
The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) - oftenwrong
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
======
lgleason
It all comes down to equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. When
there is equality of opportunity women choose different fields...often (but
not always) because of different interests. Equality of outcome forces people
to do things that they may not have an interest in.

And that is before you get into interests vs natural talent and how that does
or does not affect ones success in a field. On a fundamental level I
personally prefer equality of opportunity and freedom of choice.

As to the men being jerks/toxic etc argument. Are there times when that is
true? Absolutely. But, men do not have a monopoly on being jerks, creating
toxic work environments or harassing people. Personally I've seen bad behavior
from both sides. I've also seen exceptional talent, skill, empathy etc. come
from both groups. Many corporate cultures are toxic to everybody, irregardless
of your gender.

I'm sure this will be down voted, but it is what it is.

~~~
tmh79
> As to the men being jerks/toxic etc argument...

I think its a lot more complicated than this. Yes, men and women can be jerks.
The bigger issues seem to be when a team is 80%+ one gender or another, and
the issues aren't about "being mean" the issues are about the dominant group
being blind to and then not accommodating the nondominant group's needs.

A huge problem is that we have a lot of 6 person tech teams with 5 guys and 1
women and the women naturally feel alienated and either aren't actually able
to do well or are at least perceived as not doing well due to their situation.
This holds back women's career development as a group and reduces the numbers
of women in higher ranks in corporate life.

~~~
silveroriole
> the women naturally feel alienated

Why “naturally”? Is it really natural for men and women to alienate each other
just by existing?

~~~
holstvoogd
yes! now get back into your box! ;)

------
pj_mukh
Coming from one of these countries to America, the answer seems obvious. STEM
jobs have a HUGE differential in stability and status in those countries, so
women _put up_ up with much more patriarchal BS at the workplace to hold on to
them.

My sister was a STEM worker in India. When she moved to America, she looked
around to see writers with relatively safe, high-status job and switched out
immediately.

Yes, women in America are "organically" picking non-STEM jobs, but that is
because the jobs suck, the environments suck and people are assholes at these
jobs. My sister loved the core STEM aspects of her job, but hated the culture
of the companies she was stuck working with. This is not "equality", its
hostile corporate culture.

tl;dr: Ask Women.

~~~
DuskStar
The problem I always have with this argument is "Why not medicine? Why not
Law?"

Why is it that two professions that you'd naively expect to be just as sexist,
if not _far more_ sexist than STEM (Higher status, more of an "old boys club",
established hierarchy that has positions like nurses for women, etc) have
achieved gender parity, while STEM hasn't?

~~~
rayiner
The legal profession is far ahead of STEM in addressing sexism. Many law firms
have adopted the Mansfield Rule, which requires the pools of promotion
candidates to comprise 30-50% women or other underrepresented groups:
[https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/09/06/more-
firms-...](https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/09/06/more-firms-in-
atlanta-hit-mansfield-rule-diversity-benchmark-this-year). Major clients are
imposing diversity criteria on outside counsel hired for their matters. Many
major firms have 20% or more women in the equity partnership ranks. About a
third of newly promoted partners are women. More than 30% of Fortune 500 GCs
are now women.

That’s the result of decades of work, which started with affirmative efforts
by law schools to achieve gender parity at the beginning of the pipeline.
(Those efforts proved self sustaining. Once women didn’t have to swim upstream
to choose law school—facing years of being in a small minority at the outset
of their careers—efforts to recruit them specifically became unnecessary.)
There is a ways to go yet before we hit parity, but I feel like in STEM folks
are still litigating the issue of whether numeric parity should even be the
goal. That question was settled in the legal field a long time ago.

~~~
masteranza
From quite long time ago women are accepted to universities. Yet to prove your
point about "law being fixed long time ago" you refer to news from few months
ago.

~~~
rayiner
I didn’t say law was “fixed.” (To paraphrase Justice Ginsberg, law will be
“fixed” when there are nine women on the Supreme Court.)

What I said was that recent progress is the result of work that started
decades ago. Harvard law graduated its first women in 1953. But back then top
women law graduates were still getting offers to be secretaries. (Justice
Ginsberg’s story was not at all atypical for her cohort.) That, along with the
prospect of joining a 90%+ male class in and of itself dissuaded women from
pursing law. Law schools fixed that by making 50-50 classes an express goal,
and then achieving that goal. Then law firms made 50-50 classes of incoming
associates an express goal, and achieved that goal. Gender parity was achieved
not simply by accepting women to law schools, but by actively seeking to admit
gender balanced classes. But once that happened, the new ratio became self-
perpetuating. When being a woman lawyer no longer meant being part of a tiny
minority in law school, a firm, etc., women self-selected into it when
previously they had opted out.

I strongly suspect the same factors are in play in STEM: women who would be
good programmers self-select out of the field because they don’t want to be
the 1-2 women in a class of 20 men, or the 1-2 women programmers on a team of
20 men.

~~~
jimbokun
> (To paraphrase Justice Ginsberg, law will be “fixed” when there are nine
> women on the Supreme Court.)

Wait, what? Is this an argument that men are inherently unsuited to be Supreme
Court Justices?

My guess is this means having 9 women on the Supreme Court is to make up for
all the years there were 9 men on the Supreme Court.

I find this dangerous logic. Seeking to alternate oppression of one group
versus another doesn't seem like a good long term solution, in my opinion.

