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Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something, but when boys do they're told it's just their privilege that mad

Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something, but when boys do they're told it's just their privilege that made them succeed? In our current school there are 3 STEM programs for girls, one that is for both boys and girls. One of the programs for girls is very well funded by local startup money and gets designers, marketers, etc to make them fun. The one for both boys and girls is volunteer run and while I respect and appreciate the effort, frankly it not fun and exciting at all. It's little better than someone just handing you a textbook to read. I'm all for making STEM (coding especially) inclusive and welcoming for all. Nobody should face discrimination or harassment based on gender (or any other attribute). Unfortunately it's the boys getting the shaft right now. I can't imagine the outrage that would happen if someone started a "boys only" program, yet it almost seems like that's what needs to happen. We're back to the days of striving for "separate but equal."

geofft 6y ago
Also, most of the discrimination in STEM happens later in life, in the workplace - the only real effect of getting more girls into STEM is to have a larger pool of women entering STEM careers so you still have some left after driving a bunch of them off. Businesses donating to STEM-for-schoolgirls programs is a way for them to assuage their conscience (or to do PR) without having to ask what they can be doing directly to solve the actual problem. And I'm afraid this increases the perception that men are naturally fine at STEM and women need special support because of inherent gender attributes (and not because of social problems that we could just address at the root)... which at the end of the day makes life harder for women in their careers.
- petsormeat 6y ago
  +1. Everybody's setting up balloon drops and loud publicity stunts for these "let's get girls to code!" initiatives. Nobody's calling serious attention to the lack of female tech leads, directors, and VPs, because that would require uncomfortable investigation into why non-male employees aren't retained and promoted.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    Those directors and Vps promoting these gender programs certainly wouldn't support programs that make their own positions more competitive.
johndevor 6y ago
> "boys only" program, Even the "boy scouts" are just the scouts now: https://www.scouting.org/ https://www.scouting.org/
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Scout groups are mixed all over the world, it really doesn't make much difference - the only thing I noticed moving from a mixed one to an older all-boys one is that the boys one was much much more violent but that was mostly due to the leaders not stopping it.
  - collegeburner 6y ago
    I got out just before the change and am hearing some pretty dopey stuff from buddies still in the program. Like they can't go pee behind a tree any more, can't swim with shirts off. Trust me, dynamics change when girls are around. There was a mixed program already, btw, called Venturing. I'll add that one of the best things about Boy Scouts was that we could do stuff that was dangerous, but not too dangerous. We didn't have any moms come along either, and I think that helped. Dads would stop us from doing something truly stupid (like permanent injury type stupid), but not something dumb that would bruise us and teach us a lesson. It also allowed us to do lots more fun stuff. These days, tree forts are a no-no, apparently. Some guys from my old troop were building one at a mixed event recently. Some girls from another troop came over and said it wasn't safe, then got some karen from their troop to come yell at the boys. Oh, and and apparently it's no longer okay to climb above chest height these days, because it's "not safe". I'm way too young to be saying, "Back when I was young, we did $UNSAFE_THING all the time! We liked it, and never got hurt." Or at least, I thought I was.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      I cannot relate to anything you've said and I spent I think 10 years in a mixed one
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    That's because males naturally use aggression/assertiveness to establish social hierarchy. That's the reason for having all-boys groups for youth, it gives them a space to work that out in a controlled way and learn how to channel their energy and aggression in positive directions.
andi999 6y ago
Interesting question would be in which of the two programs more technical skill will be acquired. Downvoters: why is this not interesting? Traditional textbook way of learning might be better than making things too much fun. (it still has to be fun, but intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic). We will never know if we don't measure the outcome.
- BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
  Well at least in our case the skill in the co-ed program is 0 because my son hated it and wanted to quit. I'm now helping him learn to code on his own. Scratch has been a god send. I'm glad Scratch is available for all genders.
eloff 6y ago
This is what's dangerous about affirmative action type programs. They're discrimination going in the other direction with the objective of equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. The ultimate equal outcome is communism - everyone ends up equally poor. That doesn't seem like the right direction. On the other hand how do you get more girls into STEM without programs like this? Maybe it's the best of bad options.
