Feminism Thread

[thetruepandagod]

Spoiler: show

It's almost as if the way that men and womens brains have different levels of certain chemicals may affect certain traits and interests.... like how men are 400% more likely to have autism than women. Or how women have more oxytocin and vasopressin than men which are social hormones. And well... STEM fields aren't exactly the most social of fields. Just remember that you guys are only arguing about women in STEM fields currently and that there are mental/physical differences between men and women. You aren't arguing about ratio of waiters/waitresses, cashiers, or people that work in retail which are the most common jobs in America and also equally split gender-wise. You are seriously arguing about highly specific fields where having autism, tunnel vision, and task obsession are qualities that are both desired and seen. Women and men are different this is a fact, men have a larger inferior-parietal lobule(helps with math) than women while women have a bigger limbic system, men have more gray matter and women have more white matter. Women typically have weaker spatial abilities, or being able to mentally represent a shape and its dynamics. Women have a thicker parietal region of the brain, which hinders the ability to mentally rotate objects–an aspect of spatial ability. This spatial difference has also been shown in babies as early as 5 months old. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651884/

Maybe, just maybe in the instance of STEM fields you may just be seeing the innate differences between men and women's leanings playing out.

[Blubbartron]

That's based on an interpretation that Norway indicates the natural gap should be higher. That's a point in contention. It's open for debate but you can't just merely presume that Norway represents a more accurate norm.

Did you even watch the video posted earlier that has been brought up countless times? It mentioned a survey of over 200,000 people across 53 countries that show the preferences for thing-oriented jobs vs. people-oriented jobs is roughly in line with what Norway is seeing. These were purely preferences, i.e. what do you like doing. It removed as many factors regarding money and social structure as possible. The evidence is all pointing that the gap should be higher, and I've seen literally no evidence that the gap should be lower. Yet, somehow, Archi and hey are behaving as if they have the answer to exactly what causes the gap, and think we need more legislation and action to achieve whatever the hell they think it should be. It boggles the mind.

[BerenTebogo]

200,000 people over 53 countries is a horribly low number.

Yeah, it's definitely a start, but it's far from statistically significant. That's not enough to get any meaningful variation in sample from people who work in low vs. mid vs. high income paying fields of either sex to any degree of accuracy.

It's a good start, but the weight it's being given shows that women are not the only ones struggling in STEM fields around here. People don't understand how to interpret data, apparently.

[Blubbartron]

200,000 people over 53 countries is a horribly low number.

Yeah, it's definitely a start, but it's far from statistically significant. That's not enough to get any meaningful variation in sample from people who work in low vs. mid vs. high income paying fields of either sex to any degree of accuracy.

It's a good start, but the weight it's being given shows that women are not the only ones struggling in STEM fields around here. People don't understand how to interpret data, apparently.

It wasn't a survey about job satisfaction, or what you currently do for a living. It was about the kinds of activities you enjoy doing. What stuff excites you. Are you suggesting that the general types of activities a person prefers to do will be even slightly correlated with socioeconomic status? I would be absolutely shocked if it correlated at all.

[BerenTebogo]

Yes? Why wouldn't it? An adult who has been working and earning a living for years doing either what they love or what they were forced into out of necessity may have different basic interests, no?

Maybe they were doing science instead of getting knocked up at 19 and had more chances?

The point is that the survey is far too small and bland to point to any interpretable data for or against anything. My argument is that drawing conclusions from it represents a genuine lack of understanding about how to deal with large numbers and scientific procedure.

[hey]

It wasn't a survey about job satisfaction, or what you currently do for a living. It was about the kinds of activities you enjoy doing. What stuff excites you. Are you suggesting that the general types of activities a person prefers to do will be even slightly correlated with socioeconomic status? I would be absolutely shocked if it correlated at all.

But you're still missing the point. Sexism, both intentional, and unintentional prevents women from ever wanting to enter fields like stem, tech, and engineering in the first place. That is the biggest issue, not that they are unable to succeed if they try to enter these fields.

[BerenTebogo]

I'm not missing the point. I'm not arguing whether the conclusions you people are drawing from the study are real or false on their own.

I'm arguing that using the survey to justify them, and repeatedly referencing it, is a fundamentally flawed place to argue from. That people are giving far too much weight to a survey from which no meaningful conclusions or talking points should be drawn in the first place.

The arguments that both sides are making irrespective of the survey stand on their own and are worth discussing. I'm asking for shitty science to stop being used by either side in a debate about who can and cannot science well. It's too much irony for me to bear.

[Milkster]

But you're still missing the point. Sexism, both intentional, and unintentional prevents women from ever wanting to enter fields like stem, tech, and engineering in the first place. That is the biggest issue, not that they are unable to succeed if they try to enter these fields.

So you're saying it's everyone else's fault that someone doesn't take responsibility and pursue their dreams and goals because someone might possibly think or say bad things about them?

[Blubbartron]

Yes? Why wouldn't it? An adult who has been working and earning a living for years doing either what they love or what they were forced into out of necessity may have different basic interests, no?

Maybe they were doing science instead of getting knocked up at 19 and had more chances?

The point is that the survey is far too small and bland to point to any interpretable data for or against anything. My argument is that drawing conclusions from it represents a genuine lack of understanding about how to deal with large numbers and scientific procedure.

The basic interests of a person should not depend on whether they're currently earning a living doing what they like. If you like doing something, you like it, regardless of how you earn money.

Interests are not randomly determined at age 19. Someone who likes doing science has likely been experimenting with shit since they were a kid. I like computers and math. I've fucked around with computers and math since I was about 4-5. You yet again seem to be focusing on jobs, not realizing that this is about generic interests.

