8 ms·

Harmful gender stereotypes kick in early–and may be keeping girls away from STEM

16 points by rustoo 5y ago

smitty1e 5y ago
It must be noted that among the harmful stereotypes is the one discounting running a home (typically, though not always, by a woman) as somehow inferior.
c7DJTLrn 5y ago
This topic is an absolute minefield to navigate. But is there any hard, reliable evidence that these preferences are driven by upbringing and not something more innate? And do we really need to be paying as much attention to this gap as we are? I haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide.
- klipt 5y ago
  There's definitely some social component. For example there are way more women in STEM in China, Russia and Eastern Europe than in Western countries. Since these days we're calling harmful gender stereotypes that affect men "toxic masculinity", I vote we call the stereotype that women can't do STEM "toxic femininity". It's time for society to fight against this toxic femininity.
  - mlboss 5y ago
    It is little counterintuitive but countries with more gender inequality have more women in STEM. In developing countries where more preferential treatment is given to males having a STEM degree give lot of power to women. I don’t understand why can’t the society accept that men love machines/code. Most of the women do not enjoy this stuff(which is fine). Gender equality paradox: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/gender-equali...
    - david38 5y ago
      Countries which have large differences between the living standards of rich and poor is another way to frame it. If you are in India, where the difference between poor and rich is enormous then you will likely do anything for a high paying job, even if you don’t particularly like it. My Indian friends tell me about this all the time. Getting into tech is seen as a lifeboat, so don’t complain, just do anything under the sun to get there. So of course, if you are a woman, if you can do STEM, you will. Some will enjoy it, others see it as the way to not live as unprotected lower class. In a country like Sweden, where “poor” isn’t “poor like in India”, there is far less incentive. In a country like this, women can study more what perks their interest. Here you see a deep divide in men dominating jobs to do with “things” and women dominating jobs to do with “people”.
      - bjourne 5y ago
        > So of course, if you are a woman, if you can do STEM, you will. Some will enjoy it, others see it as the way to not live as unprotected lower class. And how does these life choices of these Indian women differ from the life choices of the Indian men? Do they all do STEM only because they enjoy it so much? Seems like you are speculating about a subject you don't know much about.
- rytcio 5y ago
  > I haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide. It's secretly about increasing the available labor so that salaries can be lower
  - debesyla 5y ago
    Isn't it about having an equal amount of input during the development of products?
    - klipt 5y ago
      That's an interesting argument, but surely it applies even more to the development of children? In which case having 90% of teachers being women could be very harmful for the development of the next generation.
- xondono 5y ago
  > is there any hard, reliable evidence that these preferences are driven by upbringing and not something more innate? No, but it’s the default assumption for most people in the field. > haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide. The argument tends to follow from the first assumption, if all preferences are learned, in a perfectly unbiased world you’d see random preferences, so most fields would be 50/50.
ixacto 5y ago
Women are already over represented in some stem fields. Men are over represented in others. From pew “ Women make up half (50%) of those employed in STEM jobs, slightly higher than their share in the overall workforce (47%). Women’s representation across STEM occupations varies widely: they are heavily overrepresented among health-related jobs, the largest STEM occupational cluster, and underrepresented in several other occupational clusters.” https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see-uneven-progress-in-increasing-gender-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see... The article is clickbait catering to that websites target demographic.
- msrenee 5y ago
  You might want to read the article you posted. Women are over represented only in the Healthcare fields. Not exactly news and is exactly what the original article here that you're calling click bait is saying.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Healthcare fields are the largest cluster in STEM, so it would be more accurate to say that women are severely underrepresented in some STEM fields - broadly, those that have to do with "things over people (and animals)". Is that due to societal stereotypes, though? The case is not that obvious.
- Zenbit_UX 5y ago
  So you essentially devalued the article as clickbait because more women are nurses and Healthcare professionals? Not demonstrating a lot of critical thinking here are we? Consider that those fields fall into the "caring for others" stereotype that the article already mentioned was present in 7-8yr old girls. You glossed over all of STEM on a website catering to developers and engineers... I don't know why I expect more from hacker news, but often I see these low effort posters who fancy themselves intellectuals. Further, when called out mods and an army of sympathizers protect them from the essential "social rectification" they need to prevent future posts.
adflux 5y ago
There's an interesting documentary about this subject, describing how as a society becomes more open and women can study whatever they want, the more these women conform to gender stereotypes. E.g. Scandinavian countries having barely any female engineers while in India there are plenty. Let me see if I can find it. Found it: https://youtu.be/m3tiDr4E4LM https://youtu.be/m3tiDr4E4LM Very interesting documentary, worth the watch imo. This is also the case in Europe, very surprising statistics where the countries which are less liberal actually have superior female representation in engineering fields. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20190211-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E... I've seen it at my uni too. Only female compsci students where Eastern European or from MENA "Why are Muslim countries producing so many female engineers" https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/News/the-stem-paradox-why-are-muslimmajority-countries-producing-so-many-female-engineers https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/News/the-stem-paradox-why... "Which countries in Europe have the most women in engineering", spoiler alert: Eastern European countries. https://irishtechnews.ie/which-countries-in-europe-have-the-most-women-working-in-engineering/amp/ https://irishtechnews.ie/which-countries-in-europe-have-the-...
- mlboss 5y ago
  STEM degree gives women power which they lack in developing society.
chmaynard 5y ago
This conclusion seems so obvious. I guess it's useful to have some hard data but I'll skip the hoopla. Conjecture: The girls who REALLY want to have a career in science, engineering, or tech just do it. The others are less motivated or lack the self-esteem to overcome the power of stereotypes.
barbacoa 5y ago
People have done studies on other primates and found they mirror the same gender toy preferences that we see with humans. http://www.yerkes.emory.edu/about/news/developmental_cognitive_neuroscience/toy_preferences.html http://www.yerkes.emory.edu/about/news/developmental_cogniti... I don't understand why people totally discount evolutionary biology. Eons ago our ancient primates ancestors were eaten by snakes. Today we are still hard wired to fear them. Likewise long ago women who didn't have the disposition to care for children had fewer children survive. Thus women are evolutionary tuned for the traits needed for caring of children.
- xondono 5y ago
  > I don't understand why people totally discount evolutionary biology. Because nowadays the “blank slate theory“ is pretty much dogma in most social science departments.
- dccoolgai 5y ago
  James Damore said essentially this and was publicly excoriated and fired for it... So it's not that it's "discounted" it is literally forbidden to discuss in any way, shape or form the fact that we evolved and there might be vestigial traits left over from that that have some impact on gender dynamics.
- bjourne 5y ago
  Ok but what other primates do may not translate to good public policy. For example, we've found evidence of severe bullying among chimpanzees, that does not mean that we should accept bullying in our schools. Yesterday, there was an article about how more women than men graduate from higher education. The top voted comment was about how this was because the education system was "failing boys". It was not about how women are evolutionary tuned to be better learners than men. Maybe they are? It seem weird to me that when women are on top it's the system's fault, but when the men are on top it is natural and/or biology.
  - chuckee 5y ago
    > what other primates do may not translate to good public policy. True, but we weren't talking about whether it's good public policy, but about what the cause is. That chimpanzees exhibit bullying does not mean we should accept bullying, but it does mean we can't e.g. exclusively blame violent movies for bullying - not without strong additional evidence. > It seem weird to me that when women are on top it's the system's fault, but when the men are on top it is natural and/or biology. Both sides of the debate could stand to be more principled and objective, yes.

