Study find sexist hiring practices in STEM jobs

hopgog

edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-in-science/

It's time more effort is put into getting equal hiring for jobs in science and engineering

Nucular Arms

In fairness by the time you get through four years of undergrad studies and a nother couple of years of grad school or equivalent spent in the company of smelly, awkward blokes you'd understand the bias..

Menas

101 people started in my year 1 engineering degree. 97 male and 4 female. By graduation 4 years later there were 30 of us left. All male.
How would you expect employers to hire the same number of females as males when there are very few graduates?

circadian

Trigger Happy wrote: »

101 people started in my year 1 engineering degree. 97 male and 4 female. By graduation 4 years later there were 30 of us left. All male.
How would you expect employers to hire the same number of females as males when there are very few graduates?

Pretty much this.

The issue isn't employers. The problem is the education system and a social one. How many young girls are encouraged/interested in engineering type skills? I'd imagine plenty are interested and show an aptitude but I think the encouragement and guidance is often lacking.

Can any females on boards comment on how these types of subjects were taught at an all girls school?

Gongoozler

hopgog wrote: »

It's time more effort is put into getting equal hiring for jobs in science and engineering

No, no its not. It's not, nor is it ever time to interfere like this. This type of interfering is sexist, so I don't know how they can justify it. No gender quotas in politics or stem jobs. No.

And I'm an IT qualified female.
I'd like to know how it's meant to work though, once you have quotas, do you force women into these jobs?

tritium

hopgog wrote: »

edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-in-science/

It's time more effort is put into getting equal hiring for jobs in science and engineering

And given the relatively higher number of female graduates in most other areas I'm assuming you'll be as vocal in starting a thread to put more effort into removing gender bias there too? Any reason why stem gets everyone's attention?

bleg

Jesus, there must be sexist hiring practices for bin collectors too.

Same with healthcare, I see more and more female doctors, pharmacists and dentists. Why aren't these people hiring men?

Donkey Oaty

They allowed Margaret Thatcher to study Chemistry at Oxford and look how that all turned out.

I'm just saying.

Gongoozler

bleg wrote: »

Jesus, there must be sexist hiring practices for bin collectors too.

Same with healthcare, I see more and more female doctors, pharmacists and dentists. Why aren't these people hiring men?

There's actually way more male doctors than female.

fizzypish

Girls? We could see them from "the window" in the Engineering building. We ofter discussed what they were. Never met one though....

Donkey Oaty

Here's an Examiner piece quoting Prof. Marie Cassidy, Chief State Pathologist:

Before taking over from John Harbison as Ireland’s State Pathologist in 2004, Cassidy was also the first female full-time forensic pathologist in the UK.
As a trailblazer herself, she is anxious to encourage young females to set their sights high. “There are women at the top in Ireland. There’s Sheila Willis, and she’s the director of the Forensic Science Laboratory in the Phoenix Park. And you also have Máire Whelan, who’s the attorney general.

“There’s no bias here if you’re good at what you do. And if you put yourself forward. So that’s what we must do — women must put themselves forward. Think about it. Think about the options. Go for the options.”

biko

Start earlier by making it cool for kids to do science. Once enough boys and girls are involved in school science the gender bias will solve itself once they start looking for work.

smash

Gongoozler wrote: »

I'd like to know how it's meant to work though, once you have quotas, do you force women into these jobs?

Essentially you just force well qualified staff into unemployment.

Blowfish

Have people actually read the article? The sexism is against men.

One eyed Jack

hopgog wrote: »

edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-in-science/

It's time more effort is put into getting equal hiring for jobs in science and engineering

OP did you even actually read your own article? The issue isn't gender bias towards men at all, in fact it's far more advantageous to women -

Our results, coupled with actuarial data on real-world academic hiring showing a female advantage, suggest this is a propitious time for women beginning careers in academic science. The low numbers of women in math-based fields of science do not result from sexist hiring, but rather from women's lower rates of choosing to enter math-based fields in the first place, due to sex differences in preferred careers and perhaps to lack of female role models and mentors.

