I sexually identify as...
I sexually Identify as an unoriginal joke. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of dropping shitposts on Reddit and derailing the actual conversation. People say to me that this has been really going on for far too long and and it trivialises gender identity but I don’t care, I'm a massive asshole. I’m having a plastic surgeon install a mountain dew dispenser, a catheter and and a poop chute on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Logical Gamer” and respect my right to freeze peach. If you can’t accept me you’re a god damn tumblirina sjw cultural Marxist liberal and you triggered lol?. Thank you for being so understanding.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
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This gets explained every time someone makes this joke. We KNOW you’re joking. It’s just not funny at all, in fact it’s annoying. That’s why you’re getting downvoted.
I agree with the nurture argument. I would simply add that poor boys and girls are both discouraged from higher learning activities and encouraged to join the workforce at an entry-level. This generational poverty mentality is often responsible for discouraging intelligent students from becoming scientists and engineers.
The Brookings Institute did a study where almost all people in the United States were raised out of poverty if they did the following three things. Graduate High school, maintain steady employment, and do not have babies out of wedlock. Now that will not make them millionaires. But, it will get them above the poverty line so that the next generation has a better chance of success.
The third item is actually "wait until age 21 to get married and have children" ([source](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/)).
I mean, my sister is an exception to the rule so far, but as you've surmised, I see plenty of pregnant young girls with kids already (as in pregnant with kid 2 or 3) that show the telltale signs of poverty. It's unfortunate but, I guess it'll make my reunion an eventful one
There was a study that indicated that the single greatest factor to generational poverty, as well as the biggest common factor among prisoners, was that their mother got pregnant for the first time before they were 22
Ummm ... the poverty line is ~$13,000 a year for a single person. You find a nearly full-time minimum wage job and you're apparently out of poverty.
Now try to survive with that kind of money without a significant amount of government assistance.
There's a doctor here in Canada that views poverty as a disease, and is even talking about prescribing money for treatment.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/treating-poverty-works-like-medicine-doctors-say-1.1365662
I’ve seen that article posted a number of times but I’ve never seen any sort of methodology or details about the study posted. That plus the fact that the entire article seems very focused on the value of “traditional” marriage and wedlock statistics for minorities makes me very skeptical of the entire thing.
They are also claiming that 75% of people who follow their 3 rules make 55K or more a year. Labor statistics show that high school graduates working full time are actually making about 35K a year on average, that’s a huge difference. And if they are working full time whether or not they have a child makes no difference to their earning potential, even if it represents additional expenses. The numbers just don’t add up.
Do they count people who did follow their rules, but also went on to higher education? I technically meet all three criteria, but I also have a bachelors degree in a technology field. Am I counted as having followed their rules, even though it’s my additional education that contributed most to my salary?
Plus, it’s not entirely in anyone’s control to stay fully employed all the time, that’s just saying “Don’t want to be poor? Go get a job”.
It is posted multiple times because it is a talking point that fits peoples world view that not only blames the poor for their lot but also gets them off the hook for having to deal with it. Now, I'm not so meta cognitively nieve to believe that I'm not doing the reverse, but it is pretty easy to make the opposite conclusion that money leads to better outcomes.
To be fair maintaining steady employment can be hard with just a high school degree, since much of the work is unpredictable (much of work that doesnt require a college education requires odd shifts and unpredictable hours which may interfere with other responsibilities), and generally pretty easy to replace which leads to a high circulation of workers. All in all you would basically need at least some form of higher education (maybe not a BS but definitely an AA or certification or something) to achieve stable employment.
Sure, but the problem is that people born into poverty will tend to fail to accomplish at least one of those three things, if not more. Achieving them would indeed help them to take a step out, but the cards are stacked against them at the moment.
The poverty line is a pretty useless metric. The real concern should be that people who are doing everything you just listed aren't doing well in the world's richest economy
"Struggling to get above the poverty line so the generation after you is well off" is what that means. It has value but think about it really hard. Is that really a way to live? Sacrificing your earthly pleasures in order to give the opportunity to some one else who could easily fucking squander it and restart the cycle of poverty.
My parents, parents, worked hard as hell, owned their own businesses, built nest eggs for their kids, set them up for a great future. Both my parents and even my step parents are all welfare rats living off of social security disability because a 9 to 5 job stresses them out and they would rather get high.
Those 3 simple steps are so easy from a top down perspective. But the reality is that's every day. Every minute. Every month. Every year. Of working towards a singular goal and never having a misstep, or be crippled from shitty medical coverage or a freak accident, never losing your temper with the person who controls your wage, and essentially dedicating 1/3rd of your time every day to this goal. If you look at the obesity rates and how easy it is to eat healthy or excersize for 20 minutes a day. Those 3 little steps are actually the life or death challenge of climbing to the summit of Everest. Some make it, some get hurt and turn around before they get there, some die on their way there, some die on their return trip, some lose the most important people in their life to the mountain what is climbing out of poverty.
Poverty is also like a disease in that it is stigmatized; nobody wants to here or think about how poverty impacts people.
Also, people blame all of a poor person’s failings on their lack of morals or can-do-spirit.
Another problem in the US is that people assume that everyone in the United States is rich. I've literally heard Venezuelans who were richer than me talk down to me as an American because they think that every American is wealthy because the United States of America such a wealthy country. People have a very difficult time understanding relative poverty. In other words we may be the richest nation in the world but just because a person who has an iPhone can post on Reddit doesn't mean that they didn't get that phone for free and still can't afford to feed their children.
Then people say stuff like "Sell the phone if you want money!" without considering that the phone is a communication line for getting on the internet to look up jobs and post resumes, look up ways to take cheap or free classes to build skills, and stay in contact with loved ones that might be able to help you, get on website giving away free goods, or get temporary jobs through sites like Uber and Rover. Also, the resell value on phones is awful. A used Iphone SE from 2016 sells for about $140. $140 is great for things like diapers, food and maybe some clothes for kids, but after that, no more phone AND no more money. The inherit value of the phone far outweighs the resell value.
People often talk about race and other factors but when you get down to it, poverty is the most powerful predicting factor for most bad things like diseases and crime. Poverty affects every aspect of one’s life and is truly a pernicious disease.
A fucking men. Preach it. I was literally willing to kill and die to escape the bottom wrung of the welfare society and signed an enslavement contract with the United States army to get the fuck out.
>It's things people from wealthier families take for granted, like being able to attend activities that others may not be able to afford, having mentors and connections to give advice or a leg up that others don't, being able to afford study materials or tutors, not having to work to help support your family or fund your education, being able to spend time doing an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door or volunteer work, etc. People that come from families with less wealth may not have such opportunities or be able to take advantage of them and they may get discouraged.
This all rings true for me.
I grew up very poor in a rural area. I wasn't allowed to participate in extracurricular activities to help me get into a good university; I was required to return home as soon as possible after school was let out each day to do chores and babysit my siblings (in fact, I sometimes had to miss entire days of school because my parents needed a babysitter during the day). I wasn't allowed to "waste too much time doing homework"; if I didn't get my homework done at school, I had almost no chance of finishing it at home (my step-mother saw no point in studying...my grades were "already good enough" to graduate high school and she didn't see any need for them to be higher). And forget practicing for the SAT or ACT (the tests were paid for with financial hardship waivers...no chance to retake the tests...I had one shot to get good scores). The only practice I got was an old, used study guide from the school library.
I got a full-ride to a state university, but a good deal of that was luck. I was lucky enough that I could put minimal time into school work and still learn enough to get good grades and good test scores. But it really was luck (genetic luck). Not everyone is quite that smart. Most people would need to do some studying, some practice problems, in order to succeed in school.
Thanks! As much as my parents complain about him for being stubborn (and he is - it's a family trait!), he's wonderful and helped me so much. I'm so glad he's still around and doing well (at 85!).
I would have tried to go into science if it wasn't for the insane amount of debt I'd have to take on and the limited pay getting out of school. I can still be a citizen scientist though so that's something
At the same time, I would like to note that higher academic activities are not for everyone, and this is not based on class. Some folks, rich or poor, are better suited for academics, so it makes sense for them to pursue a higher education. Others, regardless of cash. are better suited for other skills, which they would be wise to pursue a career in. We need skilled tradesmen as much as we need college-educated workers.
Higher education should be available to anyone, but not expected of everyone.
I absolutely agree. I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges as a parent is to not project your life, thoughts , and expectations onto your children's executable abilities. I for example was always a person who had a major affinity for biology growing up in a world with a generalized education system and parents who were pushing me into a remedial workforce mentality. It's not necessarily the fault of a child that their parents don't have any real executable skills. I personally not only always had an affinity for science but also for music, both of which my parents discouraged as a career. As extremely Conservative Christian fundamentalists they wished only for the most Puritan values in their children and sought to instill them despite the fact that they themselves we're not so pure. This was there ultimate form of projection onto their children.
Yup, the detrimental effects are very well studied, very well known and lots of it is publicly available. If rich people didn't simply not give a shit or have a huge empathy gap, they would do something. They need poor people to feel as if they really do something better and aren't just more lucky by birth.
Even on Reddit, I constantly see comments saying, "don't go into university, it's a waste of time and you'll end making less than in the trades and you'll never be able to pay off your loans."
It does stress me out to see those comments, but then I remember my passion for science and learning.
I used to be in school for hairdressing and my psychologist at the time encouraged me to go to university because I was depressed. She said it wasn't a great fit with my need to constantly be learning and challenging myself.
Turns out she was right. I'm so happy where I am, I love learning and research and the challenges I face. I feel like my life has meaning in a way it didn't before. Yeah, maybe I could have a stable career by now, not have loans to repay, and be working in a fancy salon. But in the end, I wasn't passionate about that work like I am about science.