16 points by rustoo 5y ago

It must be noted that among the harmful stereotypes is the one discounting running a home (typically, though not always, by a woman) as somehow inferior.

c7DJTLrn 5y ago

This topic is an absolute minefield to navigate. But is there any hard, reliable evidence that these preferences are driven by upbringing and not something more innate? And do we really need to be paying as much attention to this gap as we are? I haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide.

klipt 5y ago
There's definitely some social component. For example there are way more women in STEM in China, Russia and Eastern Europe than in Western countries. Since these days we're calling harmful gender stereotypes that affect men "toxic masculinity", I vote we call the stereotype that women can't do STEM "toxic femininity". It's time for society to fight against this toxic femininity.
- mlboss 5y ago
  It is little counterintuitive but countries with more gender inequality have more women in STEM. In developing countries where more preferential treatment is given to males having a STEM degree give lot of power to women. I don’t understand why can’t the society accept that men love machines/code. Most of the women do not enjoy this stuff(which is fine). Gender equality paradox: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/gender-equali...
  - david38 5y ago
    Countries which have large differences between the living standards of rich and poor is another way to frame it. If you are in India, where the difference between poor and rich is enormous then you will likely do anything for a high paying job, even if you don’t particularly like it. My Indian friends tell me about this all the time. Getting into tech is seen as a lifeboat, so don’t complain, just do anything under the sun to get there. So of course, if you are a woman, if you can do STEM, you will. Some will enjoy it, others see it as the way to not live as unprotected lower class. In a country like Sweden, where “poor” isn’t “poor like in India”, there is far less incentive. In a country like this, women can study more what perks their interest. Here you see a deep divide in men dominating jobs to do with “things” and women dominating jobs to do with “people”.
    - bjourne 5y ago
      > So of course, if you are a woman, if you can do STEM, you will. Some will enjoy it, others see it as the way to not live as unprotected lower class. And how does these life choices of these Indian women differ from the life choices of the Indian men? Do they all do STEM only because they enjoy it so much? Seems like you are speculating about a subject you don't know much about.
rytcio 5y ago
> I haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide. It's secretly about increasing the available labor so that salaries can be lower
- debesyla 5y ago
  Isn't it about having an equal amount of input during the development of products?
  - klipt 5y ago
    That's an interesting argument, but surely it applies even more to the development of children? In which case having 90% of teachers being women could be very harmful for the development of the next generation.
xondono 5y ago
> is there any hard, reliable evidence that these preferences are driven by upbringing and not something more innate? No, but it’s the default assumption for most people in the field. > haven't heard a compelling argument for why every sector needs a 50/50 gender divide. The argument tends to follow from the first assumption, if all preferences are learned, in a perfectly unbiased world you’d see random preferences, so most fields would be 50/50.