While women may encounter sexism before and during graduate training and after becoming professors, the only sexism they face in the hiring process is bias in their favor.

Having worked in IT and specifically software development for a number of years, and having hired my own team of people (this was way back before I even became aware of this whole "sexist" claims that are coming out now), my team were all women, and one guy. I wasn't hiring based on gender, I was hiring based on their skills and their attitude (many of them were fresh out of third level education).

I remember when I was doing my degree and my experience was pretty much the same as Triggers, mostly guys, about 90 guys and ten girls, and about 20 guys and 3 girls graduated. I genuinely never thought much about genders and sexism and all the rest of that stuff at the time! Nowadays it seems that to some people, their gender is more important than actually focussing on the job itself!

That's simply wrong IMO - the best person for the job should get the job, and it should have nothing to do with their gender or employers being responsible for social engineering and redressing perceived gender stereotypes. SJW's should learn to accept that some people just have no interest in these fields, whether it be STEM or social care! If they don't have an interest in a career, we shouldn't be denying someone or promoting someone simply on the basis of their gender - people are there to do a job, not to look good.

seamus

To be fair, if you just scanned the first 3 paragraphs of the article you'd be inclined to think that this was an article about how employers favour men over women.

Anecdotally I would have to agree that women probably get a slightly easier entry into the recruitment process than men do - I've seen recruiters and colleagues get really enthusiastic about a female applicant who turns out to be a lemon after five minutes into their first interview.

I think it stems primarily from the fact that STEM tends to be such a male-heavy environment that the idea of having women in there to mix it up and make the environment more interesting is very appealing. And it's not about having eye candy or someone that you might be able to shag, but about getting a new point of view into the team.

All of the female engineers where I am are highly respected and regarded, and perhaps this means that in general men subconsciously place a higher value on female engineers than male ones.

Trigger Happy wrote: »

101 people started in my year 1 engineering degree. 97 male and 4 female. By graduation 4 years later there were 30 of us left. All male.
How would you expect employers to hire the same number of females as males when there are very few graduates?

I read a book about 15 years ago about gender equality/difference issues that discussed a survey that took place across multiple U.S. airlines in relation to the gender of their various roles, looking at why so many pilots were male and so many stewards were female.

All of the airlines were asked the question of why so many of their pilots were male, and only one airline was willing to answer; "Women don't apply to do the training course".

hopgog

One eyed Jack wrote: »

OP did you even actually read your own article? The issue isn't gender bias towards men at all, in fact it's far more advantageous to women -

I did, I it said that stem jobs where being sexist by hiring women becuase they are women, we need to have gender equality.

imitation

I have worked on a site where its overwhelming females in the labs, and almost all men in the actual plant/engineering side. To me it indicates that trying to get an even balance in any field simpy isn't going to happen. However what is really important is that anybody wants to work in a field is encouraged, that the pay is balanced and that they are supported.

I think the biggest obstacle is the pre conceptions of the 17 years picking courses thinking "thats for women" "thats for men" rather than there being some evil sexist scheme orcastrating the whole thing.

Thats not to say there arent other issues and people with the wrong sexist attitude, but I dont think that can explain only why a huge percent of engineers are dudes.

One eyed Jack

hopgog wrote: »

I did, I it said that stem jobs where being sexist by hiring women becuase they are women, we need to have gender equality.

I apologise, you're quite correct, I went back and read your opening post there again and you actually didn't say anything about women or men. It's just that nowadays whenever these threads come up, there does seem to be a general outcry that there aren't enough women in STEM careers, or there aren't enough men in social care and teaching careers, and really anyone who sees gender as part of a person's career description is the person who is actually being sexist!

When did it actually start to matter what gender the person is and when did that become more important than whether they were actually qualified and capable of doing the job?

A person's gender should never be a consideration in selection criteria if you're actually serious about encouraging people to judge men and women equally on their merits and not simply on the basis of their gender. That's not what equality means in my book anyway?

hopgog

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I apologise, you're quite correct, I went back and read your opening post there again and you actually didn't say anything about women or men. It's just that nowadays whenever these threads come up, there does seem to be a general outcry that there aren't enough women in STEM careers, or there aren't enough men in social care and teaching careers, and really anyone who sees gender as part of a person's career description is the person who is actually being sexist!