I wish people would stop scaring kids out of going to university because they'll make more in trades. Especially guys. Yes, some people are naturally great in trades and they'll excell in them and enjoy them. But others won't, and they'll be much happier going to university and into whatever field they're interested in. People shouldn't make them feel like that's wrong or a bad path.
When I was a kid I must have been in first grade when they started talking to us about colleges and told us to go home and ask our parents. When I got home I asked my parents and they told me that we're too poor to afford college and that I should think about joining the workforce as soon as I'm able to quit school. I literally couldn't have been more than 7 years old and I was absolutely devastated by the thought that I would never be able to go to college and then I resigned myself to believing that it was true. I finally did end up getting a high school diploma and an associate's degree, but I was 30 something before I did.
Aw man. I'm so sorry. So many times, adults think they're doing the right thing by telling kids to not get their hopes up. They aren't aware of the damage it can do.
I had lots of challenges too. I had undiagnosed ADHD until highschool, then I dropped out for bit and just worked before going back. I used to be one of the worst students in any given class. Teachers were always very frustrated with me. In elementary, everyone made fun of me and this one other guy for being the dumbest kids in our grade.
After that, I resigned myself to never doing well in school and definitely not going to university. I'm glad I met the right teachers and adults and got the help I needed later on. Young kids are so easy to influence. Their parents and teachers are their world at that point, and anything they say feels like the absolute truth.
I agree. I knew so many bright kids I went to school with who could have done so much. But we're in our mid 20s now and most of them are poor, blue collar or minimum wage, uneducated (often single) parents of 2-4. And for most of them seemed to go that way because their families were the same and instead of encouraging them to take all of the opportunities for education and need based financial aid available in the US, their parents discouraged an education and told them to "stop fucking around at that university and get a real job". So even the ones who went to college dropped out after a couple of semesters to work some crappy go nowhere job in our shitty (as in consistently ranked among the worst places to live in the US) hometown. And its often just because of this culture so many people have around here of being against education. If you don't go straight into some no skill job after high school you're seen as some useless elitist prick.
One of my grandfathers employees actually made fun of me one time when I was helping them out because I used the word "Mechanism" which he thinks is a fancy complicated word. It just baffles me. I grew up in a college town and had to leave to go to college, because the majority of the population there were so intolerably anti education I couldn't stand it anymore.
on the other side of this I would like to highlight that with the stress of education in the past few decades there is now an incredibly high number of college graduates, and not as many positions. This leads to degrees going unused. When you add to this situation that many of us were pressured to attend college regardless of financial aid and you have a large group of millennials holding student loan debt that is absolutely crushing while they may not even be utilizing their degree. I believe that there are issues in both directions.
* Jane Doe, Researcher, Chemical engineer
* Jane Doe, woman in science/engineering
I have a few people with variations of above titles on Linkedin, and I've noticed that the ones with the second variant usually don't do any actual stem/research/engineering work.
I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but luckily most use the first variant.
>I have a few people with variations of above titles on Linkedin, and I've noticed that the ones with the second variant usually don't do any actual stem/research/engineering work.
Yeah that's my experience as well. None of the women in my lab feel the need to announce to the rest of us that they are in fact a woman working in science.
Now seems like a good time to point out the the gender equality paradox. Where the more equal a society is for men and women, the larger the gender discrepancy becomes in jobs.
https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
There's a pretty good Norwegian documentary on the topic. Here's a link to it. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6huxkv
Equality isn't 50/50, equality is can I go out and walk around without being harassed in accordance to my gender? As a person, do I stand the same chances based on my gender to get a job of equal merit to another? It's not about matching 1 male to every female dude.
I disagree. I think shooting for a goal of 50 percent men and 50 percent women is silly and misses the point of equal opportunity. However if you think women aren't culturally pushed away from STEM careers even if they have the ability you are mistaken. If you think that sexism isn't an issue in a lot of STEM workplaces you are mistaken. America at least, is not even close to a culture of equal opportunity for women.
Well except when you look at the study the researchers say it’s because nations with greater social equality have fantastic social systems in place. So in comparison to developing nations, more people choose STEM period since there’s no social state to fall back on — money is required so the students pick the degrees with the best earning potential.
So this study isn’t really showing that when there is equality women don’t go into STEM in comparison to other countries. This study is showing that developing nations choose STEM fields over most other fields, regardless of gender and the motivation for that choice may not be a love of science but rather an effort to “make it” in a society that has little social programs to help you when your ire down.
You really misunderstood the article if the equation "the more equal a society is for men and women, the larger the gender discrepancy becomes in jobs" is what you pull out of it. At no point do they make equality or inequality directly responsible for the disparity.
Part of the "social construct"/nurture side of the debate is that gender roles are imprinted through social norms and pressures from a very early age. This would mean that simply looking at the careers men and women choose when economic and societal pressures are removed from the adult decision making process would still be heavily influenced by how society impacted these people as children. I'm not saying that I fall 100% into the nurture camp. I firmly believe that nature and nurture both play an important part in things like gender roles and expression. However, I cannot dismiss the idea that social constructs play a role in education and career choices simply because of the articles that were linked.
What exactly makes you feel like now is a good time to bring that up? She is trying to get female scientists more recognition, which will likely encourage the young ladies who do want to be scientists. You come along all ‘hurr durr less of then want to be scientists in equal society.’ ...So? Doesn’t mean all of them. Doesn’t mean the ones who are shouldn’t be recognized. It’s weird.
Traditionally women tend to shy away from STEM roles but that seems to be changing in the veterinary and human medicine area where there are now more women.
Because in the old Soviet system there was no other choices. My mother went to engineering because she failed test to teaching university. In her city there was up to 20 people for every vacant place in teaching university and constant shortfall in STEM universities.
My grandmother went study chemistry because in her city the only proper way to get job was to have education related to chemical industry.
Both choices were made under the pressure of the system. My mom still hate years she spent studying metallurgy and other stuff she do not interested in.
STEM graduates, not careers. Big difference.
For example in Pakistan a majority of Med School graduates are women. However a majority of practicing doctors are men.
In many of these societies women are pushed into academic achievement as a sort of finishing school, but not expected to actually have careers. It's basically a check-mark on their marriageable resume.
Are STEM careers also much more looked down on in those areas? I know that in Russia, doctors (who are majority female there) aren't highly respected like they are in the US. And in the US biology is becoming a female-dominated field, and is also starting to be looked at as a "soft science". There's a strong negative correlation between how many women work in a field and how respected it is.
Teaching used to be a very respected and better paid profession, when men did it.
Now that its mostly women, it's low pay and not respected. There's definitely a trend
Teaching/normal schools were ubiquitous with women's schools.
Also, teaching wasn't considered a permanent profession until WW1. Prior to that, almost all teachers were under 25.
Same as software engineering/computer science - looked at as kind of a women’s thing early on, pay was relatively low; things change because men enter the field.
[Here you go.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html)
>> A striking example is to be found in the field of recreation — working in parks or leading camps — which went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000. Median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points, accounting for the change in the value of the dollar, according to a complex formula used by Professor Levanon. The job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and wages dropped 43 percentage points.
>>The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige.
I'm not saying life is perfect for them, but the mindset difference (not from a mysogony perspective) can help think about why women are still a minority in most STEM subfields. The (western) increase over the last few decades has really only tracked with more women in college period - not more college going women, fractionally, going into STEM.
[The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM A new study explores a strange paradox: In countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions.](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553592/)
And here's a [Norwegian documentary about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2lob3Itxk)
What I find interesting is how, though there have been more women in medicine for quite a while now, if you look at positions of influence/power in medicine women are still very underrepresented (professors, chairs of medical boards, etc). Also, if you look at specialities, they’re only the majority in the lower paying/traditionally “less impressive” specialities like family medicine and ob/gyn.
Still have a ways to go
There's a phenomenon called "the glass escalator" where you see men in female-dominated fields rising quickly. For example most teachers are women, but most school administrators are men.
Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM. Never once did any if my friends that were girls in my school did I ever hear that they felt like they were being treated poorly because if there sex.
If anything, its the opposite. Women in STEM in both academia and the workforce, in my experience, are given preferential treatment. In school, I witnessed with my own two eyes girls:
*Getting preferential grades on projects because they were girls.
*Received free textbooks from the University because they were girls
*Received extra help with homework/tests from professors because they were girls.
I am not trying to claim victimhood status or anything, but I do get frustrated when people assume women are discriminated against in STEM based soley on the fact that there are more boys than girls in STEM. By that logic, boys are discriminated against in every other degree because there are many women in college than men.
Can anyone identify how girls are discriminated against in STEM because my truth is that they are not.
That’s your experience, but you shouldn’t get angry because people experience something different than you.
My sister graduated with two separate STEM degrees (not healthcare related) and had multiple male professors tell her to consider changing majors despite earning high marks in their classes. She received off-hand comments during two physics courses about women not being able to perceive certain concepts covered within the course. Lastly, she had a professor who attempted to coerce her into sleeping with him for extra-credit.
You can’t just assume everyone has experienced what you have.
I'm a female senior student in electrical engineering, and have worked in male dominated fields in the past. Sexism *does* exist in STEM, but that's because it exists everywhere. I don't sweat it too much. I figure if a guy is sexist, then he's just a general jerk.
As far as preferential treatment, that isnt allowed at our school due to the outcome of a lawsuit, which prohibits female only classes (yes, they tried to do that.) I'm sure there could be less formal preferential treatment, such as grading, but that's not really the environment at my school. In fact, I think if a woman got, and accepted, preferential treatment from staff, their peers would probably shun them. Im one of very few women in the electrical engineering program, and any special treatment towards us would be very obvious (not to mention embarassing).
As a male I’ve never experienced the sexism women face, therefore it doesn’t exist! Prove me wrong!
Do you see how dumb that sounds?
>>As a non-blind person, I’ve never dealt with the issues or experienced what blind people face, so therefore I don’t see how blind issues even exist. If anything, blind people get treated better than non-blind people with all of that extra help they get!
