
Gender Differences in Research Areas and Topics: An Analysis of Publications - infodocket
https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.01255
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curiousgal
I will never understand why a gender difference is necessarily a negative
thing. In some developing countries (Tunisia), females compose 60% of people
in STEM fields, which is simply due to economic difficulties, STEM jobs pay
more so that's where everyone wants to be. Following the same logic, less
women in STEM means that they are prioritizing other things than their
economic well-being which is taken care of (better life style in the developed
world).

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danharaj
In which year did social forces that marginalized women in STEM fields become
negligible?

They were obviously substantial in, say, 1963. And I think it's mostly
accepted that such forces have become weaker over time. Now, how does one
deduce when the work of reducing those marginalizing social forces is done?

Maybe its unreasonable for advocates of increasing representation of women in
STEM to take their benchmark as equal representation. Maybe that's too naive.

But what alternative goal do people who say it is too naive provide? No matter
which time period you choose, the same cohort makes the argument that
representation in their era is just fine, or even overtuned. That's not honest
disagreement.

One can come up with hypotheses to explain any distribution in any industry
along any lines. That's not constructive.

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pochamago
Women have vastly more scholarship opportunities than men. The number of
programs pushing women into STEM vastly outnumbers those doing the same for
men. Every department openly pushes for equality. Women outnumber men in
University, in high school graduation, and in college graduation. If the
factor keeping the stem disparity in place is implicit bias, it is one of the
strongest social forces ever to exist

~~~
danharaj
> If the factor keeping the stem disparity in place is implicit bias, it is
> one of the strongest social forces ever to exist

Gender? Yea. Gender may very well be the most powerful, persistent, and
ancient of social forces.

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fizwhiz
Not trying to pick sides here, but the abstract seems to resonate with James
Damore's hypothesis [1].

[1]
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-
Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf)

~~~
yorwba
Only insofar as Damore was partially basing his arguments on previous studies
with similar results.

In my opinion, Damore's mistake wasn't collecting studies like this to support
his point, but that he 1) didn't also collect their predicted effect sizes and
2) didn't collect studies on effects in the opposite direction and 3) didn't
compare the so-obtained prediction with the situation at Google to see whether
he had the full picture but 4) directly jumped to suggesting changes in the
way Google does things while 5) tying himself to an unpopular political
platform.

Then citing a bunch of studies in the opposite direction likewise without
regard for effect sizes is an equal-effort response and you get a nice little
flame war. The rest is politics.

I doubt that this submission will fare any better.

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gizmo686
Damore's piece was fundamentally reactionary, responding to holes present in
the diversity training program and the justifications presented for the
diversity programs at Google. It is not nessasary to provide a complete
account of a situtaion to point out flaws in an existing account. It is not
nessasary to have a complete account in order to improve the existing account.

There are some really hard questions to answer here. We do not answer hard
questions by locking ourselves in a room until we figure it all out and write
up a paper to present to the world. We answer hard questions by making
incremental progress and sharing and collaborating with that progress so we
can work with others to find the answers.

Damore's mistake was thinking that the diversity advocates were interested in
a good faith discussion, or evidence based policy.

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buboard
Gonna watch as this thread accumulates votes but nobody comments because of
its unspeakable nature. It’s slightly entertaining to watch SV from outside

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j7ake
How much of this is cultural and how much of this biological? It is hard to
know from aggregates across cultures.

If you stratify by different countries across a wide range of cultures you may
be able to infer this from a linear model.

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wu-ikkyu
>How much of this is cultural and how much of this biological?

It would probably vary by job classification

