Stereotypes about girls dissuade many from careers in computer science
theconversation.com
theconversation.com
> We also discovered that these interest stereotypes were linked to worse outcomes for girls. The more that a typical girl in our study believed in these stereotypes favoring boys, the less motivated she was in computer science and engineering. This wasn’t the case for the typical boy. The more he believed in these stereotypes, the more motivated he was.
Three things stand out to me:
1) The article uses very pointed black/white language, even though it's describing something as mild as children's interest in hobbies... Girls not being into computers is only a "worse outcome" if a career in CompSci is your measurement of "good" in this world. Why is that the case? Article makes little mention of this.
2) The article is very clear that it's about the children's "belief", not any concrete measurements of their lives. A two-year opinion survey (as in here) is not nearly as convincing as its more expensive cousin, the longitudinal study. The only reasonable call to action for the reader is to change what their children "believe" and secretly hope the world becomes "better."
3) The article starts with "Stereotypes about what boys and girls supposedly like aren’t hard to find." Words like "supposedly" prime the reader into thinking childhood gender differences are arbitrary, which the rest of the article seems to assume. This is not clearly explained.
This article is very clearly slanted. It's a shame that such an interesting topic always gets this kind of lip service. If there were evidence that demonstrates women being genuinely happier/healthier/more fulfilled in STEM fields that would be cool to read.
"COUNTRIES WITH GREATER gender equality see a smaller proportion of women taking degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a new study has found. Dubbed the “gender equality paradox”, the research found that countries such as Albania and Algeria have a greater percentage of women amongst their STEM graduates than countries lauded for their high levels of gender equality, such as Finland, Norway and Sweden."
Of course stereotypes exist and play a role to some degree (who knows how much?) in people's perceptions of themselves but the article in the theconversation makes zero mention of natural proclivities. The author has an agenda and is uninterested in getting to the truth of the matter.
So, all the more reason to fight stereotypes at every step.
This is equivalent to enforcing an 80% male software engineering quota.
The men's rights movement in India really has its work cut out...
Meaning:
Step 1: Create social incentives that maintain differences.
Step 2: Measure differences.
Step 3: Say those differences are real and natural, since you now have measured them.
> The process of gaining knowledge assuming a social construct will always suffer from a tautological fallacy.
Meaning:
If you want to know whether, say, men and women are different, and you try to collect measurements about those differences, those measurements will always be affected by the underlying assumption that men and women are different.
> Any attempt to break the cycle is a epistemological illusion.
Meaning: Your measurements of peoples' behavior will always be polluted by whatever beliefs are widespread, including those to do with whatever you're measuring.
That about right?
I disagree.
You can measure, for example, the behavior of male and female orangutans. It will not be affected by human society. The only assumption you are making is that orangutans and humans are similar -- that the former is a good model for the latter.
I also have a larger problem with the worldview you are advancing. While it raises useful awareness about certain mistakes that can be made, it is itself unfalsifiable when taken too far. It asserts that everything is socially constructed and that no measurement can demonstrate otherwise.
Some people say that this would naturally lead to having 50/50 men/women everywhere. I'm not sure that's true. If societal pressure disappears, biology will be one of the remaining influences. And since societal pressure will be gone, biology will play a stronger role in the overall distribution. But that's just my opinion/theory about this.
I feel like a world where women are blocked from or forced into STEM to maintain a 50/50 parity would be not great, but again, maybe some people disagree for reasons I hadn't considered, or we disagree on fundamental points.
In a scientific experiment, from the age of nine months, boys choose masculine toys, while girls choose femmine toys. Boys are more attract from inanimate systems, while girls from social interactions.
Obviously culture has an effect, every person is unique, etc., etc. So there cannot be limitation on what a person want and can do. It is only unrealistic pretending that 50% of boys and 50% of girls will have the same interests in work and life, because they are different.
*EDIT: downvote with a response. Go through the education system and see the truth for yourself or be apart of the problem.