By the way, thanks for your analysis about the progression of gender equality
in the legal profession. That's something I didn't know about.

~~~
triceratops
> My guess is this means having 9 women on the Supreme Court is to make up for
> all the years there were 9 men on the Supreme Court.

I took that to mean "just as it was unremarkable in the very recent past for
the SC to be 100% male, it should be unremarkable if in the future it became
100% female (on merit)".

~~~
jimbokun
Well, it's doubtful it would be based completely on merit in either scenario.

------
calibas
Gender equality means you can enter into whatever profession you choose and
not be discriminated against. It's about equal rights, equal treatment, it
does not mean that men and women are the same, it's not a mathematical
equality.

Seems to me people are confusing conformity with social/political equality.

~~~
allovernow
>It's about equal rights, equal treatment, it does not mean that men and women
are the same, it's not a mathematical equality.

Sure, perhaps in theory. In practice, the kind of differences in performance
and achievement that would be explained by psychological and physiological
differences between men and women are immediately blamed on discrimination and
the like. There is an implicit assumption that men and women _are_
mathematically equal, which leads to the conflation of equality of opportunity
with equality of outcome, exaggerating the effects of discrimination and
leading to poor allocation of resources in an attempt to correct a "problem"
without consideration for part of all of the actual cause.

~~~
throwaway8548
> the kind of differences in performance and achievement that would be
> explained by psychological and physiological differences between men and
> women

That's a bit of circular reasoning though.

\- Look how men and women behave differently!

\- But why do they behave differently?

\- Because they're different.

\- How do you know that?

\- Because they behave differently.

It's not logically consistent and doesn't answer anything.

~~~
kaitai
Throwaway commenter, despite being downvoted, you're absolutely right!

I'm a woman. I AM A WOMAN IN STEM. You know what makes my blood pressure rise?
People in real life and in this thread who tell me that I'm naturally not
suited to it, that I like people more than things. Go away! Shut the f(*& up!
I want to sit here and deal with my code and not have people tell me that I
either don't know what I like or I'm not a real, normal woman. Maybe we won't
get to 50-50 in some STEM fields. Who cares. People telling me for forty years
that I'm a weirdo for existing with this brain in this body is not equality.

And you know what? I've got family in STEM in Scandinavia, and the horrifying
discrimination stories I've heard directly about their working conditions
(down to classic, "You shouldn't be here because when you get pregnant you'll
stop doing science" conversations with superiors) dwarf anything I personally
have experienced in STEM in the US. The homophobic comments in the sauna are
direct and cruel. Scandinavian STEM is not the egalitarian paradise that
Americans think it is.

~~~
jimbokun
Hey, thanks for your input!

What I'm trying to better understand, is whether women who are not applying
for programming jobs at the same rate as men, are due to lack of interest, or
are they somehow being actively discouraged from the field?

I've worked with many women programmers, some of them better than me, so I
know it's not the case women are inherently worse at programming than men. But
I don't know the reason there are fewer women in the field.

Obviously you can't speak for all women, but maybe you have some insights as a
woman that I don't as a man?

~~~
kaitai
The social aspects are subtle, and more important than most of the official
stuff.

In seventh grade a great (male) teacher of mine recommended a summer program
for me, at the dawn of the internet (Gopher!). I joined the math & computer
class and was the only girl. None of the boys would talk to me at all. At
lunch every day they ditched me and I went to find some kids from the theater
class to sit with. Is it malicious? No; it's seventh-grade boys. Is it
encouraging? No. I was lonely six hours a day because no one would speak to
me.

In my engineering college, it was the dating thing. From being a nerd who was
ignored in high school, not exactly prime dating material, I was suddenly
transformed into a 'female'. I got asked out constantly. Sounds great, right?
But if your classmates only want to have sex with you, and don't want to do
homework with you, you're cut off from much of the joy of intellectual
discovery of college. I was ignored by the profs and couldn't do a senior
project, even though it was in the catalogue, because no prof would sponsor
me. When I waitressed, the guys would first flirt with me and then upon
discovering I was an undergrad in a tough major they'd turn very serious and
gush about how _important_ it was for women to be involved in that field, how
_special_ I was. Is it evil? No. It's like being a stay-at-home dad at the
park with your kids in the middle of the day. Alienating. (My husband reports
he hasn't made it past the none-of-the-moms-talking-to-him phase when he's
made his forays.)

From college into grad school the emphasis on me as a potential romantic
partner didn't stop. I remember joining the Linux Users Group in the town I
went to grad school in. Some great guys, some good parties & good times. All
juxtaposed with, for instance, the guy who I thought invited me over to talk
about compilers... but when I showed up, candles were lit and the dinner table
set for two. Is that evil? Is that an active discouragement from the field?
It's just deflating. I thought I'd found someone I could talk to. He didn't
want to talk to me after I'd declined to get involved.

I wore baggier and baggier clothes and never figured out how to do makeup or
hair (now holding me back in corporate America) but simply trying to disappear
into sweatshirts did not enable me to be 'one of the guys'.

In one research center I was involved with in grad school, it was more
textbook-style discrimination. The women did all the work and wrote the grants
that got the money. How can I say that? Surely it's unfair! But it is true,
because everyone in the research group besides the director and one guy was
female -- there was literally no one else. The director was phasing into
retirement and was trying to groom the guy employee -- taking him to golf on
Saturdays, taking guy to drink South African wine with director and director's
wife. The problem was that guy employee wasn't very good, and once director
retired, guy couldn't do the work and wasn't able to keep that position or the
next two. The women found varied levels of success and failure elsewhere, but
didn't get the chance at leadership at that center!

Later in grad school and into my postdocs, it was the constant assumption that
I was primarily interested in education, not research. Put into a job code
where I actually couldn't get funding from the research grants I won, asked
last year to contribute to the education components of three guys' research
grants to boost their 'broader impacts' score. Not everyone did this -- one
colleague actually talked with me about research, and it was really nice.

When I was a prof, one or two (male) students tried to physically intimidate
me into giving a higher grade. That's 1, 2 out of thousands... but an
experience that my male colleagues did not have. I taught a lot of extra
independent studies because people felt 'comfortable' with me; my super-
friendly and wonderful and cuddly male colleague didn't experience that. I had
to serve on the diversity committee and run a diversity event: I did not want
to, but it was strongly implied that my promotion was linked to this service.
(Right: I'd forgotten I was 'voluntold' for this by a senior male colleague
who then didn't mention my name in the acknowledgements and took all the
credit at the opening, because he's a "champion for diversity".) Students also
came to me with personal concerns a lot, like roommate problems, family being
evicted, needing to schedule an abortion, money trouble. I asked my male
colleagues what they did about this and they said they'd never been asked
about any of these things! Were these kids in college actively discouraging me
from a STEM career? No way in hell! They were lovely young people! But the
extra burden of teaching additional independent studies, running this stupid
diversity event, and providing tissues to students in real trouble took time
away from writing up research, and that's how you get promoted.

I couldn't win the battle with being tracked more and more into education
rather than the research I love and left academia for industry this year.
Hooray! Now I'm paid more and I 'program all day', and get to do the
experimental CS/math/stats I enjoy. Am I a success story or not? I'm the
example of the 'leaky pipeline' in academia.

Several replies to my previous comment said things like 'literally no one has
said that' there's a conflict between me being female and liking STEM. But
from this thread alone:

"I'm my experience women tend to be more interested in human facing parts of
software like web and ui development, but less interested in the back end
parts." "What if women were calling those environments toxic because they had
a hard time doing well in there?" "I don't understand why modern society
doesn't understand/want to believe that men and women have different career
interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it's not all
because of society." "Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in
programming a computer all day. Which one could argue is a sane choice. If
anything it's more sane. Stop trying to make them feel like something is wrong
if they don't have this inclination. Males and females have different
preferences on average, some as early as birth[1]." Are any of these
commenters actively discouraging me from pursuing my STEM career? No. They're
just repeating the message again and again and again that women just like
different things. Yeah, I do like different things. But it's always code for
"you're not normal". And it's true that I'm statistically not in the majority.
Folks, I know that. You don't have to tell me every day. I've been able to
calculate percentages for thirty years. I've known I'm outnumbered for thirty
years. I'm always aware that I'm a minority. Always. And that's what is
tiring. It's not discouraging -- it's the surprise that I exist, then either
the turning to talk to someone else or the gush of fake or real
'encouragement' that I'm so brave to be so different.

