6 ms·

Gender and Career Choice

49 points by jhookham 11y ago

Nadya 11y ago
Completely meaningless statistics without factoring in the experience and education of the people surveyed. It's one thing to say you're interested and another to go through the effort required [0]. I'm interested in being a pilot - but I lack any of the education or credentials to actually become a pilot. So my interest compared to the possibility of employment would be meaningless. How many of the females are interested in Engineering but majored in Gender or Women's Studies and effectively slashed any chances they had of working as an engineer? Surveying for level of education and major (if applicable) as well as previous work experience would make the apparent disparity more meaningful. Now, whether or not their choice of education (and thus chance of employment) was due to a gender bias or gender discrimination is another question. [0] https://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/11-47.pdf https://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/11...
- steveklabnik 11y ago
  > So my interest compared to the possibility of employment > would be meaningless. I haven't really read the article yet, but this isn't true, depending on what they're actually measuring. For example, if people who are interested in the field are systemically denied access to the education to actually get into that field, this kind of measurement would account for that, no? It's hard to measure the right thing.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    >Now, whether or not their choice of education (and thus chance of employment) was due to a gender bias or gender discrimination is another question. I later clarified that I don't discard that line of reasoning. E: I will further clarify that I don't personally think this is the case though. Roughly 30% more women are attending tertiary education than men (at least in the US and other "western world" nations) and through affirmative action they even have the upper hand in being biased in favor of further education [0]. [0] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ENR.TERT.FM.ZS/countries http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ENR.TERT.FM.ZS/countr...
    - SolaceQuantum 11y ago
      But is any of that education actually resulting in changes in the income of women and career projections in comparison with equally or less-educated men?
      - switchbak 11y ago
        I imagine it will - over a very long term. And I imagine faculties like CS will take even longer to evolve, but will eventually follow the same pattern. When there's such a divergence in post-secondary attendance (as there apparently is), I think the effects are somewhat unavoidable.
- jacalata 11y ago
  It's not meaningless at all. It directly refutes the constant argument that "women don't do engineering because they aren't interested in it".
  - Nadya 11y ago
    With a majority of majors going to Health professions, Psychology, English, Biology, Arts, Social Sciences, etc and few going to Engineering. It's not a big surprise that, although many claim an "interest" in Engineering that many are also unqualified to hold a position as an Engineer [0]. Having an interest in something and being qualified for the position are two entirely different things. Being qualified has a large factor in whether or not you get a job related to your interest. [0] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...
    - beat 11y ago
      What about careers that don't require academic credentials? I gave the example earlier of my own daughter, and the gender bias she faces working in a professional kitchen. That's not an academics-driven field. Kitchen advancement comes from apprenticeship and personal relationships. If gender bias (observable in staff behavior) plays a role in opportunity, then it stands to reason that women are less likely than men to advance in the field, given similar effort and experience.
    - jacalata 11y ago
      So your proposition is that interest is 100% irrelevant to eventual career path? That's the only scenario where this data is irrelevant. I didn't notice the article saying "interest should correlate 100% with career and any difference is just sexism", which seems to be the straw man you're putting up.
      - Nadya 11y ago
        Perhaps my choice of using "irrelevant" wasn't the the best. I should have said "completely meaningless". Close meanings but the nuance is a bit different. My proposition is that interest is only a small factor in eventual career path and that interest alone won't land you many jobs. You have to put effort into obtaining the necessary credentials (be it academic or otherwise). Did you put that effort in because of interest? Sure, I can't argue that interest would play a factor into motivation but interest alone is completely meaningless. An even better example would be "astronaut". Everyone I know thinks its the damnest coolest job a human being could ever have! I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in my office who wouldn't want to be an astronaut! But how many people become astronauts? Is it because it discriminates towards them or because its a lot of hard work and years of training that they haven't put the effort in to do? Or is it because interest alone is an irrelevant factor into eventual employment as an astronaut?
- rcoder 11y ago
  /me sighs Where to start? First, to your (horribly sexist) implication that women opt out of the workforce by studying "Gender or Women's Studies": it isn't even in the top 10 majors for women. You know what the #1 major for women is? Business. http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women-forbes-woman-leadership-education.html http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women... Biology, math, and physics are all also popular majors for women: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/28/359419934/who-studies-what-men-women-and-college-majors http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/28/359419934/who-s... Calling out "previous work experience" is similarly just so much BS. If women are excluded through systematic bias in hiring (hint: they are!) then they literally can't earn that experience. Furthermore there's a compounded effect, as fewer and fewer women make it up through each tier of the hiring/promotion filter. Even the article you cited calls out gender disparities in academia. While only 22% of CS PhDs were given to women, they made up an even more minuscule 14% of CS faculty. tl;dr: the system is rigged and women don't get a fair shake. Stop victim-blaming.