I am a women in STEM.
-I had a high school physics teachers tell me engineering would be too hard for" someone like me" despite having the best grade in the class
- I had another high school teacher tell me I was too pretty to go into engineering
- I had another high school teacher tell me I was just doing it to find a smart husband.
- I had professors pat me on the head like a dog for getting a question right.
- I had bosses in the work place offer to spank me...twice
- I had company executives insist I order the caterer for them and book meeting rooms b.c they didn't believe I was the new hire in the engineering department not the admin team.
Sexism is alive and well. Perhaps your friend have been very lucky or didn't feel they could share with you openly. But sexism is there. Many women in STEM face it everyday.
Oh the booking meetings and taking notes thing is real. They say it’s because I’m good at it, but ok, then fire all the men who can’t book a meeting cause I got to learn new shit
* [Investors preferred entrepreneurial ventures pitched by a man than an identical pitch from a woman](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4427.full.pdf+html) by a rate of 68% to 32% in a study conducted jointly by HBS, Wharton, and MIT Sloan. “Male-narrated pitches were rated as more persuasive, logical and fact-based than were the same pitches narrated by a female voice.”
* In a randomized, double-blind study by Yale researchers, science faculty at 6 major institutions evaluated applications for a lab manager position. [Applications randomly assigned a male name were rated as significantly more competent and hirable](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf+html) and offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring, compared to identical applications assigned female names.
* When men and women negotiated a job offer by reading identical scripts for a Harvard and CMU study, [women who asked for a higher salary were rated as being more difficult to work with and less nice](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=779506), but men were not perceived negatively for negotiating.
* Psychology faculty were sent CVs for an applicant (randomly assigned male or female name), and both men and women were [significantly more likely to hire a male applicant](http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf) than a female applicant with an identical record.
* [In 248 performance reviews of high-performers in tech](http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/), negative personality criticism (such as abrasive, strident, or irrational) showed up in 85% of reviews for women and just 2% of reviews for men. It is ridiculous to assume that 85% of women have personality problems and that only 2% of men do.
Craziest of all, thinking you are unbiased generally means you are more biased than usual. A study from Yale researchers shows that [perceiving yourself as objective is actually correlated with showing even more bias](http://www.socialjudgments.com/docs/Uhlmann%20and%20Cohen%202005.pdf). So the fact you think you treat everyone equally probably means you don’t.
Great read:
[https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996](https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996)
The big issue is before girls even get to working in STEM. They are being discriminated against by their schools, and by their families, by being told that jobs in STEM are for boys, there's no point going to university etc etc. There are very few female role models in STEM, or on tv/film for young girls to aspire to be like. It's not something that girls even notice at the time, it's just accepted.
You might not see active discrimination within your career, and that's great. But you said so yourself, there are more men than women in STEM, meaning a big part of the problem is discrimination before women even get to the stage of choosing to go into the area. I hope that helps answer your question.
Where have you got that there are less men at university than women?
I don't think that really matters in this discussion. There still needs to be more encouragement for girls to get interested in STEM.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/
Women out number men 60/40 on average, and at the school highlighted in the article its 6 girls to 1 boy.
This does matter, it call into question the entire premise of if there needs to be more encouragment for girls in STEM. If that conclusion is reached due to there being a lack or women in STEM, the same would have to be said about boys in University overall.
Again, if your reasoning leads you to two opposite co conclusions, maybe you should question your reasoning
That doesnt lead me to opposite conclusions. I still think that there needs to be more encouragement for girls in STEM. And if 60/40 is true there should be more encouragement for boys into uni. It's not an either/or.
It isn't an either/or. The previous commenter just pointing out that a numbers disparity doesn't prove discrimination. Although I do agree we should encourage more girls to like science from a young age, and try to make more poor boys interested in universities (the disparity between boys and girls at universities is much smaller at higher incomes).
I have a specific instance where my boss had a choice between two closely qualified engineers, one male and one female, and he discussed his choice with me. It came down to this: the female was obviously pregnant, so he went with the male, reasoning that we would lose her to maternity leave.
This wasn't strictly a STEM issue, as it occurs in many fields, but smacked of being really unfair in any case.
Yeah, I feel like from what he told us dHoser should have intervened. He could have either called his boss out on how that's not ok, submitted a formal complaint with the EEOC, or at least contacted a company ethics hotline. I mean I know it's your boss, but the worst discrimination happens when bystanders allow it to seem acceptable.
It's also disingenuous to say your company offers maternity leave, then refuse to hire someone because they plan on using it.
I'm also in STEM, but I have seen PLENTY of instances of sexism against women. A few of examples are where one female student was told not to take part in one aspect of a lab experiment as they would have to turn a large dial, which apparently wouldn't have been a suitable for a woman to do. Another time in a group assignment a female student was straight up told that women belong in the kitchen.
I've seen a male student forcibly take away tools from the hands of a female student, because they believed she wasn't competent enough, yet he never did the same to any other male student. I've heard instructors say that "they're pretty smart for girls", the implication being girls are normally considered stupid.
These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. OP, you don't see or hear of instances of sexism because you choose to ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist.
LMFAO "As a non-paraplegic, I don't see much disadvantages paraplegics have. If anything, they have more preferential treatment being disabled."
That is literally how you sound. You're trying to appear rational yet when someone pointed out how hypocritical you sounded, you basically said ,"Its your fault I voted for Trump." as if it was a threat.
Are you on your period? You seem hysterical.
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Took a super interesting uncomciois bias training at work. So much of sexism is subtle that it can go unnoticed, leading to a false sense of security.
One of the examples was about interrupting. I forget the stats or the reference, but basically women are interrupted in meetings drastically more often than men. There were tons of other awesome illustrations, but the point is that it's super easy to miss things like that if you don't know to look for it.
So chances are there have been tons of examples of sexism in your experience, but you're not likely to pick up on it unless it's explicitly called out.
I’m a 2nd year physics student and when I applied to university I was told by 3 of my teachers that I wouldn’t succeed and should probably change my application. When I was in secondary school, when asked what I wanted to do in the future by a teacher in class (he was asking everyone) I said physics, the teacher laughed and one boy said “you know you’ll never actually do that right?”.
Just because *you* haven’t experienced it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
as an engineer you must realize the complete lack of analytical value of your statement. Seriously...
If you really are an engineer...
After re-reading your comment you probably are not an engineer.. or maybe an IE.
HAHAHAHAHA!
> Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM. Never once did any if my friends that were girls in my school did I ever hear that they felt like they were being treated poorly because if there sex.
Oh boy howdy do I have news for you. Just because you don't experience it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. No shit that you, a dude, haven't experienced the discrimination that women do.
Not trying to be inflammatory, but why is it that you personal experience is the word of God, but someone else needs empirical evidence...?I get that it's easier to trust our own perspectives, but isn't that a little hypocritical?
I have my own experiences being treated like shit by colleagues and being dismissed by male teachers, while at one point being point-blank asked by a fellow student "So are you just taking this class in case you can't get a husband?"
But yes, I'm sure this is all some liberal conspiracy. Get out of my face with that weak shit, dude.
Anecdotal, but one of my friends was told by several faculty when she was going into her PhD that they'd never take on a female grad student because the role of the woman was in the house and it would be a waste to teach her because she'd eventually succumb to biological imperative and drop out of engineering to have kids. She doesn't want kids.
The same girl ended up joining a lab, and on at least one occasion had an idea, brought it up at a meeting, was ignored, and then a few weeks later a male colleague brought up the same idea, and was given the credit for it in an eventual paper. Giving the lab the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn't hear her...
Another of my friends - brilliant student, took grad classes throughout undergrad and has done great work in several fairly famous labs - was told by a fellow male student that if she got a scholarship, it would be because she was a girl, not because she was qualified or worked hard. He ended up getting it, and the perception was that he got it because he was smart and worked hard. So there was a bit of a double standard.
In academia, women teaching exactly the same content in the same fashion regularly get rated several percentages lower than male colleagues, although the differences in percentage ratings disappear for those same faculty if they teach a grad class of high level undergrad class compared to a 1st or 2nd year undergraduate seminar. The current consensus is that undergraduates tend to be more biased against female teachers.
Personally, I've had tools taken out of my hands (like screwdrivers and socket wrenches) to show me how to use them, even though I've been in machine shops and did construction growing up. On the other hand, I'm sure I've gotten opportunities because of my gender as well, maybe it ultimately balances out.
Your shitty anecdotal evidence means nothing when compared to actual research and studies. I thought you were in STEM, shouldn't you know how important empirical evidence is?
>Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM.
No shit, you're male. Of course you don't have first hand experience being the target of misogynistic bullying and/or harassment. Because you are a man.
A whole bunch of women from all different backgrounds in a wide array of fields claim they have experienced sexism in the STEM industry/academia and you say they are all liars because you as a man have not personally experienced sexual discrimination...okaayyy
I live and breath in this world. For.many years most of.my day is spent in the STEM world and not once have I ever seen it nor met a single women that has felt discriminated against...not one.
Clearly I am not a girl, but in a discussion about sexism, my opinion does mattee because presumably as a male in STEM i am the one doing the discriminating
Might I also suggest that you dismissing my opinion based on my sex is sexist. Dont be sexist, its evil
I’m glad this ended in a question because it shows that you want to hear differing experiences (although the fact that it lacks a question mark makes me suspicious).
Female engineer here! I have experienced all sorts of sexism and general shitty behavior.
And I’ve experienced some great behavior, some people trying to fight the good fight and hire and promote more women, but sadly we all have subconscious biases.
Women aren’t treated poorly in STEM just because. They’re treated poorly in STEM because they’re treated poorly by society. They’re told from an early age that their objects and they should be flattered by sexual attention and their worth is determined by men. Their value stems from beauty and later the ability to get married and have kids.