~~~
jimbokun
Hey, sincere thanks for this honest feedback!

As a man in tech, I honestly have no idea what the women around me experience,
so it’s valuable for me to get some perspective.

It’s interesting to me how you don’t blame any one specific person for
actively trying to discourage you, just the constant exhaustion from being
treated differently from those around you.

So one take away, is by recruiting more girls and women into coding, the girls
and women who do want to pursue it won’t feel so out of place. So it is
difficult to determine the “true” number of female people who like
programming, until we have a critical mass of women programmers.

That’s given me something to think about.

------
iamsb
The most important thing that matters is ability to earn a decent living.
Decent living is essentially ability to afford most things like a property in
good neighborhoods, personal identity (clothes), transportation, quality
education for children, and safety.

People are really smart and they optimise for their own survival. Essentially
- decent wage -> better options for partner -> better standard of living. In
some countries, like Norway, a teacher makes a decent wage. Not as much as a
software engineer, but good enough to support a pretty good lifestyle.

Where in some countries, like India, a stem graduate makes a LOT more money
than a teacher. I made more money in my third year as a software engineer,
than my father who worked in public sector as a civil engineer with 25+ years
of experience. Comparison with non technical workers with stem fields is
really lop sided when it comes to earning potential. Plus if you are possibly
the first generation which can break out of poverty cycle for your entire
family, then that adds another layer of pressure to choose certain fields.
Hence men or women tend to choose these fields.

As wealth creation in some of these countries reaches to a point where non
stem fields receive similar earning potential, already happening in India, we
will see lower number of women opting for these fields as well.

We would really like to find a non economic reason for some of these
disparities, like patriarchy, gender discrimination and so on, but it is
probably mostly economic.

~~~
throwaway8548
But why doesn't this affect men's decision making as well?

~~~
iamsb
It absolutely does. I know many men in India who would rather do something
else than do engineering. Look at the background of most standup comedians in
India for example. Most of them come from engineering/stem background and use
that to fulfill their side hustle to be a comic and then become full time
comics if successful. I was personally far more interested in studying classic
Sanskrit literature, but was talked into becoming an engineer.

~~~
throwaway8548
I should rephrase.

Why does it affect men disproportionately less?

~~~
danbolt
My gut take is that our society is socialized to value men that have some sort
of "breadwinner" status.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Not just society, but women especially. It’s not even an issue of
socialization. Unemployed or underemployed men are heavily penalized in the
dating pool. You don’t have to be a gold digger to value a stable provider as
a partner. And women who are self-sufficient still generally tend to prefer
men who are at least roughly equal in their ability to provide.

------
sakopov
> Meanwhile, in Algeria, 41 percent of college graduates in the fields of
> science, technology, engineering, and math—or “STEM,” as it’s known—are
> female.