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Don't more women attend college than men? Hasn't that been true for 40 years?
  - batbomb 11y ago
    As someone who majored in Physics and minored in Math, there was quite a bit of women in the Math department and a few women in Physics, but both had much more women than the entry level CS class I took, and I'm not sure there were any that I can remember in the one, large, entry-level EE class I took. I did graduate 2008/2009, and tried to find a job for a while without much luck, partially because employers were (short-sightedly) specifically looking for EE/CS degrees. That's where I think the second part of this problem lies: Majoring in math and physical sciences, specifically with only a BS, doesn't get you very far in a job market when even entry level positions are heavily favoring CS and EE degrees... even though most STEM degrees usually share a common pedigree of math, sciences, and basic programming skills. In many cases, students who are able to do any kind of research as an undergrad in math or physical sciences will have quite adequate and advanced programming skills, but that's still harder to market than a engineering degree.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I majored in aerospace engineering at a pretty good state school. My major was probably 10% women. However, if you look at the pool of people with a 700+ SAT Math score, which was pretty representative of my classmates, it's over 35%. And apparently, the interest among women in mechanical engineering is up around that too. So where did those women who are good at math and interested in being engineers go? I think a lot of them make the sensible decision to go into careers where they won't spend the rest of their lives fighting an uphill battle as a minority.
  - beat 11y ago
    A sad and worrisome trend over the past few decades has been fewer rather than more women in engineering fields (especially computers). I haven't seen well-researched explanations for this, but it's a measurable and observable phenomenon.
- neilk 11y ago
  > How many of the females are interested in Engineering but majored in Gender or Women's Studies and effectively slashed any chances they had of working as an engineer? The guy who started this site majored in philosophy and identified as a painter for a long time.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    My mother majored in psychology but runs a home business. My father majored in English but installs security cameras. A project manager I know majored in Audio Engineering. It doesn't seem uncommon to work outside of your major. But the jobs are also generally jobs that don't require a major to be a serious candidate. The number of salespeople and marketers who don't hold business-related degrees shows that being a salesperson does not typically require a degree. Being a chemist or an engineer largely requires a relevant degree to be a serious candidate.
    - tosseraccount 11y ago
      Not all jobs require degrees. Many jobs that do really don't need to require them. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs didn't finish college.
      - Nadya 11y ago
        Starting a business never requires a degree - or experience! That could also be why they have a high failure rate and only few go on to be extremely successful. Many entrepreneurs will go through several failed businesses in which they acquire more experience before "getting it right". You'll find that being hired into a high level position with no education and no experience is an extreme rarity. You'd have more luck finding leprechaun's gold.
protomyth 11y ago
I'm not sure they really went deep enough to look at the external factors. For instance, the difference as related to pilots can be traced back to the military where most pilots get their training. Also, focusing on one section, here are some interesting stats: Job Stats 2014 http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm total women Preschool and kindergarten teachers 664 K 97.2% Elementary and middle school teachers 3,102 K 80.9% In 2007, about a third of public middle school science teachers either did not major in the subject in college and/or are not certified to teach it. 36 percent of public middle school math teachers in 2007 either did not major in the 1 subject in college and/or are not certified to teach it. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/tt01-08.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/tt01-08.htm I still contend that those statistics combine to hinder young girls from desiring a career in STEM. If the teachers don't value the field enough to major in it when they will be teaching it, you are getting some strange signals. They also don't get the influence of male teachers and a demonstration of men and women working together. Shoot for 50 / 50 teacher ratios and push STEM degrees in teaching and the mix in STEM will even out. Its a little late in the children forming a self identity to try to fix it later in life.
- chrisBob 11y ago
  I am not sure I understand. You can't major in math and teach middle school math. You have to major in education to teach middle school math.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    read the whole set: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/c1h.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/c1h.htm - and yes, you can major in both - plus we're talking not even certified.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    No you don't. You only need a Bachelor's degree, state certification, and certification that you are qualified to teach the subject area at the level you want. The Education degree exists for people who want to teach but do not want to delve into the depths of a particular subject that a degree in it would require.
beat 11y ago