ixacto 5y ago

Women are already over represented in some stem fields. Men are over represented in others. From pew “ Women make up half (50%) of those employed in STEM jobs, slightly higher than their share in the overall workforce (47%). Women’s representation across STEM occupations varies widely: they are heavily overrepresented among health-related jobs, the largest STEM occupational cluster, and underrepresented in several other occupational clusters.” https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see-uneven-progress-in-increasing-gender-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see... The article is clickbait catering to that websites target demographic.

msrenee 5y ago
You might want to read the article you posted. Women are over represented only in the Healthcare fields. Not exactly news and is exactly what the original article here that you're calling click bait is saying.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Healthcare fields are the largest cluster in STEM, so it would be more accurate to say that women are severely underrepresented in some STEM fields - broadly, those that have to do with "things over people (and animals)". Is that due to societal stereotypes, though? The case is not that obvious.
Zenbit_UX 5y ago
So you essentially devalued the article as clickbait because more women are nurses and Healthcare professionals? Not demonstrating a lot of critical thinking here are we? Consider that those fields fall into the "caring for others" stereotype that the article already mentioned was present in 7-8yr old girls. You glossed over all of STEM on a website catering to developers and engineers... I don't know why I expect more from hacker news, but often I see these low effort posters who fancy themselves intellectuals. Further, when called out mods and an army of sympathizers protect them from the essential "social rectification" they need to prevent future posts.

adflux 5y ago

There's an interesting documentary about this subject, describing how as a society becomes more open and women can study whatever they want, the more these women conform to gender stereotypes. E.g. Scandinavian countries having barely any female engineers while in India there are plenty. Let me see if I can find it. Found it: https://youtu.be/m3tiDr4E4LM https://youtu.be/m3tiDr4E4LM Very interesting documentary, worth the watch imo. This is also the case in Europe, very surprising statistics where the countries which are less liberal actually have superior female representation in engineering fields. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20190211-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E... I've seen it at my uni too. Only female compsci students where Eastern European or from MENA "Why are Muslim countries producing so many female engineers" https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/News/the-stem-paradox-why-are-muslimmajority-countries-producing-so-many-female-engineers https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/News/the-stem-paradox-why... "Which countries in Europe have the most women in engineering", spoiler alert: Eastern European countries. https://irishtechnews.ie/which-countries-in-europe-have-the-most-women-working-in-engineering/amp/ https://irishtechnews.ie/which-countries-in-europe-have-the-...

mlboss 5y ago
STEM degree gives women power which they lack in developing society.

chmaynard 5y ago

This conclusion seems so obvious. I guess it's useful to have some hard data but I'll skip the hoopla. Conjecture: The girls who REALLY want to have a career in science, engineering, or tech just do it. The others are less motivated or lack the self-esteem to overcome the power of stereotypes.

barbacoa 5y ago

People have done studies on other primates and found they mirror the same gender toy preferences that we see with humans. http://www.yerkes.emory.edu/about/news/developmental_cognitive_neuroscience/toy_preferences.html http://www.yerkes.emory.edu/about/news/developmental_cogniti... I don't understand why people totally discount evolutionary biology. Eons ago our ancient primates ancestors were eaten by snakes. Today we are still hard wired to fear them. Likewise long ago women who didn't have the disposition to care for children had fewer children survive. Thus women are evolutionary tuned for the traits needed for caring of children.

xondono 5y ago
> I don't understand why people totally discount evolutionary biology. Because nowadays the “blank slate theory“ is pretty much dogma in most social science departments.
dccoolgai 5y ago
James Damore said essentially this and was publicly excoriated and fired for it... So it's not that it's "discounted" it is literally forbidden to discuss in any way, shape or form the fact that we evolved and there might be vestigial traits left over from that that have some impact on gender dynamics.
bjourne 5y ago
Ok but what other primates do may not translate to good public policy. For example, we've found evidence of severe bullying among chimpanzees, that does not mean that we should accept bullying in our schools. Yesterday, there was an article about how more women than men graduate from higher education. The top voted comment was about how this was because the education system was "failing boys". It was not about how women are evolutionary tuned to be better learners than men. Maybe they are? It seem weird to me that when women are on top it's the system's fault, but when the men are on top it is natural and/or biology.
- chuckee 5y ago
  > what other primates do may not translate to good public policy. True, but we weren't talking about whether it's good public policy, but about what the cause is. That chimpanzees exhibit bullying does not mean we should accept bullying, but it does mean we can't e.g. exclusively blame violent movies for bullying - not without strong additional evidence. > It seem weird to me that when women are on top it's the system's fault, but when the men are on top it is natural and/or biology. Both sides of the debate could stand to be more principled and objective, yes.