I used to live in Russia in my teenage years and went to school there until
grade 9. One thing that I remember being distinctly different from public
education in the US is that the course selection was provided by the school
each year and students had no say in this process. The benefit of this is
being exposed to subjects that you thought you wouldn't like, but ended up
gravitating towards after completing the course work. Not saying that Algeria
uses similar technique in their public education, but I always wondered how
much being able to select your class schedule keeps students away from
discovering their potential in areas where they didn't know they could excel.

~~~
fatnoah
>One thing that I remember being distinctly different from public education in
the US is that the course selection was provided by the school each year and
students had no say in this process

I grew up in the US and that was my experience as well. There were no
"optional" classes until high school, but even then only one or two of my
classes were my own choice.

~~~
bluGill
Even when there were optional courses the school made it clear the only real
option was band/choir/french/german/spanish (I think there was home-ec and
shop courses available too). There was one hour free that you could pick one
of the above, in theory you didn't have to take math and science the last
year, but they made it clear that if you had any hope of college you better
not skip them. I found out the hard way that band/choir were not really
options because my college wouldn't admit me without the foreign language (I
had to do catch up classes)

------
georgeburdell
I submitted a similar article last week about how muslim countries punch above
their weight on women in STEM.

[https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/11/the-stem-paradox-
wh...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/11/the-stem-paradox-why-are-
muslim-majority-countries-producing-so-many-female-engineers.html)

The conclusion there was parental authoritarianism (especially dads) was a
primary cause. My own family is part Muslim so I have direct experience. Every
child must be an engineer or doctor. As the Atlantic article notes, women in
the West have more freedom to NOT choose STEM.

------
zarkov99
Two possible explanations: A) Biology is a real thing and genders have
differences that extend beyond their gonads. B) Nope. It is all sexism,
always, and these Scandinavian women are just traversing an uncanny valley of
internalized misogyny.

------
jlebar
If you look at the scatterplot excluding the four countries at the bottom
right (Algeria, Turkey, Tunisia, UAE), you get basically a circle and (to my
eye anyway) the trendline is horizontal, meaning, no correlation.

Moreover, there are two countries with approximately the same gender
inequality but many fewer women in STEM, namely Qatar and Korea.

It seems to me that reducing this to "the more gender equality, the fewer
women in tech" is a stretch! You could have just as easily written a headline
to the effect of, "Turkey and three northern African countries have a higher
percentage of women in STEM than almost anywhere in the world, including
places that have the same gender (in)equality, like Qatar and S. Korea. Why is
that?"

~~~
_Nat_
> If you look at the scatterplot excluding the four countries at the bottom
> right (Algeria, Turkey, Tunisia, UAE), you get basically a circle and (to my
> eye anyway) the trendline is horizontal, meaning, no correlation.

Their hypothesis doesn't predict a straight line.

Rather, they're saying that free women don't tend to choose STEM as often as
men in the same society choose STEM. If they're correct, then we should expect
a lack of data points in the top-right quadrant, above those 4 you pointed
out, as such points would represent free societies in which women do pick
STEM.

For there to be a straight line, we'd have to further assume that oppressive
societies always force women into STEM, which doesn't follow. For example,
early-1900's America didn't grant women freedom, but it didn't force them into
STEM, either.

------
omarhaneef
"Just 18 percent of American computer-science college degrees go to women....
Meanwhile, in Algeria, 41 percent of college graduates in the fields of
science, technology, engineering, and math—or “stem,” as it’s known—are
female."

Wait, so they're comparing computer science with all of STEM? That might
obfuscate the picture. It should be STEM:STEM.

Edit: Perhaps I am not being clear but computer science is a _subset_ of STEM,
so even within the US, the number of people going into STEM > Computer
Science. Comparing STEM in country X with CS in country Y seems like the wrong
comparison.

~~~
viggity
"STEM" was this thing that was invented to drum up interest in fields that
were in high demand. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of scientists,
engineers, or mathematicians. The shortage is in technology.

~~~
mixmastamyk
And no shortage there either. Or rather the shortage is in efficient
interviewing techniques and interviewers.

------
gamesbrainiac
I think the truth of the matter is that you cannot dictate what people feel
passionate about or what they need to do. For example, people in Algeria or
from my region of South Asia study the sciences because it is a way to better
incomes in the future.

Simply giving people all the opportunity in the world will not guarantee that
they will take up that opportunity. Just because you offer someone a carrot
does not mean that that person will bite.

------
lowdose
When people are more equal they will have more reason to differentiate. Women
in countries like Norway tend to choose more professions based on the
alignment with their gender. Men in the same country are known to have more
typical "guy" hobbies and toys. It's basically a catch-22.

------
pmdulaney
People ask me how The Atlantic differs from Harper's. Here is a good example.
Harper's would _not_ run an article that would even suggest a crack in the
framework of leftist orthodoxy.

But noting the date of the article, would this article be published now that
Mrs Jobs is at the helm? Perhaps not...

~~~
IAmEveryone
The Atlantic was bought by Laurene Powell Jobs in July 2017[0], about nine
months before this article was published.