My daughter is a cook, working toward maybe being a chef in the future - or some other mechanism for creating a satisfying career in food. When she got her first job as a full-time professional cook, it took days for others working there to figure out that she wasn't front-of-house, dealing with customers, but was actually there to cook. Professional kitchens are "sausage fests". Part and parcel with this is kitchens filled with rampant sexism, female objectification, and basically an uncomfortable working environment for the women who dare work there. And unlike a big corporate job with real HR, making a stink about the hostile and sexist working conditions puts your job, even your career on the chopping block.
- jbob2000 11y ago
  Being a cook is a sausage fest because it's an awful job. Terrible hours, dangerous working conditions, usually sweating the whole time, and definitely high stress. Look at all the other sausage fest jobs: garbage collection, soldiers, fishing, plumbing... All sausage fests. All awful. Kitchens aren't sausage fests because of the rampant sexism, they're sausage fests because women don't want to do that work. The rampant sexism comes after.
ackim 11y ago
I question the credibility of this article. There are factors missing in this analysis, education for instance. I am also weary of an article based on `self-reported interest.`
- tedks 11y ago
  Wary, not weary?
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, how would one measure interest without self-reporting? Constant surveillance to make sure women aren't secretly reading Dr Dobbs (RIP) in an incognito browser window while filling their history with TMZ?
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    You can measure interest more objectively by seeing how many start down a career path, for example. Another measure could be to look at proxies to interest - such as hobby programming as a proxy for interest in computing, or reading books as a proxy for writing. But, those are much harder to measure than just counting "likes" on a web form.
NTDF9 11y ago
Opportunities to pursue interests != career choice A lot of things are interesting to a lot of people. That does not mean they are competent in it to make it a viable career. In other words, even if I "think" I like something, doesn't mean I'm actually going to thrive in that occupation in the real world. I used to play for local soccer teams. That did not translate to Ronaldo-level paychecks. Another example: I used to be uber-good at math. Does that mean that I'll survive the stresses of HFT? I don't think that's a guarantee. Those environments are brutal, full of abuse. It is a necessity in those environments. If I (a person, regardless of my gender) cannot survive that environment, I should not be taking that job...and not be expecting to do so either. I think many women completely miss the point that fairness is just equal opportunity to pursue your interests. "Just because you are interested" is not reason enough to land those jobs/careers. You need to work for it....just like any other man. Welcome to equality!
- beat 11y ago
  This is perilously close to arguing that women don't do engineering because they're not as smart as men. Either you're using competence to explain the disparities, or you're not. If you're not, then you need an explanation for the observable interest/career disparities. This is especially true for paths where gender bias is reflected in the low/high career paths within the same field (for example, nurses vs doctors). And if you're just saying women aren't as smart as men... well.
  - NTDF9 11y ago
    >> This is perilously close to arguing that women don't do engineering because they're not as smart as men. Smart is the wrong word. It gives the analysis a different connotation. I think the word we are looking for is aptitude. Among men, there are many who have the aptitude to do STEM. Then there are other men who don't....and that is fine. I think the same goes for women. Many women have the aptitude...but many don't. >> Either you're using competence to explain the disparities, or you're not. If you're not, then you need an explanation for the observable interest/career disparities. This is especially true for paths where gender bias is reflected in the low/high career paths within the same field (for example, nurses vs doctors). I am using competence. And competence is not just inherent. Competence is developed. This is called schooling. A lot of girls spend their teen ages trying to look good and be popular(mostly because of social expectations and peer pressure). They buckle under that pressure and choose to not study as their nerdy-male counterparts. When they grow up, the nerdy-males get into high-flying jobs/careers while the females struggle to compete with them in the real world. That's why interest != competence It takes work. Nobody stopped those women from pursuing the hard stuff. They did it to themselves. You can't have everything. Nobody can. Not even men.
exarch 11y ago
>the correlation between the mix of men and women in a career with the self-reported interest in that career is 0.56 Low quality research detected. Self-reported interest in a trendy subject is a poor way to evaluate genuine dedicated interest in that subject.
nickff 11y ago
This post would be much more informative and useful if similar statistics were included for men. If the porportion interested in a subject, but not entering it (versus the porportion interested and entering it) was higher for one gender than the other, then it would suggest that one gender faced more difficulties in attaining success in that field than the other. If the proportion of one gender with (similar) credentials in a given field, but without employment in this specific field (which they have a stated desire for), then it would even stronger evidence that there were some obstacles with gender-specific impacts. From what I can understand of this piece's evidence, it only shows that many women want to be civil engineers, but do not go into that field. Anecdotally, I know many men who would have liked to be engineers, and did not succeed. I am left wondering whether there are a large number of men and women who would have liked to go through years of agony in post-secondary education, to end up in front of a computer all day with few social interactions; if so, what are the differences in preferences, dedication, and outcomes for the genders (as there are likely to be many). edit: It would also be interesting to see the impact of age on preferences and employment, to see whether younger women were more likely to achieve their preferred employment, and whether preferences varied with age. edit2: It would also be useful to know how many careers each individual 'liked'. It is possible that (of the population surveyed) one gender 'liked' more jobs than the other, and so is less likely to be employed in any specific 'liked' career. *I initially misunderstood the data presented in the article (see brighteyes' comment below), but would still like to see the gender separated data for interest, credentialling, and employment.