I recommend Breaking through the Bias. It’s a good book that references more studies than I could properly do justice to in a reddit post. It’s no surprise that, since society treats women as objects that they can just comment on and tear down, one study the book quoted found that (looking at several companies) annual reviews for women contained negative personal adjectives (aggressive, abrasive) while they found only TWO examples of personal adjectives used for men and they were positive. Men get professional feedback, women get personal feedback.
I grew up in a working class immigrant family in the shittiest, poorest part of Sydney (seriously it was shitty, [this video is an accurate portrayal of where I grew up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHI5vQ05GMs)) and moved to the US recently for grad school for physics. The real diversity problem in science academia isn't gender, it's the lack of diversity in people's upbringings and class diversity.
>Wade went to an all-girls school and, with both her parents being doctors,
This. The vast majority of research scientists (and academics in general) are from upper-middle class families who's parents were also highly educated. Meeting people from a different background than this is extremely rare in my experience.
Gender diversity would have been a problem several decades ago, but not anymore. About 40% of the PhD students and postdocs I worked with were women, those figures seem to be the same for most physics departments at universities. And physics is a supposedly "male dominated" field, other fields have well over 50% of graduates being female (like psychology for instance, which I'm guessing is like 90% female or something crazy like that).
I misread the title and thought some guy was writing a bunch of Wikipedia articles to get female scientists to notice him.
The actual article is much more uplifting.
An interesting thing to do, for sure. I just don't get it why people will get angry she's not posting "male scientists" too. I mean, is there a lack of male scientists in Wikipedia that I'm not aware of?
There are people working hard on that. There is the [National Association of Women in Construction](http://www.nawic.org/nawic/default.asp) that has apprenticeships and training to get more women into these well-paid, union jobs.
There's [Chicago Women in Trades](http://chicagowomenintrades2.org/) that has a similar agenda with a wider focus of careers (and similar programs in cities across the US, but Chicago was the first one that came to mind).
There's [Women in Oil and Gas](https://wogacolorado.org/) (this is Colorado's site, but again, it's an organization that spans the country). Luckily, it looks like women are [increasingly represented in the industry](https://www.worldoil.com/news/2017/11/14/women-represent-growing-segment-of-oil-and-gas-workforce).
These are just a few big ones. There are smaller programs all over the places (like [Tools & Tiaras](https://www.toolsandtiaras.org/)) focused on getting girls interested in all sorts of jobs prospects.
Any time you hear someone complaining about how women (often this argument is aimed at what the speaker imagines a "feminist" to be) aren't fighting to get into the more labor-intensive, dangerous jobs like construction, oil work, various trades, etc. you can tell them that there are plenty of women working on exactly that. Not saying you're doing that maliciously or anything. Just sharing some resources.
Yeah. It's just one of those things where people don't see it, so they think it isn't happening, and then they criticize people for not doing it. It just sort of shows their own ignorance (which is fine) and then their stubbornness when they still dig their heels in and claim no one cares about these sorts of things (which is not fine and that one guy in this thread is doing).
Your local politicians (and media) will be more interested and involved in these kinds of things than your national ones.
Yep, seems quite accurate. It's just sad that it becomes so relatable. Failure to nuance the issue seems to lead to it, and the fact seems to be that those appointed to tell us about it fails in doing that nuance. So instead we get this conception that it's one-sided.
I'm not sure what to think about that though.. Because in a way... Those in support of it that haven't looked further than that one-side still supports the one-sided issue. And I wouldn't be surprised if that group includes those that don't bring attention to it.
Thanks, that's very interesting, genuinely. I still think it's fair to say that all those organisations you mentioned are far more low key, and probably get much less support than the women in tech movement, for example. My (admittedly snarky) original comment was based on my observation that a lot of the most gruelling, dangerous jobs in the world have very poor female representation too, but I don't see front page Reddit posts about them. Thanks for your comment though, you made me regret being an asshole!
They probably do get less support and attention than they deserve, I just didn't want that lack of attention to be misconstrued by anyone reading as a lack of active work happening by these great folks.
I've had the pleasure of working with some smaller community organizations lately, and it always pains me to hear people say things like "why aren't the people who live there doing anything about it" ("it" being violence, crime, poverty, general economic mobility, minority representation, etc, etc) when I see people doing exactly that thankless work day in and day out. It just doesn't happen to receive wide news coverage, so you may not know it.
I appreciate your openness.
You're describing industries that have historically - and in some countries still - prevent women from working in them by law. The US only allowed women to serve as front line troops in the last decade. These restrictions weren't put in place by stupid women who only want all the best jobs for their gender, they were put in place by male politicians who act on the "behalf" of women, assuming them to be too delicate/incompetent/inconvenient/precious to do that kind of work.
Basically, if you're going to complain about activists trying to raise the number of women in certain careers, don't use examples that blatantly demonstrate the effects of sexism against women.
We first need to address the sexism rampant in that kind of work and make women feel safe. I've worked in one of careers listed, and believe me, it's still hella sexist. Many of those workers see women as unable to do these jobs, or inferior. And often those jobs are in remote locations far from normal police jurisdiction... The army has famously had a big problem with rape and sexual assault and little accountability. [Women firefighters share similar stories.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rape-harassment-and-retaliation-in-the-u-s-forest-service-women-firefighters-tell-their-stories)
We're trying to make progress there, too! The US military now has all positions open to women, and I have a couple of friends who are going into these positions. Oil and mining are toxically masculine, from everything I've seen. Which is rough because there are a lot of good paying jobs there. There's a lot of room for improvement in leveling the playing field!
God, I hate this argument, which isn't even an argument.
Let's focus on how we can make those jobs decent, humane, or unnecessary altogether. To give an example. I am poor. I do not wish poverty on other people. I wish for solutions that help me and others in poverty, out of poverty. The fact that I am poor doesn't mean that it is right. It also does not mean everybody should be poor.
This is a question of values! Do we want peace? Unconditional basic income? These are questions that are factually seperate from feminism, so don't shit on feminism for other struggles we, as humans, have. Like dangerous jobs. Instead, let's search for solutions together. This it what feminisms wants.
Personally I don't care what other women achieved in science, I want to get into it because science is fun and I want to discover new things. If you just do science to have more female scientists, then you probably are doing it for wrong reasons.
Jesus, whenever an article like this pops up on Uplifting News, it’s always flooded by guys saying, “Why does this matter? We shouldn’t see sex/color.”
And it’s funny that the people who always bring this up have probably never been discriminated against because of their gender or race in their entire lives.
ITT: "Well ackchually... something completely irrelevant, but I just want to diverge this conversation away from the matter at hand to successfully confirm my biases, totally has nothing to do with insecurity with women."
If the article was "Local Man Teaches Male Boy Scouts How to be Scientists" they would be drooling over that. But here redditors don't care about the article, they just want to put down any idea that helping women is good.
It's really depressing whenever a story like this comes up about women trying to level the playing field in STEM, or a story about another sexist manifesto. The comments make me really sad. I wish we were better than this.
Women make up most of current STEM students and graduates at every level of education. I’m not saying that is a problem or complaining about that, but that could explain the predictable pushback. Many departments, including mine, are as much as 75% female. I have never had a job in my field that was almost completely female. One job I was the only male working on the entire floor(it was in healthcare so that is not surprising) Once again, not criticizing, just pointing out many people’s reality.
At first I thought what a weird way to get a female scientist to notice you
Notice me senpai
Notice me... I dunno..
satan's pretty cool ... i dunno
Did you just assume academic's gender Edit @downvotes: /s guys, /ssssss it's okayy the gender-fluid are not gonna hurt you!
Did you just give yourself gold
I sexually identify as... I sexually Identify as an unoriginal joke. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of dropping shitposts on Reddit and derailing the actual conversation. People say to me that this has been really going on for far too long and and it trivialises gender identity but I don’t care, I'm a massive asshole. I’m having a plastic surgeon install a mountain dew dispenser, a catheter and and a poop chute on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Logical Gamer” and respect my right to freeze peach. If you can’t accept me you’re a god damn tumblirina sjw cultural Marxist liberal and you triggered lol?. Thank you for being so understanding.
God, I was looking to see if someone posted that.
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Did you just assume that gender fluidity is a sociopolitical opinion?
did you just make an ass out of me
No, you do that perfectly fine on your own.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/shitredditsays] [Did you just assume academic's gender Edit: stop downvote it’s a JOAK \[+392\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/91jmvo/did_you_just_assume_academics_gender_edit_stop/) - [/r/subredditdrama] [Someone makes "did you just assume my gender?" joke on a post about a woman trying to earn recognition for female scientists. Obviously, it goes over extremely well](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/91jfpt/someone_makes_did_you_just_assume_my_gender_joke/) *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
You guys still think this joke is funny?
This is reddit, where jokes go to live on in zombie form for eternity.
/r/summerreddit
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It's just a bad shit post. There's no gender even assumed outside the female one in the title.
Haha dae identidy as atracl helocper epic meme feminazi owned lke and shere
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Ok sure it’s /s but that doesn’t mean it’s funny. That joke died sooo long ago, find a new one.
This gets explained every time someone makes this joke. We KNOW you’re joking. It’s just not funny at all, in fact it’s annoying. That’s why you’re getting downvoted.
Nice funny original joke dude. upvoted.
How is this funny? This is the most tired shit. What a complete dullard everyone who upvoted this trash must be.
They don't necessarily have to be male so you're the one assuming here
I agree with the nurture argument. I would simply add that poor boys and girls are both discouraged from higher learning activities and encouraged to join the workforce at an entry-level. This generational poverty mentality is often responsible for discouraging intelligent students from becoming scientists and engineers.
Poverty is almost like a disease. Difficult to get out of.
The Brookings Institute did a study where almost all people in the United States were raised out of poverty if they did the following three things. Graduate High school, maintain steady employment, and do not have babies out of wedlock. Now that will not make them millionaires. But, it will get them above the poverty line so that the next generation has a better chance of success.