- aisofteng 6y ago
  Why is “get more women into STEM” a worthy goal in and of itself?
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    Well, it depends on whether women stay out of STEM because they don't care about programming, or whether they stay out of STEM because they're worried about being alone in a toxic environment. Ideally a diversity program would not influence group 1 while solving the problem for group 2.
    - aisofteng 6y ago
      That’s a different problem. “Fix toxic environments that keep certain types of people out of an honest line of work” is a good problem to solve. That is not the same as “let’s increase the number of people of a certain demographic within an industry”, in and of itself, taken entirely on its own.
    - eloff 6y ago
      If you phrase the problem like that, there is no problem. Group 1 is tiny compared to group 2. I think addressing group 2 is a desirable and valid goal. Societal gender roles say nurses and teachers are women's work and STEM is man's work. That's the thing one would need to address, and at a young age. It's not entirely clear how one can do that. One "only" has to challenge the societal norms that define gender roles themselves. Not an easy problem.
      - 6y ago
EGreg 6y ago
That’s interesting, that overt discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic (sex, race) is allowed in these cases, even by public institutions. How is it not challenged in the courts under the various civil rights acts and nondiscrimination laws of states? However, if we are going to solve a problem (eg non biodegradeable plastic) we must do it upstream (eg taxing non biodegradeable plastic and nudging corporations into switching to biodegradeable materials), rather than expend tons of effort downstream (eg banning plastic bags, straws and blaming individuals). Same here... if we are going to be doing something about girls in STEM as a society, I’d rather do it upstream — earlier in life — because otherwise trying to fiddle around the edges later is just a bandaid. PS: as an aside, I found the expression “it’s the boys getting the shaft right now” a bit ironic, given the origins of the phrase https://www.etymonline.com/word/shaft https://www.etymonline.com/word/shaft
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  At least in Canada, discrimination is considered the denial of something, but anything that improves someone's condition on the basis of race is fine. [Race] may not own houses. -- Illegal. [Race] is given extra help to own houses. -- Legal
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    Odd, I suspect the same people would offer the idea that wealth disparity is bad.
  - mvuijlst 6y ago
    Isn't "[Race] is given extra help to own houses" the same as "[not-Race] is given no extra help to own houses"?
    - lumost 6y ago
      On average [Not-Race] has more wealth to afford houses, or home ownership is more common than [Race] in these programs. You do see anger when individuals perceive they can't afford homes, school, or other big ticket items and perceive that they aren't given help - but that isn't quite the same as denying people something.
unix_fan 6y ago
This is what I’ve always said. I was just looking for scholarships in computer science, and I was surprised at the amount of women only scholarships I found. Society in general has less sympathy for men, and this is a pretty hard truth i’ve discovered.
- collegeburner 6y ago
  I will second this. I was hunting for merit scholarships, as this has been a tough year and college is pricey, even with the scholarships I have. For existing college students, most of those I found were for women only, especially for CS. But I'm not eligible, because I was born a guy. fml. Edit: btw the thing that annoys me about this is that I already won some tough and prestigious merit scholarships so I actually would have a good shot at these and probably get one if I applied to several. So it's more direct here for me.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    At this point, everyone should just say they're a woman.
    - collegeburner 6y ago
      Lol, a buddy jokingly suggested that. But joking aside, if we took sex and race off documents, job apps, college apps, etc. it would really help.
      - astura 6y ago
        Sex and race are not on job applications in the US.
        runarberg 6y ago
        If I remember correctly names on applications that are traditionally more likely to be given to a black person is still considered less qualified on an identical resume than a name that is traditionally given to a white person. I don’t know if sending photos with your resume is still practiced in the USA (I think it is illegal in the UK) but if that is still the case than gender and ethnicity are still very much on the average job application.
runarberg 6y ago
Probably not. If I remember correctly there is no correlation (and sometimes even negative) between unearned praise and performance. A more likely explanation which is backed up by evidence is that generalized perception of a group by the teacher will yield grades accordingly, so the more research that shows girls being better at school will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Teachers have to work hard to counter this bias (and many do). There is also a possibility that there is some biological difference that makes certain teaching methods that just so happen to be favored by teachers at the moment are a tiny bit easier for one gender over others. However I would like to see some research before I subscribe to that, but remain open for the possibility meanwhile. That all said, if there is a difference, but the effect size is small, then honestly: Does it matter?
