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All explanations for the under-representation with data behind them should be considered
I assume you mean all plausible and evidence-based explanations should be given due consideration. For instance, conspiracy theory themes such as the following should be discounted without further investigation:
Originally Posted by Val
These are only 2 examples. Overall, the memo is sloppy and doesn't cite a single source supporting its claims (or a summary of why study results often contradict each other). IMO, it's a juvenile and self-serving distortion of facts at best and is essentially a tantrum.
Bravo. See external source above.
If workers are actually talented, they should earn their positions irrespective of whether half the workforce is excluded or not. If male workers feel threatened by the possibility of equally talented women joining their professions, such men should excuse themselves to the nearest male-supremacist "safe space" and rub their favourite Hugh Hefner talisman to offset the disruption in the ether, then hand in their man cards. The sexes are not in competition.
Well, 'cause if they were, eventually there wouldn't be any people left...
But seriously, unless you're planning to be an ascetic or survivalist (and even then it's questionable), collaboration and social-emotional intelligence are vital in every form of employment, whether STEM or otherwise. Even if one achieves a certain level of career success or functionality without them, the experience will be far less satisfying, and likely also less successful even on metrics with less emotional loading, since effective collaboration allows one to leverage not only one's own strengths and skillsets, but also those of others.
I would agree that part of changing the trajectory of females (and other under-represented populations) into STEM fields is re-defining what good engineers and scientists look like not only literally, but in terms of their critical skills. We've historically tended to call some of these "soft skills", but other names for them might be collaborative, team-building, management, resource development and integration, rhetorical (in the classical sense of presenting a convincing argument), leadership, etc.
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
What’s been your approach in your parenting vis-a-vis inculcating STEM skills for your children, particularly your DD? (IIRC, you have a DD and a DS.)
Good memory. I try to influence both my children to do STEM, logic, and strategy activities equally. My DD is gifted in just about every area, and all signs indicate that she could have a career in STEM (years from now) if she were inclined. She picks up a lot of algebra concepts easily at the age of 9. But she's also a gifted writer, artist, and musician. Lately her interests are in the area of biology. Although we have a duoscope, she spends a lot of time doing art projects. Meanwhile, her brother is playing chess and building legos (almost obsessively). I showed my daughter how chess pieces move, and she just wasn't interested in playing. My daughter has lego sets too but she's not obsessed like her brother.
In the end I follow their interests, and will help both of them optimize their happiness to the best of my ability (and the highest salary career doesn't necessarily lead to the greatest happiness). I wont be over-bearing and force them into something they don't want to do. DD is phenomenal at book learning, and gets 100s on the vast majority of her math work, but she doesn't show the inclination towards math and engineering that her brother does. DS doesn't fair quite as well at school (though he is still at the top of his class), but anyone who has ever seen him build is immediately impressed. It's hard to imagine he wont have a career designing things.. but then again I'm an EE and at the age of 7 I was obsessed with horses.
These are only 2 examples. Overall, the memo is sloppy and doesn't cite a single source supporting its claims (or a summary of why study results often contradict each other).
I guess this is what happens when "news outlets" decide for some reason to strip the memo of its sources.
Where I live some middle school girls participate in Technovation, mentored by a high school girl.
Quote
Technovation offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the skills they need to emerge as tech entrepreneurs and leaders. Every year we invite girls to identify a problem in their community, and then challenge them to solve it.
Girls work in teams to build both a mobile app and a business plan to launch that app, supported by mentors and guided by our curriculum.
Technovation's curriculum takes students through 4 stages of launching a mobile app startup, inspired by the principles of design thinking:
My DD14 went to TechNights, weekly meetings on technical topics for middle school girls, at Carnegie Mellon. Then she decided she wanted to stop, and I was fine with that. Then she started attending a weekly math series, also at CMU, and I support that. I'm encouraging her to look at the STEM areas, but allowing her to make her own decisions.