- beat 11y ago
  This is the only attack-the-methodology critique I've read on this thread that actually makes any sense.
  - nickff 11y ago
    Thanks? I am not trying to attack the author, the writing, or the idea; it's just that I don't know what to make of the data they present, because I require some context to understand the situation they are trying to characterize. I do not doubt their dedication, their motives, or their work ethic.
brighteyes 11y ago
This is definitely very interesting data. But there are several issues with the analysis: > Using a statistical measure called r-squared, we determined that the male/female mix within a career is on average about 31% explained by the fact that men and women have different interests. What this means is that about two-thirds of discrimination is explained by other factors. Not "discrimination" in that last sentence, but "difference". Perhaps this was unintentional, and "discrimination" is meant in some obtuse technical sense. But to most people "discrimination" means intentionally unfair treatment. The data they show - again, very interesting data - does not show anything about discrimination. edit: a second major issue is that they don't normalize the likes, or at least don't mention that they do. The likes are not limited, in other words, one can like 1,000 careers, and work in just 1. That would appear to show that person wanted to work in all those careers, but didn't, showing a "gap". A more normalized measure could let each person only like one career, say. Again, maybe they did this, but it isn't stated, and generally "likes" are not limited.
mrwilliamchang 11y ago
Is there a way to see more of the data? I was curious to see what their data was for tech, but I couldn't find it.
tedks 11y ago
This ignores the fact that discrimination in a career field deters women from being interested in the field to begin with, creating a self-sustaining vicious cycle. Within broad notions of a career, for example a "career in law" or a "career in medicine", we see much more equal numbers for men and women, but when we look at the jobs women actually have, we see that women occupy low status jobs (like paralegal and nurse) while men occupy high status jobs (like lawyer and doctor), indicating that interest is not a factor in gender gaps for specific professions. It's disappointing to read hacker news comments on any article related to feminism, and this isn't an exception. The goal of more than a hundred years of feminist struggle isn't to change the rules of society in some arbitrary way so deontological goals are adhered to, but women are not actually equal members of society. The goal is to create an actually equal society. Anything less is a failure, and if you argue for that, you are arguing against feminism.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  I find it disappointing to read any comments on feminism anywhere on the internet, from almost any angle. Between the outright attacks, debate framing, emotional reasoning, and near-religious adherence to party lines on things like redefinitions of the word "violence", it's impossible to have any sort of real conversation. This is without even considering the input of the trolls who just want to watch the world burn. The most you can do is nod along in an echo chamber, or see who can yell out their "facts" the loudest.
rubergly 11y ago
In case it wasn't obvious, the word "female" is an adjective, and referring to a group of people by an adjective instead of a noun has a demeaning connotation in English, especially when it's primarily used for one group and not another. Notice how the word "male" is only mentioned in this article as an adjective ("male/female mix", "male/female interests"), but "females" is often used as a synonym for "women" ("% of females", "people likely to trust females", "females in career", "likes from females"). "Female" is not a drop-in replacement for "women". > Using "female" in this way is contrary to how we generally communicate. As noted above, "female" as a noun erases the subject—making "female" the subject of the sentence. In the most technical sense, it's correct, but by employing this word that is usually an adjective as a noun, you're reducing her whole personhood to the confines of that adjective. It's calling someone "a white" instead of a white person, "a black" instead of a black person, and so on.[0] Not really trying to judge this article—it's been a while since I've dealt with research jargon, and I can't judge whether referring to groups as adjectives like this is standard practice in that field. And the Jezebel article I've linked to even mentions that "females" has a clinical feel, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's standard in this setting. But this bias is pretty prevalent in everyday speech and is worth being aware of and trying to prevent. [0]: http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-calling-women-females-1683808274 http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-calling-women-females-16...
- beat 11y ago
  In disability-oriented fields and discussion, it's called people-first language. You're right, it's a sore point. I noticed it too, although I've been kind of trained to notice it.
- bweitzman 11y ago
  Sorry for being pedantic but "male/female mix" is actually using both "male" and "female" as nouns in the same way that "sugar/salt mix" is using "sugar" and "salt" as nouns.

