Women Skip Math/Science Careers To Have Families 616
hessian notes a Cornell survey, published in the Psychological Bulletin, of 35 years of sociological studies that concludes that women tend to choose non-math-intensive fields for their careers not because they lack mathematical ability, but because they want flexibility to raise children or prefer less math-intensive fields of science. "'A major reason explaining why women are underrepresented not only in math-intensive fields but also in senior leadership positions in most fields is that many women choose to have children, and the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted,' said lead author Stephen J. Ceci... The authors concluded that hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers, and that studies on social and cultural effects were inconsistent and inconclusive. They also reported that although 'institutional barriers and discrimination exist, these influences still cannot explain why women are not entering or staying in STEM careers,' said Ceci."
Men and Woman are different..... (Score:5, Insightful)
News film at 11.
Well, at least it's becoming okay again to point out what is incredibly obvious to everyone, except feminists with an axe to grind.
but slashdotters are all the same. (Score:2, Insightful)
Y'all never read the darn articles.
What they've found is that the difference in representation isn't justified by biological differences OR barriers and that the child rearing social role plays a big factor.
Erm (Score:5, Insightful)
From the "I thought feminism meant female equality with males" file and the interesting part was the bottom 'recommendation':
"The authors recommended that universities and companies create options for women with math talents who want to pursue math-intensive careers. These could include deferred start-up of tenure-track positions and part-time work that segues to full-time tenure-track work for women who are raising children, and courtesy appointments for women unable to work full time but who would benefit from use of university resources (e-mail, library resources, grant support) to continue their research from home."
Ah, so when feminists talk about 'equality' what they really mean is, "we want special treatment so that we get equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity based on the same starting point". Silly me, and to think that I thought feminism was all about equality with males in regards to the same starting point and a meritocratic system where skills and knowledge are the basis of advancement forward rather than the old boys network.
People wonder why I given feminists as much credibility has hearing Saudi Arabia preach about human rights, tolerance and respect.
Re:This just proves... (Score:5, Insightful)
Medicine : Where this really gets scary (Score:4, Insightful)
Paternity Leave (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Men and Woman are different..... News film at 11. Well, at least it's becoming okay again to point out what is incredibly obvious to everyone, except feminists with an axe to grind.
I don't really see how that follows. The article and summary say:
The authors concluded that hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers,
But women have to stay home with kids, right? Well, this gets us to a more balanced conclusion: increase paternity leave and/or make it compulsory, and the effects of one sex happening to be the one manufacturing kids will be greatly mitigated. In other words, the mostly arbitary decision that women have to stay home with the kids is the greatest problem (women don't have to be at home 24/7 to provide breast milk, either.) If both parents take the hit, the system will have to choose between adapting and just throwing away talent.
For an example of how much a society can do for both parents, check Sweden's stats here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_leave#Europe [wikipedia.org] . Spoiler: 480 days paid paternity leave. (disclaimer: I'm not Swedish)
Re:Cultural issues and Religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Due to nature giving the woman all the birth and child caring bits naturally for centuries the woman stayed home. It's something built into humans and to think you can change centuries of instinct with a few bra burnings is silly.
Women who rather be career driven just have a chip on their shoulder because most women still rather do things the old way. It's time they realise this and quit thinking that women will dominate these areas and make the labs pink.
Weep with laughter! (Score:2, Insightful)
But creationists say the purpose of their visits to what some describe as "temples to evolution" is to train themselves to think critically, not to pick rhetorical fights with curators or other visitors.
Oh God! Mental note: Don't hire anyone from Liberty University, VA.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
When will this obvious situation be put to rest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Women have different interests for their own reasons. Oddly, "researchers" haven't chosen to simple ASK women about their choices. The very notion that there is discrimination holding women back is nonsense and has been nonsense for a very long time. We've spend decades walking on eggshells trying to man women in the workplace more comfortable as a form of "affirmative action" to what end? A whole lot of hassle and needless tax benefits for "woman/minority owned businesses" and stuff like that? While we are compensating for the choices that people make, let's offer benefits to those who choose a particular religion to follow and whichever is the minority in a region, let's give them special privileges and tax exemptions. Also, let's put all "angry black men" who dress exclusively in "thug wear" into a special social category as well.
