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> On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - I read this and immediately

> On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - I read this and immediately assumed you were going to say its obvious that women are taught how to behave, and that they're taught things related to what they're supposed to know. Your comment alone is enough proof that society is telling women they aren't supposed to like science. Any young engineer reading HN may start/continue to subconsciously question their affinity to the field. Women ARE taught that they don't belong in stem fields, and that science is not for them. I was picking out books for a 5yo girl and boy twins for christmas recently, and the nice lady at the bookstore told me to get a glittery princess book for the girl and a scientist book for the boy. It was not a malicious act meant to keep women out out science, but just something we take for granted in society. Fromm a young age we tell girls what is and isn't for them, subconsciously. IEEE has studied the affects of engineering graduation and job retention, and its correlated to a womens self-identity as an engineer and their perception that they belong. Starting from a young age, society is damaging that perception. I'll link one study, but they've done a number of studies, including tracking workplace treatment of coworkers, and women are consistently treated worse and are questioned more and trusted less. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5673614 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5673614

ALittleLight 5y ago
Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? Since women's relative disinterest in science apparently comes from society, and there are many societies on Earth, surely there are some societies in which women are more interested in science than men, right? All of this stuff seems like obvious post hoc rationalization. You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women. Are we socializing young girls to be accountants, claims adjusters, or advertising specialists? If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants? (Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender) The survey you cite is pretty meaningless. They survey some engineering freshman and then find a few questions where the results are statistically different between men and women. "We conducted t-tests to determine gender differences in survey responses. We found that women tended to have lower self-efficacy perceptions: they reported less confidence in their ability to complete the physics requirements (5.75 vs. 6.13, p < .05), less confidence that they could do well in an engineering major during the current academic year (5.75 vs. 6.07, p < .05), and less confidence that they could complete any engineering degree at this institution (5.08 vs. 5.41, p < .05). In contrast, women reported higher outcome expectations than men: they reported greater agreement with the statement that engineering will allow them to find a well-paying job (6.48 vs. 6.33, p < .05), and that doing well at math would increase their sense of self-worth (5.66 vs. 5.46, p < .05). " So - women tended to have less confidence but higher expectations for their career and that's supposed to be evidence that society teaches women they can't be engineers?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women No its clearly that there are few engineers who are women because we teach them they shouldn't be. You got it backwards. There is ample evidence of this. > Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender Thank you for this example, by the way. I've never seen a single children's book on accounting, and its pretty even. I've seen lots on science, doctors, construction, nursing, etc. And they're pretty non-even careers. > If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants? Because sparkly princess is not a job and most people need a job. We're not teaching anyone to be an accountant from a young age and people do it because it interests them. But when we teach only men to be engineers... we get a gender imbalance. > Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? This is a really weak argument. 1. There are plenty of matriarchal societies throughout history. 2. The identity of science as we see it in western society today is a relatively western idea that doesn't translate well historically. Euro-mediterranian history dominates our cultures idea of science, and that cultural history is male-leader dominated. Plenty of societies across the world had women do things, but we just learn about what happened in Europe (from men). As you said in another comment, women outperform men at school, so why do they have lower confidence? That seems like a discrepancy that has a logical social explanation (they're told they don't belong, so they aren't confident in their work). Studies have proven this. Unless you think women are unconfident as a matter of biology? (studies have not proven this) Aside, have you ever talked to a female engineer? MANY will tell you they were not pushed to be an engineer, and that they face sexism and were constantly told they're not supposed to be there. Many experience higher levels of criticism and mistrust over their work compared to male coworkers.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Sorry, but it's just not a serious thought to think that the subjects of children's books decide the demographics of careers later in life. Especially when you think decades of education do not. Regarding your response to my quick question - which matriarchal societies are you thinking of? The "identity of science" (whatever that means) is not really at issue. We are discussing the reason behind why women know more fashion related vocabulary and men know more science and technical terms. If the "identity" of science changes over the years, that wouldn't seem to change whether or not men have greater interests in what we now call science. Your theory, that career differences are caused by acculturation is first, absurd. The theme of children's books, kids TV shows, or whatever you posit is part of this, is minuscule compared to spending 8 hours a day in a classroom. Yet, you think the minuscule effects outweigh the massive effects, and nevermind the widespread effort to get girls into STEM. Second, your theory is soundly rejected by evidence. Girls choose not to go to engineering because of those kids books, but they perform better in math and science throughout school? Where is the effect of these books in K-12 education? Third, your theory predicts everything and therefore nothing. When a survey shows that girls have lower confidence and higher expectations, well, that's because their confidence is undermined by our patriarchal society! If the results were reversed, and girls were more confident but had lower expectations, why, that would be because despite their abilities they knew they wouldn't be treated fairly by our evil patriarchy! Conversely, I would say that if you survey a thousand people, divided them into two groups, on dozens of questions, you will probably find some that have significantly different results. I would think the results were meaningless unless they confirmed some prior prediction or were all aligned in some surprising way. That is, actually, what I think about that survey.
Manuel_D 5y ago
I think you're seriously misreading the above person's comment to the point of putting words in their mouth. Saying "X gender is less likely to be interested in Y" is not saying that people of that gender "aren't supposed to like Y" as you put it. It's making the observation of different gender distributions. Women are more likely to be interested in equestrian sports. This is an objective fact, there's more than 2 women for every man in equestrian sports. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a man that shares this interest. It's also difficult to see a correlation between weaker gender roles and more interest in STEM among women. If anything, the correlation is reversed: more equal countries see less women interested in science and technology [1]. Different preferences of toys among infants are observed even before they're able to talk [2][3]. It seems to me that these claims of societal influence or bias is rooted in the assumption that everything is going to be perfect 50/50 distribution, and thus anything that doesn't conform to an equal distribution is evidence of some sort of pressure or bias. On what grounds do we claim that 50/50 interest in science and technology is the default? This is almost never answered, people just postulate it as fact. 1. 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... 2. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715114739.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715114739.h... 3. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7

