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    Joined: Nov 2009
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    Well, I can think of one big reason girls might choose other fields. Despite being in a very strong, well-regarded and I feel mostly progressive school district, my DD, a senior this year, has discovered that the AP physics teacher treats the boys and girls very differently from each other. I won’t go into details here, but despite liking the subject matter and having a natural aptitude for it, she loathes the class. She has multiple girlfriends who have openly cried in class, and many of them have confided that this class experience has made them question or change their decisions to persue science in college. DD has challenged him in public, and has been referred to the counselor by him for rudeness (if you knew my DD this would be kind of shocking, I believe). The counselor basically told her it was her problem, not his, they have never had any other complaints, she needs to learn to modify her behavior or she will be in trouble in college, etc. She is compiling a folder she plans to share with the principal at the end of the year, but I secretly suspect it is futile. It seems to be an open secret among many parents, but this man is the only AP physics teacher, and he coaches several of the high-profile academic teams, so he is valuable to the administration.

    It is similar, thought not as egregious, as this example recently described in the Washington Post (sorry, but I am having trouble posting a link- you can google Washington Post and “In a Prestigious High School Math and Science Program, Alumni say #MeToo”). The first paragraph says it all:

    “Years after they left one of the nation’s premier high school programs in math and science, hundreds of alumni have come forward to support allegations that a celebrated Maryland teacher sexually harassed and demeaned female students.”

    In our situation, there was no sexual harassment. But the demeaning attitude and behaviors are devastating, and far-reaching. I’m not claiming this is common, but I am still shocked that it happens at all (though I shouldn’t be) and that it is so difficult for the girls to be heard and listened to by anyone in the administration.

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    Originally Posted by chay
    "Women are always less likely to choose a STEM program, regardless of mathematical ability. Among those who went to university, 23% women in the three highest categories of PISA scores (out of six) chose a STEM program, compared with 39% of men in the three lowest categories of PISA scores."

    It makes me think about WHY they might be "choosing" other fields. If it is truly because they are not interested and that is based on a somewhat educated view of what it actually is then I'm fine. If it is because they feel like they aren't "smart enough" then I think they need to take their queue from the 39% of men referenced in the quote and just go for it.

    https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm
    Since women's relative strength is verbal compared to mathematical ability, for a given level of mathematical ability, a woman is likely to have more verbal ability than a man and thus to choose a humanities major where verbal ability is more important. In other words, women who are very good at math are more likely than men who are very good at math to also be very good at other subjects and therefore to have choices other than STEM.

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    Sorry, Bostonian, but your obsession with genetics aside, the differences in STEM participation do not match any distribution of assessed math or spatial ability, and the vast differences between the two distributions have almost entirely social explanations.

    Most notably, those differences have grown significantly wider over a very short time, so we can be absolutely certain that evolution had nothing to do with it:

    https://qz.com/911737/silicon-valle...of-computer-game-marketing-20-years-ago/

    https://girlswhocode.com/about-us/

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    Originally Posted by Bostonian
    Originally Posted by chay
    "Women are always less likely to choose a STEM program, regardless of mathematical ability. Among those who went to university, 23% women in the three highest categories of PISA scores (out of six) chose a STEM program, compared with 39% of men in the three lowest categories of PISA scores."

    It makes me think about WHY they might be "choosing" other fields. If it is truly because they are not interested and that is based on a somewhat educated view of what it actually is then I'm fine. If it is because they feel like they aren't "smart enough" then I think they need to take their queue from the 39% of men referenced in the quote and just go for it.

    https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm
    Since women's relative strength is verbal compared to mathematical ability, for a given level of mathematical ability, a woman is likely to have more verbal ability than a man and thus to choose a humanities major where verbal ability is more important. In other words, women who are very good at math are more likely than men who are very good at math to also be very good at other subjects and therefore to have choices other than STEM.

    You're making a Ricardian argument that women are following their comparative advantage and choosing the skill set in which they are best qualified. Although the actual basis for that argument is flimsy, I'm going to run with your assumption and demonstrate why the line of thought presented is invalid.

    Comparative advantage isn't blind to compensation. Average STEM salaries in the U.S. exceed humanities salaries.

    http://time.com/money/4189471/stem-graduates-highest-starting-salaries/

    Women make an expected value calculation and are still over-represented in humanities, despite having comparable quantitative skills to their male counterparts, on average. (Read chay's quoted piece from Statistics Canada for some substantiation from a relatively pro-female market).