49 points by jhookham 11y ago

Nadya 11y ago

Completely meaningless statistics without factoring in the experience and education of the people surveyed. It's one thing to say you're interested and another to go through the effort required [0]. I'm interested in being a pilot - but I lack any of the education or credentials to actually become a pilot. So my interest compared to the possibility of employment would be meaningless. How many of the females are interested in Engineering but majored in Gender or Women's Studies and effectively slashed any chances they had of working as an engineer? Surveying for level of education and major (if applicable) as well as previous work experience would make the apparent disparity more meaningful. Now, whether or not their choice of education (and thus chance of employment) was due to a gender bias or gender discrimination is another question. [0] https://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/11-47.pdf https://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/11...

steveklabnik 11y ago
> So my interest compared to the possibility of employment > would be meaningless. I haven't really read the article yet, but this isn't true, depending on what they're actually measuring. For example, if people who are interested in the field are systemically denied access to the education to actually get into that field, this kind of measurement would account for that, no? It's hard to measure the right thing.
- Nadya 11y ago
  >Now, whether or not their choice of education (and thus chance of employment) was due to a gender bias or gender discrimination is another question. I later clarified that I don't discard that line of reasoning. E: I will further clarify that I don't personally think this is the case though. Roughly 30% more women are attending tertiary education than men (at least in the US and other "western world" nations) and through affirmative action they even have the upper hand in being biased in favor of further education [0]. [0] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ENR.TERT.FM.ZS/countries http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ENR.TERT.FM.ZS/countr...
  - SolaceQuantum 11y ago
    But is any of that education actually resulting in changes in the income of women and career projections in comparison with equally or less-educated men?
    - switchbak 11y ago
      I imagine it will - over a very long term. And I imagine faculties like CS will take even longer to evolve, but will eventually follow the same pattern. When there's such a divergence in post-secondary attendance (as there apparently is), I think the effects are somewhat unavoidable.
jacalata 11y ago
It's not meaningless at all. It directly refutes the constant argument that "women don't do engineering because they aren't interested in it".
- Nadya 11y ago
  With a majority of majors going to Health professions, Psychology, English, Biology, Arts, Social Sciences, etc and few going to Engineering. It's not a big surprise that, although many claim an "interest" in Engineering that many are also unqualified to hold a position as an Engineer [0]. Having an interest in something and being qualified for the position are two entirely different things. Being qualified has a large factor in whether or not you get a job related to your interest. [0] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...
  - beat 11y ago
    What about careers that don't require academic credentials? I gave the example earlier of my own daughter, and the gender bias she faces working in a professional kitchen. That's not an academics-driven field. Kitchen advancement comes from apprenticeship and personal relationships. If gender bias (observable in staff behavior) plays a role in opportunity, then it stands to reason that women are less likely than men to advance in the field, given similar effort and experience.
  - jacalata 11y ago
    So your proposition is that interest is 100% irrelevant to eventual career path? That's the only scenario where this data is irrelevant. I didn't notice the article saying "interest should correlate 100% with career and any difference is just sexism", which seems to be the straw man you're putting up.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      Perhaps my choice of using "irrelevant" wasn't the the best. I should have said "completely meaningless". Close meanings but the nuance is a bit different. My proposition is that interest is only a small factor in eventual career path and that interest alone won't land you many jobs. You have to put effort into obtaining the necessary credentials (be it academic or otherwise). Did you put that effort in because of interest? Sure, I can't argue that interest would play a factor into motivation but interest alone is completely meaningless. An even better example would be "astronaut". Everyone I know thinks its the damnest coolest job a human being could ever have! I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in my office who wouldn't want to be an astronaut! But how many people become astronauts? Is it because it discriminates towards them or because its a lot of hard work and years of training that they haven't put the effort in to do? Or is it because interest alone is an irrelevant factor into eventual employment as an astronaut?
rcoder 11y ago
/me sighs Where to start? First, to your (horribly sexist) implication that women opt out of the workforce by studying "Gender or Women's Studies": it isn't even in the top 10 majors for women. You know what the #1 major for women is? Business. http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women-forbes-woman-leadership-education.html http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women... Biology, math, and physics are all also popular majors for women: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/28/359419934/who-studies-what-men-women-and-college-majors http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/28/359419934/who-s... Calling out "previous work experience" is similarly just so much BS. If women are excluded through systematic bias in hiring (hint: they are!) then they literally can't earn that experience. Furthermore there's a compounded effect, as fewer and fewer women make it up through each tier of the hiring/promotion filter. Even the article you cited calls out gender disparities in academia. While only 22% of CS PhDs were given to women, they made up an even more minuscule 14% of CS faculty. tl;dr: the system is rigged and women don't get a fair shake. Stop victim-blaming.
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Don't more women attend college than men? Hasn't that been true for 40 years?
- batbomb 11y ago
  As someone who majored in Physics and minored in Math, there was quite a bit of women in the Math department and a few women in Physics, but both had much more women than the entry level CS class I took, and I'm not sure there were any that I can remember in the one, large, entry-level EE class I took. I did graduate 2008/2009, and tried to find a job for a while without much luck, partially because employers were (short-sightedly) specifically looking for EE/CS degrees. That's where I think the second part of this problem lies: Majoring in math and physical sciences, specifically with only a BS, doesn't get you very far in a job market when even entry level positions are heavily favoring CS and EE degrees... even though most STEM degrees usually share a common pedigree of math, sciences, and basic programming skills. In many cases, students who are able to do any kind of research as an undergrad in math or physical sciences will have quite adequate and advanced programming skills, but that's still harder to market than a engineering degree.
rayiner 11y ago
I majored in aerospace engineering at a pretty good state school. My major was probably 10% women. However, if you look at the pool of people with a 700+ SAT Math score, which was pretty representative of my classmates, it's over 35%. And apparently, the interest among women in mechanical engineering is up around that too. So where did those women who are good at math and interested in being engineers go? I think a lot of them make the sensible decision to go into careers where they won't spend the rest of their lives fighting an uphill battle as a minority.
- beat 11y ago
  A sad and worrisome trend over the past few decades has been fewer rather than more women in engineering fields (especially computers). I haven't seen well-researched explanations for this, but it's a measurable and observable phenomenon.
neilk 11y ago
> How many of the females are interested in Engineering but majored in Gender or Women's Studies and effectively slashed any chances they had of working as an engineer? The guy who started this site majored in philosophy and identified as a painter for a long time.
- Nadya 11y ago
  My mother majored in psychology but runs a home business. My father majored in English but installs security cameras. A project manager I know majored in Audio Engineering. It doesn't seem uncommon to work outside of your major. But the jobs are also generally jobs that don't require a major to be a serious candidate. The number of salespeople and marketers who don't hold business-related degrees shows that being a salesperson does not typically require a degree. Being a chemist or an engineer largely requires a relevant degree to be a serious candidate.
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Not all jobs require degrees. Many jobs that do really don't need to require them. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs didn't finish college.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      Starting a business never requires a degree - or experience! That could also be why they have a high failure rate and only few go on to be extremely successful. Many entrepreneurs will go through several failed businesses in which they acquire more experience before "getting it right". You'll find that being hired into a high level position with no education and no experience is an extreme rarity. You'd have more luck finding leprechaun's gold.