- xenocratus 6y ago
  > If I remember correctly there is no correlation (and sometimes even negative) between unearned praise and performance. That's not what the parent comment is saying - it's saying that earned praise is not given at the same rate for males as for females.
paulsutter 6y ago
As an employer I'm thrilled to hear about these programs to encourage more women in STEM. They seem completely unrelated to overall academic performance however, and your complaint sounds a little whiny. I'm as tired of woke nonsense as anyone, but these programs are a great idea.
- BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
  What should I tell my son when he asks why he can't be in the "cool" group? What would you tell him? He is 10 currently.
  - paulsutter 6y ago
    If he wants to go into STEM, he should totally do it. I did, and I’ve been pretty much the opposite of cool since well before age 10 Being cool is a chump thing
hyko 6y ago
Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement Definitely not, because this gender difference far predates our belief as a society that women are as capable as men in STEM subjects and careers.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something, but when boys do they're told it's just their privilege that made them succeed? Probably not, no. Setting aside the deliberately inflammatory description you chose to use here, this is a complex phenomenon observed over quite a long period in a variety of different locations and social backgrounds globally, and the suggestion that it could be simplified to "uneven praise" doesn't seem to correlate with any research I've seen. Unfortunately it's the boys getting the shaft right now. It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft".
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  It boils down to what those targeted efforts are. If they are removing bias against a group, fine. If they are introducing artificial favoritism for the group, that's problematic as now others are losing equal opportunity.
- xenocratus 6y ago
  > It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft". It depends on whether the efforts go from "equal access" to positive discrimination, and I'm not sure where that line is drawn or if people are interested in drawing it
- BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
  > It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft". If "equal access" is the goal (which I agree it should be), why are we excluding a group based on immutable characteristics? You really see that as equal?
wowowowow 6y ago
I don't think this is the case at all, this has been a trend since basically the start of all public schooling. And on a tangent, as for "girls in STEM" programs, I'm not really sure why they need to exist. I think a "girls in STEM" program is as necessary as a "boys in teaching" program, and that is, not at all. Different genders will naturally gravitate towards different fields, and we don't need to fight that.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
I read 10 years ago that males were on the verge of getting preferential acceptance at colleges. There's a pop theory / crackpot idea that men tend to be on average "dumber" than women, but with a higher standard distribution, so they will have more "geniuses". Women will be on average "smarter", but lower standard deviation. If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that, since while women will have a high chance of reproduction, male biology will need to have more variance and "risk" to achieve some sort of distinction to get to the comparatively lower reproductive success rate of males. In reality, our schooling is now so screwed up between grade inflation, teaching for the test, over-prescribing ADD drugs (which is opioid dependence grooming by the drug companies), reduced funding, destruction of the middle class, and a host of other changes to society and policy.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  > There's a pop theory / crackpot idea that men tend to be on average "dumber" than women, but with a higher standard distribution, so they will have more "geniuses". The current understanding is that the average is generally similar, and males have greater variability. So yes, vastly more male geniuses. But men have larger brains for a reason, so it might be we're biased against measuring anything men are better at. > If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that It doesn't. The main reason is because female mammals have duplicate sex chromosomes, and the effects get combined together. In some other kinds of animals (such as birds) females tend to have greater variability. So it's a haphazard consequence of some evolutionary split way back when. (Who knows, maybe the causation of disposable males is there, but in the other direction.)
- monoideism 6y ago
  That's not a "crackpot theory" but what the data currently show. This doesn't mean that there's a biological cause for this (although it's possible). But with IQ data, there's abundant evidence that the averages are similar, but men have greater variability: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26158978/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26158978/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-irwing-there-are-twice-many-men-women-iq-120-plus-426321.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-...
