Encouraging girls and women into certain fields

wandererz

I am not certain.

But possibly illegal and even frowned upon in certain countries?

cloudatlas

cloudatlas wrote: »

Yes the department of education want statistics that state the numbers have increased in STEM no doubt.

I still don't understand the whole not going into teaching due to an imagined threat of being accused of abuse. The numbers of men in teaching has always been small and when there were men they tended to be in the principal positions and this was before the sex abuse scandals came to the surface.

The numbers haven't always been small. They've been small in primary teaching roles... but there was a greater number of male teachers in secondary, apprenticeship and college institutions.

I just don't think that's the reason and if they think that's the case why go to the trouble of doing the course in the first place if they are paranoid. Doesn't make any sense I think it's more to do with their own and societal perceptions about caring roles being more feminine.

Yup. I'm aware of what you think. I'm not going to go around in circles on this. We have differing opinions. I can accept that.

Yellow_Fern

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

A lot of people believe this and it would be a reasonable if there was no evidence against it.
Gender roles tend to be pretty universal.

I am sure if there is evidence of interest you can cite it rather than just allude to it. We are also not monkeys so their relevance is about as high as your reference to babies to what I have been saying.

Again - the point I am making is that when someone says "it is difficult to get men/women to do X" then it should be noted that there are many things it might be difficult to get them to do now that it once was very easy to get them to do. Which suggests - since the underlying biology is pretty much unchanged in that time frame - that these difficulties stem from something cultural. Or at least a third explanation does not seem to readily occur to me.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

In biology everything is about reproduction and reproduction plays a huge role in what lads put down on their CAO

Well yes that would be my point exactly. And once again the underlying biology on this remains constant but culture does not. And if the culture changes massively then so too will preferences related to that. Sexual selection is a powerful force in evolution too and has caused many animals to select for traits that are otherwise entirely pointless or even detrimental to the species.

So you are somewhat making my point(s) for me here which is nice. Thanks for that.

I just do not think it is solely limited to sexual selection though. My suspicion is that peoples "comfort zones" are easy to lay down in early life. It does not take a lot of effort as a parent to pass on comfort zones to children I have noticed. It takes a bit more effort to do the opposite which is why I take every opportunity to do so. And the interests my children have - or the things they are up for that all the other kids are not in their age and gender groups - are markedly wider and more diverse as a result.

So I question how effective campaigns aimed at teenagers and college aged women to try to entice them down particular career paths is going to be to be honest. My personal suspicions is this is way too late in the process. Perhaps someone has figures on how effective such campaigns have been or not? I have not seen any myself.