I am sure I am offending lots of people and a flamebait is the destiny for this comment, but when it comes to choices that people make, it's time we stop compensating for these people. Religion is a choice. Family or career paths are a choice. How people adapt themselves into society is a choice. Let's stop protecting people from and compensating people for the consequences of their choices. No more tax breaks for churches and religious institutions. No more affirmative actions for women and black people. Let's give TRUE equality a chance and take these societal crutches away. There may have been a need for them in the past, but that need has very likely expired.
Re:Erm (Score:4, Insightful)
Feminism isn't being hypocritical here so much as its being incompetent. Not that that makes a big difference in the results. The solution, at least from a feminist perspective, would be to get equality in gender roles instead of trying to monopolize the nurturing role as well as expand into the provider role.
That is, if feminism is serious about this it needs to accept that it's a good thing for a man to provide the primary child care, get child support, etc. This isn't very popular among feminists let alone the mainstream.
Something has to give but most women that I know won't budge on this issue. At this point I'd say resistance to change comes more from women than men even with all the Mr. Mom jokes
Re:Paternity Leave (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel the need to point out that not every father is a loony, even if yours was.
Re:Who's forcing them.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is not whether or not a certain female decides to have a family and drop her career for her family. The problem is what a prospective employer sees.
He sees that you're female and that you have a statistically higher chance to want a family and leave, possibly in the middle of a project. His risk is smaller if he employs a man rather than a woman.
Basically, gays are perfect employees, from an employer's point of view. No family that may interfere. No kids that could get sick and want mommy/daddy home or need someone to take them to the doc. Flexible in their work hours because there's no family to come home to (because your partner could accept you coming home at 10pm every now and then, kids could not). Flexible in his holidays because they're not tied to school holidays in any way. Mostly likely both partners in an employment position, thus possibly cheaper to hire because they don't have to support their family on a single income.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:5, Insightful)
What has science to do with economics? Countries like Russia, China, and India have had remarkable scientific achievements, but have been mired down by their inefficient socialist economies. What they truly need to become successful is training in clerical business jobs, they need to learn how to keep accounting books and inventories. Rocket science they already know.
I'm not sure, but I'd be willing to bet that having ovaries and wombs has a lot to do with this.
Re:Erm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:2, Insightful)
First why on Earth do you think we need to increase the world's population? It won't be long now before we hit 7 billion people on this rock.
Second, you are a racist. To begin with I'd want to see citation to your statistics about Europe. Further, assuming your numbers are correct, I fail to see the problem unless you believe there is something wrong with non Europeans.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Countries like Russia, China, and India have had remarkable scientific achievements, but have been mired down by their inefficient socialist economies.
You misspelled "rampant institutionalized corruption at all levels of government".
Intrinsic Asymetry (Score:5, Insightful)
I think all these discussions skip over the fundamental fact that women are the only ones biologically capable of bringing a child into the world and the 9 month investment that requires rather than the 9 minute (assuming 8 minutes of foreplay) investment from a man.
Yes there will be women quite entitled to skip the whole process entirely. There will be others who will happily give birth and immediately go back to work leaving someone else at home to look after the child be it a stay at home dad or paid nanny. Many many more will enjoy motherhood and accept the hard work raising a child can be.
Evolution has made it so that women are naturally more bonded to their children and want to look after them and for good reason so the species can propagate.
Re:Paternity Leave (Score:5, Insightful)
And, additionally, that there's no reason a mother can't be a loony too.
Re:not just women (Score:3, Insightful)
That's very much like what I've seen going on, overall.
I have no kids, but at my office there are a couple of 'At-home Dads', and it's true that the 'kid-track' people in general put (and are expected to put) a lot less time beyond working hours into all of those things that occur mostly outside working hours, like frantically writing crap for last-minute deadlines and attending every conference you can think of/find an excuse and funding to go to. When school's out they disappear for weeks at a time. Sometimes this is slightly frustrating for those who end up writing the papers etc, but it's all about how supportive the department you work in is. One CS dept I've worked in had no notion of teamwork, let alone support, and at-home parents would be significantly penalised for allowing any of their attention to stray from their jobs - and virtually no women worked there. The place had double-wide doors, because otherwise the academic staff wouldn't have been able to fit their egos into their offices. One researcher actually went off to a conference the week his wife was giving birth, because that's just what you do when you're a hardcore academic - and nobody raised an eyebrow.
The place I now work isn't exactly teamwork central but it's not frowned on, so it's possible to get teams together, at-home parents are encouraged and given support - and the gender divide is now roughly equal, maybe a few more women than men. My boss is an at-home dad and while I write more stuff than he does, he's actually one of the best bosses I've ever had, so the team works pretty well.
