The STEM education gender gap is more complex than people think | Hacker News Reader

The STEM education gender gap is more complex than people think

acculturated.com

12 pointsrevanshan11 comments

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12225301

I'll probably get a bunch of down votes for saying this, but anyway...

I suspect that is has a lot to do with the varying IQ distributions between the genders. Females tend to be closer to the mean, whereas males have wider variance. If you are of average intelligence, calculus just won't make sense to you and that will end your STEM education right there. There are just more males with above average intelligence than there are females, so naturally more males will "survive" calculus to continue in STEM fields. On the other hand, there are more males with below average intelligence than females, which is one reason why most criminals are males.

It looks like the idea has been studied:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

In a 2008 study paid for by the National Science Foundation in the United States, researchers found that... while boys and girls performed similarly on average, boys were over-represented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst.

I've heard it described as men having 'more dumbbells but more Nobels'. I believe that came from Helena Cronin of the Darwin Centre at the London School of Economics.

The pendulum will swing both ways eventually. If we want a society that doesn't punish one group in disproportion to another, we're just going to have to accept that eventually the previously dominant group now needs help in certain areas.

>In fact, today Title IX, the federal law that was supposed to ensure equal educational opportunity for both sexes, is known almost exclusively as a tool for advancing women’s interests.

Yes, that's kind of the point. And that's ok.

This view gives equal opportunity a bad rep. Look at the discrimination against males as kindergarten employees, why is nobody fighting for them?

> Yes, that's kind of the point. And that's ok.

I think your viewpoint is at the crux of the debate. We run into a few ethics questions with no obviously correct answers:

(1) If discrimination based on sex is wrong per se, then isn't it unethical for the government to engage in it? (I.e., is it okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelette? Is it okay to sacrifice one innocent virgin to spare the whole village from the volcano?)

(2) Is there an aspect of vengeance to this? And if so, isn't it collective punishment against today's young males, because of some perceived benefit their fathers had (but they don't)?

(3) If the goal is to restore some kind of equilibrium, then how would we know when to stop? And what do you say to those young males who are discriminated against during a period of over-shoot? "I'm sorry Johnny that we wouldn't spend as much time teaching you math as we would your sister, but think of all the girls who benefited!"

(4) How do we choose which supposed social good to prioritize? For example, why is it preferable to increase women's incomes, at the expense of men's opportunities?

(5) Is it truly just for the government to address one perceived inequality (by preferential treatment of girls in school), without putting equal effort into addressing areas where men have traditionally been at a disadvantage (child custody, incarceration rates, etc.)? If the government's policy is only to address those inequalities where women come out behind, then the end-game is apparently not equality, but something else. (Matriarchy? Vengeance? Collective punishment?)

>with no obviously correct answers.

Regardless of the point-by-point response, I think the general idea is that women have historically been disadvantaged in education, so Title IX _de facto_ helps alleviate that problem, although there are obvious negative externalities that result from a blanket application. I do think that a couple of your (x) arguments assume malice where there likely is none, but I've responded point-by-point below.

(1) This is the question at the heart of any sort of redistributive action government takes -- it seems like we, as a society, have decided that it (or things analogous to it) are ok, at least some of the time.

(2) I would hope not! That's certainly not how I've thought of it, as a young male.

(3) Presumably when the indicators of discrimination are no longer so blindingly obvious (ranging from unequal pay to glass ceilings). I don't, however, suspect that it's going to be that simple. I think that a lot of the biases fueling the problem are culturally inherent, and can't be resolved just with legislation. Although the idea behind Title IX seems like a step in the right direction.

(4) By participation in a democratic society. Great question though! I'd like to think that it isn't zero sum.

(5) First of all, I don't think that we necessarily have to do one at the expense of the other. I also don't think that there's any sort of fairness mechanism by which we get to make things universally better for everyone all at once. We work with the Congress we've got, and the Administration we've got, and the Supreme Court we've got (x50 for the state level!) to do the best we can. That being said, I think it's ok to prioritize some problems over others, and problems affecting ~50% of the population are generally worthy of increased scrutiny IMO.

(2) Sounds as someone who had the privileged to never been excluded and treated like a second class citizen because of your gender.

Yep - or someone who ostensibly would have been the target of the alleged 'vengeance' but doesn't feel victimized as a result of it.

I'm not saying that Title IX is perfect - nothing is, especially not redistributive policies. What I am saying, though, is that the notion that it is motivated by vengeance is a little paranoid and a little silly.

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