9 ms·

The "male" words aren't technobabble though. They're just scientific language. The data certainly seems to very clearly represent the impact of the historical b

The "male" words aren't technobabble though. They're just scientific language. The data certainly seems to very clearly represent the impact of the historical bias in education, entertainment, and the world in general to emphasise "science" as a pursuit for males and "craft" as a pursuit for girls.

commandlinefan 5y ago
> historical bias How historical are you going back here? I'm almost 50 years old and as far back as I can remember, everybody with any authority was working non-stop to teach science to girls and crafts to guys - even to the point of rejecting guys from science classes.
- dnautics 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that in most of my science classes (biochemistry/biology), outside of advanced grad-level organic synthesis, which then had a "fighter pilot jock"-vibe, the gender ratio was 50/50 if not more female than male, so this trend goes back 20+ years. But if you look at the list, the scientific terms skew physics, and for... cultural reasons, I suspect the non-specialist penetration of a lot of those terms probably skews male.
  - djur 5y ago
    Exactly. Many respondents who know "parsec" don't know it because they're astronomers, they know it because the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than twelve of 'em.
    - commandlinefan 5y ago
      > the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than twelve of 'em That's a good point - I wonder if the question was "do you recognize this word?" or "can you correctly define this word?" (followed by a quick check)
      - djur 5y ago
        This study uses self-reported recognition of the word. Later in the study they compare their results to other tests that try to identify understanding of the words' meaning. I also wonder if there's any gender differential between male and female respondents in willingness to say they "know" a word that sounds vaguely familiar... and if the sound of a word also affects people's willingness to take a leap. The study doesn't seem to have included fake words or anything like that to catch guessers out (and I don't think that was relevant to what they were trying to determine, anyway). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that male respondents are more likely to take a leap for "piezoelectricity" or "thermistor" than they would be for "peplum" and "chignon".
    - nuccy 5y ago
      Oh wow, you are right! I came to comment on exactly my surprise on seeing "parsec" as one of the "best-known" (whatever it means in this study) words.
    - bitwize 5y ago
      Or, in second place, because you played the game on TI-99/4A.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  I'm not sure where you lived but geography and politics likely plays a factor here. It absolutely wasn't this way when I did my schooling and I'm younger than you, growing up in Canada. Another point to consider, aiming at a target doesn't mean hitting it. It's why you haven't seen the outcry about boys in stem until the past half decade or so. General public opinion and culturally ingrained sexism are very difficult boats to steer.
  - nick__m 5y ago
    I am sure it's a regional thing as I experienced that part of his statement: everybody with any authority was working non-stop to teach science to girls but I cannot say the same on that one: crafts to guys - even to the point of rejecting guys from science classes.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "...rejecting guys from science classes." Do you have a source for this?
- pessimizer 5y ago
  I'm almost 50 years old and I don't recognize your childhood.
newsbinator 5y ago
Not necessarily clearly external bias. I can think of an alternate possible explanation.
not2b 5y ago
Not just craft, for "doula" there's a reason women know that word more than men do.
- dnautics 5y ago
  pessary too, though oddly, I knew that one.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    Same (male) but only because it came up in the context of reading Wikipedia deep dives that led to court cases blocking their import[1] and the Hippocratic oath, which, oddly enough, prohibits administering them (along with abortion): "Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Earliest_surviving_copy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Earliest_surv... Edit: But even then, I didn't know e.g. what they looked like, or anything about them specifically. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Package_of_Japanese_Pessaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Package_o...
HideousKojima 5y ago
Or the innate biological preferences caused by biological sex? Even baby male monkeys prefer to play with trucks while baby female monkeys prefer to play with dolls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  There are other differentiating factors there that could lead to the preference choice that are not related to whether something is mechanical in nature. Things like color, texture, etc. have been shown to have strong biases between the sexes. A possible control they did not employ during the study would be to have a series of toys that were identical in all ways except color, for example. Also *very* worth noting: As shown in their Fig. 1, when play time with toys is examined in human children (Berenbaum and Hines,1992) and rhesus macaques of all ages, males spend significantly more of their play time with the “male” toy(s) than with the female toy(s), while females spend about equal times with “male” and “female” toys. This is true both for frequency of interactions and in time spent playing (Hassett et al., 2008). **Therefore, one key difference between males and females in these studies is that males actually show a toy preference while females do not!** (Emphasis mine)
- bccdee 5y ago
  These aren't trucks and dolls though. It's a pretty big leap from "female monkey babies prefer anthropomorphic toys" to "adult women are biologically predisposed to a deeper understanding of textiles." A cultural explanation is much more parsimonious.
  - quocanh 5y ago
    I think the point is that a significant part (majority?) of our culture is defined by our biology and nearly all is at least influenced by biology. The ultimate counterexamples would be societies where women are in charge of the engineering/construction and to my knowledge there are none which is a sign that there's something deep within our psyche which drives these interests. I'd love to hear counterexamples if anyone has them though. If we could figure it out then maybe we'd figure out how to get more women into the STEM fields. Lord knows we've been trying.
errcorrectcode 5y ago
If technobabble, I'd be disappointed to not see "interposer" or "hash table" listed.
ALittleLight 5y ago
"Historical bias in education" seems like a bad justification that just draws on modern buzz words. Girls outperform boys in every subject in school, science included, and always have in our modern education system (last century or so). The idea that girls are getting worse education is not plausible. On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - which is that women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion and better learn that vocabulary while men are more interested in the science (or science fiction) and technical terms and learn that vocabulary. https://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-they-have-for-a-century/ https://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-...
- bccdee 5y ago
  > women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion Why? There are only two possible answers: Either there's some sort of genetic predisposition for women to care about fashion (quite a claim!), or that disposition is a product of the way we raise girls. Given that we know our culture strongly associates fashion with women, and we don't have any evidence for some "fashion gene," historical bias in how we rear our children is simply the least presumptuous hypothesis available to us.
  - User23 5y ago
    If we view fashion as part of an effective female mating strategy, which it observably is, then it’s unsurprising that success at that intrasexual competition would be selected for.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    If we were to enter a mental clean room where nothing we knew of life on Earth could accompany us, and then sit and speculate about the nature of men and women, I agree that we would have no reason to suspect an interest in fashion might be related to biology. At least, I doubt I would come up with the connection. In reality we know that there are biological differences between men and women. We know these differences affect the brain in terms of size and structure. We know these differences affect the mind in terms of personality and emotional experience. Should we expect that men and women have identical biological predispositions towards areas of interest? I would say no. Given that we then expect to find differences of interest stemming from biology, and that we have found a difference in interest, and that there isn't a plausible alternative...
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
I have my doubts that most people can give a correct definition for those scientific words. So even if one person is familiar with the general area, it doesn't say much about their education. Perhaps about their preferences in media.