Complaining about unfriendly institutional culture may be an old argument but it keeps on coming up, in my opinion in large part because it happens to be fairly accurate. It is about sorting out the perception that taking care of kids is for the 'people with grapefruit up their jumpers', as some other poster on here has said, and that therefore they should not be hired as they will not perform well academically. It's also about working on the perception that the people without the grapefruit have no rational excuse to want to limit their working hours to the numbers stated on their employment contracts, and the idea that you need to work 60+ hours per week to make a useful contribution.
This is going to take a long time, but it may eventually happen if the autist savants in their seekrit academic treehouses put serious work into cementing their tenuous grasp on reality. In the meantime I'm just going to point at them and laugh, which is usually easy because your average maths/science academic department is a sitcom in the making. A cruel one. One that mocks people with mental disturbances. But a sitcom nonetheless.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth be told people have kids for companionship/economic reasons and (the hope) of old age security I think, that has always been the 'traditional' view imho.
I'm guessing you don't have kids? Truth is, despite all the complaining about diapers and sleepless nights and moody teenagers, its overall on average fun, both the initial procreation for a couple minutes (obviously) and the next couple decades of playing and reminiscing about your own youth, etc. Most adults are really just big kids inside and find the kids are an excellent excuse for their own goals of running around in the park and building legos and building tree houses and digging in sandboxes and riding bikes and playing aports and computer and video games. Yeah the wii is for the kids. Sure I'm only pretending to enjoy an afternoon at the waterpark or chuck e cheese, it's all about the kids. Whatever.
Add to it a society where its widely believed that only a creepy pedo molester kidnapper gang member homeless terrorist adult could possibly want to go to a playground UNLESS THEY HAVE KIDS WITH THEM, that turns the kids into a fashion accessory for the parents to have fun.
Re:Erm (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks, very good point. In general the "hard" sciences nowadays are very competitive and short-term goals oriented: publish, get grants, churn out PhDs, etc. This is by and large leading to conservative science. It is now too risky to spend a few years thinking about a deep problem and come up with tentative answers. Universities want to see large numbers of publications.
So this is hurting everyone in the middle-to-long term.
Re:but slashdotters are all the same. (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't understand why it's so hard to combine child rearing with a career though. One of the above posters might have hit on it with his suggestion of extending paternity leave. There's, after all, plenty of young doctorate students out there with kids, so why should it be so much harder for a woman?
Re:Paternity Leave (Score:1, Insightful)
For an example of how much a society can do for both parents, check Sweden's stats
I'm Swedish and male. Split paternity is great for men. But our courts still award care to the woman in case of divorce. And feminists still insist on being awarded jobs because of their gender instead of their work. Women are now consistently getting higher grades in our schools, but this is of course, says the feminists, because of the inferiority of the men's performance. Universities are filled to the brim with women (70-80% on most classes), yet the technical fields are still the men's domain.
My conclusion? There are no shortcuts. Men and women are still different and it's hormonal.
Sexism or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
The above opinion was deemed sexist [wikipedia.org] enough for the person holding it to resign as Harvard's President in 2005.
But this one:
is just fine?
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
I read an article a few week ago that the reason women aren't doing math/science is because *they don't like it*. i.e. The jobs in those fields suck.
After 10 years as an engineer, I concur.
The Problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem might be that we have developed a work-life that is inherently incompatible with a decent home life. Maybe women just make a rational choice on different priorities. Not far from the article's suggestion but I'd go further and recommend changing the workplace for everyone.
Corruption is a consequence (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is a consequence of an economic system where the profit motive has been officially eliminated. Steal $1000 and you got that much for yourself, the whole country lost $1000 and your own share of that loss is $1000 divided by the country population.
The same works for capitalist systems too, of course. In a big corporation where no one has a majority share, decisions are often made by directors who have a bigger interest in getting a fat bonus than in improving the company's situation.
The solution, IMHO, would be a system where the controllers are directly affected by the results, a system where the directors are the owners. In current capitalist countries, companies are often owned by other companies or pension funds. The ultimate decisions are made too far removed from the people who actually own the capital involved.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhm. What does that even mean? I hate to nitpick. I've been doing a lot of reading in the cognitive sciences, too. A lot of those numbers ("people only use 10% of their brains", "Einstein only used 10% of his brain") are totally bogus. Where does that number come from?