    If talent isn't the impediment, something else is restricting women from accessing STEM as a viable option. Given that women are, on average, compensated less than male counterparts (after controlling for tenure and qualifications), the female STEM-humanities compensation gap closes, and the relative benefit to accessing a STEM career for a woman declines relative to humanities.

    Another possibility is that a non-financial variable is driving women's decision not to enter STEM. If there are non-pecuniary barriers to entry (social, cultural, relational) that penalize women in STEM disproportionately to men, then women will also consider that cost in the calculus of career choice.

    You have spoken in previous threads about the need to feminize your daughter with accultured female interests and, conversely, have opined on the value of sports knowledge and male cultural currency to be successful in various male-dominated fields. These are exactly the kinds of barriers that perpetuate gender imbalance. Though, I suspect, not all audiences here prefer the idea of equality.







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    And this study indicates that a major factor is confidence, because boys will self-assess their performance much higher than girls when there is no observable difference in actual results:
    https://phys.org/news/2017-04-girls-confidence-math-ability-hinders.html

    So basically, boys bad at math will continue on to become bad programmers, and girls good at math will drop the interest and do something else, instead of becoming good programmers.

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    Originally Posted by aquinas
    You have spoken in previous threads about the need to feminize your daughter with accultured female interests and, conversely, have opined on the value of sports knowledge and male cultural currency to be successful in various male-dominated fields. These are exactly the kinds of barriers that perpetuate gender imbalance. Though, I suspect, not all audiences here prefer the idea of equality.
    Given that men in business settings often discuss sports to break the ice, it could help both men and women to know a little about sports to fit in in industries where men currently predominate. Is it sexist to say that?

    My wife is a doctor. Her nieces are training to become doctors. Nothing is stopping women from becoming engineers, mathematicians, or computer programmers, but if they don't, that's not a problem either.

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    Let me first qualify what I am about to say with the fact that my 13 year old daughter is a DYS and a participant in SET ( based on Maths score) I have always, from birth, treated her as a human being not a girl.

    From the time that it was obvious that she was able to grasp things quickly I encouraged her to follow STEM pursuits. Science camps, SG Maths, AOPS, CTY and a state university G&T outreach program. So far my daughter has excelled and continues to be enthused.

    But the arguments I see above just do not fly for me. Sure. On average girls and boys have equal ability in Maths but if you head out into the RHS you reach a point where high scoring boys outnumber high scoring girls. That is empirical fact and this gap has persisted despite oodles of encouragement to bring girls along.

    I do not think that STEM careers are for average people nor do I think that college is for average people. There are plenty of trades that will provide secure income for non academic folks. Personally, I do not buy into college for all nor do I support forcing talented boys out of STEM so their places can be taken by less able girls in order to artificially impose gender parity in any given STEM discipline.

    I do not expect anyone here to agree but I am a born heretic and have an almost pathological aversion to echo chambers preferring the Way of the Cynic in all things.

    Last edited by madeinuk; 04/04/18 07:59 AM.

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    I probably should just walk away here but ugggg.

    Originally Posted by Bostonian
    Given that men in business settings often discuss sports to break the ice, it could help both men and women to know a little about sports to fit in in industries where men currently predominate. Is it sexist to say that?

    Depends on what you mean by "help". If help means that they will be able to engage in meaningless small talk, sure go for it. If "help" means that they need to do it so they won't be passed over for a promotion because they can't name the starting line up and spout sports facts then I'm going to go with that being sexist (unless you're talking about a job in the sports industry).

    madeinuk - I'm not talking about "forcing talented boys out of STEM so their places can be taken by less able girls". Just letting the most talented of EITHER gender have those places. See the stat I posted above about men in the bottom of the rankings entering STEM at a higher rate than women at the top.

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    Originally Posted by madeinuk
    But the arguments I see above just do not fly for me. Sure. On average girls and boys have equal ability in Maths but if you head out into the RHS you reach a point where high scoring boys outnumber high scoring girls. That is empirical fact and this gap has persisted despite oodles of encouragement to bring girls along.

    We're not talking about the far end of the tail, though. The latest examples are about programming, and you don't need to be a math genius to write code. Most of those jobs only require an understanding of high school Algebra. If that's not average math ability, it's not far from it.

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    Originally Posted by Bostonian
    Given that men in business settings often discuss sports to break the ice, it could help both men and women to know a little about sports to fit in in industries where men currently predominate. Is it sexist to say that?

    I don't see how this has any bearing on the conversation.

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