When did it actually start to matter what gender the person is and when did that become more important than whether they were actually qualified and capable of doing the job?

A person's gender should never be a consideration in selection criteria if you're actually serious about encouraging people to judge men and women equally on their merits and not simply on the basis of their gender. That's not what equality means in my book anyway?

Feminists happened they don't want gender equality but gender supremacy. Unfortunately the looney left and sjw have bought into identity politics

Dog of Tears

What's so wrong about hiring sexy people?

fizzypish

Dog of Tears wrote: »

What's so wrong about hiring sexy people?

Who are these sexy people you speak of. We used to discuss these "sexy people" while looking at girls from "the window". It was a lovely was to unwind for 5 minutes before returning to the dungeon to scream "WHY WON'T YOU COMPILE YOU BITCH" or "WHY ARE YOU DRAWING SO MUCH ****ING CURRENT"....

pragmatic1

In relation to science, specifically life science disciplines, I think women are fairly well represented. The majority of my bosses have been female.

Tiddlypeeps

seamus wrote: »

All of the female engineers where I am are highly respected and regarded, and perhaps this means that in general men subconsciously place a higher value on female engineers than male ones.

In interviews and some work places I've definitely picked up on a certain amount of respect for me being a woman in my field with the qualifications and experience I have. It can be a little bit condescending, but doesn't bother me too much because it's not coming from a place of malice.

I've never been hired for a job I'm not qualified for, but it's totally possible I've been hired over equally or even more qualified men, I have no way of knowing. If that is the case then it's sexist and wrong, even tho it works in my favour I would much prefer to be treated equally.

It's possible what this study reveals is people over compensating. It's generally believed there is a gender bias at the hiring stage so people subconsciously over compensate by seeing the female candidates as more capable than they actually are. That's just speculation tho.

biko

Blowfish wrote: »

Have people actually read the article? The sexism is against men.

This is AH. If the OP cannot be arsed to post in the OP the most salient points from the article then we won't be arsed reading it.

hopgog

biko wrote: »

This is AH. If the OP cannot be arsed to post in the OP the most salient points from the article then we won't be arsed reading it.

The point was cause it was sexism in stem most people would jump to it's females that are getting the bum deal cause that's what the leftist journalists and feminists have being pushing for years and I see most jumped to that conclusion.

mariaalice

My nephew is doing nursing in college there are 30 in his stream and 27 are women. I would say that is the exact reverse of what you would find in a lot of engineering courses, science is different it a bit more even.

I think it is cultural more that anything else, that idea of blaming single sex convent education is only a very minor point, single sex education is blamed for sexual repression and problems with self esteem as well.

You have to ask what cultural biases make students take certain subject even when higher level maths and physics are available to them, then you would have to look at way so many female science graduates opt for a teaching career, why when you have lots of options student still choose careers along gender lines.

Maguined

mariaalice wrote: »

My nephew is doing nursing in college there are 30 in his stream and 27 are women. I would say that is the exact reverse of what you would find in a lot of engineering courses, science is different it a bit more even.

I think it is cultural more that anything else, that idea of blaming single sex convent education is only a very minor point, single sex education is blamed sexual repression and problems with self esteem as well.

You have to ask what cultural biases make students take certain subject even when higher level maths and psychics are available to them, then you would have to look at way so many female science graduates opt for a teaching career, Why when you have lots of options student still choose careers along gender lines.

At what point does cultural bias end and free choice begins though?

Nucular Arms

Maguined wrote: »

At what point does cultural bias end and free choice begins though?

When you're filling out your CAO forms and your dad tells you "No son of mine is going to be a bloody nurse!!"

Potatoeman

I work in IT and over the years many of the women left to work in other departments for different reasons. Some want to work with other women for the social side of things, others didnt like the long hours or out of hours that go with a lot of these jobs.

steddyeddy

pragmatic1 wrote: »

In relation to science, specifically life science disciplines, I think women are fairly well represented. The majority of my bosses have been female.