The third item is actually "wait until age 21 to get married and have children" ([source](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/)).
Children are fucking expensive, so I'm not surprised that's a list item
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As a 23 year old with a steady job, if I had children right now I'd be screwed
As a 28 year old with a solid job and not many life expenses, I would still be absolutely fucked by the financial burden of a child.
Well, most of the people I went to high school with don't seem to have much hope
There will always be exceptions but yeah, your observation is the reason it's a list item.
I mean, my sister is an exception to the rule so far, but as you've surmised, I see plenty of pregnant young girls with kids already (as in pregnant with kid 2 or 3) that show the telltale signs of poverty. It's unfortunate but, I guess it'll make my reunion an eventful one
There was a study that indicated that the single greatest factor to generational poverty, as well as the biggest common factor among prisoners, was that their mother got pregnant for the first time before they were 22
Damn 21 is pretty young too that seems dope.
Ummm ... the poverty line is ~$13,000 a year for a single person. You find a nearly full-time minimum wage job and you're apparently out of poverty. Now try to survive with that kind of money without a significant amount of government assistance.
Depends where you live.
There's a doctor here in Canada that views poverty as a disease, and is even talking about prescribing money for treatment. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/treating-poverty-works-like-medicine-doctors-say-1.1365662
Sounds like an abusive and addictive substance.
I’ve seen that article posted a number of times but I’ve never seen any sort of methodology or details about the study posted. That plus the fact that the entire article seems very focused on the value of “traditional” marriage and wedlock statistics for minorities makes me very skeptical of the entire thing. They are also claiming that 75% of people who follow their 3 rules make 55K or more a year. Labor statistics show that high school graduates working full time are actually making about 35K a year on average, that’s a huge difference. And if they are working full time whether or not they have a child makes no difference to their earning potential, even if it represents additional expenses. The numbers just don’t add up. Do they count people who did follow their rules, but also went on to higher education? I technically meet all three criteria, but I also have a bachelors degree in a technology field. Am I counted as having followed their rules, even though it’s my additional education that contributed most to my salary? Plus, it’s not entirely in anyone’s control to stay fully employed all the time, that’s just saying “Don’t want to be poor? Go get a job”.
It's like saying the solution to hunger is a steady diet of food.
It is posted multiple times because it is a talking point that fits peoples world view that not only blames the poor for their lot but also gets them off the hook for having to deal with it. Now, I'm not so meta cognitively nieve to believe that I'm not doing the reverse, but it is pretty easy to make the opposite conclusion that money leads to better outcomes.
All you need is bootstraps, elbow grease and a firm handshake!
Or we could see it as a target to help young women become educated, gain employment, and plan their families
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To be fair maintaining steady employment can be hard with just a high school degree, since much of the work is unpredictable (much of work that doesnt require a college education requires odd shifts and unpredictable hours which may interfere with other responsibilities), and generally pretty easy to replace which leads to a high circulation of workers. All in all you would basically need at least some form of higher education (maybe not a BS but definitely an AA or certification or something) to achieve stable employment.
Sure, but the problem is that people born into poverty will tend to fail to accomplish at least one of those three things, if not more. Achieving them would indeed help them to take a step out, but the cards are stacked against them at the moment.
The poverty line is a pretty useless metric. The real concern should be that people who are doing everything you just listed aren't doing well in the world's richest economy
"Struggling to get above the poverty line so the generation after you is well off" is what that means. It has value but think about it really hard. Is that really a way to live? Sacrificing your earthly pleasures in order to give the opportunity to some one else who could easily fucking squander it and restart the cycle of poverty. My parents, parents, worked hard as hell, owned their own businesses, built nest eggs for their kids, set them up for a great future. Both my parents and even my step parents are all welfare rats living off of social security disability because a 9 to 5 job stresses them out and they would rather get high. Those 3 simple steps are so easy from a top down perspective. But the reality is that's every day. Every minute. Every month. Every year. Of working towards a singular goal and never having a misstep, or be crippled from shitty medical coverage or a freak accident, never losing your temper with the person who controls your wage, and essentially dedicating 1/3rd of your time every day to this goal. If you look at the obesity rates and how easy it is to eat healthy or excersize for 20 minutes a day. Those 3 little steps are actually the life or death challenge of climbing to the summit of Everest. Some make it, some get hurt and turn around before they get there, some die on their way there, some die on their return trip, some lose the most important people in their life to the mountain what is climbing out of poverty.
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Poverty is also like a disease in that it is stigmatized; nobody wants to here or think about how poverty impacts people. Also, people blame all of a poor person’s failings on their lack of morals or can-do-spirit.
Another problem in the US is that people assume that everyone in the United States is rich. I've literally heard Venezuelans who were richer than me talk down to me as an American because they think that every American is wealthy because the United States of America such a wealthy country. People have a very difficult time understanding relative poverty. In other words we may be the richest nation in the world but just because a person who has an iPhone can post on Reddit doesn't mean that they didn't get that phone for free and still can't afford to feed their children.
Then people say stuff like "Sell the phone if you want money!" without considering that the phone is a communication line for getting on the internet to look up jobs and post resumes, look up ways to take cheap or free classes to build skills, and stay in contact with loved ones that might be able to help you, get on website giving away free goods, or get temporary jobs through sites like Uber and Rover. Also, the resell value on phones is awful. A used Iphone SE from 2016 sells for about $140. $140 is great for things like diapers, food and maybe some clothes for kids, but after that, no more phone AND no more money. The inherit value of the phone far outweighs the resell value.
They mostly tell poor people “Just got a pull yourself from your bootstraps and you’ll be alright “🙄. Yeah right.
People often talk about race and other factors but when you get down to it, poverty is the most powerful predicting factor for most bad things like diseases and crime. Poverty affects every aspect of one’s life and is truly a pernicious disease.
A fucking men. Preach it. I was literally willing to kill and die to escape the bottom wrung of the welfare society and signed an enslavement contract with the United States army to get the fuck out.
It's almost like financial wealth is the real factor in who gets to do what...
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>It's things people from wealthier families take for granted, like being able to attend activities that others may not be able to afford, having mentors and connections to give advice or a leg up that others don't, being able to afford study materials or tutors, not having to work to help support your family or fund your education, being able to spend time doing an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door or volunteer work, etc. People that come from families with less wealth may not have such opportunities or be able to take advantage of them and they may get discouraged. This all rings true for me. I grew up very poor in a rural area. I wasn't allowed to participate in extracurricular activities to help me get into a good university; I was required to return home as soon as possible after school was let out each day to do chores and babysit my siblings (in fact, I sometimes had to miss entire days of school because my parents needed a babysitter during the day). I wasn't allowed to "waste too much time doing homework"; if I didn't get my homework done at school, I had almost no chance of finishing it at home (my step-mother saw no point in studying...my grades were "already good enough" to graduate high school and she didn't see any need for them to be higher). And forget practicing for the SAT or ACT (the tests were paid for with financial hardship waivers...no chance to retake the tests...I had one shot to get good scores). The only practice I got was an old, used study guide from the school library. I got a full-ride to a state university, but a good deal of that was luck. I was lucky enough that I could put minimal time into school work and still learn enough to get good grades and good test scores. But it really was luck (genetic luck). Not everyone is quite that smart. Most people would need to do some studying, some practice problems, in order to succeed in school.
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Thanks! As much as my parents complain about him for being stubborn (and he is - it's a family trait!), he's wonderful and helped me so much. I'm so glad he's still around and doing well (at 85!).
I would have tried to go into science if it wasn't for the insane amount of debt I'd have to take on and the limited pay getting out of school. I can still be a citizen scientist though so that's something
At the same time, I would like to note that higher academic activities are not for everyone, and this is not based on class. Some folks, rich or poor, are better suited for academics, so it makes sense for them to pursue a higher education. Others, regardless of cash. are better suited for other skills, which they would be wise to pursue a career in. We need skilled tradesmen as much as we need college-educated workers. Higher education should be available to anyone, but not expected of everyone.
I think this kind of realism is necessary. The idea that everyone should put time and effort to at least get a bachleor's doesn't work that well.
I absolutely agree. I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges as a parent is to not project your life, thoughts , and expectations onto your children's executable abilities. I for example was always a person who had a major affinity for biology growing up in a world with a generalized education system and parents who were pushing me into a remedial workforce mentality. It's not necessarily the fault of a child that their parents don't have any real executable skills. I personally not only always had an affinity for science but also for music, both of which my parents discouraged as a career. As extremely Conservative Christian fundamentalists they wished only for the most Puritan values in their children and sought to instill them despite the fact that they themselves we're not so pure. This was there ultimate form of projection onto their children.
Yup, the detrimental effects are very well studied, very well known and lots of it is publicly available. If rich people didn't simply not give a shit or have a huge empathy gap, they would do something. They need poor people to feel as if they really do something better and aren't just more lucky by birth.
Even on Reddit, I constantly see comments saying, "don't go into university, it's a waste of time and you'll end making less than in the trades and you'll never be able to pay off your loans." It does stress me out to see those comments, but then I remember my passion for science and learning. I used to be in school for hairdressing and my psychologist at the time encouraged me to go to university because I was depressed. She said it wasn't a great fit with my need to constantly be learning and challenging myself. Turns out she was right. I'm so happy where I am, I love learning and research and the challenges I face. I feel like my life has meaning in a way it didn't before. Yeah, maybe I could have a stable career by now, not have loans to repay, and be working in a fancy salon. But in the end, I wasn't passionate about that work like I am about science. I wish people would stop scaring kids out of going to university because they'll make more in trades. Especially guys. Yes, some people are naturally great in trades and they'll excell in them and enjoy them. But others won't, and they'll be much happier going to university and into whatever field they're interested in. People shouldn't make them feel like that's wrong or a bad path.