commandlinefan 5y ago

> historical bias How historical are you going back here? I'm almost 50 years old and as far back as I can remember, everybody with any authority was working non-stop to teach science to girls and crafts to guys - even to the point of rejecting guys from science classes.

dnautics 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that in most of my science classes (biochemistry/biology), outside of advanced grad-level organic synthesis, which then had a "fighter pilot jock"-vibe, the gender ratio was 50/50 if not more female than male, so this trend goes back 20+ years. But if you look at the list, the scientific terms skew physics, and for... cultural reasons, I suspect the non-specialist penetration of a lot of those terms probably skews male.
- djur 5y ago
  Exactly. Many respondents who know "parsec" don't know it because they're astronomers, they know it because the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than twelve of 'em.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than twelve of 'em That's a good point - I wonder if the question was "do you recognize this word?" or "can you correctly define this word?" (followed by a quick check)
    - djur 5y ago
      This study uses self-reported recognition of the word. Later in the study they compare their results to other tests that try to identify understanding of the words' meaning. I also wonder if there's any gender differential between male and female respondents in willingness to say they "know" a word that sounds vaguely familiar... and if the sound of a word also affects people's willingness to take a leap. The study doesn't seem to have included fake words or anything like that to catch guessers out (and I don't think that was relevant to what they were trying to determine, anyway). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that male respondents are more likely to take a leap for "piezoelectricity" or "thermistor" than they would be for "peplum" and "chignon".
  - nuccy 5y ago
    Oh wow, you are right! I came to comment on exactly my surprise on seeing "parsec" as one of the "best-known" (whatever it means in this study) words.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    Or, in second place, because you played the game on TI-99/4A.
BeefWellington 5y ago
I'm not sure where you lived but geography and politics likely plays a factor here. It absolutely wasn't this way when I did my schooling and I'm younger than you, growing up in Canada. Another point to consider, aiming at a target doesn't mean hitting it. It's why you haven't seen the outcry about boys in stem until the past half decade or so. General public opinion and culturally ingrained sexism are very difficult boats to steer.
- nick__m 5y ago
  I am sure it's a regional thing as I experienced that part of his statement: everybody with any authority was working non-stop to teach science to girls but I cannot say the same on that one: crafts to guys - even to the point of rejecting guys from science classes.
mcguire 5y ago
"...rejecting guys from science classes." Do you have a source for this?
pessimizer 5y ago
I'm almost 50 years old and I don't recognize your childhood.