Yes sane here. 60% of my lecturers were female.

Turtwig

Maybe I'm naive here. I think the problem is largely society. Girls from a younger age are encourage to get "girl" toys, dolls, make-up cosmetics, tea sets, babies, etc. This disparity is even present in Lego. Why not a female astronaut with lasers? Or a female "bad cop" police officer? So called "boy toys" are stuff like meccano, k'nex, remote control cars, self assembled robotic contraptions etc.. This also applies to media and books. Though they are some minor signs that this is changing. It's not enough though. Only a few years ago the eu's campaign to get more girls interested in science "science it's a girl thing" was a complete cluster fck.

I detest gender quotas they're just a cosmetic fix. A shallow coat over the cracks. At best, the female candidate will forever have a potential perception looming over her that she only got the job to fulfill a quota. At worst, an incompetent female gets the job to actually fulfill a quota. Best candidate should get the job, period.

Ficheall

All the unis/companies I'm applying for at the moment (maths) are quick to say how keen they are to employ females.

If I (ever get called to a fecking interview and) go up against an equally qualified female, I'm pretty sure I won't get the job.

Pat Mustard

For those who didn't bother to read the article.

Working link:

But the facts tell a different story. National hiring audits, some dating back to the 1980s, reveal that female scientists have had a significantly higher chance of being interviewed and hired than men. Although women were less likely to apply for jobs, if they did apply, their chances of getting the job were usually better.

...

What we found shocked us. Women had an overall 2-to-1 advantage in being ranked first for the job in all fields studied. This preference for women was expressed equally by male and female faculty members, with the single exception of male economists, who were gender neutral in their preferences.

...

In some conditions, women's advantage reached 4-to-1.

...

Even with no frame of reference provided by a comparison with other candidates, women were rated higher and seen as more hirable than identically qualified men.

...

We interpreted our findings to mean that anti-female bias in academic hiring has ended. Changing cultural values, gender-awareness training and trends such as the retirement of older faculty members have brought us to a time when women in academic science are seen as more desirable hires than equally competent men.

TL;DR see the sections in bold.

Yurt2

When I step on to an plane, I don't care if has been engineered designed or constructed by an approved gender equality process - I care that it flies safely. Same principle for doctors, teachers, whatever.

Statistically, short people have been shown to be disadvantaged when it comes to their career track. Should we institute quotas for short people?

Ziphius

Ficheall wrote: »

All the unis/companies I'm applying for at the moment (maths) are quick to say how keen they are to employ females.

If I (ever get called to a fecking interview and) go up against an equally qualified female, I'm pretty sure I won't get the job.

In Germany this is a specific policy (at least in universities). If two equally qualified candidates -- one male, one female -- apply for the same job, the position must be offered to the woman.

mariaalice

So in essences choose a career when your gender is a small minority because you will be at an advantage because you are a novelty

hopgog

mariaalice wrote: »

So in essences choose a career when your gender is a small minority because you will be at an advantage because you are a novelty

Good luck getting a job in HR as a man, doesn't matter if men are a minority you can't discriminate against them.

Yurt2

mariaalice wrote: »

So in essences choose a career when your gender is a small minority because you will be at an advantage because you are a novelty

Has there been a push to break the female domination of the teaching profession?

Why is a lack of women in STEM a societal problem worthy of noise and remedial action but the female domination of teaching not?

Pat Mustard

Ziphius wrote: »

In Germany this is a specific policy (at least in universities). If two equally qualified candidates -- one male, one female -- apply for the same job, the position must be offered to the woman.

Germany has a tradition of not shying away from ideas which are very unpopular but at the same time, completely insane.

heroics

I'm in IT and in college my course was an anomaly as there was about 25 girls in a class of 70. That was in the late 90s (Damn I am old) now I know of only one of them still in an IT related field prob 50% of the lads are though. In the jobs I've had since the ratios in the tech depts are

1st: 8 guys, 2 Women
2nd: 20 guys 1 Woman,
3rd: ~80 Guys and 3 women.
Current: 14 guys no women.

