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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

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.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    No you're directly wrong, and its not absurd. The affects of those childhood books (and of course, the views and behaviors outside of literature of people who choose how to distribute them!) have a huge affect on someones life. Early childhood development is disproportionately important in someones growth as an adult. The cultural affect of childrens books, tv shows etc doesn't stop in a classroom. Teachers are often complicit in furthering stereotypes and tropes throughout someones academic career. But again, someones home environment, even when smaller in time than a classroom will be more impactful. Women do better in the classroom, but despite their performance, report that they feel less confident in their abilities than their male peers. At the same time, they say that a stem career would have a great improvement on their life. Then they choose to pursue another field, and you're interpretation is that they must like fashion more as a nature of human biology? THAT is absurd. Again, if you ever talk to women in stem (or those who left stem), you'll quickly find tons of people who directly tell you why they act and think the way they do. And it is what i've been saying - they're being made to feel like they don't belong explicitly and implicity. I can confidently say you've never had a serious conversation with a woman about this topic based on how you discuss this.
rsynnott 5y ago
> Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? Iran, oddly enough; about 70% of STEM graduates are women. More generally, though, the trend in the west has been, for any given subject, it's all male, then there are one or two women, then a few more, and suddenly a tipping point is hit and it's 50/50 within a few years. This happened to medicine and later biology and then chemistry in most places. I'd expect the pattern to continue.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  My, uneducated, guess on Iran is that college-eligible men are likelier to go to madrassas or the like seeking government or religious power over education. Do you think that, or some other explanation, is right, or do you think that women are better represented in STEM in Iran due to a more egalitarian childhood?
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    How does that match your comment: > 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. So why are there women in stem if they really want to learn about fabrics? Or, do you really mean that women only enter jobs when men leave openings?
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      I think you're forgetting the term "tend". Even in Iran my expectation is that if you were to repeat the experiment from the featured article you would get similar results. I assume though that Iran has a smaller portion of the population in college and that men are preferentially pursuing political or theological power over STEM education. Of course, these are assumptions which is why I'm asking questions to understand better. Do you think that in Iran their children's books more prominently feature female scientists?
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Neither. Obviously Iran is not an egalitarian society; the idea’s absurd. However, Iran is also not Afghanistan; most people have a broadly secular edification. Iranian men do go to university in quite large numbers. I think you’re missing the obvious explanation; the gender biases in STEM may be basically arbitrary; go to a very different society and you’d expect them to be different. We see this in the west, too. From the 40s through 70s, women were far better represented in programming than today in western countries. Part of this was a legacy of the war, but that can’t explain the whole thing. And in the other direction, practically all chemists in the west were men until the 80s or so; this fairly rapidly flipped and now most new chemists are women in many countries (similar tipping point shifts happened earlier for medicine and biology).

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.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  No you're directly wrong, and its not absurd. The affects of those childhood books (and of course, the views and behaviors outside of literature of people who choose how to distribute them!) have a huge affect on someones life. Early childhood development is disproportionately important in someones growth as an adult. The cultural affect of childrens books, tv shows etc doesn't stop in a classroom. Teachers are often complicit in furthering stereotypes and tropes throughout someones academic career. But again, someones home environment, even when smaller in time than a classroom will be more impactful. Women do better in the classroom, but despite their performance, report that they feel less confident in their abilities than their male peers. At the same time, they say that a stem career would have a great improvement on their life. Then they choose to pursue another field, and you're interpretation is that they must like fashion more as a nature of human biology? THAT is absurd. Again, if you ever talk to women in stem (or those who left stem), you'll quickly find tons of people who directly tell you why they act and think the way they do. And it is what i've been saying - they're being made to feel like they don't belong explicitly and implicity. I can confidently say you've never had a serious conversation with a woman about this topic based on how you discuss this.

rsynnott 5y ago

> Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? Iran, oddly enough; about 70% of STEM graduates are women. More generally, though, the trend in the west has been, for any given subject, it's all male, then there are one or two women, then a few more, and suddenly a tipping point is hit and it's 50/50 within a few years. This happened to medicine and later biology and then chemistry in most places. I'd expect the pattern to continue.

ALittleLight 5y ago
My, uneducated, guess on Iran is that college-eligible men are likelier to go to madrassas or the like seeking government or religious power over education. Do you think that, or some other explanation, is right, or do you think that women are better represented in STEM in Iran due to a more egalitarian childhood?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  How does that match your comment: > 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. So why are there women in stem if they really want to learn about fabrics? Or, do you really mean that women only enter jobs when men leave openings?
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    I think you're forgetting the term "tend". Even in Iran my expectation is that if you were to repeat the experiment from the featured article you would get similar results. I assume though that Iran has a smaller portion of the population in college and that men are preferentially pursuing political or theological power over STEM education. Of course, these are assumptions which is why I'm asking questions to understand better. Do you think that in Iran their children's books more prominently feature female scientists?
- rsynnott 5y ago
  Neither. Obviously Iran is not an egalitarian society; the idea’s absurd. However, Iran is also not Afghanistan; most people have a broadly secular edification. Iranian men do go to university in quite large numbers. I think you’re missing the obvious explanation; the gender biases in STEM may be basically arbitrary; go to a very different society and you’d expect them to be different. We see this in the west, too. From the 40s through 70s, women were far better represented in programming than today in western countries. Part of this was a legacy of the war, but that can’t explain the whole thing. And in the other direction, practically all chemists in the west were men until the 80s or so; this fairly rapidly flipped and now most new chemists are women in many countries (similar tipping point shifts happened earlier for medicine and biology).