protomyth 11y ago

I'm not sure they really went deep enough to look at the external factors. For instance, the difference as related to pilots can be traced back to the military where most pilots get their training. Also, focusing on one section, here are some interesting stats: Job Stats 2014 http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm total women Preschool and kindergarten teachers 664 K 97.2% Elementary and middle school teachers 3,102 K 80.9% In 2007, about a third of public middle school science teachers either did not major in the subject in college and/or are not certified to teach it. 36 percent of public middle school math teachers in 2007 either did not major in the 1 subject in college and/or are not certified to teach it. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/tt01-08.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/tt01-08.htm I still contend that those statistics combine to hinder young girls from desiring a career in STEM. If the teachers don't value the field enough to major in it when they will be teaching it, you are getting some strange signals. They also don't get the influence of male teachers and a demonstration of men and women working together. Shoot for 50 / 50 teacher ratios and push STEM degrees in teaching and the mix in STEM will even out. Its a little late in the children forming a self identity to try to fix it later in life.

chrisBob 11y ago
I am not sure I understand. You can't major in math and teach middle school math. You have to major in education to teach middle school math.
- protomyth 11y ago
  read the whole set: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/c1h.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/c1h.htm - and yes, you can major in both - plus we're talking not even certified.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  No you don't. You only need a Bachelor's degree, state certification, and certification that you are qualified to teach the subject area at the level you want. The Education degree exists for people who want to teach but do not want to delve into the depths of a particular subject that a degree in it would require.

beat 11y ago

My daughter is a cook, working toward maybe being a chef in the future - or some other mechanism for creating a satisfying career in food. When she got her first job as a full-time professional cook, it took days for others working there to figure out that she wasn't front-of-house, dealing with customers, but was actually there to cook. Professional kitchens are "sausage fests". Part and parcel with this is kitchens filled with rampant sexism, female objectification, and basically an uncomfortable working environment for the women who dare work there. And unlike a big corporate job with real HR, making a stink about the hostile and sexist working conditions puts your job, even your career on the chopping block.