I've stopped asking people not to make such accusations without any evidence.
But could you _at least_ check if the most basic facts do not contradict them?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic#Ownership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic#Ownership)

~~~
pmdulaney
I am duly rebuked for not having done fact checking on my comment.

------
ajuc
It's pretty obvious once you stop with ideology and politics.

When STEM is your only shot at a comfortable life - you go STEM if you can,
even if you don't want to. When it's not - you pursue your interests instead.

------
glofish
I have a hard time believing that Hungary, Malta and Slovakia have comparable
gender equality to Indonesia or Arab Emirates.

Based on that, if those countries were moved up I would say the trend will be
even stronger.

------
b0rsuk
I think it's safe to say that board games are kinda STEM-related? I go to a
local fantasy/SF club that's dominated by board gaming. There are lots of STEM
students in there due to location, also plenty of programmers. And very few
girls, and the only woman over 30 is mentally <inoffensive word>.

No, there's no beer, no cigarettes, no posters with elves in g-strings, that
sort of thing. It's almost as if girls and young women weren't really
interested in that. The few that do occasionally show up gravitate towards
LARPs, pen&paper RPG games, and RPG-ish board games like Arkham Horror. If
anything, I think those activities are _more_ associated with toxic and sexist
behavior and subtexts. I mean _those_ are the people that spend lots of time
in the same company, often in pubs or cellars, as opposed to board games where
there are always people coming and going.

I don't know why, but very few young women come to us to play heavier or more
competitive board games and we have several games going at any given time. And
because board game renaissance is pretty recent in my country, there's
absolutely no possibility it's traditionally male.

I'm for equal opportunities, but I think differences between sexes are not
limited to physical. It's hard to pinpoint the tendencies, but they seem to be
there. I mean look at smaller _guys_ \- they often have confidence issues and
the ones I know are gym rats. They are also more afraid to go out after dark.
Would it be crazy to think that people who evolved having about 20% less
muscle mass also got some related mental differences?

~~~
softfalcon
More than likely, the reason others avoid you is because once it became a
distinct group huddled around a table nerding out about a technical board
game, it became intimidating to join. Hell, I was raised playing D&D and other
games, am male, have a computer science degree, and even I feel intimidated
walking up to another table of gamers.

The same thing applies in reverse when you're with your mates at a pub. You
want to go over and talk to a girl, but she's surrounded by her army of
friends who are forming a social barricade that is intimidating to enter.

Those girls don't want to leave their comfortable social circle and risk
entering this unknown board game world either. Here are a bunch of guys who
all "know" this game and she has to enter into it not just from a social
disadvantage, but also a gaming skill disadvantage. That's a tough ask for
anyone, male or female. People do not like to enter social situations where
they feel isolated.

Even if you were all a bunch of ripped, attractive, friendly, well dressed,
wealthy, and obviously social gents, you'd still probably find women don't
waltz right up to you and your friends playing a game of Scythe or some other
complex strategy game.

If you want people to join your game, you have to go out of your way to make
the game environment approachable to other people.

This means playing simpler games, inviting people over, and including other
fun things to ease them into it. This means networking outside of just going
to a board game cafe and hoping a girl will come through the door. You have to
go out and find those wonderful people yourself.

NOTE: this can be really hard, cause the same way you and your friends are
hiding out in this board game cafe, so are all those other like-minded
individuals. They're also hiding away in basements, back alley cafes, etc,
playing board games.

Remember, the reason you're into this hobby is because you've been a gaming
fan for years. If we take away all your prior knowledge of games, you too
would be anxious to jump right into the thick of it.

~~~
b0rsuk
I think you jump to conclusions too easily. There are usually a few (2-3)
groups that play similar kinds of games as me that do NOT contain me at the
moment. If it was about me personally, I'd see women in the complimentary
group, just not in mine. That is not the case. I usually play in any of the
groups except one, which has people I personally don't like. We have a lot of
table jumping and newcomers, in fact it's rare to have a match when no one
needs to be introduced to the rules of the game. The nature of the club is
also that we rarely play the same game twice in a row.

------
namirez
This has been posted here a few times:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411227)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407966)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21699498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21699498)

------
downerending
I have no doubt that women face adversity, often in the form of sh__ty
behavior during their STEM careers, so I'm not particularly surprised by
accounts of it. I'm far less sanguine about the idea that they face _more_ of
it than men, as I've been on the receiving end of a lot of it myself (some
life-changing).

It'd be interesting to see this studied.

------
coatmatter
Chess Grandmaster David Smerdon (PhD, Economics) noticed a similar correlation
with chess too: [https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-best-and-worst-
countries-t...](https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-best-and-worst-countries-to-
be-a-female-chess-player)

------
dralley
The headline does this article a disservice. The data does not boil down so
cleanly (as the article itself points out clearly) and to leave out the other
factors it discusses is to invite false conclusions.

I realize that it's difficult to write a headline that is both scientifically
precise and short, but the point remains.

~~~
DuskStar
What are you saying it leaves out? From my reading of the article the only
obvious other cause would be that countries with lower gender equality also
tend to have worse social support systems, which would allow people to pursue
their desires more than otherwise - but that still leaves open the question of
why those differences affect women more than men.

------
4ntonius8lock
It's good that the article mentions poverty and interest in STEM, but they
plotted the participation in STEM against Gender Equality instead of say,
affordability to survive on minimum wage. They are literally quoting a study
on the effects of basically poverty of a country, and then decide to plot
against gender gap? Seems like they are trying to sell a narrative instead of
understanding the issue fully.

It also seems odd the amount of information they glance over to create their
narrative.

In the article, there's a video that mentions a ton of facts.

Among the facts: Women make up 18% of CS engineers. 1:4 computing jobs are
held by women. I'm no math genius, but this actually seems to dispel the myth
of women just aren't hired in tech. I mean, if they are 18% of CS engineering
graduates, you'd expect them to hold slightly < 1:5 computing jobs, not 1:4.

------
EGreg
What if I just post an alternative hypothesis without any apologies? Let’s
find out...

