3 ms·

I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their l

I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives by groups pushing for gender equality. Regardless of how "natural" it is for STEM to be gendered to the extent that it is (and from what I've heard, giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM), you're always going to face opposition from this group because we have experienced the real-world policies that this type of thinking leads to. I guess it's like eugenics. The fact that it may or may be true is beside the point - that train of thought leads people to justify actions that are simply destructive.

dahart 4y ago
> giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM Not true. This data is 1) changing rapidly, 2) not cross-cultural, not to mention 3) cherry-picked time frame. There isn’t great evidence for this if you start from the year 1800, since all the numbers now are still higher. Numbers went up for a long time, and then started going down in the 80s. Numbers in India are dramatically different than the US. These things prove the changes are cultural and cannot be genetic, to the top comment’s point. Genetics isn’t changing this fast. You stated a recently observed correlation as though it was causation, an as though it was true for all people for all time. Causation has not been shown (the authors of the study you’re citing stated they do not have an explanation.) and the recent trend represents a recent change in the direction of trends, and didn’t happen in all countries, nor at the same time. So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. BTW the one single study you’re referring to is not accepted by everyone (replication attempts have failed), and had enough problems it had to issue a correction. Other researchers believe many aspect of the study were cherry picked, not just the time frame. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-stem-gender-equality-paradox-correction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-ste...
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. I guess you could well be right. The science of it is not something I'm personally super-invested in. Again though, the main motivation of my comment is because I'm mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to "right historical wrongs") back when I was a student a decade or so ago.
  - dahart 4y ago
    It’s totally worth checking out that video I posted in the sibling comment if you have time, it is super interesting at the end, and I think you’ll enjoy it because it’s funny. There’s scientific evidence for people who claim to be pro women in STEM, from parents to tenured professors having relatively severe biases and not even knowing it. > I’m mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to “right historical wrongs”) I understand why you and many people feel this way. Affirmative Actions are, in fact, preferential treatment which does put them in a category of bias and discrimination, and public support for Affirmative Actions is mixed. But it is a known bias undertaken intentionally, and the idea is that it’s temporary until we can show that things are fair (not the same, just fair). The idea is to combat the preferential treatment that men already receive, which we can prove is happening, but we don’t know how to fix. This one reason to consider not being mad about it - men absolutely received (and are still receiving) preferential treatment. The other reason I just hinted at - this isn’t a ‘historical’ wrong, it’s an ongoing wrong. (But it is getting less wrong over time!) There’s evidence for the fact that men are still getting preferential treatment, and as such women still have a right to be mad about it. But if we’re all mad then everyone’s pissed and nothing gets fixed. If we don’t like Affirmative Action, one natural question to ask is, what’s the practical alternative? Just assume for a minute that the claim that men get preferential treatment is true. Then how else could we fix that? What could you propose that would be better than giving an oppressed group preferential treatment? That does suck in a way, but we’ve tried a lot of things in the past, and attitudes that lead to bias are extremely stubborn and persistent, not just on gender but on race and class and other things too, and it’s not clear that time will fix them without other interventions. Let me try on a bad analogy for size. Pretend I’m mixing gas for my two-stroke dirt bike, and both my oil can and my gas can are leaky. I’m trying to get a half-and-half mix (pretend!) but when I pour what I think are equal amounts, I can see I end up with a 72/25 mix that’s oil heavy and way too rich, and some mess on the ground. I don’t have a way to plug the leaks, but I can see clearly that I have some. What should I do? Does it makes sense to slow the oil rate, or increase the gas rate until the mix is even? The right solution of course is plugs for the oil & gas cans, or new cans, but I need to drive to the hardware store in town first. This bad analogy doesn’t capture the distinction between fairness vs sameness - we want equal opportunity not necessarily equal outcome - but I think there might be value in the idea that we have leaky cans leaking in unequal amounts, and thus pouring a little more from one of them to balance out the leaks is a completely reasonable thing to do, no?
bogrot 4y ago
> I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives by groups pushing for gender equality. How so? I'm a man from that era and didn't notice this at all.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  At least from what I witnessed (Melbourne, AU, studied EEE from 2012 - 2015) There was absolutely preferential treatment given to women in STEM during that period of time. All around the university, you'd see posters for bursaries and scholarships that turned out to either strongly preference female candidates or be for women only. When it came to getting jobs in the final year, our female classmates would see multiple offers from Accenture, CommBank, Telstra etc. while the guys either took advantage of family connections or fought to get into a B-tier company (This was actually reflected in the stats; female engineering grads would be paid around 10% more on average from 2008 to 2016). I still remember my old man, who was made redundant around when Tony Abboott got in (he was in the energy efficiency sector) being knocked back from certain positions and later finding out it was because the position had been earmarked for a female candidate. I understand not everyone experienced it so personally, but bring it up quietly amongst colleagues and I'm sure you'll hear a few interesting things. Pretty much everyone would talk about it on the down-low back then.
dahart 4y ago
BTW, I completely forgot about the debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke, where Elizabeth absolutely shreds the idea that women are interested in people and men are interested in tools as some kind of summary of sex differences. It has been known since the 70s that this argument is not true. https://youtu.be/9bTKRkmwtGY https://youtu.be/9bTKRkmwtGY Stay to the end of her talk to see examples of what science can prove about how social forces are both strong and invisible, even among people who consider themselves feminists. If you care even one ounce about how true your talking points are, consider watching the entirety of this talk.

