Encouraging girls and women into certain fields

shtpEdthePlum

I thought from the title this was going to be a thread about attempted abduction.

cloudatlas

Deleted User wrote: »

I feel sorry for any girl who feels a pressure to follow a STEM career in order to be a good feminist. Nobody needs that type of pressure. Vive la difference!

No need to feel sorry because that simply would not be the case. Scientific fields are so specialised that it's not something one would just dip their toe into due to any ideology or could for that matter, you must have a strong aptitude and interest in the field in order to get anywhere, it takes years especially in academia .

soupandpoitin

soupandpoitin wrote: »

It would be like trying to encourage men to take up ballet or flower arranging. Some would be interested, but most won't. My daughter's riding classes are 99% girls. No amount of advertising will change this.

Also hard to get many men to wear pink. But not that far in history we find men wearing pink and women wearing blue was the norm. And if you go back to the American Wild west and other locations and periods in history - it was mostly men not women interested to learn to ride horses.

Like you I am not against the idea of encouraging girls to follow STEM paths. But I wonder how effective it can be. The Peterson comment about how in the countries where people have the most choice which fields to pursue - they in fact tend to follow traditional gender roles after all.

Perhaps the kind of roles a person will follow is set by their experiences much much earlier on in their life. I have been very gender neutral with my own kids so far and I have seen they have a tendency to cross gender divides in their interests now much more often than the kids of other parents I see.

So whether teaching my daughter to fight and hunt since the age of 3 or to fire single shot rifles from 9 - or playing dolls with my son and making fairy cakes and repairing clothes - and all vice versa - they certainly appear to be forming into individuals who will not be as constrained by gender roles in their future careers as many would.

So really if the goal is to encourage one gender or the other into one career path or the other - it seems to me it may not be the kids / teens / college students they need to be targeting. But the parents of the most recent and upcoming generations of new children entering our world.

cloudatlas

soupandpoitin wrote: »

Some would be interested, but most won't.

And in fact the majority in the biological sciences and medicine have been women for quite some time now.

You seem to imply that some won't be interested naturally but then give an example that demonstrates that they are interested.

I'm not sure what your question is here? You seem oddly conflicted.
This thread is a bit of a waste of time.

Women in STEM day recognises women in history who didn't get recognition at the time and is encouraging as it highlights that women can be involved in the field and rights a past wrong.

Also the video is from 2012 so almost 10 years ago and it was largely vilified and criticised by female scientists online as being cringe.

The lead on that project was Michael Jennings 'Spokesperson for Research, Innovation and Science' so eh a man basically okayed the cringe.

rightmove

any chance we could have more men encouraged to become teachers?

Seems to me the main beneficiaries of all these women in blah blah blah is about privileged white middle class women using their position to circumvent merit.

cloudatlas

rightmove wrote: »

any chance we could have more men encouraged to become teachers?

Seems to me the main beneficiaries of all these women in blah blah blah is about privileged white middle class women using their position to circumvent merit.

How does having a woman in stem day etc., circumvent merit?

meeeeh

rightmove wrote: »

any chance we could have more men encouraged to become teachers?

Seems to me the main beneficiaries of all these women in blah blah blah is about privileged white middle class women using their position to circumvent merit.

So you are accusing white middle class women of something that was done by white men trough the history. And the problem now is that the privileged middle class men who didn't get there on merit would have to compete with privileged middle class women who didn't get there on merit. Oh the injustice...

The truth is girls don't need much support to be good in stem subjects, in high school they tend to preform better than boys. Where I come from they were considering quotas for men in medicine because of gender imbalance. Basically we were graded through primary and secondary school and girls did significantly better.

Yellow_Fern

Deleted User wrote: »

Also hard to get many men to wear pink. But not that far in history we find men wearing pink and women wearing blue was the norm. And if you go back to the American Wild west and other locations and periods in history - it was mostly men not women interested to learn to ride horses.

Like you I am not against the idea of encouraging girls to follow STEM paths. But I wonder how effective it can be. The Peterson comment about how in the countries where people have the most choice which fields to pursue - they in fact tend to follow traditional gender roles after all.

Perhaps the kind of roles a person will follow is set by their experiences much much earlier on in their life. I have been very gender neutral with my own kids so far and I have seen they have a tendency to cross gender divides in their interests now much more often than the kids of other parents I see.

So whether teaching my daughter to fight and hunt since the age of 3 or to fire single shot rifles from 9 - or playing dolls with my son and making fairy cakes and repairing clothes - and all vice versa - they certainly appear to be forming into individuals who will not be as constrained by gender roles in their future careers as many would.