Perhaps women in general are less interested than men in problems that require
long stretches of “cold” and abstract reasoning, including building back-end
software, and prefer activities that involve more human interaction or more
frequent decisions involving “warmer” human elements such as aesthetics, human
perception, relationship building, understanding everyday needs etc.

Also, perhaps women prefer more of a work-life balance, and not stretching
themselves too thin when working on abstractions?

------
fefe23
I always wonder why we just assume STEM are an attractive field to be in.
Because if it is not attractive, then why would we want to force more women
into it?

Maybe we should not be asking why there are so few women doing it but why
there are so many men doing it.

Almost nobody who studied physics ends up doing physics.

Both men and women will do unfulfilling jobs if they need the money, but when
it comes to investing into a career, women will more often choose one that
leads to interesting and fulfilling jobs, while men tend to select for "return
on investment". Men are much more likely than women to invest into an career
that only has unfulfilling but well-paying job prospects.

I view this is a defect in men, not a sign of oppression. Men are the victim
of reactionary gender stereotypes and think they have to study something that
will lead to them being able to provide for a family.

Look at, for example, container ship crew or workers on an oil platform.
Clearly both genders can do those jobs, but almost only men will actually do
it. Oil workers are getting paid exceptionally well. Not sure about container
ship crews, maybe that was not a great example.

------
jariel
"A new study explores a strange paradox:"

 _It 's not a paradox!!_

That people refer to it as a 'paradox' only confirms their very entrenched,
possibly ideological view of reality, to the point wherein 'real life data'
that calls into question that view ... is considered 'strange'.

It's not a paradox, it's just reality, probably easily explained (in very
crude terms) by the fact that men and women are different, ergo, different
outcomes. 'Gender' is a very powerful construct with underlying physical
aspects, and it's just a part of who we are.

So we can try to make sure everyone has a real chance (taking into account
systematic issues i.e. it's really hard for the 'lone minority' in a group
etc.), but going too far beyond that might be hard.

------
wufufufu
Is it not arrogant to think engineering is the profession that all minorities
aspire to?

------
alfromspace
This is essentially what James Damore was fired for saying.

~~~
kleer001
> essentially

exactly

------
dang
The main discussion was here in 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411227)

and the same topic was discussed here in 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407678)

~~~
squidsurfer
And it needs to be brought up frequently because marxist DEI policy trying to
force an outcome is all the rage in tech these days.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for ideological battle.
Doing this will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please
don't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
squidsurfer
I definitely didnt read the guidelines. thanks for sharing them and letting me
know.

------
luord
All this article tells me is that there's a problem regarding boys and reading
and that we need to find ways to motivate boys into reading more.

Women aren't inherently better than men (obligatory "and viceversa") so if
both are about as good in one area but one group is (only seemingly) better at
another area, there clearly is an issue that needs addressing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Women aren't inherently better than men (and viceversa)

While I would agree that that is true, axiomatically, when discussing moral
worth and human dignity (whether speaking in terms of gender identity or
biological sex), it's very clearly not true when talking about, well, a whole
lot of capacities with physiological components when speaking of either
averages or distributions between the biological sexes. I mean, this is fairly
obvious with biological capacities closely related to sex and reproduction (I
don't think anyone is going to argue against the idea that biological females
are _inherently_ advantaged when it comes to childbearing), but strucural and
hormonal (among other) sex differences have far wider impacts. Testosterone
levels alone, which are clearly linked to though not strictly determined by
biological sex, have fairly wide ranging impacts on physical capacities and
psychology/behavior.

~~~
luord
Oh, I don't disagree with that. Men and women are certainly _different_ in
many ways, just not necessarily _better_ , as you said, in worth and dignity.

In this case, I meant reading; I don't think there's anything in our biology
that would necessarily make one group better than the other at reading.

------
xwowsersx
Jordan Peterson has highlighted this many times. As he puts it: in
Scandinavia, which has gone further than any other country in promoting gender
equality, as equality increases, the differences between the genders
(interest, careers, other pursuits) INCREASE, not the other way around. This
came as a big surprise to many.

------
Porthos9K
It sounds like women who grow up hearing they can be whoever they want to be
tend to not want to be techies. I don't blame them. If I were any good at
anything else I wouldn't do STEM for a living, either. It's a thankless job
best outsourced.

~~~
Lio
Each to there own. I think it's a great life. I'd almost do my work for free.
I can't imagine doing a job I hated long term.

~~~
sokoloff
I’d absolutely write code for free. You need to pay me to come to your
spreadsheet mine every day and work on _your specific problems_ though.

------
b0rsuk
How about the 'forbidden fruit' syndrome? What if hard-to-get-into STEM
attracts the girls who are naturally competitive and strong-willed, who want
to SHOW THEM? In that case easing the resistance could also lower the
perceived attractiveness.

------
sossles
I've always wondered: Does encouraging women to pursue STEM subjects send the
subconscious message that it isn't something they are naturally suited to?
Ironically having the opposite effect?

------
jl2718
Mostly because it’s not a very good job. The total hours, job security, and
amortization of training time, are some of the worst of any profession.

~~~
Nursie
That's nonsense. It pays very well and can give you great freedom to set your
own path.

~~~
uwuhn
I think that poster is referring to STEM as a whole. Software engineering is a
small subset of STEM, and I'd argue that it is, surprisingly, both the most
accessible and the most lucrative.