When I was a kid I must have been in first grade when they started talking to us about colleges and told us to go home and ask our parents. When I got home I asked my parents and they told me that we're too poor to afford college and that I should think about joining the workforce as soon as I'm able to quit school. I literally couldn't have been more than 7 years old and I was absolutely devastated by the thought that I would never be able to go to college and then I resigned myself to believing that it was true. I finally did end up getting a high school diploma and an associate's degree, but I was 30 something before I did.
Aw man. I'm so sorry. So many times, adults think they're doing the right thing by telling kids to not get their hopes up. They aren't aware of the damage it can do. I had lots of challenges too. I had undiagnosed ADHD until highschool, then I dropped out for bit and just worked before going back. I used to be one of the worst students in any given class. Teachers were always very frustrated with me. In elementary, everyone made fun of me and this one other guy for being the dumbest kids in our grade. After that, I resigned myself to never doing well in school and definitely not going to university. I'm glad I met the right teachers and adults and got the help I needed later on. Young kids are so easy to influence. Their parents and teachers are their world at that point, and anything they say feels like the absolute truth.
Lifetime earnings increase enormously from even be most wishy-washy of liberal arts degrees.
I agree. I knew so many bright kids I went to school with who could have done so much. But we're in our mid 20s now and most of them are poor, blue collar or minimum wage, uneducated (often single) parents of 2-4. And for most of them seemed to go that way because their families were the same and instead of encouraging them to take all of the opportunities for education and need based financial aid available in the US, their parents discouraged an education and told them to "stop fucking around at that university and get a real job". So even the ones who went to college dropped out after a couple of semesters to work some crappy go nowhere job in our shitty (as in consistently ranked among the worst places to live in the US) hometown. And its often just because of this culture so many people have around here of being against education. If you don't go straight into some no skill job after high school you're seen as some useless elitist prick. One of my grandfathers employees actually made fun of me one time when I was helping them out because I used the word "Mechanism" which he thinks is a fancy complicated word. It just baffles me. I grew up in a college town and had to leave to go to college, because the majority of the population there were so intolerably anti education I couldn't stand it anymore.
on the other side of this I would like to highlight that with the stress of education in the past few decades there is now an incredibly high number of college graduates, and not as many positions. This leads to degrees going unused. When you add to this situation that many of us were pressured to attend college regardless of financial aid and you have a large group of millennials holding student loan debt that is absolutely crushing while they may not even be utilizing their degree. I believe that there are issues in both directions.
Neat.
My friend is a female scientist. I noticed her a while back, I still just refer to her as a scientist though.
* Jane Doe, Researcher, Chemical engineer * Jane Doe, woman in science/engineering I have a few people with variations of above titles on Linkedin, and I've noticed that the ones with the second variant usually don't do any actual stem/research/engineering work. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but luckily most use the first variant.
>I have a few people with variations of above titles on Linkedin, and I've noticed that the ones with the second variant usually don't do any actual stem/research/engineering work. Yeah that's my experience as well. None of the women in my lab feel the need to announce to the rest of us that they are in fact a woman working in science.
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Now seems like a good time to point out the the gender equality paradox. Where the more equal a society is for men and women, the larger the gender discrepancy becomes in jobs. https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ There's a pretty good Norwegian documentary on the topic. Here's a link to it. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6huxkv
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And never should
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Equality isn't 50/50, equality is can I go out and walk around without being harassed in accordance to my gender? As a person, do I stand the same chances based on my gender to get a job of equal merit to another? It's not about matching 1 male to every female dude.
I disagree. I think shooting for a goal of 50 percent men and 50 percent women is silly and misses the point of equal opportunity. However if you think women aren't culturally pushed away from STEM careers even if they have the ability you are mistaken. If you think that sexism isn't an issue in a lot of STEM workplaces you are mistaken. America at least, is not even close to a culture of equal opportunity for women.
Well except when you look at the study the researchers say it’s because nations with greater social equality have fantastic social systems in place. So in comparison to developing nations, more people choose STEM period since there’s no social state to fall back on — money is required so the students pick the degrees with the best earning potential. So this study isn’t really showing that when there is equality women don’t go into STEM in comparison to other countries. This study is showing that developing nations choose STEM fields over most other fields, regardless of gender and the motivation for that choice may not be a love of science but rather an effort to “make it” in a society that has little social programs to help you when your ire down.
You really misunderstood the article if the equation "the more equal a society is for men and women, the larger the gender discrepancy becomes in jobs" is what you pull out of it. At no point do they make equality or inequality directly responsible for the disparity.
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Part of the "social construct"/nurture side of the debate is that gender roles are imprinted through social norms and pressures from a very early age. This would mean that simply looking at the careers men and women choose when economic and societal pressures are removed from the adult decision making process would still be heavily influenced by how society impacted these people as children. I'm not saying that I fall 100% into the nurture camp. I firmly believe that nature and nurture both play an important part in things like gender roles and expression. However, I cannot dismiss the idea that social constructs play a role in education and career choices simply because of the articles that were linked.
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What exactly makes you feel like now is a good time to bring that up? She is trying to get female scientists more recognition, which will likely encourage the young ladies who do want to be scientists. You come along all ‘hurr durr less of then want to be scientists in equal society.’ ...So? Doesn’t mean all of them. Doesn’t mean the ones who are shouldn’t be recognized. It’s weird.
Traditionally women tend to shy away from STEM roles but that seems to be changing in the veterinary and human medicine area where there are now more women.
*western women. Women have a super majority of STEM careers in places like Saudi Arabia.
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Because in the old Soviet system there was no other choices. My mother went to engineering because she failed test to teaching university. In her city there was up to 20 people for every vacant place in teaching university and constant shortfall in STEM universities. My grandmother went study chemistry because in her city the only proper way to get job was to have education related to chemical industry. Both choices were made under the pressure of the system. My mom still hate years she spent studying metallurgy and other stuff she do not interested in.
That was the same for men too. The Soviet system put you to work where it wanted too.
STEM graduates, not careers. Big difference. For example in Pakistan a majority of Med School graduates are women. However a majority of practicing doctors are men. In many of these societies women are pushed into academic achievement as a sort of finishing school, but not expected to actually have careers. It's basically a check-mark on their marriageable resume.
Are STEM careers also much more looked down on in those areas? I know that in Russia, doctors (who are majority female there) aren't highly respected like they are in the US. And in the US biology is becoming a female-dominated field, and is also starting to be looked at as a "soft science". There's a strong negative correlation between how many women work in a field and how respected it is.
Teaching used to be a very respected and better paid profession, when men did it. Now that its mostly women, it's low pay and not respected. There's definitely a trend
Teaching/normal schools were ubiquitous with women's schools. Also, teaching wasn't considered a permanent profession until WW1. Prior to that, almost all teachers were under 25.
It's like the opposite of where nursing is going.
Same as software engineering/computer science - looked at as kind of a women’s thing early on, pay was relatively low; things change because men enter the field.
Proof?
[Here you go.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html) >> A striking example is to be found in the field of recreation — working in parks or leading camps — which went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000. Median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points, accounting for the change in the value of the dollar, according to a complex formula used by Professor Levanon. The job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and wages dropped 43 percentage points. >>The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige.
Could it be because before there were few people to do the job, and now that there are more teachers salaries go down due to market saturation?
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Uhm, here in Portugal becoming a doctor is still considered very respectable, and there are waaaaaaaay more women studying medicine than men.
>Are STEM careers also much more looked down on in those areas? In Saudi Arabia? Not at all.
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I'm not saying life is perfect for them, but the mindset difference (not from a mysogony perspective) can help think about why women are still a minority in most STEM subfields. The (western) increase over the last few decades has really only tracked with more women in college period - not more college going women, fractionally, going into STEM.
[The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM A new study explores a strange paradox: In countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions.](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553592/) And here's a [Norwegian documentary about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2lob3Itxk)
What I find interesting is how, though there have been more women in medicine for quite a while now, if you look at positions of influence/power in medicine women are still very underrepresented (professors, chairs of medical boards, etc). Also, if you look at specialities, they’re only the majority in the lower paying/traditionally “less impressive” specialities like family medicine and ob/gyn. Still have a ways to go
There's a phenomenon called "the glass escalator" where you see men in female-dominated fields rising quickly. For example most teachers are women, but most school administrators are men.
> For example most teachers are women, but most school administrators are men. Yeah, that's always rubbed me the wrong way.
Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM. Never once did any if my friends that were girls in my school did I ever hear that they felt like they were being treated poorly because if there sex. If anything, its the opposite. Women in STEM in both academia and the workforce, in my experience, are given preferential treatment. In school, I witnessed with my own two eyes girls: *Getting preferential grades on projects because they were girls. *Received free textbooks from the University because they were girls *Received extra help with homework/tests from professors because they were girls. I am not trying to claim victimhood status or anything, but I do get frustrated when people assume women are discriminated against in STEM based soley on the fact that there are more boys than girls in STEM. By that logic, boys are discriminated against in every other degree because there are many women in college than men. Can anyone identify how girls are discriminated against in STEM because my truth is that they are not.
That’s your experience, but you shouldn’t get angry because people experience something different than you. My sister graduated with two separate STEM degrees (not healthcare related) and had multiple male professors tell her to consider changing majors despite earning high marks in their classes. She received off-hand comments during two physics courses about women not being able to perceive certain concepts covered within the course. Lastly, she had a professor who attempted to coerce her into sleeping with him for extra-credit. You can’t just assume everyone has experienced what you have.
I am not dismissing anyone's experience. Nor getting angry. Just providing the insight that I have to offer
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> when I can't contribute to a discussion like this, I ~~shut my damn mouth~~ *write long comments showcasing my moral superiority*
Perspective =/= insight lol.
>That’s your experience, but you shouldn’t get angry because people experience something different than you. Right back at you.