rayiner 6y ago
> In our current school there are 3 STEM programs for girls, one that is for both boys and girls. Is this a public school? What does "for girls" mean? Like, can you enroll a boy?
- BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
  I actually considered just enrolling him to see what would happen, but I didn't want my child to become a lightning rod for a political battle between adults. The description of the program specifically says, "for girls" and it has a cartoon graphic with a few different female characters of different skin colors, each dressed as some profession. It doesn't say, "no boys" or anything like that, but as I said above I'm hesitant to try with my son. If it were me I would do it.
andylei 6y ago
Your STEM example explains very little of this gender gap. The article says: 1. this gender gap begins very early (kindergarden), before the majority of "women in STEM" programs begin 2. are international (i'm fairly certain they don't have women in STEM programs in China, for example) 3. it doesn't explain why the differences are inversely related to income level (do you think there are more "women in STEM" programs at lower income levels?) 4. this difference is very old (>50 years of this effect)
- klyrs 6y ago
  > 4. this difference is very old (>50 years of this effect) About 100 years ago, women were explicitly forbidden from most colleges and universities. The attitude that women aren't cut out for, and should be excluded from STEM dates back to Socrates (~400 bce), at least. I'm not a historian but that wasn't terribly long after Greeks started writing things down.
  - garden_hermit 6y ago
    It could very well be that women have had the potential to outperform men in academic tasks since Socrates, but never had the chance until widespread and egalitarian schooling.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      I'm not even 40 and in my education, I heard several STEM teachers say that girls can't hack it. The latest of which occurred a mere 10 years ago at a public university. "Egalitarian schooling" is an extremely novel concept and many parents and teachers (men and women) still haven't bought in on the idea.
      - Noos 6y ago
        They hack it perfectly fine in microbiology,(71% female) and veterinary science (65%). The main issue is that they really aren't represented in computer science and engineering STEM fields, as well as research scientists. But if you looked at all the STEM fields, it is probably more even, or there even are significant male shortages in some. The issue is that a lot of people don't really define stem as stem, they define it as RCE-research, computers, and engineering. Linking the pew article for more detail: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-stem-workforce-varies-widely-across-jobs/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-...
azalemeth 6y ago
Something else to consider is that some times these hiring bises are explicit and others they are de facto the way things are be [1]. In my university there is a target to have at least x% of new faculty hires female. It's against the law to state a direct number (e.g. 7) but apparently that method is fine in my country... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360 https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Until STEM fields actually have at least a semi-decent gender balance, I don't have a problem with any of this, because apparently it's not even enough to counter the inherent cultural biases that push woman away from technology fields. I mean, I suppose it's also possible that these programs just don't do anything and we should scrap them due to lack of results, but I'm inclined to believe they're helping somewhat. (Semi-disclaimer: Prior to COVID I used to volunteer at Girls Who Code.)
- monoideism 6y ago
  What if the case is that the more choice our women in our society have, the more they choose jobs that deal with people (medicine, politics, management, marketing, social sciences, etc) and the less they choose jobs that deal with things (engineering, computer science, etc)? Because there's a lot of evidence to suggest that's what happens. As measured by the Global Gender Gap Index , the countries with the highest levels of gender equality, such as Scandanavia, have the lowest levels of female programmers and engineers, whereas countries with much lower scores and more traditional views on genders (such as Iran UAE) have some of the highest levels of female programmers and engineers. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...
astura 6y ago
Dunno why you think "girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something." My experience growing up as a girl totally contradicts that.
brighton36 6y ago
If you don't defend your privilege, you lose it. This is what men deserve, if they're so easy steamrolled.
autokad 6y ago
It's even de-evolving to outright discrimination. I worked in a lab where participants were asked to give away their social media data for a chance to win at an ipad. The collecting of the data and lottery selection was done by a group of women. One time a man had one it, and they were upset at that fact and were going to re-run the lottery until a woman won it. I stopped them, but look where we are now. There were half a dozen of them and none of them even considered what they were about to do was wrong. I wonder how often this happens in other areas.

