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I'm tired about all these "Why aren't there so many female engineers?" articles. What is the mystery? The answer is very clear. Girls, from birth, are subject

I'm tired about all these "Why aren't there so many female engineers?" articles. What is the mystery? The answer is very clear. Girls, from birth, are subject to absolutely enormous pressure (even if it's subconscious) on the part of nearly everyone they ever come into contact with, to be "girls" and not "men". If you haven't noticed it before, try having a daughter, and realize that you do it too. I don't care who you are. You do it too. In a sense, it's hard to consider this as something strange - of course, people talk to each other differently, dependong on who they are. You talk to children differently than you talk to adults, for example. What is difficult is to adjust to the idea that women on men, on certain levels, should be addressed in the same way, and on other levels, addressed in different ways.

marquis 13y ago
I loved my Dad. He let me hang out with him in his workshop, he did cool tech stuff with computers (back when having their guts spilled out on the floor was the norm). I grew up loving tech because I loved my Dad, and it just become something I gravitated to. Might not be the entry point for all women but Dads - hang out with your daughters and spill the guts of your computers on the floor and make the lights blink.
hedgew 13y ago
That pressure is not only external - it's also internal[1]. Often it's a wasted effort to try and treat your children in gender-neutral ways, they simply prefer to play with dolls and robots, and then you're just forcing your preferences on your children. Work with children and the extent to which our preferences are coded into our genes becomes even more evident. An alternative conclusion we can draw from the statistics described in the article is that women are just as capable of pursuing careers in computer science if they so choose. The fact that there is a skewed gender distribution may not necessarily be a problem, but merely a difference in preferences. As long as we have no law or other system that discriminates against women or men, there may be no one but our biology to blame for such skewness. [1] Behavioural gender differences become evident at very early ages, before any external pressure is exerted upon children. This is a widely studied issue, see for example: Alexander, G. M., & Hines, M. (2002). Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus). Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 467–469. Bailey, J. M., & Zucker, K. J. (1995). Childhood sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation: A conceptual analysis and quantitative review. Developmental Psychology, 31, 43–55. Bauer, J. A., Shimojo, S., Gwizada, J., & Held, R. (1986). Sex differences in the development of human infants. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, 27, 265–273. Berenbaum, S. A., & Hines, M. (1992). Early androgens are related to childhood sex-typed toy preferences. Psychological Science, 3, 203–206. Liss, M. B. (1981). Patterns of toy play: An analysis of sex differences. Sex Roles, 7, 1143–1150.
- timje1 13y ago
  Interestingly, when mothers learn the gender of their child, they talk to their daughters in the womb more than they talk to their sons. There was another study published recently that suggested that male and female babies might get subtly different breast milk. Basically it's extremely difficult to separate what's genes and what's environment/culture. Because a baby is treated differently, fed differently and spoken to differently, based on gender, their entire lives (and before, depending on your definition of life).

marquis 13y ago

I loved my Dad. He let me hang out with him in his workshop, he did cool tech stuff with computers (back when having their guts spilled out on the floor was the norm). I grew up loving tech because I loved my Dad, and it just become something I gravitated to. Might not be the entry point for all women but Dads - hang out with your daughters and spill the guts of your computers on the floor and make the lights blink.

hedgew 13y ago

That pressure is not only external - it's also internal[1]. Often it's a wasted effort to try and treat your children in gender-neutral ways, they simply prefer to play with dolls and robots, and then you're just forcing your preferences on your children. Work with children and the extent to which our preferences are coded into our genes becomes even more evident. An alternative conclusion we can draw from the statistics described in the article is that women are just as capable of pursuing careers in computer science if they so choose. The fact that there is a skewed gender distribution may not necessarily be a problem, but merely a difference in preferences. As long as we have no law or other system that discriminates against women or men, there may be no one but our biology to blame for such skewness. [1] Behavioural gender differences become evident at very early ages, before any external pressure is exerted upon children. This is a widely studied issue, see for example: Alexander, G. M., & Hines, M. (2002). Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus). Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 467–469. Bailey, J. M., & Zucker, K. J. (1995). Childhood sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation: A conceptual analysis and quantitative review. Developmental Psychology, 31, 43–55. Bauer, J. A., Shimojo, S., Gwizada, J., & Held, R. (1986). Sex differences in the development of human infants. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, 27, 265–273. Berenbaum, S. A., & Hines, M. (1992). Early androgens are related to childhood sex-typed toy preferences. Psychological Science, 3, 203–206. Liss, M. B. (1981). Patterns of toy play: An analysis of sex differences. Sex Roles, 7, 1143–1150.

timje1 13y ago
Interestingly, when mothers learn the gender of their child, they talk to their daughters in the womb more than they talk to their sons. There was another study published recently that suggested that male and female babies might get subtly different breast milk. Basically it's extremely difficult to separate what's genes and what's environment/culture. Because a baby is treated differently, fed differently and spoken to differently, based on gender, their entire lives (and before, depending on your definition of life).