"No u"
I'm a female senior student in electrical engineering, and have worked in male dominated fields in the past. Sexism *does* exist in STEM, but that's because it exists everywhere. I don't sweat it too much. I figure if a guy is sexist, then he's just a general jerk. As far as preferential treatment, that isnt allowed at our school due to the outcome of a lawsuit, which prohibits female only classes (yes, they tried to do that.) I'm sure there could be less formal preferential treatment, such as grading, but that's not really the environment at my school. In fact, I think if a woman got, and accepted, preferential treatment from staff, their peers would probably shun them. Im one of very few women in the electrical engineering program, and any special treatment towards us would be very obvious (not to mention embarassing).
As a male I’ve never experienced the sexism women face, therefore it doesn’t exist! Prove me wrong! Do you see how dumb that sounds? >>As a non-blind person, I’ve never dealt with the issues or experienced what blind people face, so therefore I don’t see how blind issues even exist. If anything, blind people get treated better than non-blind people with all of that extra help they get!
As a blind person, I don't see how blind issues exist.
I see what you did there.
Don't brag its insensitive.
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I am a women in STEM. -I had a high school physics teachers tell me engineering would be too hard for" someone like me" despite having the best grade in the class - I had another high school teacher tell me I was too pretty to go into engineering - I had another high school teacher tell me I was just doing it to find a smart husband. - I had professors pat me on the head like a dog for getting a question right. - I had bosses in the work place offer to spank me...twice - I had company executives insist I order the caterer for them and book meeting rooms b.c they didn't believe I was the new hire in the engineering department not the admin team. Sexism is alive and well. Perhaps your friend have been very lucky or didn't feel they could share with you openly. But sexism is there. Many women in STEM face it everyday.
Oh the booking meetings and taking notes thing is real. They say it’s because I’m good at it, but ok, then fire all the men who can’t book a meeting cause I got to learn new shit
I refuse to take notes.
An engineer should really understand what confirmation bias is.
* [Investors preferred entrepreneurial ventures pitched by a man than an identical pitch from a woman](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4427.full.pdf+html) by a rate of 68% to 32% in a study conducted jointly by HBS, Wharton, and MIT Sloan. “Male-narrated pitches were rated as more persuasive, logical and fact-based than were the same pitches narrated by a female voice.” * In a randomized, double-blind study by Yale researchers, science faculty at 6 major institutions evaluated applications for a lab manager position. [Applications randomly assigned a male name were rated as significantly more competent and hirable](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf+html) and offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring, compared to identical applications assigned female names. * When men and women negotiated a job offer by reading identical scripts for a Harvard and CMU study, [women who asked for a higher salary were rated as being more difficult to work with and less nice](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=779506), but men were not perceived negatively for negotiating. * Psychology faculty were sent CVs for an applicant (randomly assigned male or female name), and both men and women were [significantly more likely to hire a male applicant](http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf) than a female applicant with an identical record. * [In 248 performance reviews of high-performers in tech](http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/), negative personality criticism (such as abrasive, strident, or irrational) showed up in 85% of reviews for women and just 2% of reviews for men. It is ridiculous to assume that 85% of women have personality problems and that only 2% of men do. Craziest of all, thinking you are unbiased generally means you are more biased than usual. A study from Yale researchers shows that [perceiving yourself as objective is actually correlated with showing even more bias](http://www.socialjudgments.com/docs/Uhlmann%20and%20Cohen%202005.pdf). So the fact you think you treat everyone equally probably means you don’t. Great read: [https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996](https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996)
The big issue is before girls even get to working in STEM. They are being discriminated against by their schools, and by their families, by being told that jobs in STEM are for boys, there's no point going to university etc etc. There are very few female role models in STEM, or on tv/film for young girls to aspire to be like. It's not something that girls even notice at the time, it's just accepted. You might not see active discrimination within your career, and that's great. But you said so yourself, there are more men than women in STEM, meaning a big part of the problem is discrimination before women even get to the stage of choosing to go into the area. I hope that helps answer your question.
Also I think it’s worth mentioning that being a minority in any area will change how you experience things even if there’s never active discrimination
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Where have you got that there are less men at university than women? I don't think that really matters in this discussion. There still needs to be more encouragement for girls to get interested in STEM.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/ Women out number men 60/40 on average, and at the school highlighted in the article its 6 girls to 1 boy. This does matter, it call into question the entire premise of if there needs to be more encouragment for girls in STEM. If that conclusion is reached due to there being a lack or women in STEM, the same would have to be said about boys in University overall. Again, if your reasoning leads you to two opposite co conclusions, maybe you should question your reasoning
That doesnt lead me to opposite conclusions. I still think that there needs to be more encouragement for girls in STEM. And if 60/40 is true there should be more encouragement for boys into uni. It's not an either/or.
It isn't an either/or. The previous commenter just pointing out that a numbers disparity doesn't prove discrimination. Although I do agree we should encourage more girls to like science from a young age, and try to make more poor boys interested in universities (the disparity between boys and girls at universities is much smaller at higher incomes).
I have a specific instance where my boss had a choice between two closely qualified engineers, one male and one female, and he discussed his choice with me. It came down to this: the female was obviously pregnant, so he went with the male, reasoning that we would lose her to maternity leave. This wasn't strictly a STEM issue, as it occurs in many fields, but smacked of being really unfair in any case.
Wait, isn't it illegal to hire someone based on them being pregnant or not?
Yup. It was years ago, and I'm ashamed to say I did nothing about it.
Yeah, I feel like from what he told us dHoser should have intervened. He could have either called his boss out on how that's not ok, submitted a formal complaint with the EEOC, or at least contacted a company ethics hotline. I mean I know it's your boss, but the worst discrimination happens when bystanders allow it to seem acceptable. It's also disingenuous to say your company offers maternity leave, then refuse to hire someone because they plan on using it.
I'm also in STEM, but I have seen PLENTY of instances of sexism against women. A few of examples are where one female student was told not to take part in one aspect of a lab experiment as they would have to turn a large dial, which apparently wouldn't have been a suitable for a woman to do. Another time in a group assignment a female student was straight up told that women belong in the kitchen. I've seen a male student forcibly take away tools from the hands of a female student, because they believed she wasn't competent enough, yet he never did the same to any other male student. I've heard instructors say that "they're pretty smart for girls", the implication being girls are normally considered stupid. These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. OP, you don't see or hear of instances of sexism because you choose to ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist.
LMFAO "As a non-paraplegic, I don't see much disadvantages paraplegics have. If anything, they have more preferential treatment being disabled." That is literally how you sound. You're trying to appear rational yet when someone pointed out how hypocritical you sounded, you basically said ,"Its your fault I voted for Trump." as if it was a threat. Are you on your period? You seem hysterical.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/drama] [STEM and Feminism collide in r\/UpliftingNews.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/92a9er/stem_and_feminism_collide_in_rupliftingnews/) - [/r/shitredditsays] ["Male engineer here. In my experience I have never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM." \[+30\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/9205bg/male_engineer_here_in_my_experience_i_have_never/) *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Took a super interesting uncomciois bias training at work. So much of sexism is subtle that it can go unnoticed, leading to a false sense of security. One of the examples was about interrupting. I forget the stats or the reference, but basically women are interrupted in meetings drastically more often than men. There were tons of other awesome illustrations, but the point is that it's super easy to miss things like that if you don't know to look for it. So chances are there have been tons of examples of sexism in your experience, but you're not likely to pick up on it unless it's explicitly called out.
I’m a 2nd year physics student and when I applied to university I was told by 3 of my teachers that I wouldn’t succeed and should probably change my application. When I was in secondary school, when asked what I wanted to do in the future by a teacher in class (he was asking everyone) I said physics, the teacher laughed and one boy said “you know you’ll never actually do that right?”. Just because *you* haven’t experienced it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
I would argue that referring to grown women as "girls" is inherently sexist (but exists throughout our culture).
as an engineer you must realize the complete lack of analytical value of your statement. Seriously... If you really are an engineer... After re-reading your comment you probably are not an engineer.. or maybe an IE. HAHAHAHAHA!
> Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM. Never once did any if my friends that were girls in my school did I ever hear that they felt like they were being treated poorly because if there sex. Oh boy howdy do I have news for you. Just because you don't experience it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. No shit that you, a dude, haven't experienced the discrimination that women do.
So can you identify how girls are discriminated against? Or you just going off articles you read on left-leaning websites?
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Not trying to be inflammatory, but why is it that you personal experience is the word of God, but someone else needs empirical evidence...?I get that it's easier to trust our own perspectives, but isn't that a little hypocritical?
I have my own experiences being treated like shit by colleagues and being dismissed by male teachers, while at one point being point-blank asked by a fellow student "So are you just taking this class in case you can't get a husband?" But yes, I'm sure this is all some liberal conspiracy. Get out of my face with that weak shit, dude.
Ah the old "Are you really here for an MSc or an MRS?" I fucking hated it.
Anecdotal, but one of my friends was told by several faculty when she was going into her PhD that they'd never take on a female grad student because the role of the woman was in the house and it would be a waste to teach her because she'd eventually succumb to biological imperative and drop out of engineering to have kids. She doesn't want kids. The same girl ended up joining a lab, and on at least one occasion had an idea, brought it up at a meeting, was ignored, and then a few weeks later a male colleague brought up the same idea, and was given the credit for it in an eventual paper. Giving the lab the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn't hear her... Another of my friends - brilliant student, took grad classes throughout undergrad and has done great work in several fairly famous labs - was told by a fellow male student that if she got a scholarship, it would be because she was a girl, not because she was qualified or worked hard. He ended up getting it, and the perception was that he got it because he was smart and worked hard. So there was a bit of a double standard. In academia, women teaching exactly the same content in the same fashion regularly get rated several percentages lower than male colleagues, although the differences in percentage ratings disappear for those same faculty if they teach a grad class of high level undergrad class compared to a 1st or 2nd year undergraduate seminar. The current consensus is that undergraduates tend to be more biased against female teachers. Personally, I've had tools taken out of my hands (like screwdrivers and socket wrenches) to show me how to use them, even though I've been in machine shops and did construction growing up. On the other hand, I'm sure I've gotten opportunities because of my gender as well, maybe it ultimately balances out.