ALittleLight 5y ago

Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? Since women's relative disinterest in science apparently comes from society, and there are many societies on Earth, surely there are some societies in which women are more interested in science than men, right? All of this stuff seems like obvious post hoc rationalization. You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women. Are we socializing young girls to be accountants, claims adjusters, or advertising specialists? If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants? (Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender) The survey you cite is pretty meaningless. They survey some engineering freshman and then find a few questions where the results are statistically different between men and women. "We conducted t-tests to determine gender differences in survey responses. We found that women tended to have lower self-efficacy perceptions: they reported less confidence in their ability to complete the physics requirements (5.75 vs. 6.13, p < .05), less confidence that they could do well in an engineering major during the current academic year (5.75 vs. 6.07, p < .05), and less confidence that they could complete any engineering degree at this institution (5.08 vs. 5.41, p < .05). In contrast, women reported higher outcome expectations than men: they reported greater agreement with the statement that engineering will allow them to find a well-paying job (6.48 vs. 6.33, p < .05), and that doing well at math would increase their sense of self-worth (5.66 vs. 5.46, p < .05). " So - women tended to have less confidence but higher expectations for their career and that's supposed to be evidence that society teaches women they can't be engineers?

vineyardmike 5y ago
> You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women No its clearly that there are few engineers who are women because we teach them they shouldn't be. You got it backwards. There is ample evidence of this. > Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender Thank you for this example, by the way. I've never seen a single children's book on accounting, and its pretty even. I've seen lots on science, doctors, construction, nursing, etc. And they're pretty non-even careers. > If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants? Because sparkly princess is not a job and most people need a job. We're not teaching anyone to be an accountant from a young age and people do it because it interests them. But when we teach only men to be engineers... we get a gender imbalance. > Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? This is a really weak argument. 1. There are plenty of matriarchal societies throughout history. 2. The identity of science as we see it in western society today is a relatively western idea that doesn't translate well historically. Euro-mediterranian history dominates our cultures idea of science, and that cultural history is male-leader dominated. Plenty of societies across the world had women do things, but we just learn about what happened in Europe (from men). As you said in another comment, women outperform men at school, so why do they have lower confidence? That seems like a discrepancy that has a logical social explanation (they're told they don't belong, so they aren't confident in their work). Studies have proven this. Unless you think women are unconfident as a matter of biology? (studies have not proven this) Aside, have you ever talked to a female engineer? MANY will tell you they were not pushed to be an engineer, and that they face sexism and were constantly told they're not supposed to be there. Many experience higher levels of criticism and mistrust over their work compared to male coworkers.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Sorry, but it's just not a serious thought to think that the subjects of children's books decide the demographics of careers later in life. Especially when you think decades of education do not. Regarding your response to my quick question - which matriarchal societies are you thinking of? The "identity of science" (whatever that means) is not really at issue. We are discussing the reason behind why women know more fashion related vocabulary and men know more science and technical terms. If the "identity" of science changes over the years, that wouldn't seem to change whether or not men have greater interests in what we now call science. Your theory, that career differences are caused by acculturation is first, absurd. The theme of children's books, kids TV shows, or whatever you posit is part of this, is minuscule compared to spending 8 hours a day in a classroom. Yet, you think the minuscule effects outweigh the massive effects, and nevermind the widespread effort to get girls into STEM. Second, your theory is soundly rejected by evidence. Girls choose not to go to engineering because of those kids books, but they perform better in math and science throughout school? Where is the effect of these books in K-12 education? Third, your theory predicts everything and therefore nothing. When a survey shows that girls have lower confidence and higher expectations, well, that's because their confidence is undermined by our patriarchal society! If the results were reversed, and girls were more confident but had lower expectations, why, that would be because despite their abilities they knew they wouldn't be treated fairly by our evil patriarchy! Conversely, I would say that if you survey a thousand people, divided them into two groups, on dozens of questions, you will probably find some that have significantly different results. I would think the results were meaningless unless they confirmed some prior prediction or were all aligned in some surprising way. That is, actually, what I think about that survey.

Manuel_D 5y ago

I think you're seriously misreading the above person's comment to the point of putting words in their mouth. Saying "X gender is less likely to be interested in Y" is not saying that people of that gender "aren't supposed to like Y" as you put it. It's making the observation of different gender distributions. Women are more likely to be interested in equestrian sports. This is an objective fact, there's more than 2 women for every man in equestrian sports. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a man that shares this interest. It's also difficult to see a correlation between weaker gender roles and more interest in STEM among women. If anything, the correlation is reversed: more equal countries see less women interested in science and technology [1]. Different preferences of toys among infants are observed even before they're able to talk [2][3]. It seems to me that these claims of societal influence or bias is rooted in the assumption that everything is going to be perfect 50/50 distribution, and thus anything that doesn't conform to an equal distribution is evidence of some sort of pressure or bias. On what grounds do we claim that 50/50 interest in science and technology is the default? This is almost never answered, people just postulate it as fact. 1. 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... 2. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715114739.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715114739.h... 3. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7