jbob2000 11y ago
Being a cook is a sausage fest because it's an awful job. Terrible hours, dangerous working conditions, usually sweating the whole time, and definitely high stress. Look at all the other sausage fest jobs: garbage collection, soldiers, fishing, plumbing... All sausage fests. All awful. Kitchens aren't sausage fests because of the rampant sexism, they're sausage fests because women don't want to do that work. The rampant sexism comes after.

ackim 11y ago

I question the credibility of this article. There are factors missing in this analysis, education for instance. I am also weary of an article based on `self-reported interest.`

tedks 11y ago
Wary, not weary?
oldmanjay 11y ago
Out of curiosity, how would one measure interest without self-reporting? Constant surveillance to make sure women aren't secretly reading Dr Dobbs (RIP) in an incognito browser window while filling their history with TMZ?
- brighteyes 11y ago
  You can measure interest more objectively by seeing how many start down a career path, for example. Another measure could be to look at proxies to interest - such as hobby programming as a proxy for interest in computing, or reading books as a proxy for writing. But, those are much harder to measure than just counting "likes" on a web form.

NTDF9 11y ago

Opportunities to pursue interests != career choice A lot of things are interesting to a lot of people. That does not mean they are competent in it to make it a viable career. In other words, even if I "think" I like something, doesn't mean I'm actually going to thrive in that occupation in the real world. I used to play for local soccer teams. That did not translate to Ronaldo-level paychecks. Another example: I used to be uber-good at math. Does that mean that I'll survive the stresses of HFT? I don't think that's a guarantee. Those environments are brutal, full of abuse. It is a necessity in those environments. If I (a person, regardless of my gender) cannot survive that environment, I should not be taking that job...and not be expecting to do so either. I think many women completely miss the point that fairness is just equal opportunity to pursue your interests. "Just because you are interested" is not reason enough to land those jobs/careers. You need to work for it....just like any other man. Welcome to equality!

beat 11y ago
This is perilously close to arguing that women don't do engineering because they're not as smart as men. Either you're using competence to explain the disparities, or you're not. If you're not, then you need an explanation for the observable interest/career disparities. This is especially true for paths where gender bias is reflected in the low/high career paths within the same field (for example, nurses vs doctors). And if you're just saying women aren't as smart as men... well.
- NTDF9 11y ago
  >> This is perilously close to arguing that women don't do engineering because they're not as smart as men. Smart is the wrong word. It gives the analysis a different connotation. I think the word we are looking for is aptitude. Among men, there are many who have the aptitude to do STEM. Then there are other men who don't....and that is fine. I think the same goes for women. Many women have the aptitude...but many don't. >> Either you're using competence to explain the disparities, or you're not. If you're not, then you need an explanation for the observable interest/career disparities. This is especially true for paths where gender bias is reflected in the low/high career paths within the same field (for example, nurses vs doctors). I am using competence. And competence is not just inherent. Competence is developed. This is called schooling. A lot of girls spend their teen ages trying to look good and be popular(mostly because of social expectations and peer pressure). They buckle under that pressure and choose to not study as their nerdy-male counterparts. When they grow up, the nerdy-males get into high-flying jobs/careers while the females struggle to compete with them in the real world. That's why interest != competence It takes work. Nobody stopped those women from pursuing the hard stuff. They did it to themselves. You can't have everything. Nobody can. Not even men.

exarch 11y ago

>the correlation between the mix of men and women in a career with the self-reported interest in that career is 0.56 Low quality research detected. Self-reported interest in a trendy subject is a poor way to evaluate genuine dedicated interest in that subject.

nickff 11y ago

This post would be much more informative and useful if similar statistics were included for men. If the porportion interested in a subject, but not entering it (versus the porportion interested and entering it) was higher for one gender than the other, then it would suggest that one gender faced more difficulties in attaining success in that field than the other. If the proportion of one gender with (similar) credentials in a given field, but without employment in this specific field (which they have a stated desire for), then it would even stronger evidence that there were some obstacles with gender-specific impacts. From what I can understand of this piece's evidence, it only shows that many women want to be civil engineers, but do not go into that field. Anecdotally, I know many men who would have liked to be engineers, and did not succeed. I am left wondering whether there are a large number of men and women who would have liked to go through years of agony in post-secondary education, to end up in front of a computer all day with few social interactions; if so, what are the differences in preferences, dedication, and outcomes for the genders (as there are likely to be many). edit: It would also be interesting to see the impact of age on preferences and employment, to see whether younger women were more likely to achieve their preferred employment, and whether preferences varied with age. edit2: It would also be useful to know how many careers each individual 'liked'. It is possible that (of the population surveyed) one gender 'liked' more jobs than the other, and so is less likely to be employed in any specific 'liked' career. *I initially misunderstood the data presented in the article (see brighteyes' comment below), but would still like to see the gender separated data for interest, credentialling, and employment.