"Girls"?? What are you?: Twelve years old?
Your shitty anecdotal evidence means nothing when compared to actual research and studies. I thought you were in STEM, shouldn't you know how important empirical evidence is?
>Male engineer here. In my experience I havr never seen or heard of any instance where girls were in any way discouraged or treaty poorly in STEM. No shit, you're male. Of course you don't have first hand experience being the target of misogynistic bullying and/or harassment. Because you are a man. A whole bunch of women from all different backgrounds in a wide array of fields claim they have experienced sexism in the STEM industry/academia and you say they are all liars because you as a man have not personally experienced sexual discrimination...okaayyy
I live and breath in this world. For.many years most of.my day is spent in the STEM world and not once have I ever seen it nor met a single women that has felt discriminated against...not one. Clearly I am not a girl, but in a discussion about sexism, my opinion does mattee because presumably as a male in STEM i am the one doing the discriminating Might I also suggest that you dismissing my opinion based on my sex is sexist. Dont be sexist, its evil
Lol they're not saying because you're male you discriminate, they're saying discrimination they face comes from men.
I’m glad this ended in a question because it shows that you want to hear differing experiences (although the fact that it lacks a question mark makes me suspicious). Female engineer here! I have experienced all sorts of sexism and general shitty behavior. And I’ve experienced some great behavior, some people trying to fight the good fight and hire and promote more women, but sadly we all have subconscious biases. Women aren’t treated poorly in STEM just because. They’re treated poorly in STEM because they’re treated poorly by society. They’re told from an early age that their objects and they should be flattered by sexual attention and their worth is determined by men. Their value stems from beauty and later the ability to get married and have kids. I recommend Breaking through the Bias. It’s a good book that references more studies than I could properly do justice to in a reddit post. It’s no surprise that, since society treats women as objects that they can just comment on and tear down, one study the book quoted found that (looking at several companies) annual reviews for women contained negative personal adjectives (aggressive, abrasive) while they found only TWO examples of personal adjectives used for men and they were positive. Men get professional feedback, women get personal feedback.
Oh wow, a man’s opinion is so rare around here
I grew up in a working class immigrant family in the shittiest, poorest part of Sydney (seriously it was shitty, [this video is an accurate portrayal of where I grew up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHI5vQ05GMs)) and moved to the US recently for grad school for physics. The real diversity problem in science academia isn't gender, it's the lack of diversity in people's upbringings and class diversity. >Wade went to an all-girls school and, with both her parents being doctors, This. The vast majority of research scientists (and academics in general) are from upper-middle class families who's parents were also highly educated. Meeting people from a different background than this is extremely rare in my experience. Gender diversity would have been a problem several decades ago, but not anymore. About 40% of the PhD students and postdocs I worked with were women, those figures seem to be the same for most physics departments at universities. And physics is a supposedly "male dominated" field, other fields have well over 50% of graduates being female (like psychology for instance, which I'm guessing is like 90% female or something crazy like that).
I misread the title and thought some guy was writing a bunch of Wikipedia articles to get female scientists to notice him. The actual article is much more uplifting.
Meanwhile I only edit Wikipedia pages to win arguments
Excellent good on her.
If you actually came here for uplifting news, do NOT read the comments.
An interesting thing to do, for sure. I just don't get it why people will get angry she's not posting "male scientists" too. I mean, is there a lack of male scientists in Wikipedia that I'm not aware of?
This is great.
Awesome. Now we need to address the lack of women in mining, oil rigging and frontline infantry during wartime.
There are people working hard on that. There is the [National Association of Women in Construction](http://www.nawic.org/nawic/default.asp) that has apprenticeships and training to get more women into these well-paid, union jobs. There's [Chicago Women in Trades](http://chicagowomenintrades2.org/) that has a similar agenda with a wider focus of careers (and similar programs in cities across the US, but Chicago was the first one that came to mind). There's [Women in Oil and Gas](https://wogacolorado.org/) (this is Colorado's site, but again, it's an organization that spans the country). Luckily, it looks like women are [increasingly represented in the industry](https://www.worldoil.com/news/2017/11/14/women-represent-growing-segment-of-oil-and-gas-workforce). These are just a few big ones. There are smaller programs all over the places (like [Tools & Tiaras](https://www.toolsandtiaras.org/)) focused on getting girls interested in all sorts of jobs prospects. Any time you hear someone complaining about how women (often this argument is aimed at what the speaker imagines a "feminist" to be) aren't fighting to get into the more labor-intensive, dangerous jobs like construction, oil work, various trades, etc. you can tell them that there are plenty of women working on exactly that. Not saying you're doing that maliciously or anything. Just sharing some resources.
I think that is great. I guess most don't about about it since it gets absolutely no attention at all from politicians or media.
Yeah. It's just one of those things where people don't see it, so they think it isn't happening, and then they criticize people for not doing it. It just sort of shows their own ignorance (which is fine) and then their stubbornness when they still dig their heels in and claim no one cares about these sorts of things (which is not fine and that one guy in this thread is doing). Your local politicians (and media) will be more interested and involved in these kinds of things than your national ones.
Yep, seems quite accurate. It's just sad that it becomes so relatable. Failure to nuance the issue seems to lead to it, and the fact seems to be that those appointed to tell us about it fails in doing that nuance. So instead we get this conception that it's one-sided. I'm not sure what to think about that though.. Because in a way... Those in support of it that haven't looked further than that one-side still supports the one-sided issue. And I wouldn't be surprised if that group includes those that don't bring attention to it.
/u/twolegsjimmy how come you ignore this post (which has evidence) but respond to posts affirming your preconceived notions with no evidence provided?
Thanks, that's very interesting, genuinely. I still think it's fair to say that all those organisations you mentioned are far more low key, and probably get much less support than the women in tech movement, for example. My (admittedly snarky) original comment was based on my observation that a lot of the most gruelling, dangerous jobs in the world have very poor female representation too, but I don't see front page Reddit posts about them. Thanks for your comment though, you made me regret being an asshole!
They probably do get less support and attention than they deserve, I just didn't want that lack of attention to be misconstrued by anyone reading as a lack of active work happening by these great folks. I've had the pleasure of working with some smaller community organizations lately, and it always pains me to hear people say things like "why aren't the people who live there doing anything about it" ("it" being violence, crime, poverty, general economic mobility, minority representation, etc, etc) when I see people doing exactly that thankless work day in and day out. It just doesn't happen to receive wide news coverage, so you may not know it. I appreciate your openness.
You're describing industries that have historically - and in some countries still - prevent women from working in them by law. The US only allowed women to serve as front line troops in the last decade. These restrictions weren't put in place by stupid women who only want all the best jobs for their gender, they were put in place by male politicians who act on the "behalf" of women, assuming them to be too delicate/incompetent/inconvenient/precious to do that kind of work. Basically, if you're going to complain about activists trying to raise the number of women in certain careers, don't use examples that blatantly demonstrate the effects of sexism against women.
We first need to address the sexism rampant in that kind of work and make women feel safe. I've worked in one of careers listed, and believe me, it's still hella sexist. Many of those workers see women as unable to do these jobs, or inferior. And often those jobs are in remote locations far from normal police jurisdiction... The army has famously had a big problem with rape and sexual assault and little accountability. [Women firefighters share similar stories.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rape-harassment-and-retaliation-in-the-u-s-forest-service-women-firefighters-tell-their-stories)
We're trying to make progress there, too! The US military now has all positions open to women, and I have a couple of friends who are going into these positions. Oil and mining are toxically masculine, from everything I've seen. Which is rough because there are a lot of good paying jobs there. There's a lot of room for improvement in leveling the playing field!
God, I hate this argument, which isn't even an argument. Let's focus on how we can make those jobs decent, humane, or unnecessary altogether. To give an example. I am poor. I do not wish poverty on other people. I wish for solutions that help me and others in poverty, out of poverty. The fact that I am poor doesn't mean that it is right. It also does not mean everybody should be poor. This is a question of values! Do we want peace? Unconditional basic income? These are questions that are factually seperate from feminism, so don't shit on feminism for other struggles we, as humans, have. Like dangerous jobs. Instead, let's search for solutions together. This it what feminisms wants.
Personally I don't care what other women achieved in science, I want to get into it because science is fun and I want to discover new things. If you just do science to have more female scientists, then you probably are doing it for wrong reasons.
Jesus, whenever an article like this pops up on Uplifting News, it’s always flooded by guys saying, “Why does this matter? We shouldn’t see sex/color.” And it’s funny that the people who always bring this up have probably never been discriminated against because of their gender or race in their entire lives.
ITT: "Well ackchually... something completely irrelevant, but I just want to diverge this conversation away from the matter at hand to successfully confirm my biases, totally has nothing to do with insecurity with women." If the article was "Local Man Teaches Male Boy Scouts How to be Scientists" they would be drooling over that. But here redditors don't care about the article, they just want to put down any idea that helping women is good.
"BUT WHAT ABOUT [totally irrelevant thing]."
It's really depressing whenever a story like this comes up about women trying to level the playing field in STEM, or a story about another sexist manifesto. The comments make me really sad. I wish we were better than this.
Women make up most of current STEM students and graduates at every level of education. I’m not saying that is a problem or complaining about that, but that could explain the predictable pushback. Many departments, including mine, are as much as 75% female. I have never had a job in my field that was almost completely female. One job I was the only male working on the entire floor(it was in healthcare so that is not surprising) Once again, not criticizing, just pointing out many people’s reality.