~~~
jl2718
I mean software. Professional sports is also accessible and lucrative in the
same way. Most white-collar professions secure their gravy trains through
guild membership, insider knowledge, and personal relationships. Software,
however, gets more competitive throughout a career, not less, and most people
don't understand how obsessed they must be to keep up. I like that about it,
and I didn't make it as an athlete, so it suits me, but most people that come
into this profession would rather retire into management than keep up their
coding skills for more than a few years.

------
ProofByAccident
These comments are wild and the headline is not great. I know this is a
contentious issue and that people like to armchair philosophize about stuff
like this, but I think the study conclusions warrant a lot of critical
attention before you say anything about "equality of opportunity vs. equality
of outcome".

First off: this is one study. No matter where you fall on gender politics, I
wouldn't hang anything too seriously on a single paper. Obviously gender
discrimination has been a historical cause of the gender STEM gap; so are we
saying that we've solved that particular problem? Is there still room to
improve? How much room? To me it seems naive to assume the first one without
lots of evidence, and this paper is not that.

Second: the regression shown in the article doesn't seem great. For one thing:
there's a small cluster of countries with pretty high X values, and pretty low
Y values which suggests that they have relatively high leverage over the
results and should probably be excluded. If you cover up UAE, Tunisia,
Algeria, and Turkey does the regression line make any sense at all? To me it
seems way too steep, ie. leverage. (Maybe the authors talk about this in the
paper, I can't get behind the paywall). Also my priors would be that there are
a number of country- and regional-level effects at work for an issue like
this. It would be way more informative if the authors were to perform subgroup
regressions by region of the world, cultural factors, ecnomic factors, etc.
It's very possible, for example, that these two variables have an opposite
correlation within region, education system, etc, but appear to have a
negative correlation on aggregate. Simpson's Paradox is real and can cut many
ways.

Third: choice of metric. Per the article """In this study, the percentage of
girls who did excel in science or math was still larger than the number of
women who were graduating with STEM degrees. That means there’s something in
even the most liberal societies that’s nudging women away from math and
science, even when those are their best subjects""" This could be caused by a
lot of things, but this suggests to me that the "Global Gender Gap" metric may
not be giving us the whole picture. I think it's real hasty to draw basically
any conclusions about eg. the US STEM culture based on this study. When the
results suggest a paradox like this, I think it calls for looking at a variety
of metrics to see if the same results are borne out repeatedly.

tl;dr there's a lot of research on the gender STEM gap, and a lot of people
shooting from the hip in these comments.

------
wfbarks
When people are truly free to choose the careers they want, it accentuates
natural gender preferences.

------
aznpwnzor
If companies truly value diversity, just pay women more then men.

------
dfilppi
Women dont like nerds

------
turc1656
This isn't new information. Not even sort of new. This has been known for
quite some time (20-30 YEARS). Jordan Peterson has also mentioned it numerous
times over the years but the original studies are quite old.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjvzH24Mwo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjvzH24Mwo)

Yet people are shocked to learn this because this data/facts aren't liked by
politicians and even some scientists so it doesn't get discussed. Not sure
why. There's nothing wrong with having different preferences. But some people
like to pretend everyone is more or less exactly the same and want to do the
same things and the only reason to differ would be societal influence.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
The odd thing is that the same people who talk about there being no inherent
biological differences between sexes then go ahead and talk about 'male
aggression'. The amount of people that employ mental gymnastics to justify
saying both these things is amazing. In fact the attacks I've seen on Peterson
have bordered on the downright delusional/incoherent.

~~~
IAmEveryone
It's perfectly possible to consider traits to be culturally assigned to the
genders and not biologically determined, and still complain about them.
Complaining about innate (and therefore unchangeable) biological traits would
actually be somewhat useless.

Besides, nobody denies the existence of biological differences. It's pretty
obvious that women tend to have breasts and men tend not to. What's being
criticised is:

\- Misinterpreting culturally-enforced differences as biological and therefore
fixed. Hair length, for example, could be misinterpreted as a difference
between the sexes if any aliens did a quantitative study without ever noticing
the barbers. Job choices could very well be similar, except the process how
they are culturally reinforced are less obvious.

\- Making decisions affecting individuals based on group differences
(biological, culturally, or imagined): Even if women are 2% at picking
stocks, using that information only to hire Alice and not Bob will lead to the
wrong decision in 45% of cases because the differences between individuals
swamp the group averages.

~~~
TulliusCicero
It's true that few on the left will assert that there are zero sex-based
average behavioral differences, but you can't deny that it makes most
progressives...uncomfortable. I'm pretty far left and I've seen it; people
won't deny the possibility outright, but they'll look for every other possible
explanation first, even if they sound substantially less plausible.

------
b0rsuk
I know it's not a popular opinion, but consider a company analogy. People who
leave because they're not competent have a tendency to badmouth the company.
I'm not saying all of them do, and all that badmouth were incompetent. But
there is a tendency to rationalize and lash out. What if women were calling
those environments toxic because they had a hard time doing well in there?

