I believe the latter.
Any theory that explains why physics is gendered should also explain why education is also gendered. It's unlikely that those two fields ended up with skewed gender ratios for completely different reasons.
So, why do you think psychology, education, and nursing are all female dominated fields?
If it was simply a pattern of shitty behavior, what I would expect is some fields that women obviously don't have access to, and a more or less even gender ratio in all the other fields.
What I'm seeing instead looks a lot like gender ratios are a gaussian distribution, which I don't think fits your hypothesis that the gender ratios are caused by "a pattern of shitty behavior". That probably is a co-factor, but it doesn't explain the female-dominated fields very well.
So, just from a very high level consideration of what is the most important thing to focus on, I still think shitty behavior is it. There is no better use of time than reading and reflecting on what shitty behavior is and then building up the bravery to call it out daily. That is hard, critical, adult work.
I'm not trying to do the false equivalence thing here, or saying "what about the men". I'm certainly not saying "well men have it bad too".
What I am saying is that male-dominated fields and female-dominated fields both likely have the same root cause, and any hypothesis that explains one needs to explain the other. Well, plus or minus some co-factors.
So, how do we explain this data? If you're looking for the answer that makes this men's fault, you could pretty easily say that men don't enter those fields because it doesn't live up to their self-image. That definitely avoid the "fallacy that this goes both ways equally" while still having one root cause for all the data.
But that's a pretty lazy answer in my opinion, and doesn't fit with the data I've observed. Can you come up with a few more hypothesis that explain both male and female dominated gender ratios?
I do think men bear most of the responsibility, and that's largely historical (men controlled the money) and partly because of the sex dynamic.
For my part, I think men, including myself, just have a long way to go to treat women fairly in the workplace. After that, my #2 focus is why "women's work" pays less. Elevating the economic worth of care jobs and such is another great societal discussion that needs a lot of attention.
Now my problem is that gender ratio is the key metric we seem to be using to measure sexism in STEM fields, and I don't think any policy is going to fix that. We can try and mitigate cultural expectations, but if those cultural expectations are grounded on intrinsic interests, we're going to have a very hard time getting rid of them.
I think you really need to examine your idea that "men bear most of the responsibility". Men always bear most of the responsibility, and that's one of the oldest stereotypes. Men are generally considered to be more responsible for their own actions then women are. I think it's why they get longer prison sentences for the same crime. If you're not an object, you're a subject.
So why do you think men bear most of the responsibility, aside from historical precedent? Are men best situated to fix these problems?
I will note that a lot of new programmers are indian or asian men, which implies to me that tech is pretty good as far as racial discrimination goes. It certainly seems like a welcoming environment for those visable minorities. Or at least more welcoming then most of the alternatives.
This story is illustrative, I think, and helps me think about women out in the world. My wife went into a bar in DC recently which at that moment was entirely men (imagine 20-30 middle aged male, DC professionals socializing, and they might have been colleagues), so when she ordered a drink, she took it outside. Outside there were two more woman and a tatted up male. What do you think would have happened if she had sat at an empty booth inside? What if she were me, and I'd sat at an empty booth inside? I think she would either been ignored OR one of those men would have seen her presence as an invitation. They would not view my presence as any sort of invitation. Small, fun example, I think, of the work men need to do.
Also, thanks (both of you) for an interesting thread!
if you have a smaller set, and an equivalent distribution, smaller width of the bell curve is proportional to its hight.
> I do think men bear most of the responsibility, and [...] partly because of the sex dynamic.
Indeed, but group dynamics within the sexes are a factor, too, so the hypothesis would be incomplete without other closely and tangentially related aspects. Otherwise, if sexual attraction was the strongest drive, you'd have to expect male lab heads preferring female companions. Whereas, ironically, the opposite would have to be called sexual distraction. What do you make of that?
[1] off of the top of Google: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
There are plenty of female-dominated fields with similar gender ratios as what you see in STEM. Do you think sexism is a good explanation for those female dominated fields?
We can all help make our area more welcoming, by removing pointless obstacles and by refraining from casual bias.
I don't understand why would any woman choose STEM when batter paying gigs are available to them.
Maybe because Instagram millionaires are about as common as sports millionaires?
Maybe because beauty fades, and doesn’t make for much of a career past age 35?
Maybe because not every woman is conventionally beautiful?
Maybe because some of us couldn’t care less about fashion or makeup?
Maybe because we enjoy technical work?
Maybe because some of us are damn good at it?
Maybe because we enjoy producing value with - and being valued for - our brains instead of our bodies?
“Look at the salaries pro football players make. I don’t understand why any man would choose STEM when better paying gigs are available to them.”
If you enjoy it, that's good. But not everyone enjoys it and that's why STEM has lower praticipation from females and that's what we are discussing here.
I didn't say millionaire anywhere. Many modeling gigs pay more than entry level median salaries in STEM.
It's about efforts vs reward. People in STEM require years of education compared to posting a product review on Instgram which doesn't even require a high school certificate.
Don't compare it to Pro football players either which is very risky and requires years of training and money.
The problem isn't that women are overall disadvantaged when it comes to getting hired in STEM, it's that women are not choosing STEM careers.
You could argue that too many men in the workplace will put women off following that career, but I really doubt that is the only significant factor at play here.
Also probably a fair heaping of sexism.
If you're running a convenience store and your customers purchase 65/35 apples/oranges, how would you solve a "problem" of getting them to buy 50/50?
Nowhere in real life do we see an equal representation unless it's enforced artificially.
If I told you that hispanics outnumber asians majoring in History 8:1, but asians outnumber hispanics majoring in Chemistry 10:1, then how would one solve that? Does that need to be solved?
That "women's work" tends to get paid less then "men's work"? Well I'm not sure how true that actually is, but I'd recommend using unions. I'm presuming that part of the reason why "women's work" tends to pay less is because women, on average, are less comfortable negotiating. Using collective bargaining is the obvious way to fix that.
It’s socially acceptable for females to marry a rich guy and be a stay at home mom. I would say some women prefer the traditional route of raising kids full time so that should reduce the number of working women.