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:1, Insightful)
I have a number of complaints with your argument.
1. There are too many people on Earth as it is.
2. Who cares which race is in the majority/minority?
3. You act under the assumption that population growth/shrinkage rates are constant. This is far from the truth. We will likely see birth rates climb after a population drop due to increased availability of land.
4. Races, also, aren't constant. As different races settle in the same area, slowly but surely they begin to blend together. Who knows, maybe 5 or so generations into the future it will be very difficult to tell races apart in certain areas. Then people will find new reasons to descriminate people (Windows v. Linux brand cybernetics, perhaps?)
Re:Corruption is a consequence (Score:3, Insightful)
So, and I am honestly curious, while I disagree somewhat with your views, why are the above countries far worse off than America if both their socialist* governments and our capitalist** government are both flawed and lack profit motive?
To me, it seems foolhardy to blame a country's faults on its economic system. While there are certainly problems caused by them, I believe that problems are caused more by social issues rather than economic issues. Holding large portions of the population back due to long-held beliefs of superiority over women/foreigners/religious sects/etc. and not providing adequate education, social adjustment, medicine, and protection to these sectors can only destabilize the country as a whole.
Though, to be quite honest, the Ayn Rand-ish "Fuck you, I got mine you worthless poor person" mentality is almost as bad as well.
*Definition of "socialist government" may vary.
**Definition of "capitalist government" may vary.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:3, Insightful)
Race is coincidental. The fact of the matter is that the more educated you are the less likely you are to have children. This matters, because the more educated the parents, the less the child costs to raise to the society as a whole. For the general welfare of our society, we'd be better off if different people were having children.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a population drop. It's a population displacement by immigrants from Asia and Africa.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean like that Toyota plant in Indiana (one of hundreds of outsourcing from eastern to western examples)? Or is "outsourcing" only bad when it is the USA that sends a job overseas?
Re:Erm (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in the slightest. Feminists want equal pay without making equal sacrifices. Remember that "women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes" canard? It's based on an hour-per-hour comparison only - ignoring the fact that men put in the majority of overtime, have more experience, and suffer over 90% of workplace deaths and injuries.
Take Xerox for example. When the company was in a tough spot, the CEO didn't have a weekend off for over a year. The CEO was a woman.
Re:but slashdotters are all the same. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only that, but women have more of the innate ability to regulate and juggle all the things necessary for keeping a kid (or two, or three) fed, occupied, out of trouble, at school or sports practice or wherever, as well as the tons of other things she's got to do to keep the home life and kids' extracurricular activities going. I do not have children and do not plan to, but I have observed the men and women in my office who do. The men speak fondly of the kids but admit their wife does most of the actual day-to-day raising, and when these guys are at work they focus on work alone. The women seem more stressed, are always on the phone with the kids or the day care or the doctor or the soccer coach or... etc etc... splitting their mental and emotional energy between work and their family life. This impacts productivity in both areas of her life.
The bottom line? If you want to have children, you should be prepared to realize that it is a full-time job in and of itself. It may not pay the bills, but it is rewarding in other ways (or so they say). Can't afford your lifestyle without two incomes? Then don't have kids. It's only fair to yourself and whatever kids you'd have.
Just my two cents, anyway...
Re:but slashdotters are all the same. (Score:3, Insightful)
But perhaps all of that is not because of some innate difference between men and women but rather a sort of perversion of those old role patterns, where women tend to take up more and more of the roles that used to be man-only but men are not keeping in taking up some of the roles that used to be a wife's responsibilities. There's plenty of blame to go around here, as those men you're talking about don't seem to notice their wife is having to work so much harder but those women also seem to implicitly assume anything child-related is really their domain still.
Or perhaps you're completely right. In any case, I think studies like the one in this story tend to come down more on my side, but we'll probably not now till far in the future after the dust has settled. After all, if you think about it, female emancipation really is a very new phenomenom. (in the context of our society form, I'm aware of historical precedents and such)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:STEM careers are a lot of work... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo.
Nothing chaps my hide more than some pin dick getting paid 20-30% more for a basic business management degree over hard science degrees of all engineering fields.
It glorifies the drunk frat boy and mocks the rest as if they don't have the brains [intuition] and maturity to realize they worked tenfold more to receive far less.
In 1972 the average starting wage for a mechanical engineer [b.s.] was 31K USD. In 1990 it had virtually remained unchanged.