There are absolutely toxic, hermetic, unpleasant environments. But we should
at least permit considering the idea that people of different sexes have
different abilities. I get sexist comments all the time (men can't distinguish
colors, men can't multitask) and there are no white knights riding to my
rescue.

~~~
SubuSS
Let's say you bring up an issue about a bug in software you're working on.
Let's also say you didn't cause it. But the moment you talk about it, I
respond, 'didn't the code you wrote yesterday have a bug?', 'isn't this code
base from a reputed oss repo?' and so on.

Essentially my exact words don't mean that this is also your bug, but there is
an (un)intended implication that you're a crappy developer. You're probably
gonna latch on to that at the speed of light rather than giving a Data like
logical response. That's the problem with bringing up such alternatives.

It alludes that women or minority will right away fall back to their gender or
whatever when convenient. It also alludes that they don't know the weight of
one such allegation, they aren't thinking about the effect it is going to have
on their future employment opportunities (It so happens this kind of
allegations true or not seriously affect your career, everyone starts to
tiptoe around you at the least in your new job) - essentially attributes a
lack of integrity and foresight.

IOW - I do agree that there is a very interesting question around what do we
do about incompetent employees who happen to be a minority. I also know this
line of responses are probably not going to be productive :)

~~~
b0rsuk
Obviously I'm not going to test this myself, but I think the consequences of
saying bad things about past work environment are less if you're leaving an
industry altogether for a different career anyway. Or if you're asked by
someone random like a journalist, who's not considering hiring you or telling
the next recruiter.

------
jelliclesfarm
This! I have said this so many times and all my girl friends hate me for it!

I also believe in gender segregated schools(after HS and at university level).
I am not advocating gender segregation but just gender segregated education.

This is only a BS theory of mine..and so I am trying to work it into my hobby
fiction writing. Please allow me to test it here for opinions.

I think that in formative years, children should not be gender segregated, but
when rubber hits the road at specialized and advanced education, it’s better
if there is gender segregation because there is so much competition and
rivalary between genders when both are at peak reproductive phase.

I tend to be on the biology trumps/mind rules body/nature vs nurture side of
the camp. I believe that there will be equality between the genders and less
conflict if they don’t compete with each other in the same space. This might
bring out the innate strengths and better intellectual capabilities of both
genders because fundamentally they clash and neutralization absorbs the
explosion of what good might come out of great human potential.

This is not just in an intellectual setting. Last week I had a voice
quivering, temple throbbing, blue vein screaming episode at a guy I hired to
do some work. I just lost it.

It’s a constant battle of wits dealing with men that it’s exhausting. It’s
even worse than in an office environment because men think the tasks that
involve physical prowess is their domain. They simply will NOT take orders
from a woman. And it’s exhausting trying to make every instruction sound like
a ‘suggestion’. I am running out of time and honestly the man was just using
brute strength to achieve what physics could do...

And for every grudging acceptance of my way of doing things, I had to endure
dumbass flirting. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. And then after every
attempt to puff his chest, I have to listen to him talk about his wife because
now he feels guilty for flirting. And it’s stuff I don’t need to hear.

And this is a person I am PAYING to work FOR me. I can’t even wrap my head
around it. I had spent another part of my life in office environments and it
was just the same. It’s better farming because it’s easier to cut off people
if I have the right machine for the job.

I think there ought to be a jobs boards and work spaces for JUST WOMEN. It was
the same during my years of education. I went to a co-Ed school and I loved
it. My college education was at a nun run women’s only college. And I LOVED
it.

~~~
Hitton
_> This is not just in an intellectual setting. Last week I had a voice
quivering, temple throbbing, blue vein screaming episode at a guy I hired to
do some work. I just lost it. >It’s a constant battle of wits dealing with men
that it’s exhausting. It’s even worse than in an office environment because
men think the tasks that involve physical prowess is their domain. They simply
will NOT take orders from a woman. And it’s exhausting trying to make every
instruction sound like a ‘suggestion’. I am running out of time and honestly
the man was just using brute strength to achieve what physics could do..._

Female managers I know and under who I worked don't seem to face these
problems. Did you consider the possibility, that the problems you face aren't
caused by your gender but rather by your skills as a manager?

~~~
blattimwind
> voice quivering, temple throbbing, blue vein screaming episode at a guy

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Because of inappropriate touching, boundary testing conversation, bone headed
adherence to defense of a lack of skill and zero inclination to accept
sensible advice.

~~~
mixmastamyk
We don't know enough to form a useful judgement. But, taking your description
at face value, it sounds like the employee needs to simply be let go.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I am not seeking judgement. Or asking that people believe me. That has no
value to me. It was an example of my reality.

It’s an example of how I don’t have this added aggression and hassle if I
worked with an all female team. Things just get done quicker if I work in all
women team. It’s like we have a hive mind.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I don't know... I've met women very difficult to work with over the years. Men
too.

I've heard some folks have difficulty working with one gender in particular,
usually due to personality conflicts of some sort.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
It’s always good to have options out. Many men and women work well together
without conflict. But I don’t think work places should be forcing some kind of
golden ratio for men and women.

What is important is that 1. Work gets done. 2. We extract maximum efficiency
for maximum reward 3. Minimize conflict and increase productivity + work
satisfaction.

If this can be achieved with gender segregation at work/school, then why fight
it in the name of gender equality.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Yeah, it's an interesting idea. I don't think the current political climate
would allow it however. Folks are likely too sore about past forms of
segregation to entertain the concept.

------
squidsurfer
Wow, it turns out that much to the protestations of the left, women are in
fact not men, and given more equality of opportunity and freedom to choose
will gravitate more towards fields suited to their natures, on average. This
was common sense a generation or two ago, but now feels like heresy to speak
out loud. Certainly a fireable offense (just ask James Damore!)

------
m0skit0
Correlation is not causation.

~~~
banads
Is it even possible to prove objective causation in a complex social sciences
study, since there can be no control group?

~~~
DuskStar
Yeah, by the same logic you can't blame sexism or racism for any differences
in outcomes, since there's no control group _there_ either.

~~~
banads
It would seem any univariate analysis of social dynamics is by default
erroneous

------
nathias
this seems to do more about the specifics of cultural integration of
math/science/reading and not gender