beat 11y ago
This is the only attack-the-methodology critique I've read on this thread that actually makes any sense.
- nickff 11y ago
  Thanks? I am not trying to attack the author, the writing, or the idea; it's just that I don't know what to make of the data they present, because I require some context to understand the situation they are trying to characterize. I do not doubt their dedication, their motives, or their work ethic.

brighteyes 11y ago

This is definitely very interesting data. But there are several issues with the analysis: > Using a statistical measure called r-squared, we determined that the male/female mix within a career is on average about 31% explained by the fact that men and women have different interests. What this means is that about two-thirds of discrimination is explained by other factors. Not "discrimination" in that last sentence, but "difference". Perhaps this was unintentional, and "discrimination" is meant in some obtuse technical sense. But to most people "discrimination" means intentionally unfair treatment. The data they show - again, very interesting data - does not show anything about discrimination. edit: a second major issue is that they don't normalize the likes, or at least don't mention that they do. The likes are not limited, in other words, one can like 1,000 careers, and work in just 1. That would appear to show that person wanted to work in all those careers, but didn't, showing a "gap". A more normalized measure could let each person only like one career, say. Again, maybe they did this, but it isn't stated, and generally "likes" are not limited.

mrwilliamchang 11y ago

Is there a way to see more of the data? I was curious to see what their data was for tech, but I couldn't find it.

tedks 11y ago

This ignores the fact that discrimination in a career field deters women from being interested in the field to begin with, creating a self-sustaining vicious cycle. Within broad notions of a career, for example a "career in law" or a "career in medicine", we see much more equal numbers for men and women, but when we look at the jobs women actually have, we see that women occupy low status jobs (like paralegal and nurse) while men occupy high status jobs (like lawyer and doctor), indicating that interest is not a factor in gender gaps for specific professions. It's disappointing to read hacker news comments on any article related to feminism, and this isn't an exception. The goal of more than a hundred years of feminist struggle isn't to change the rules of society in some arbitrary way so deontological goals are adhered to, but women are not actually equal members of society. The goal is to create an actually equal society. Anything less is a failure, and if you argue for that, you are arguing against feminism.

oldmanjay 11y ago
I find it disappointing to read any comments on feminism anywhere on the internet, from almost any angle. Between the outright attacks, debate framing, emotional reasoning, and near-religious adherence to party lines on things like redefinitions of the word "violence", it's impossible to have any sort of real conversation. This is without even considering the input of the trolls who just want to watch the world burn. The most you can do is nod along in an echo chamber, or see who can yell out their "facts" the loudest.

rubergly 11y ago

In case it wasn't obvious, the word "female" is an adjective, and referring to a group of people by an adjective instead of a noun has a demeaning connotation in English, especially when it's primarily used for one group and not another. Notice how the word "male" is only mentioned in this article as an adjective ("male/female mix", "male/female interests"), but "females" is often used as a synonym for "women" ("% of females", "people likely to trust females", "females in career", "likes from females"). "Female" is not a drop-in replacement for "women". > Using "female" in this way is contrary to how we generally communicate. As noted above, "female" as a noun erases the subject—making "female" the subject of the sentence. In the most technical sense, it's correct, but by employing this word that is usually an adjective as a noun, you're reducing her whole personhood to the confines of that adjective. It's calling someone "a white" instead of a white person, "a black" instead of a black person, and so on.[0] Not really trying to judge this article—it's been a while since I've dealt with research jargon, and I can't judge whether referring to groups as adjectives like this is standard practice in that field. And the Jezebel article I've linked to even mentions that "females" has a clinical feel, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's standard in this setting. But this bias is pretty prevalent in everyday speech and is worth being aware of and trying to prevent. [0]: http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-calling-women-females-1683808274 http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-calling-women-females-16...

beat 11y ago
In disability-oriented fields and discussion, it's called people-first language. You're right, it's a sore point. I noticed it too, although I've been kind of trained to notice it.
bweitzman 11y ago
Sorry for being pedantic but "male/female mix" is actually using both "male" and "female" as nouns in the same way that "sugar/salt mix" is using "sugar" and "salt" as nouns.