually sexist to question their decisions.
  - cc81 7y ago
    Against women or men? Is it not sexist that men are expected to work much more than women and provide? I would say it is because of understandable historical reasons and that it is changing in a lot countries. For example in Sweden dads are taking out a larger and larger part of parental leave. It is still only 28% but increasing every year I think. There are of course many other factors that weigh in of who will take parental leave. To take some anecdotes I've seen in my circles: 1. Women tend to have partners that are older and equal or higher in social status so it is not uncommon that the men have come further in their careers. So when the man is home there will be less money for the household. Sometimes the woman uses that as an excuse to be able to home more and sometimes the man uses it because they don't want to be home. 2. Women will logically be home in the beginning due to them nursing and some want to be home longer total and the dad say yes because they feel the mom have earned it. Some women also feel that the dad will get the more fun stay at home time and want a part of that as well and not only in the beginning. It is changing but people also prioritize differently and not everything is sexism.
conradfr 7y ago
It should really depends on why the numbers are that way.
naasking 7y ago
> Women are still fairly underrepresented in the pipeline converting undergrads to phds->postdocs->profs, with numbers dropping most of the way. I am pretty okay with affirmative action happening till those numbers are closer to 50% and then slowly phasing them out. You're assuming that 1) affirmative action is effective, 2) that women are dropping out for reasons related to sexism, 3) that entrenched policies are so easily "phased out". I'm not sure any of these are true.
belorn 7y ago
I always invite people who is in favor of affirmative action to make it into a general rule to address gender segregation. Here in Sweden we had last year one higher education program where every single student is of the same gender. 100% gender segregation. The profession that those students graduate for is also unsurprising the profession with highest gender segregation. I have toyed with the idea that maybe a good step to right the wrongs and get all industries numbers closer to 50% would be to create a new tax which gave under represented genders a tax cut and over represented genders a corresponding tax increase depending on how gender segregated their chosen profession is. That would create an incentive to break gender norms in a country where 88.5% of women and men work in professions that is considered gender segregated, and employment rate of both is almost identical.

stakhanov 7y ago

You could also argue this: The part you stated before the "BUT" is a statement of fact. The part you stated after the "BUT" is complete speculation. I've never seen misogyny actually happen at any company I worked for, ever. Another piece of speculation: Women don't get those jobs because they DON'T WANT those jobs. So why throw these jobs at them, against their will? Why engage in some weird social engineering projects to make little girls want to build robots when, clearly, they don't?

vertex-four 7y ago
I’ve seen plenty of misogyny at nearly every tech event and gathering I’ve ever been to, as well as within the occasional work I’ve had, so either I’m going to the wrong places or you’re not looking very hard.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Or you two are working with different definitions of misogyny.
  - mhuffman 7y ago
    I suspect this is the case. One’s person’s “joking” or playful banter can be another person’s triggering misogyny!
- Frondo 7y ago
  Agreed. If you follow any high-profile women in tech on Twitter, wade into their mentions to see sex-based harassment directed at them. It's consistent and ongoing and must be exhausting for them to deal with. (I know it would be for me.) If one's answer is that that's somehow not representative, I'd like to know why one thinks that shows up on a public forum but doesn't translate to any other parts of the industry.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    You really shouldn't believe anything someone (male or female) with a high profile on Twitter says. The more someone is driven by attention, the less trustworthy they are. They are outliers and not representative of the actual community or workforce.
    - Frondo 7y ago
      I'm not talking about anything they said. I said to look at the people responding to them with sexist harassment.
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        I follow many tech leaders (men and women) on Twitter and have never seen this. If anything there's usually an massive wave of support in the replies.
        Frondo 7y ago
        I'm not sure how much time I'm willing to spend scrolling through and screencapping this stuff, but what you're saying doesn't match what I see at all. I also have all the quality filters off and often click the "show more" filter, though, and I seldom block people (and don't use any blocklists).
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
"The part you stated before the "BUT" is a statement of fact. The part you stated after the "BUT" is complete speculation." Yes, actually, this entire comment chain is speculation because the original comment was a speculation. If that means that these positions are less merit then this entire comment chain has less merit.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
You might find this illuminating https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/5#65 https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/5#65 For instance Fig 3-2 suggests that 40% of female graduate students have experienced some sort of sexist hostility. Which lines up pretty well with what I personally observed during my graduate program.

lr4444lr 7y ago

Don't you think taking off to have children might explain a lot of it? That academic path you're charting eats up almost all of the safe childbearing years.

moosey 7y ago
Having children should impact men as much as women, professionally and academically. The fact that it doesn't is a cultural decision, not a biological one. Why aren't men with children staying home with the kids and having the same thing happen to them? Sexism.
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  Lol it's both. Men don't get pregnant
- malvosenior 7y ago
  If women want to stay home with children more than men do and successfully achieve that, it's quite the opposite of sexism. Most stay at home moms are doing exactly what they want and it's actually sexist to question their decisions.
- cc81 7y ago
  Against women or men? Is it not sexist that men are expected to work much more than women and provide? I would say it is because of understandable historical reasons and that it is changing in a lot countries. For example in Sweden dads are taking out a larger and larger part of parental leave. It is still only 28% but increasing every year I think. There are of course many other factors that weigh in of who will take parental leave. To take some anecdotes I've seen in my circles: 1. Women tend to have partners that are older and equal or higher in social status so it is not uncommon that the men have come further in their careers. So when the man is home there will be less money for the household. Sometimes the woman uses that as an excuse to be able to home more and sometimes the man uses it because they don't want to be home. 2. Women will logically be home in the beginning due to them nursing and some want to be home longer total and the dad say yes because they feel the mom have earned it. Some women also feel that the dad will get the more fun stay at home time and want a part of that as well and not only in the beginning. It is changing but people also prioritize differently and not everything is sexism.

conradfr 7y ago

It should really depends on why the numbers are that way.

naasking 7y ago

> Women are still fairly underrepresented in the pipeline converting undergrads to phds->postdocs->profs, with numbers dropping most of the way. I am pretty okay with affirmative action happening till those numbers are closer to 50% and then slowly phasing them out. You're assuming that 1) affirmative action is effective, 2) that women are dropping out for reasons related to sexism, 3) that entrenched policies are so easily "phased out". I'm not sure any of these are true.

belorn 7y ago

I always invite people who is in favor of affirmative action to make it into a general rule to address gender segregation. Here in Sweden we had last year one higher education program where every single student is of the same gender. 100% gender segregation. The profession that those students graduate for is also unsurprising the profession with highest gender segregation. I have toyed with the idea that maybe a good step to right the wrongs and get all industries numbers closer to 50% would be to create a new tax which gave under represented genders a tax cut and over represented genders a corresponding tax increase depending on how gender segregated their chosen profession is. That would create an incentive to break gender norms in a country where 88.5% of women and men work in professions that is considered gender segregated, and employment rate of both is almost identical.