Having been involved in the interview process in the last couple of years I have noticed that there are very few women applying for the roles. For a recent tech role we got about 25-30 CVs and none of them were from women.

From my experience I don't particularly think there is a gender bias at the interview/hiring stage in IT. The issue is much earlier when the decision is being made by students as to what course to do in college.

My sister for example is a Chemical Engineer and loves it but none of her friends from school (all girls) went into science or engineering. I think if they want to get more graduates (from both sexes) in these courses they need to explain better to the students in Secondary School the varied roles that exist in these areas.

Steve_Carella

hopgog wrote: »

It's time more effort is put into getting equal hiring for jobs in science and engineering

Why?

Why should it be made easier for somebody who is unable to get a job purely on merit to get that job over somebody more qualified for it because of an external and irrelevant factor such as gender?

Tarzana2

Gongoozler wrote: »

No, no its not. It's not, nor is it ever time to interfere like this. This type of interfering is sexist, so I don't know how they can justify it. No gender quotas in politics or stem jobs. No.

And I'm an IT qualified female.
I'd like to know how it's meant to work though, once you have quotas, do you force women into these jobs?

I don't agree with quotas either.

What I do agree with is that girls need to be encouraged more in the sciences in schools.

A girl's school near where I grew up (I didn't attend it) had the option of not doing science for the Junior Cert. This was the late 90s, not sure if you can do that now.

So, a lot of girls dropped science at only 12/13/14. That is SO young. It's not long enough to be studying it to figure out if you like it or not, seeing as in first year you study loads of different subjects, and hence do very little in each one.

Maguined

Nucular Arms wrote: »

When you're filling out your CAO forms and your dad tells you "No son of mine is going to be a bloody nurse!!"

I agree with your point but is this simply not parental responsibility. We mention cultural bias or societal pressure but really that is trying to make a society wide blame for something that is directly a parents responsibility. It is the parents that tell their children what they can and cannot aspire to. It is the parent that chooses the school they send their children to.

Nucular Arms

Maguined wrote: »

I agree with your point but is this simply not parental responsibility. We mention cultural bias or societal pressure but really that is trying to make a society wide blame for something that is directly a parents responsibility. It is the parents that tell their children what they can and cannot aspire to. It is the parent that chooses the school they send their children to.

Completely yeah. Don't get me wrong I mean that never happened to me or anything. I chose exactly what I wanted to do and got it. I can imagine there's a fair amount of it goes on though.

The annoying thing about cultural / social bias is that it's a bit of a chicken and egg, ouroboros problem though. The parents are, in part, a product of the culture which they instill into their children which then goes on to perpetuate the very culture we want to change! It's a tough cookie. It would be a nice start if marketing and manufacturing firms stopped building and manufacturing products that were so blatantly constructed along gender lines though. Walk into the girls section of a toy store recently?

SENSORY OVERLOAD OF SHOCKING PINK!!!

One eyed Jack

Turtwig wrote: »

Maybe I'm naive here. I think the problem is largely society. Girls from a younger age are encourage to get "girl" toys, dolls, make-up cosmetics, tea sets, babies, etc. This disparity is even present in Lego. Why not a female astronaut with lasers? Or a female "bad cop" police officer? So called "boy toys" are stuff like meccano, k'nex, remote control cars, self assembled robotic contraptions etc.. This also applies to media and books. Though they are some minor signs that this is changing. It's not enough though. Only a few years ago the eu's campaign to get more girls interested in science "science it's a girl thing" was a complete cluster fck.

The problem though, isn't society at large at all. The problem, is a handful of people in society who see a problem where there isn't one. It's literally the fact that other people's career choices are a problem for them, they want other people to be the "solution" to their "problem".

Ok that's a lot of quote unquotes, but what is actually wrong with young girls being attracted to things they like, and young boys being attracted to things they like? When you try and engineer something artificial, like "encouraging" young people of either gender to do something they're really not keen on, that's enforcing your (not you personally obviously) issues with what you see as a society's problem, upon someone else.

