6 ms·

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

by 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.

by Nadya 11y ago

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.