dahart 4y ago

> giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM Not true. This data is 1) changing rapidly, 2) not cross-cultural, not to mention 3) cherry-picked time frame. There isn’t great evidence for this if you start from the year 1800, since all the numbers now are still higher. Numbers went up for a long time, and then started going down in the 80s. Numbers in India are dramatically different than the US. These things prove the changes are cultural and cannot be genetic, to the top comment’s point. Genetics isn’t changing this fast. You stated a recently observed correlation as though it was causation, an as though it was true for all people for all time. Causation has not been shown (the authors of the study you’re citing stated they do not have an explanation.) and the recent trend represents a recent change in the direction of trends, and didn’t happen in all countries, nor at the same time. So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. BTW the one single study you’re referring to is not accepted by everyone (replication attempts have failed), and had enough problems it had to issue a correction. Other researchers believe many aspect of the study were cherry picked, not just the time frame. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-stem-gender-equality-paradox-correction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-ste...

AussieWog93 4y ago
>So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. I guess you could well be right. The science of it is not something I'm personally super-invested in. Again though, the main motivation of my comment is because I'm mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to "right historical wrongs") back when I was a student a decade or so ago.
- dahart 4y ago
  It’s totally worth checking out that video I posted in the sibling comment if you have time, it is super interesting at the end, and I think you’ll enjoy it because it’s funny. There’s scientific evidence for people who claim to be pro women in STEM, from parents to tenured professors having relatively severe biases and not even knowing it. > I’m mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to “right historical wrongs”) I understand why you and many people feel this way. Affirmative Actions are, in fact, preferential treatment which does put them in a category of bias and discrimination, and public support for Affirmative Actions is mixed. But it is a known bias undertaken intentionally, and the idea is that it’s temporary until we can show that things are fair (not the same, just fair). The idea is to combat the preferential treatment that men already receive, which we can prove is happening, but we don’t know how to fix. This one reason to consider not being mad about it - men absolutely received (and are still receiving) preferential treatment. The other reason I just hinted at - this isn’t a ‘historical’ wrong, it’s an ongoing wrong. (But it is getting less wrong over time!) There’s evidence for the fact that men are still getting preferential treatment, and as such women still have a right to be mad about it. But if we’re all mad then everyone’s pissed and nothing gets fixed. If we don’t like Affirmative Action, one natural question to ask is, what’s the practical alternative? Just assume for a minute that the claim that men get preferential treatment is true. Then how else could we fix that? What could you propose that would be better than giving an oppressed group preferential treatment? That does suck in a way, but we’ve tried a lot of things in the past, and attitudes that lead to bias are extremely stubborn and persistent, not just on gender but on race and class and other things too, and it’s not clear that time will fix them without other interventions. Let me try on a bad analogy for size. Pretend I’m mixing gas for my two-stroke dirt bike, and both my oil can and my gas can are leaky. I’m trying to get a half-and-half mix (pretend!) but when I pour what I think are equal amounts, I can see I end up with a 72/25 mix that’s oil heavy and way too rich, and some mess on the ground. I don’t have a way to plug the leaks, but I can see clearly that I have some. What should I do? Does it makes sense to slow the oil rate, or increase the gas rate until the mix is even? The right solution of course is plugs for the oil & gas cans, or new cans, but I need to drive to the hardware store in town first. This bad analogy doesn’t capture the distinction between fairness vs sameness - we want equal opportunity not necessarily equal outcome - but I think there might be value in the idea that we have leaky cans leaking in unequal amounts, and thus pouring a little more from one of them to balance out the leaks is a completely reasonable thing to do, no?

bogrot 4y ago

> I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives by groups pushing for gender equality. How so? I'm a man from that era and didn't notice this at all.

AussieWog93 4y ago
At least from what I witnessed (Melbourne, AU, studied EEE from 2012 - 2015) There was absolutely preferential treatment given to women in STEM during that period of time. All around the university, you'd see posters for bursaries and scholarships that turned out to either strongly preference female candidates or be for women only. When it came to getting jobs in the final year, our female classmates would see multiple offers from Accenture, CommBank, Telstra etc. while the guys either took advantage of family connections or fought to get into a B-tier company (This was actually reflected in the stats; female engineering grads would be paid around 10% more on average from 2008 to 2016). I still remember my old man, who was made redundant around when Tony Abboott got in (he was in the energy efficiency sector) being knocked back from certain positions and later finding out it was because the position had been earmarked for a female candidate. I understand not everyone experienced it so personally, but bring it up quietly amongst colleagues and I'm sure you'll hear a few interesting things. Pretty much everyone would talk about it on the down-low back then.

dahart 4y ago

BTW, I completely forgot about the debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke, where Elizabeth absolutely shreds the idea that women are interested in people and men are interested in tools as some kind of summary of sex differences. It has been known since the 70s that this argument is not true. https://youtu.be/9bTKRkmwtGY https://youtu.be/9bTKRkmwtGY Stay to the end of her talk to see examples of what science can prove about how social forces are both strong and invisible, even among people who consider themselves feminists. If you care even one ounce about how true your talking points are, consider watching the entirety of this talk.