> 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.
Not to counter your point, but natural proclivities and stereotypes are often fighting each other. If a man likes horse-riding, he may not pursue it because in their country that's seen as a girly thing (I'm looking at you, Sweden). If a girl likes horse-riding, she may not do it because in her country that's considered a manly thing (personal experience, different country).
So, all the more reason to fight stereotypes at every step.
If you view "Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox" on YouTube, you will find interesting answers. https://youtu.be/tiJVJ5QRRUE
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.
I'm not sure if that's a paradox. I think the goal of gender equality is not to have 50/50 men/women everywhere. It's to have no one that is blocked from doing something because of their gender, either by others or by themselves. This is usually referred as "equality of opportunities, not equality of outcomes". This is also hard to measure, and could be influenced by society.
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.
I think this is sort of like how male nurses are (I think) more common in India than the US. When the availability of high paying jobs is limited, then the desire for a high paying job trumps both nature and nurture and people pursue it. When there is the possibility of high paying jobs in a variety of fields, then people act more on preferences which are grounded both in nature and nurture to varying degrees.
Speculation: in these countries it's more common to segregate educational programs by gender. So there will be dedicated institutions for women, including institutions or departments that focus on computer science. In this context, it's more natural for women to consider computer science as something that women do. This seems compatible with the original article's hypothesis in the general case.
Natural proclivities is a post hoc rationalization using the sociological process of reification. The process of gaining knowledge assuming a social construct will always suffer from a tautological fallacy. Any attempt to break the cycle is a epistemological illusion.
Nope, it's money. We don't fund tech education, we don't fund women to get degrees in tech, and overall we could not care less as a society if bright students fall over dead in a ditch. Plenty of women that want a compsci degree despite stereotypes, despite the problems associated with being surrounded by a bunch of socially inept men. But will Microsoft, Google, Apple fund this? No.
*EDIT: downvote with a response. Go through the education system and see the truth for yourself or be apart of the problem.
I didn’t downvote, but I’m also left puzzled as to how anything in your comment would explain a difference between men and women’s choices of tech as a career. If you’re saying “fewer women get degrees in tech because we don’t fund them to”, does that mean that we do fund men to do so?
> 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.