If you cannot participate in a field where not enough of the people look and act like you, then perhaps you have the problem.
> In countries with the highest levels of gender equality, where women are least likely to experience any of these negative forces
That is absolutely not what a high level of gender equality means. Countries that have "higher levels of gender equality" do not guarantee or even suggest any likelihood of not having these negative forces in a girl or woman's life. (I would privately posit that it may be the opposite, in fact - that perhaps those countries would find that in private home lives, those forces are as strong or stronger than elsewhere. But I don't know this, I'm speculating on that point.)
Often the forces in a person's life are from close friends or their family - these are not measured in this article and certainly have an impact on how people choose their careers and interests in life.
You also made up the idea that they are "self-selecting" to not be a part of the system. The article does not make that claim - you did, out of thin air.
In fact, my main issue with this article is how it defines "gender equality".
> If you cannot participate in a field where not enough of the people look and act like you, then perhaps you have the problem.
I never made any such claim - you have twisted my words in order to make me appear irrational and prejudiced. I claim that women do not participate in tech because they feel actively ostracized and unwelcome. More women would help alleviate this issue. Do not put words into my mouth instead of addressing the statements that I make.
If people do what they love they will be driven to overcome barriers, perceived and real.
Being so skeptical of these opinions because they're in the minority, rather than evaluating their actual merit is horribly toxic.
Also this is just a damn job. You don't have to love it completely to want to do it. I sure as hell don't love programming wholeheartedly but I still do it as a career—I'm one of those folks who doesn't do side projects when they get off the clock.
But I don't believe for a second that women "are systematically encouraged to get out, and do something else with their lives."
The truth is it doesn't matter what the data says. There's an entire political philosophy that's based on everybody being either oppressed, or an oppressor. For people who subscribe to that, they will always claim that invisible forces are at work oppressing people, no matter how much reality proves otherwise, and they will never offer any proof to support these claims, because it's just so axiomatic to them.
The data does not support correlating those two. "Gender equality" in this report refers to the factors in Table 1 at http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/mea... , which is about things like life expectancy and number of female politicians and salary - not about disrespect, unrightful criticism, and scrutiny in technical fields on the basis of sex.
Well since these are claims you can undoubted produce data that all of these issues are significant across the entire field?
For tech in particular, see the Kapor Center's report: https://www.kaporcenter.org/tech-leavers/ (which, it should be noted, reports on people who have left tech: the percentages in that report should not be read as the fraction of people in tech who decide to leave).
For example, when "left due to unfair treatment" is unpacked by group, white women are the lowest percentage! (28% vs. 38% for white/asian men).
Why, then, are other people commenting here claiming that bad treatment of women is the main reason they leave tech, and at alarming numbers, no less?
Also, it's certainly the case that unfair treatment is a problem worth solving regardless of gender.
(I don't think the design of that particular study was equipped to answer the question of what the raw fraction is / whether the numbers are in fact alarming, so people who are making that claim are not making it solely on the basis of information in that study.)
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. Apart from those who buy into the world view that the only two groups in any society are the oppressed and their oppressors, which is clearly just toxic bullshit.
Given that the leader of the free world has said that he's not a feminist, I'm not sure I would say that it's ingrained into the culture. It's a recent cultural phenomenon of these countries, sure. But Western civilization has a much deeper culture of patrilineal succession, of the priesthood being restricted to men, of only men having political representation, of the father being the head of the household, etc. That stuff doesn't evaporate from a culture quickly, and even today many of those are strongly believed by huge parts of Western civilization.
These are the countries that are the most egalitarian in the world, where 3rd wave feminism forms a major part of social policy, where women have an equal level of opportunity to men and the freedom to choose their own paths in life. The data shows that under these conditions, this freedom has a negative correlation to women choosing a career in STEM.
You can't say that this is a remnant of some patriarchal system of oppression, because as women's freedom has increased in those countries, their participation in STEM has decreased.
Which part of the parent comment was a "marxist talking point"?
However, I'll indulge you and hazard a guess:
* The historically naive and somewhat incorrect generalization of some ill-defined "Western" culture (what time frame is he using?) * the negative portrayal of it * and the implicit assumption that any part of the portrayal is somehow unique to all Western countries, but not the rest of the world.
I will give you that this criticism of "Western culture" probably doesn't really relate to traditional Marxism, which more or less worked within the framework of Western culture.
I believe your parent might have had the concept of "cultural Marxism" in mind.
Don't take my word for it though, there are actually plenty of studies showing that the "people vs. things" theory far better explains these gender disparities.