geofft 6y ago

Also, most of the discrimination in STEM happens later in life, in the workplace - the only real effect of getting more girls into STEM is to have a larger pool of women entering STEM careers so you still have some left after driving a bunch of them off. Businesses donating to STEM-for-schoolgirls programs is a way for them to assuage their conscience (or to do PR) without having to ask what they can be doing directly to solve the actual problem. And I'm afraid this increases the perception that men are naturally fine at STEM and women need special support because of inherent gender attributes (and not because of social problems that we could just address at the root)... which at the end of the day makes life harder for women in their careers.

petsormeat 6y ago
+1. Everybody's setting up balloon drops and loud publicity stunts for these "let's get girls to code!" initiatives. Nobody's calling serious attention to the lack of female tech leads, directors, and VPs, because that would require uncomfortable investigation into why non-male employees aren't retained and promoted.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  Those directors and Vps promoting these gender programs certainly wouldn't support programs that make their own positions more competitive.

johndevor 6y ago

> "boys only" program, Even the "boy scouts" are just the scouts now: https://www.scouting.org/ https://www.scouting.org/

mhh__ 6y ago
Scout groups are mixed all over the world, it really doesn't make much difference - the only thing I noticed moving from a mixed one to an older all-boys one is that the boys one was much much more violent but that was mostly due to the leaders not stopping it.
- collegeburner 6y ago
  I got out just before the change and am hearing some pretty dopey stuff from buddies still in the program. Like they can't go pee behind a tree any more, can't swim with shirts off. Trust me, dynamics change when girls are around. There was a mixed program already, btw, called Venturing. I'll add that one of the best things about Boy Scouts was that we could do stuff that was dangerous, but not too dangerous. We didn't have any moms come along either, and I think that helped. Dads would stop us from doing something truly stupid (like permanent injury type stupid), but not something dumb that would bruise us and teach us a lesson. It also allowed us to do lots more fun stuff. These days, tree forts are a no-no, apparently. Some guys from my old troop were building one at a mixed event recently. Some girls from another troop came over and said it wasn't safe, then got some karen from their troop to come yell at the boys. Oh, and and apparently it's no longer okay to climb above chest height these days, because it's "not safe". I'm way too young to be saying, "Back when I was young, we did $UNSAFE_THING all the time! We liked it, and never got hurt." Or at least, I thought I was.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    I cannot relate to anything you've said and I spent I think 10 years in a mixed one
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  That's because males naturally use aggression/assertiveness to establish social hierarchy. That's the reason for having all-boys groups for youth, it gives them a space to work that out in a controlled way and learn how to channel their energy and aggression in positive directions.

andi999 6y ago

Interesting question would be in which of the two programs more technical skill will be acquired. Downvoters: why is this not interesting? Traditional textbook way of learning might be better than making things too much fun. (it still has to be fun, but intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic). We will never know if we don't measure the outcome.

BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
Well at least in our case the skill in the co-ed program is 0 because my son hated it and wanted to quit. I'm now helping him learn to code on his own. Scratch has been a god send. I'm glad Scratch is available for all genders.

eloff 6y ago

This is what's dangerous about affirmative action type programs. They're discrimination going in the other direction with the objective of equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. The ultimate equal outcome is communism - everyone ends up equally poor. That doesn't seem like the right direction. On the other hand how do you get more girls into STEM without programs like this? Maybe it's the best of bad options.