Sure, if you're trying to get very specific information like "how many women like working with computers", it's not nearly enough, I agree. But again, that's not what it was. It was extremely general to try to find basic patterns of interest. I.e. thing-based or people-based, like the study with the one day old babies. For something that general, it's a perfectly acceptable sample size. It's a very generous sample size, even. If you think the conclusions made by the people that did that research are invalid, can you point us to some scholarly articles agreeing with you? Or do we just have to take your word for it because you come in here claiming knowledge about something you evidently didn't even read?

[BerenTebogo]

Read my last post, my positions are independent of jobs. I was throwing out a softball answer to your softball question.

If you want scholarly articles about sample sizes and conclusions, sure, or you could just read a statistics 101 textbook since you like math. Shouldn't take you past chapter 2 to see the light.

I thought hey was you when I responded above, so yeah.

Edit: Source: degrees in Applied Math, Astrophysics, and half of an ongoing masters in Computational Astrophysics. Numbers R hard.

[Mazmaz]

I tried doing some research to back up your claim that gender discrimination is a cause (or even prevalent in the workplace) for the current male/female ratio, but all I keep finding is stuff like the following: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/19/2468.html This isn't evidence, for the record. It's a survey asking women what they believe. "Do you believe women are discriminated against?" "Do you believe women are paid the same as men?" These questions are completely wrong for trying to determine if there is in fact gender discrimination. They need to be more personal to take beliefs about the whole out of the equation. I.e. "have you ever been discriminated against because you're a woman? If yes, explain." etc.

I don't understand. You were arguing that we can't determine gender discrimination by listening to women and their experiences. If there was a study like how you described, you and Nynja would just say "but you can't determine discrimination from that! It's a SURVEY. It's just what WOMEN ARE SAYING. Where's the PROOF?"

[Blubbartron]

Read my last post, my positions are independent of jobs. I was throwing out a softball answer to your softball question.

If you want scholarly articles about sample sizes and conclusions, sure, or you could just read a statistics 101 textbook since you like math. Shouldn't take you past chapter 2 to see the light.

I thought hey was you when I responded above, so yeah.

I have a degree in mathematics. I've taken multiple courses in statistics. 200,000 people is an incredibly large sample size if you're trying to find patterns in the biological differences between men and women. If something was socially-dependent, then the ~4000 sample size for each individual culture would've revealed that.

For the uninformed around here, to have a 95% surety that your sample has responded within 2 percentage points (one way or the other) of the way the entire population would, you only need ~2400 women (out of 3.5 billion women). In other words - you're full of shit, Sath.

[Blubbartron]

I don't understand. You were arguing that we can't determine gender discrimination by listening to women and their experiences. If there was a study like how you described, you and Nynja would just say "but you can't determine discrimination from that! It's a SURVEY. It's just what WOMEN ARE SAYING. Where's the PROOF?"

A survey is inherently different from listening to the anecdotal claims of women you know. It's all about sample size. See previous post.

[BerenTebogo]

Yup. Super full of shit. Not a bad scientific study in any way. Got 'em.

[BerenTebogo]

You're right that for pure respondency the numbers are great. If you can't see my point about it being a shit scientific study then I don't know, lol.

[Blubbartron]

You're right that for pure respondency the numbers are great. If you can't see my point about it being a shit scientific study then I don't know, lol.

I think I can see what you're getting at, but the problem I have with it is how hyper specific you seem to think the study should be, simply by virtue of calling it "science". Sometimes science is generic. That doesn't make it irrelevant, or the conclusions invalid.

[BerenTebogo]

I think I can see what you're getting at, but the problem I have with it is how hyper specific you seem to think the study should be, simply by virtue of calling it "science". Sometimes science is generic. That doesn't make it irrelevant, or the conclusions invalid.

Science is absolutely generic sometimes, correct, but when it is we don't make conclusions. We note trends, refine our premises, and then test again, rinse, repeat. We don't stop and make conclusions on generic science.

At best we have a "it looks like, in some cases, this may be a contributing factor, barring further studies."

Not a conclusion. You know this. I know this. Let's not quibble over the details, this isn't something to draw conclusions from. Trends worth investing? MAAAAYBE. Baseline for future studies? Yup.

[hey]

I'm not missing the point.

I was responding to the post i quoted.

So you're saying it's everyone else's fault that someone doesn't take responsibility and pursue their dreams and goals because someone might possibly think or say bad things about them?

I'm saying it's society's fault that tech, stem, engineering, etc isn't part of their dreams to begin with. Again: you're missing the point. Women who want to pursue careers in these fields are able to do so, without too many barriers. But most women don't want to, and it is at least partly because of sexism.

Interests are not randomly determined at age 19. Someone who likes doing science has likely been experimenting with shit since they were a kid. I like computers and math. I've fucked around with computers and math since I was about 4-5. You yet again seem to be focusing on jobs, not realizing that this is about generic interests.

Yes, this is the problem. Girls aren't given the same opportunities as boys to get into these sorts of things as a kid.

[Charismatic]

Yes, this is the problem. Girls aren't given the same opportunities as boys to get into these sorts of things as a kid.

Go on...
My sister and I are only 1 year apart and we're almost 30 yet at no point in time did I have a leg up. (btw, we both work in the tech industry).

Anecdotal, sure. But I haven't seen any instance of girls not being given opportunities so I'm wondering what it is you could be referring to.

[Zeb]

So, what are we looking at for a fix to this? Legislating how companies market their toys toward the different genders? Seperating boys and girls in schools so more young girls will feel comfortable with classes/clubs in the STEM fields?