Why do these people that see all these issues not actually take responsibility upon themselves to do something that would mean that the impact would be upon themselves, and not foisting their issues with society upon everyone else - you don't change society by expecting society will change for you (again, not you personally, but the people that are part of society, but want society to change to suit them).

Yurt! wrote: »

Has there been a push to break the female domination of the teaching profession?

Why is a lack of women in STEM a societal problem worthy of noise and remedial action but the female domination of teaching not?

Yes, there has -

One eyed Jack wrote: »

It's just that nowadays whenever these threads come up, there does seem to be a general outcry that there aren't enough women in STEM careers, or there aren't enough men in social care and teaching careers, and really anyone who sees gender as part of a person's career description is the person who is actually being sexist!

But again, they don't want to take on any responsibility themselves, they want everyone else to take responsibility, which is why I'm sick to the back teeth of people who suggest to me that I should be a teacher, mostly because of the fact that I'm a man, less to do with my actual qualifications.

I actually do a lot of voluntary work in the social care sector and participate in mentorship programmes for young people, and most of the social care workers, and teachers I meet with, have been women. It tends to be particularly obvious in primary school and homeless, home care sectors, they're mostly women. They're happy in their careers. They aren't particularly interested in STEM careers, and I'm not particularly interested in the teaching profession.

nokia69

Tarzana2 wrote: »

What I do agree with is that girls need to be encouraged more in the sciences in schools.

why ?

hopgog

nokia69 wrote: »

why ?

Cause the patriarchy must be destroyed #killallmen

eviltwin

nokia69 wrote: »

why ?

Why not? Tech is the future and science is the entry level subject for any potential student.

The problem as I see it is science is still an optional subject in a lot of girls only secondary schools but compulsory in mixed or boys only schools, we also have virtually no science program in primary which is a huge issue.

Maguined

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Completely yeah. Don't get me wrong I mean that never happened to me or anything. I chose exactly what I wanted to do and got it. I can imagine there's a fair amount of it goes on though.

The annoying thing about cultural / social bias is that it's a bit of a chicken and egg, ouroboros problem though. The parents are, in part, a product of the culture which they instill into their children which then goes on to perpetuate the very culture we want to change! It's a tough cookie. It would be a nice start if marketing and manufacturing firms stopped building and manufacturing products that were so blatantly constructed along gender lines though. Walk into the girls section of a toy store recently?

SENSORY OVERLOAD OF SHOCKING PINK!!!

I can accept a child feeling parental pressure to follow a certain direction but not when an adult becomes a parent and making decisions for their own children.

If you meet an adult that is a racist and homophobic bigot no one gives them a free pass saying it is acceptable because their parents were racist and homophobic bigots, instead they are held accountable for their own actions as they are now adults regardless of what influence their parents had over them as children.

One eyed Jack

eviltwin wrote: »

Why not? Tech is the future and science is the entry level subject for any potential student.

There's more to life though than science? Geez we can't all be STEM grads. There are careers like art and music and so on that have more to do with encouraging a person who is creative, to be creative (in the artistic sense of the word), and then there are the students who simply have no interest in tech nor science. The phrase "lead a horse to water" comes to mind - you can't make people interested in something that just doesn't interest them.

The problem as I see it is science is still an optional subject in a lot of girls only secondary schools but compulsory in mixed or boys only schools, we also have virtually no science program in primary which is a huge issue.

I went to an all boys school and when we were doing higher math and physics for the leaving, the girls used come up from the convent for that class only. I don't think Home Economics was ever offered to the boys, but that didn't stop me learning how to knit and sew (damn handy skill too!).

I do agree though that we have a very poor science curriculum in primary schools, but then I would say that because I like science, and I encourage my child to read up on science and learn about it in his own time. Someone else if this were another website would come along and suggest there isn't enough emphasis on arts, culture and drama in schools, and they'd be right about that too.

The fundamental problem isn't even how much time is given to various subjects, but how they're actually being taught in the school - we have some fantastic teachers, but jesus the curriculum is a lot of mind numbing nonsense and rote learning. Children should be encouraged to go outside the curriculum and find ways to learn for themselves. It's actually what children do best!