Are women willing to have STEM careers, but not able? Are they able, but not willing?

la_sabotage · 2014-07-26T22:47:27+00:00

interests are hard to change as they are stable and highly heritable.

If personal interests were genetically inheritable (a claim that I have yet to see confirmed via empirical evidence, by the way), then wouldn't that mean the daughters of STEM careerists would inherit an interest for STEM fields?

[deleted] · 2014-07-26T23:46:58+00:00

Most men are not interested in STEM careers, never mind women

StabbyPants · 2014-07-27T02:22:52+00:00

A black friend of mine pointed out that he believes ~~that most minorities fail~~ why many minorities fail. He didn't even know how to apply for college or how to get financial aid. Fortunately he was in cultural outreach program at Juilliard where he got to mingle with kids from the middle and upper classes. So he knew who to ask that was trustworthy.

Once he got to college he maintained those relationships because many of them went on to the same music school. He knew who to talk to when he was intimidated by the work or had other issues.

I could see a similar dynamic happening with women. They're interested in engineering, but they don't have the support network to help them when times are tough. So they either drop it or avoid it altogether. (Plus, they likely get rewards for other behaviors such as being pleasant to work with, or in some cases merely because of their physical attractiveness.)

[deleted] · 2014-07-28T13:51:57+00:00

Engineer here.

Has anyone actually looked at the gap? The actual numbers?

We've got a whole lot of hypothesizing and baloney devoted to what? Stats about the gender gap in computer science? (I bet no one knows what that is either) Does anyone here actually understand the breadth of degrees that STEM encompasses?

I went to a thermo fisher trade show the other week and the majority of the attendees were women.

The "gap" isn't nearly what you think it is.

Furthermore, most men do not go into STEM degrees. We're talking about comparing a fraction of a percent to a smaller fraction of a percent and this translates to alpha/beta/masculine/feminine gobbledegook?

My year was 60% women. Based on the class pictures, They were token participants until the 90's, and then participation increased. Don't know if it's still increasing.

So in answer to your question, yes. Women are willing. And they are able.

JediKnight1 · 2014-07-26T21:55:18+00:00

According to this

Paywall.

given the division of labor in our more ancient ancestors such that females did much of the child care.

source?

Personally I didn't pursue a STEM career because I don't have the type of concentration the hard sciences require. I couldn't dedicate the next eight years of my life to focusing on one thing. I like...multiple things. I do have a strong admiration of science and all its constituents, but I also love social issues: news, industry, people, history, and the allocation of the world's resources (to what end)? More social, amorphous quandaries lacking the clear, deliberate, objective boundaries that define the hard sciences.

I'm just not that type of thinker. It's not my strong suit.

As for other women...weeeeelllllllllll there is this issue of women getting freezed out of advanced positions within the scientific community. Here's an article and some further sources on the matter.

edit: fixed link

[deleted] · 2014-07-27T02:55:45+00:00

People tend to share interests with their friends and most women are friends with women, so even if you have aptitude for a STEM field if all of your friends are studying nursing and humanities you are more likely to go into one of those fields.

It is also seen as fairly "uncool" for women to have nerdy interests, I can still remember my friend telling her mum that she wanted to study computer science at Uni and her mum saying "Why do you want to do that for? You're pretty, you don't need to."

jkonine · 2014-07-27T06:24:09+00:00

My college physics professor and her husband are both on the Cern team that just won a nobel prize. They have two young kids and are amongst the most notable nuclear physicists on the planet. Her husband is a high school teacher. Probably the most qualified high school physics teacher in the world.

They seem happy enough.

Also, in my class of 25, there were 9 girls, and all of them were 6 out of 10s or better.

Not the ideal 50/50, but they're doing better right? And from what I understand, they all did really well in the class.

JediKnight1 · 2014-07-28T20:46:16+00:00

Most of the science oriented women I have known(and yes I have known many) Are largely focused on Biology, Chemistry, and Social sciences like Archeology, Anthropology, Psychology, ect. However I have also known many women also interested in engineering, physics, and math. There is still pressure on women to be more family focused and while some of this may be biological since women are the ones that are pregnant. Acting like women have no interest in science and just want to be trophy wives is pretty gross.

la_sabotage · 2014-07-26T22:49:00+00:00

Also, I have no idea where you guys live, but I know quite a few women who are undertaking, or are in the process of undertaking, careers in science or engineering (most of them chemists, astronomers, or compsci majors).

la_sabotage · 2014-07-26T22:37:12+00:00

Who cares? Why don't you discuss why more women don't pursue working manual labor in mines or as garbage-men?