newsbinator 5y ago

Not necessarily clearly external bias. I can think of an alternate possible explanation.

not2b 5y ago

Not just craft, for "doula" there's a reason women know that word more than men do.

dnautics 5y ago
pessary too, though oddly, I knew that one.
- SilasX 5y ago
  Same (male) but only because it came up in the context of reading Wikipedia deep dives that led to court cases blocking their import[1] and the Hippocratic oath, which, oddly enough, prohibits administering them (along with abortion): "Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Earliest_surviving_copy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Earliest_surv... Edit: But even then, I didn't know e.g. what they looked like, or anything about them specifically. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Package_of_Japanese_Pessaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Package_o...

HideousKojima 5y ago

Or the innate biological preferences caused by biological sex? Even baby male monkeys prefer to play with trucks while baby female monkeys prefer to play with dolls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/

BeefWellington 5y ago
There are other differentiating factors there that could lead to the preference choice that are not related to whether something is mechanical in nature. Things like color, texture, etc. have been shown to have strong biases between the sexes. A possible control they did not employ during the study would be to have a series of toys that were identical in all ways except color, for example. Also *very* worth noting: As shown in their Fig. 1, when play time with toys is examined in human children (Berenbaum and Hines,1992) and rhesus macaques of all ages, males spend significantly more of their play time with the “male” toy(s) than with the female toy(s), while females spend about equal times with “male” and “female” toys. This is true both for frequency of interactions and in time spent playing (Hassett et al., 2008). **Therefore, one key difference between males and females in these studies is that males actually show a toy preference while females do not!** (Emphasis mine)
bccdee 5y ago
These aren't trucks and dolls though. It's a pretty big leap from "female monkey babies prefer anthropomorphic toys" to "adult women are biologically predisposed to a deeper understanding of textiles." A cultural explanation is much more parsimonious.
- quocanh 5y ago
  I think the point is that a significant part (majority?) of our culture is defined by our biology and nearly all is at least influenced by biology. The ultimate counterexamples would be societies where women are in charge of the engineering/construction and to my knowledge there are none which is a sign that there's something deep within our psyche which drives these interests. I'd love to hear counterexamples if anyone has them though. If we could figure it out then maybe we'd figure out how to get more women into the STEM fields. Lord knows we've been trying.

errcorrectcode 5y ago

If technobabble, I'd be disappointed to not see "interposer" or "hash table" listed.

ALittleLight 5y ago

"Historical bias in education" seems like a bad justification that just draws on modern buzz words. Girls outperform boys in every subject in school, science included, and always have in our modern education system (last century or so). The idea that girls are getting worse education is not plausible. On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - which is that women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion and better learn that vocabulary while men are more interested in the science (or science fiction) and technical terms and learn that vocabulary. https://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-they-have-for-a-century/ https://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-...

bccdee 5y ago
> women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion Why? There are only two possible answers: Either there's some sort of genetic predisposition for women to care about fashion (quite a claim!), or that disposition is a product of the way we raise girls. Given that we know our culture strongly associates fashion with women, and we don't have any evidence for some "fashion gene," historical bias in how we rear our children is simply the least presumptuous hypothesis available to us.
- User23 5y ago
  If we view fashion as part of an effective female mating strategy, which it observably is, then it’s unsurprising that success at that intrasexual competition would be selected for.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  If we were to enter a mental clean room where nothing we knew of life on Earth could accompany us, and then sit and speculate about the nature of men and women, I agree that we would have no reason to suspect an interest in fashion might be related to biology. At least, I doubt I would come up with the connection. In reality we know that there are biological differences between men and women. We know these differences affect the brain in terms of size and structure. We know these differences affect the mind in terms of personality and emotional experience. Should we expect that men and women have identical biological predispositions towards areas of interest? I would say no. Given that we then expect to find differences of interest stemming from biology, and that we have found a difference in interest, and that there isn't a plausible alternative...

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

I have my doubts that most people can give a correct definition for those scientific words. So even if one person is familiar with the general area, it doesn't say much about their education. Perhaps about their preferences in media.