Her older sister enjoyed science and engineering when she was young. Then it was Theater. Then music/music therapy. I encouraged her to invetigate all of them and decide what she really liked. She ended up founding he Womens Engineering club as a Junior in HS and is now an engineering sophomore at a top 10 school. If she had decided theater was her thing, I would have supported it the same. [with multivariate Calc and Thermo next semester, let's see if she decides Theater actually wasn't all that bad. ]
As noted early in this thread, there's a difference between exposing/informing and mandating. Having girls miss out on something they would enjoy because they don't know about it is similarly bad to forcing them to do STEM when they don't want to.
The U.S. Education Department has opened investigations into whether scholarships and professional networking groups intended to support women at Yale University and the University of Southern California violate federal law by discriminating against men.
...
The government dismissed parts of Mr. Pekgoz’s complaints, including concerns about Yale Women in Business and USC’s Gender Studies Program and its Center for Feminist Research, after finding that they don’t exclude or discriminate against men. But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
...
Sanctions against USC or Yale are far from certain, and the Education Department’s investigation could yield no findings of discrimination. But Mr. Pekgoz said he is hopeful about his proposal to phase out what he called “affirmative action for women.”
“I think the current administration promotes a fairer approach that takes into account the interests of all students,” Mr. Pekgoz said.
Mark Perry, an economics and finance professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has filed similar complaints with school officials at his university and at Michigan State University.
“There was this huge double standard,” said Dr. Perry, a faculty affiliate at Flint’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Women are “still treated like they’re underrepresented, like they’re weak and victims and need all this support.”
In 2016, Dr. Perry filed a state civil rights complaint against Michigan State, alleging the school discriminated by offering a women-only study lounge. Michigan State opened the space to all students that summer. And starting this year, the Flint campus agreed to open to all faculty five awards that previously were available only to women or to minorities.
Dr. Perry said he is still awaiting response to his inquiries about roughly a dozen other University of Michigan initiatives, including graduate fellowships and scholarships and a program for freshmen women interested in computer science.
The U.S. Education Department has opened investigations into whether scholarships and professional networking groups intended to support women at Yale University and the University of Southern California violate federal law by discriminating against men.
...
The government dismissed parts of Mr. Pekgoz’s complaints, including concerns about Yale Women in Business and USC’s Gender Studies Program and its Center for Feminist Research, after finding that they don’t exclude or discriminate against men. But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
...
Sanctions against USC or Yale are far from certain, and the Education Department’s investigation could yield no findings of discrimination. But Mr. Pekgoz said he is hopeful about his proposal to phase out what he called “affirmative action for women.”
“I think the current administration promotes a fairer approach that takes into account the interests of all students,” Mr. Pekgoz said.
Mark Perry, an economics and finance professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has filed similar complaints with school officials at his university and at Michigan State University.
“There was this huge double standard,” said Dr. Perry, a faculty affiliate at Flint’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Women are “still treated like they’re underrepresented, like they’re weak and victims and need all this support.”
In 2016, Dr. Perry filed a state civil rights complaint against Michigan State, alleging the school discriminated by offering a women-only study lounge. Michigan State opened the space to all students that summer. And starting this year, the Flint campus agreed to open to all faculty five awards that previously were available only to women or to minorities.
Dr. Perry said he is still awaiting response to his inquiries about roughly a dozen other University of Michigan initiatives, including graduate fellowships and scholarships and a program for freshmen women interested in computer science.
An interesting collection of opinions. I assume you posted this quote in this thread because the gentlemen quoted are fathers of daughters in STEM fields, and their opinions bring to bear information about how their views shaped their daughters' STEM careers. Do they comment elsewhere on how their views have informed their own daughters' STEM progress?
Meh. It’s a WSJ opinion piece, and should be treated as such.
My personal take is that they mis-ordered their acronym. SJW is more appropriate. Galloping to the defense of that pathetic and downtrodden minority, the wealthy white male.
No, Dude and aquinas, the WSJ piece is from the news section, not the opinion section.
Meh. It’s a WSJ opinion piece, and should be treated as such.
My personal take is that they mis-ordered their acronym. SJW is more appropriate. Galloping to the defense of that pathetic and downtrodden minority, the wealthy white male.
No, Dude and aquinas, the WSJ piece is from the news section, not the opinion section.
