> Just 16% of girls think a career in engineering is suitable for someone like them, compared to 44% of boys.
Serious question, why is this "bad"? Is absolute equality in everything intrinsically valuable always? It seems progressives have taken the idea of liberal equality under the law and extend it to human nature for no reason other than to achieve a contrived version of a utopia. There are many ways to achieve a good society, and I don't see why differences existing between different groups of people needs to get in the way of that. Furthermore, I don't think this can be top-down engineered by politicians (and in fact attempting it has caused historic catastrophes). Maximizing individual freedom has been the most consistent producer of progress.
> Maximizing individual freedom has been the most consistent producer of progress.
That's exactly what the goal is. It's not about making everything equal, it's about counter-acting societal pressures for men and women towards certain career paths and allowing people who show aptitude for certain fields to feel comfortable pursuing them.
That would be equality of opportunity, which definitely maximizes individual freedom. I think the context of the article is the recent push of equality of outcome. It is trying to arrive at a specific destination in terms of the composition of a certain group of people, which leads to the question of why that would be desirable to begin with.
> Serious question, why is this "bad"? Is absolute equality in everything intrinsically valuable always?
I'm not sure it is "bad" from the girls point of view. The are choosing what they like.
But personally, as a male working in stem, I think we would all be better off with a more equal gender balance. Mixed gender team work more efficiently in my experience. If very hard to get a mixed team if no girls apply for the job.
On the first point, that could end up being a discussion on freewill, which makes sense it is such a highly debated topic.
The second point is fair, but would raise questions about why we push society in that direction and not another. It goes back to trying to engineer society instead of letting it happen. I think we can be cautious of where we don't want to go, but pushing in any one direction is imposing values on other people. The flip side would be pushing society in a religious direction as it used to be done in many cases in history.
Serious question, why is this "bad"? Is absolute equality in everything intrinsically valuable always? It seems progressives have taken the idea of liberal equality under the law and extend it to human nature for no reason other than to achieve a contrived version of a utopia. There are many ways to achieve a good society, and I don't see why differences existing between different groups of people needs to get in the way of that. Furthermore, I don't think this can be top-down engineered by politicians (and in fact attempting it has caused historic catastrophes). Maximizing individual freedom has been the most consistent producer of progress.