aisofteng 6y ago
Why is “get more women into STEM” a worthy goal in and of itself?
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Well, it depends on whether women stay out of STEM because they don't care about programming, or whether they stay out of STEM because they're worried about being alone in a toxic environment. Ideally a diversity program would not influence group 1 while solving the problem for group 2.
  - aisofteng 6y ago
    That’s a different problem. “Fix toxic environments that keep certain types of people out of an honest line of work” is a good problem to solve. That is not the same as “let’s increase the number of people of a certain demographic within an industry”, in and of itself, taken entirely on its own.
  - eloff 6y ago
    If you phrase the problem like that, there is no problem. Group 1 is tiny compared to group 2. I think addressing group 2 is a desirable and valid goal. Societal gender roles say nurses and teachers are women's work and STEM is man's work. That's the thing one would need to address, and at a young age. It's not entirely clear how one can do that. One "only" has to challenge the societal norms that define gender roles themselves. Not an easy problem.
    - 6y ago

EGreg 6y ago

That’s interesting, that overt discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic (sex, race) is allowed in these cases, even by public institutions. How is it not challenged in the courts under the various civil rights acts and nondiscrimination laws of states? However, if we are going to solve a problem (eg non biodegradeable plastic) we must do it upstream (eg taxing non biodegradeable plastic and nudging corporations into switching to biodegradeable materials), rather than expend tons of effort downstream (eg banning plastic bags, straws and blaming individuals). Same here... if we are going to be doing something about girls in STEM as a society, I’d rather do it upstream — earlier in life — because otherwise trying to fiddle around the edges later is just a bandaid. PS: as an aside, I found the expression “it’s the boys getting the shaft right now” a bit ironic, given the origins of the phrase https://www.etymonline.com/word/shaft https://www.etymonline.com/word/shaft

MattGaiser 6y ago
At least in Canada, discrimination is considered the denial of something, but anything that improves someone's condition on the basis of race is fine. [Race] may not own houses. -- Illegal. [Race] is given extra help to own houses. -- Legal
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  Odd, I suspect the same people would offer the idea that wealth disparity is bad.
- mvuijlst 6y ago
  Isn't "[Race] is given extra help to own houses" the same as "[not-Race] is given no extra help to own houses"?
  - lumost 6y ago
    On average [Not-Race] has more wealth to afford houses, or home ownership is more common than [Race] in these programs. You do see anger when individuals perceive they can't afford homes, school, or other big ticket items and perceive that they aren't given help - but that isn't quite the same as denying people something.

unix_fan 6y ago

This is what I’ve always said. I was just looking for scholarships in computer science, and I was surprised at the amount of women only scholarships I found. Society in general has less sympathy for men, and this is a pretty hard truth i’ve discovered.

collegeburner 6y ago
I will second this. I was hunting for merit scholarships, as this has been a tough year and college is pricey, even with the scholarships I have. For existing college students, most of those I found were for women only, especially for CS. But I'm not eligible, because I was born a guy. fml. Edit: btw the thing that annoys me about this is that I already won some tough and prestigious merit scholarships so I actually would have a good shot at these and probably get one if I applied to several. So it's more direct here for me.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  At this point, everyone should just say they're a woman.
  - collegeburner 6y ago
    Lol, a buddy jokingly suggested that. But joking aside, if we took sex and race off documents, job apps, college apps, etc. it would really help.
    - astura 6y ago
      Sex and race are not on job applications in the US.
      - runarberg 6y ago
        If I remember correctly names on applications that are traditionally more likely to be given to a black person is still considered less qualified on an identical resume than a name that is traditionally given to a white person. I don’t know if sending photos with your resume is still practiced in the USA (I think it is illegal in the UK) but if that is still the case than gender and ethnicity are still very much on the average job application.

runarberg 6y ago

Probably not. If I remember correctly there is no correlation (and sometimes even negative) between unearned praise and performance. A more likely explanation which is backed up by evidence is that generalized perception of a group by the teacher will yield grades accordingly, so the more research that shows girls being better at school will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Teachers have to work hard to counter this bias (and many do). There is also a possibility that there is some biological difference that makes certain teaching methods that just so happen to be favored by teachers at the moment are a tiny bit easier for one gender over others. However I would like to see some research before I subscribe to that, but remain open for the possibility meanwhile. That all said, if there is a difference, but the effect size is small, then honestly: Does it matter?