Who in their right mind wants to become fiscally insolvent but with the bragging rights of, ``Oh yeah! Well I'm smarter than you!,'' only to have the pin dick respond, ``Really? Define smarter,'' leaving you realizing how used you have become.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is it that having a family is usually ends up more time-consuming for a woman because women are expected to be the primary care-givers?
Ding ding! We have a winner!
Even though our society supposedly treats men and women the same, it really doesn't. Raising children still generally falls on the woman's shoulders, whether or not she has a man around to help out. If there is one, he usually sits on the couch watching sports while the woman cooks meals, changes diapers, etc. If she's really lucky, he'll actually hold a regular job and bring home a paycheck.
the drivers are not the same (Score:5, Insightful)
the drivers for men in the field are the same as the drivers for women
No way.
Men, especially from about age 15 to 25, are genetically programmed to do things that may impress women. It is this drive that produces Nobel prizes, dictators, fire eaters, and football players.
Look, we can even measure brain structure differences. Think that affects nothing?
To imply that the STEM inequality is a bad thing is to judge women by male standards. Life isn't all about getting published, famous, or powerful. Other things are valuable in life, especially if you are not male. There is nothing wrong with having different priorities in life. To judge women by male standards is to devalue female standards, and thus women.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:1, Insightful)
Interesting to listen to all these males theorizing why women have babies. It is not out of 'habit' or 'instinct.' Women have babies because evolution has designed them to be the givers of life. They are the loving nurturers. They are the fierce lioness defending her cubs.
Hi, female here.
What is this, stereotype Sunday?
Hint: Women are around 50% of the population of the planet Earth, and vary quite as much as the other half. Your 'lioness' schtick, poetic and I suppose admirable in an abstract sense as it may be, nonetheless bears very little relation to reality. You may like to romanticise yourself but don't do it to half the human race, because it's both rude and inaccurate.
Newsflash: Many women don't particularly like babies and aren't drawn to 'nurturing'. Many men, surprisingly, are more interested in the whole parenthood thing than their wives. Why don't you go read Lionel Schriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin", or at least this short article [guardian.co.uk] and reflect a little on the idea that a lot of women feel very much the same way; that babies can be career-destroying, time-consuming and result in the destruction of loving relationships, changing the relationship between parents sometimes for the worse, and that it is only very recently that anybody has begun to express these sentiments openly. It's healthy to be realistic about this stuff. There's a lot of pressure (which you have demonstrated quite well here) for women to care for kids, but many don't, can't and won't.
In short: women choose to have babies for a whole number of reasons. Being a lioness isn't one of them, although being able to kid their own egos into believing that they're like a lioness may have something to do with it. I don't presume to suggest that there's anything wrong with procreating, of course there isn't. It's a job that someone better get on with doing or the human race won't have time to worry about the various environmental catastrophes that allegedly will kill us all eventually. But romanticising and generalising is very, very unhelpful, because real people have real lives and real careers and don't have time to sit around congratulating themselves for doing the 'most important job'.
yeah, encourage men to be preschool teachers (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a shameful disparity here. We must address this.
Also: elementary school teachers, nurses, home health care aides, rape councilers, nannies, maids, interior decorators, etc.
We could start early, with after-school and summer programs for boys only. We could offer special college scholarships for men. We could have college admissions quotas to ensure that classes won't be mostly women.
Really, why the hell not?
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the same way, when outsourcing to China, problems aren't reported because doing so means you lose face, and/or are seen as less loyal to your company.
That said, I don't think that you can say China has a "lack of growth", up until last year they were lightyears ahead of anywhere else in terms of economic growth and they're still chugging forward while everyone else starts sliding backwards. They're rapidly making the transition from ripping off existing tech to being the innovators in their own right.
Re:First step: Understand why women have babies. (Score:3, Insightful)
Further, assuming your numbers are correct, I fail to see the problem unless you believe there is something wrong with non Europeans.
Below, you call out a sibling poster for raising a straw man, and yet here you do exactly the same thing. Europe is home to an incredible diversity in culture, with many ancient and unique small towns/villages which will disappear without increased birth rates. Immigrant populations can't completely maintain the culture of the destination even if they want to, which by observation they very seldom do.
So when the GP post said
Most places in Europe would be well served by a doubling or tripling of the number of native babies.
and you countered with
Second, you are a racist.
I have no choice but to paraphrase your own response:
I fail to see the problem unless you believe there is something wrong with Europeans.