So really if the goal is to encourage one gender or the other into one career path or the other - it seems to me it may not be the kids / teens / college students they need to be targeting. But the parents of the most recent and upcoming generations of new children entering our world.

It is a myth that blue was once the colour baby girls wore and pink was the colour of baby girls. In reality it varied and there was no set association. This misunderstood story is widely circulated because people like the idea the powerful notion that gender roles are purely cultural. The colour of baby clothes is pure culture, but biology involved in gender roles as a whole.

Yellow_Fern

cloudatlas wrote: »

How does having a woman in stem day etc., circumvent merit?

There are many women only schemes in place to encourage women into STEM in academia and private sector.

Stihl waters

I've always wondered when did we ever discourage females from getting into stem fields, was there a requirement from 3rd level education that stem fields be male exclusively within the last 40 years or is it that most simply have no interest in stem subjects

cloudatlas

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

There are many women only schemes in place to encourage women into STEM in academia and private sector.

That does not circumvent merit.

Overheal

“A woman’s place is in the kitchen laboratory.”

Joking aside give children every opportunity without imposing some role on them they clearly don’t want.

rightmove

meeeeh wrote: »

So you are accusing white middle class women of something that was done by white men trough the history.

Ah would ya stop ....these things are about giving women (middle class white) an advantage without having to put in the same effort.

rightmove

cloudatlas wrote: »

That does not circumvent merit.

Because its a load of virtue signaling nonsense that only ever works one way.

Yellow_Fern

Stihl waters wrote: »

I've always wondered when did we ever discourage females from getting into stem fields, was there a requirement from 3rd level education that stem fields be male exclusively within the last 40 years or is it that most simply have no interest in stem subjects

I have a relative who did medicine in 1930s Ireland. Uncles have told when they did medicine in the 1960s about 1/3 were female. Botany was similar. There are niches in STEM that have been common to women for a very long time.

OMM 0000

We don't need more women in STEM, just like we don't need more men in nursing.

This is a made up problem being pushed by miserable people.

Let men and women do what they enjoy and leave them alone.

There's nothing wrong with programming being mostly male and teaching being mostly female.

A good start would be to begin seeing people as individuals and stop trying to put them into boxes.

rightmove

OMM 0000 wrote: »

We don't need more women in STEM, just like we don't need more men in nursing.

This is a made up problem being pushed by miserable people.

Let men and women do what they enjoy and leave them alone.

There's nothing wrong with programming being mostly male and teaching being mostly female.

A good start would be to begin seeing people as individuals and stop trying to put them into boxes.

Totally see your point but that is not what is happening. The miserable ppl as you say are getting there way and its all one sided. How many more schemes and dreams can be made up for the victim seeking industry around women in blah blah blah. There are women in media. women entrepreneurs, women in IT, women reboot schemes .. the list goes on and on and it all has to be paid for. I mean if someone is an entrepreneur. What the hell does it matter if they are a woman or a man. ...surely its the jobs created that matters....I mean you do wonder sometimes.

CageWager

meeeeh wrote: »

The truth is girls don't need much support to be good in stem subjects, in high school they tend to preform better than boys. Where I come from they were considering quotas for men in medicine because of gender imbalance. Basically we were graded through primary and secondary school and girls did significantly better.

When girls do better in school its progress, when boys do better its tyranny.

OMM 0000 wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with programming being mostly male and teaching being mostly female.

I disagree with this. Having a majority of female teachers during the formative years of a boy's life has a major impact. If unconscious bias is such a problem with male leaders in the corporate context, why wouldn't it be an issue for female teachers in an educational context.

ByTheSea2019

OMM 0000 wrote: »

We don't need more women in STEM, just like we don't need more men in nursing.

This is a made up problem being pushed by miserable people.

Let men and women do what they enjoy and leave them alone.

There's nothing wrong with programming being mostly male and teaching being mostly female.

A good start would be to begin seeing people as individuals and stop trying to put them into boxes.

The problem is not girls who don't like STEM staying away from it, it's girls who would like STEM feeling out of place in a male-dominated environment.

Mad_maxx

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Often wondered why more women don't train to become electricians, the money seems to be good once qualified.

True and not much heavy lifting like block laying etc

OMM 0000

ByTheSea2019 wrote: »

The problem is not girls who don't like STEM staying away from it, it's girls who would like STEM feeling out of place in a male-dominated environment.

This is not a real problem though. This is a personal issue where she is lacking confidence and is self conscious. Solve this instead of trying to force women to do things they won't enjoy.

I've been working in IT for 25 years and women do just fine.

Yellow_Fern

ByTheSea2019 wrote: »

The problem is not girls who don't like STEM staying away from it, it's girls who would like STEM feeling out of place in a male-dominated environment.