xenocratus 6y ago
> If I remember correctly there is no correlation (and sometimes even negative) between unearned praise and performance. That's not what the parent comment is saying - it's saying that earned praise is not given at the same rate for males as for females.

paulsutter 6y ago

As an employer I'm thrilled to hear about these programs to encourage more women in STEM. They seem completely unrelated to overall academic performance however, and your complaint sounds a little whiny. I'm as tired of woke nonsense as anyone, but these programs are a great idea.

BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
What should I tell my son when he asks why he can't be in the "cool" group? What would you tell him? He is 10 currently.
- paulsutter 6y ago
  If he wants to go into STEM, he should totally do it. I did, and I’ve been pretty much the opposite of cool since well before age 10 Being cool is a chump thing

hyko 6y ago

Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement Definitely not, because this gender difference far predates our belief as a society that women are as capable as men in STEM subjects and careers.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

Could it be that girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something, but when boys do they're told it's just their privilege that made them succeed? Probably not, no. Setting aside the deliberately inflammatory description you chose to use here, this is a complex phenomenon observed over quite a long period in a variety of different locations and social backgrounds globally, and the suggestion that it could be simplified to "uneven praise" doesn't seem to correlate with any research I've seen. Unfortunately it's the boys getting the shaft right now. It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft".

throwaway201103 6y ago
It boils down to what those targeted efforts are. If they are removing bias against a group, fine. If they are introducing artificial favoritism for the group, that's problematic as now others are losing equal opportunity.
xenocratus 6y ago
> It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft". It depends on whether the efforts go from "equal access" to positive discrimination, and I'm not sure where that line is drawn or if people are interested in drawing it
BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
> It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft". If "equal access" is the goal (which I agree it should be), why are we excluding a group based on immutable characteristics? You really see that as equal?

wowowowow 6y ago

I don't think this is the case at all, this has been a trend since basically the start of all public schooling. And on a tangent, as for "girls in STEM" programs, I'm not really sure why they need to exist. I think a "girls in STEM" program is as necessary as a "boys in teaching" program, and that is, not at all. Different genders will naturally gravitate towards different fields, and we don't need to fight that.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

I read 10 years ago that males were on the verge of getting preferential acceptance at colleges. There's a pop theory / crackpot idea that men tend to be on average "dumber" than women, but with a higher standard distribution, so they will have more "geniuses". Women will be on average "smarter", but lower standard deviation. If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that, since while women will have a high chance of reproduction, male biology will need to have more variance and "risk" to achieve some sort of distinction to get to the comparatively lower reproductive success rate of males. In reality, our schooling is now so screwed up between grade inflation, teaching for the test, over-prescribing ADD drugs (which is opioid dependence grooming by the drug companies), reduced funding, destruction of the middle class, and a host of other changes to society and policy.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
> There's a pop theory / crackpot idea that men tend to be on average "dumber" than women, but with a higher standard distribution, so they will have more "geniuses". The current understanding is that the average is generally similar, and males have greater variability. So yes, vastly more male geniuses. But men have larger brains for a reason, so it might be we're biased against measuring anything men are better at. > If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that It doesn't. The main reason is because female mammals have duplicate sex chromosomes, and the effects get combined together. In some other kinds of animals (such as birds) females tend to have greater variability. So it's a haphazard consequence of some evolutionary split way back when. (Who knows, maybe the causation of disposable males is there, but in the other direction.)
monoideism 6y ago
That's not a "crackpot theory" but what the data currently show. This doesn't mean that there's a biological cause for this (although it's possible). But with IQ data, there's abundant evidence that the averages are similar, but men have greater variability: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26158978/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26158978/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-irwing-there-are-twice-many-men-women-iq-120-plus-426321.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-...

rayiner 6y ago

> In our current school there are 3 STEM programs for girls, one that is for both boys and girls. Is this a public school? What does "for girls" mean? Like, can you enroll a boy?

BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
I actually considered just enrolling him to see what would happen, but I didn't want my child to become a lightning rod for a political battle between adults. The description of the program specifically says, "for girls" and it has a cartoon graphic with a few different female characters of different skin colors, each dressed as some profession. It doesn't say, "no boys" or anything like that, but as I said above I'm hesitant to try with my son. If it were me I would do it.

andylei 6y ago

Your STEM example explains very little of this gender gap. The article says: 1. this gender gap begins very early (kindergarden), before the majority of "women in STEM" programs begin 2. are international (i'm fairly certain they don't have women in STEM programs in China, for example) 3. it doesn't explain why the differences are inversely related to income level (do you think there are more "women in STEM" programs at lower income levels?) 4. this difference is very old (>50 years of this effect)

klyrs 6y ago
> 4. this difference is very old (>50 years of this effect) About 100 years ago, women were explicitly forbidden from most colleges and universities. The attitude that women aren't cut out for, and should be excluded from STEM dates back to Socrates (~400 bce), at least. I'm not a historian but that wasn't terribly long after Greeks started writing things down.
- garden_hermit 6y ago
  It could very well be that women have had the potential to outperform men in academic tasks since Socrates, but never had the chance until widespread and egalitarian schooling.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    I'm not even 40 and in my education, I heard several STEM teachers say that girls can't hack it. The latest of which occurred a mere 10 years ago at a public university. "Egalitarian schooling" is an extremely novel concept and many parents and teachers (men and women) still haven't bought in on the idea.
    - Noos 6y ago
      They hack it perfectly fine in microbiology,(71% female) and veterinary science (65%). The main issue is that they really aren't represented in computer science and engineering STEM fields, as well as research scientists. But if you looked at all the STEM fields, it is probably more even, or there even are significant male shortages in some. The issue is that a lot of people don't really define stem as stem, they define it as RCE-research, computers, and engineering. Linking the pew article for more detail: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-stem-workforce-varies-widely-across-jobs/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-...

azalemeth 6y ago

Something else to consider is that some times these hiring bises are explicit and others they are de facto the way things are be [1]. In my university there is a target to have at least x% of new faculty hires female. It's against the law to state a direct number (e.g. 7) but apparently that method is fine in my country... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360 https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

Until STEM fields actually have at least a semi-decent gender balance, I don't have a problem with any of this, because apparently it's not even enough to counter the inherent cultural biases that push woman away from technology fields. I mean, I suppose it's also possible that these programs just don't do anything and we should scrap them due to lack of results, but I'm inclined to believe they're helping somewhat. (Semi-disclaimer: Prior to COVID I used to volunteer at Girls Who Code.)

monoideism 6y ago
What if the case is that the more choice our women in our society have, the more they choose jobs that deal with people (medicine, politics, management, marketing, social sciences, etc) and the less they choose jobs that deal with things (engineering, computer science, etc)? Because there's a lot of evidence to suggest that's what happens. As measured by the Global Gender Gap Index , the countries with the highest levels of gender equality, such as Scandanavia, have the lowest levels of female programmers and engineers, whereas countries with much lower scores and more traditional views on genders (such as Iran UAE) have some of the highest levels of female programmers and engineers. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...

astura 6y ago

Dunno why you think "girls get tons of encouragement, accolades, and praise when they do something." My experience growing up as a girl totally contradicts that.

brighton36 6y ago

If you don't defend your privilege, you lose it. This is what men deserve, if they're so easy steamrolled.

autokad 6y ago

It's even de-evolving to outright discrimination. I worked in a lab where participants were asked to give away their social media data for a chance to win at an ipad. The collecting of the data and lottery selection was done by a group of women. One time a man had one it, and they were upset at that fact and were going to re-run the lottery until a woman won it. I stopped them, but look where we are now. There were half a dozen of them and none of them even considered what they were about to do was wrong. I wonder how often this happens in other areas.