
Women in STEM college programs under attack for male discrimination - pseudolus
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-20/women-only-science-programs-discrimination-complaints
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xhkkffbf
I took my daughter to a Women in Bio event and someone pointed out that the
biology pipeline is pretty much 80% female from the PhD level on down. Someone
asked how long they were going to keep running the program and, of course, the
women didn't have an answer. Who would? It's a nice job.

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dekhn
It winnows out post-PHd (fewer women proceed to postdoc and professor jobs).
Most people would describe this as a pipeline problem, or possibly a rational
reaction to the poor economics of being a professor (super competitive hard
work for low pay, mainly for ego, not remuneration).

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influx
According to data from the Department of Education on college degrees by
gender, the US college degree gap favoring women started back in 1978, when
for the first time ever, more women than men earned Associate’s degrees. Five
years later in 1982, women earned more bachelor’s degrees than men for the
first time, and women have increased their share of bachelor’s degrees in
every year since then. In another five years by 1987, women earned the
majority of master’s degrees for the first time. Finally, within another
decade, more women than men earned doctor’s degrees by 2006, and female
domination of college degrees at every level was complete. For the current
graduating class of 2013, the Department of Education estimates that women
will earn 61.6% of all associate’s degrees this year, 56.7% of all bachelor’s
degrees, 59.9% of all master’s degrees, and 51.6% of all doctor’s degrees.
Overall, 140 women will graduate with a college degree at some level this year
for every 100 men. The article is from AEI Ideas and is summarized by Carnegie
Foundation..

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Bostonian
I have noticed that many coding bootcamps offer scholarships for women. In
other words, they charge men more for the same program. The laws against sex
discrimination apply to discrimination against either sex, and it is
bothersome that many schools and government officials selectively ignore those
laws.

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chomp
There is a fine line to walk between outreach and including marginalized
groups, and discrimination. There’s many great groups out there that don’t
discriminate to this effect, but it’s not surprising that some have swung the
pendulum too far and should be reined in.

It is bothersome, but in many cases it’s not policy/law experts who make these
programs, but small committees made up of 3 or so people who put out these
scholarships (I serve on an alumni board which creates/grants scholarships.)
There are definitely non experts who make these programs, and not much
oversight.

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nerdjon
I... don't know how I feel about any of this. But I feel like we are missing
critical information from the article.

For example:

> In California, for instance, 11 colleges and universities reviewed offered
> 117 scholarships for women and four for men

At first glance that seems drastic, but I am curious about the breakdown of
the students within STEM during this time. Did these scholarships cause a
closer to 50/50 breakdown or did it swing the other way (more woman then men).

Ultimately more diversity (not just sex) is incredibly important for the
industry, but I struggle with finding any information that correlates these
programs with the graduating diversity.

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lidHanteyk
I am okay with this, provided that we provide men-only workshops for men who
want to get into nursing or teaching. Fair's fair, and fair's fair's fair too.

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DanBC
> we provide men-only workshops for men who want to get into nursing or
> teaching.

We do. Why do people think this is some kind of killer point? It is made in
_every single thread_ like this. It's beyond fucking tedious.

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lidHanteyk
I couldn't find evidence to substantiate the point, and the article doesn't
have any evidence either. Do you have any evidence?

It's not a good point in and of itself, but it's what the point implies about
our emotional predisposition towards correlating sex and occupation. "Beyond
fucking tedious" would be a wonderful summary of my feelings towards any Title
IX violations.