That is the allegation but its not proven and if you look at systems that are 100% gender blind like wiki authorship you still get massive differences.

cloudatlas

rightmove wrote: »

Because its a load of virtue signaling nonsense that only ever works one way.

You seem to be complaining about affirmative action for women but earlier you said 'any chance we could have more men encouraged to become teachers?'. So you don't want affirmative action for women but you want it for men?

rightmove

cloudatlas wrote: »

You seem to be complaining about affirmative action for women but earlier you said 'any chance we could have more men encouraged to become teachers?'. So you don't want affirmative action for women but you want it for men?

If you change the rules ppl have to play by them. What good for the goose is good for the gander.

If women (lobby groups for them) keep playing the victim card to get unfair advantage and they expect men and society to just suck it up eventually men (and probably some women) who see it for what it is need to shout enough is enough

Pa ElGrande

ByTheSea2019 wrote: »

The problem is not girls who don't like STEM staying away from it, it's girls who would like STEM feeling out of place in a male-dominated environment.

How do you qualify that?

A modern profession such as computer science has never had a barrier to entry to women who want to take it up as a career.

I was thinking about the Iranian example the other night and another possible reason for women in engineering may be the regime does not favour various "studies" courses e.g. <sarc on>lesbian dance studies</sarc off>, unlike western universities that have expanded such courses, which I regard as a trap for both men and women. Why do a hard science course when you can pick-up an easy degree in one of these, just because the choice is there.

meeeeh

meeeeh wrote: »

So you are accusing white middle class women of something that was done by white men trough the history.

A little flaw in your statement. Throughout history, even at the time of the Suffragette movement (and after), some of the biggest opponents of women's rights were other women. If you're willing to be even a little balanced about the reinforcement of gender roles, you'd acknowledge that it wasn't just men to do this (dunno why you state white men in particular, since black or other racial cultures are often far more traditional about the roles that women should avail of.. and still are, to this day)

The truth is girls don't need much support to be good in stem subjects, in high school they tend to preform better than boys. Where I come from they were considering quotas for men in medicine because of gender imbalance. Basically we were graded through primary and secondary school and girls did significantly better.

Sure... girls tend to do far better than boys within a formal school setting, especially in subjects which cater far more to theory, over practical application. So, the reason for the lack of women in STEM is more to do with a lack of interest, since there are other roles out there that interest them more.

LawBoy2018

My sister had hoped to maybe put general science as her #1 choice on her CAO but I began to plant the seeds of law instead.

I feel guilty about it but I've seen so many smart people go on to study science, only to get a **** job afterwards, while the most average of students (like me) go on to make bank.

She still has time to make her mind up but I would hate to discourage a girl from entering the world of STEM.

Anyone have any thoughts?

khalessi

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

My sister had hoped to maybe put general science as her #1 choice on her CAO but I instead began to plant the seeds of law instead.

I feel guilty about it but I've seen so many smart people go on to study science, only to get a **** job afterwards, while the most average of students (like me) go on to make bank.

She still has time to make her mind up but I would hate to discourage a girl from entering the world of STEM.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Yeah let her do what she enjoys, she isnt you.

cloudatlas

rightmove wrote: »

If you change the rules ppl have to play by them. What good for the goose is good for the gander.

If women (lobby groups for them) keep playing the victim card to get unfair advantage and they expect men and society to just suck it up eventually men (and probably some women) who see it for what it is need to shout enough is enough

The o.p alluded to the fact that society views women as naturally not as good at science as men ( the horse riding analogy) so that is a bias and a barrier. Such attitudes reduce confidence which creates a barrier.

So affirmative action is set up to right past wrongs where there is historical unfairness or where it has been decided that encouraging wider participation would be beneficial, therefore such schemes are in place until it is otherwise proven that the disadvantage/ barriers have been removed and then there will be no need. Simple as. Such schemes are about building confidence, they aren't about identifying as a victim. According the recent UCAS data provided by HESA, 35% of STEM students in higher education in the UK are women. 35% is very low. Why are you play acting the victim?

Overheal

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

My sister had hoped to maybe put general science as her #1 choice on her CAO but I instead began to plant the seeds of law instead.

I feel guilty about it but I've seen so many smart people go on to study science, only to get a **** job afterwards, while the most average of students (like me) go on to make bank.

She still has time to make her mind up but I would hate to discourage a girl from entering the world of STEM.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Both is always on the table. You could easily specialize in law later as a scientist or engineer. Patent law, codes and standards etc. that sort of thing, that apply to the profession and thusly also to the passion. Or go into forensics, etc. etc. etc. there are many overlapping professions in both science and law. If she's more in love with the science than the law that's where I'd go, that's what matters chiefly, that's what gets you to push through to earn the degree at all.