OneKnightsStand · 2014-07-26T23:18:20+00:00

I went to a school that had a STEM focus. There was a choice between IT, Engineering, and Pre-Medical training. I kid you not an overwhelming majority of ladies at my school went into the Medical academy not because they had an interest in it but because they didn't want to be in the other two and still wanted to go there.

In a not-so-close second was the engineering academy. Which had maybe 100-200 girls in it. Then there is IT and you were lucky if you saw 1-2 girls in any given class at any given time. There is no reason for me to doubt that women cannot prosper in STEM careers. Especially since employers are much more willing to employ women in these fields.

The reasons why someone might choose not to could be surmised as thus. 1. It wouldn't be a fit for me because I'm not that into tech. 2. I have a much more compelling interest. 3. I'm uncomfortable working in an environment that is filled with majority single males.
4. I may feel less feminine picking these careers because of the reasons OP presented (regarding ancestry).

boscoist · 2014-07-27T03:12:48+00:00

I know several. They are willling AND able AND intereseted. If you're trying to account for the "lack" of women in STEM, thats a problem with our education system more than anything else imo.

an_absolute_rose · 2014-07-26T21:43:27+00:00

I would argue able but not willing. I know a lot of women who are happy to be trophy wives. For example I know a girl whose sole goal in life is to marry a basketball player. She's a Kardashian wannabe.

On the other side of this, I know a girl who is smarter than I in math which is my best subject, but is choosing to be a psychologist when her math abilities are just off the charts. She is brilliant but she doesn't want to work a career based on math. Just an anecdote, but there's not a lot of women I know who are smarter than me. She's the smartest I know and is going to a career she is overqualified for. She just doesn't like math. This girl is RPers dream. I'm going to miss her.

Edited for clarification.

VarsitySlutTeamCpt · 2014-07-27T01:32:22+00:00

Why would they go to STEM when Liberal Arts and Women Studies are more attractive?

la_sabotage · 2014-07-27T02:01:39+00:00

As I said in another comment here, STEM isn't everything, Reddit just has a massive STEM circlejerk. And just because someone is not studying STEM doesn't mean they're not studying and doesn't mean they won't get a career either.

Anyway, what we're really asking here is if women in general have less interest in science and technology. I would argue yes they do. It's not even that girls are less likely to be geeky, it's that even the girls who are geeky (and there are plenty of them, make no mistake) are more likely to geek out over TV shows than graphics cards (just look at the fandom Tumblr blogs).

I don't think this is down to a difference in ability at all. Anyone who was inclined to learn about computers (for example) could do it. It's not difficult. Just install and use Arch for a bit and you'll learn a great deal about how computer software works. The hardware is easy to put together, it's basically expensive Lego. Of course learning programming and such is more challenging but then your standard geek isn't a software developer anyway.

If we, for the sake of this discussion, take that as a given, the question then becomes why are these equally capable women not learning about this relatively simple stuff? Why are they less likely to have an interest in it? This is something no one really knows the answer to. It goes back to the classic nature vs nurture debate which even professionals still have no definite answers for.

My personal opinion is that the many differences in male and female brains which we already know exist contribute to women, in general, being less interested in that kind of stuff than man. I do not think they're less capable of it, I just think the interests they tend to develop lean towards other areas.

But as to the suggestion that you can inherit your career options from your parents... that just makes no sense.

[deleted] · 2014-07-27T09:07:04+00:00

Able but not willing.

With how left-wing and multicultural the vast majority of colleges are, there's no excuse for a "glass ceiling" or any other feminist nonsense.

Title	Are women willing to have STEM careers, but not able? Are they able, but not willing?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	6
Comments	141
Date	July 26, 2014 8:38 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/2bt09x/are_women_willing_to_have_stem_careers_but_not/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/are-women-willing-to-have-stem-careers-but-not.285236 https://theredarchive.com/post/285236

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