Study: Science Still Seen As a Male Profession 295
sciencehabit sends news of a study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology which found that science is still perceived as a predominantly male profession across the world. The results were broken out by country, and while the overall trend stayed consistent throughout (PDF), there were variations in perception. For explicit bias: "Countries where this association was strongest included South Africa and Japan. The United States ranked in the middle, with a score similar to Austria, Mexico, and Brazil. Portugal, Spain, and Canada were among the countries where the explicit bias was weakest." For implicit bias: "Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, and Sweden were among the countries with the highest implicit bias scores. The United States again came in at the middle of the pack, scoring similarly to Singapore. Portugal, Spain, and Mexico had among the lowest implicit bias scores, though the respondents still associated science more with men than with women."
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nursing and Childcare are *still* seen as female professions. Who gives a fuck?
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Nobody gives a fuck. That's why we see the social justice crowd trying so hard to make these total non-issues into issues. Since this isn't the kind of thing that normal people get worked up about, being a non-issue, those trying to push the extremist social justice agenda try to plaster this shit wherever they can. But the social justice crowd lacks the finesse that other political marketeers possess. So instead of intelligent, targeted messages, the social justice crowed just brute forces this shit over e
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice how there's never any headlines proclaiming the travesties of the coal miner gap, or how homeless bottle picking is seen as a male profession.
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Yeah, it's surprising how people want to make things better, instead of just worse for everyone.
This MRA myth that it's about numbers needs to die. It's about access to the professions people want access to, regardless of gender. Thus the underlying assumption is that women aren't interested in science, which is demonstrably false.
How about no one has to mine coal or collect bottles to survive? I bet that blows your mind, huh?
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How about no one has to mine coal or collect bottles to survive? I bet that blows your mind, huh?
Depends on how you plan to implement that. And don't forget logging, and working on oil rigs. Or will we be okay without wood and oil as well as coal ?
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I certainly hope we will be okay without oil in the long run... And with modern equipment logging is fairly safe now. That's not the point though.
You can't force people to do things. Women already want to be scientists.
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And with modern equipment logging is fairly safe now.
You have a strange definition of 'safe'
http://circanews.com/news/onth... [circanews.com]
That's not the point though
The point is that women aren't complaining about equality when men do the majority of dangerous and dirty jobs.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the point though.
You can't force people to do things. Women already want to be scientists.
And women already are scientists - and engineers. I've worked with a dozen or more - I wasn't keeping count though.
Perhaps they would be a good place to start when trying to get more women involved in STEM careers.
And that is the strangest thing, we don't seem to hear much about women who are already in STEM, only how men are keeping them out of STEM.
Want a role model for women in STEM? Ty Hedy Lamarr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
Here is the co-inventor of spread spectrum radio and a few other things, extremely intelligent, and if it important to anyone, stunningly beautiful.
But there are obviously many more. Why don't we hear more about them?
STEM, especially for the Scientists and engineers is not a career for the easily dissuaded. You are studying while the MBA and liberal arts students are partying - that's not hype.
And to claim that some woman has been so negatively affected by a photo of a playboy model's face, or a sophmoric joke about a dongle that it causes rejection as a career is as sensible as saying looking at a Barbie doll caused a girl to become bulemic. A scientist would tell you that the eating problem already existed, and at worst, the Barbie Doll, was merely a fixation.
In the end, the women in STEM movement does women a terrible disservice, painting them as weak creatures, all too easily dissuaded from careers that they would otherwise excel in, just by sexual references or distractions.
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How is science inaccessible to women? Schools and employers are already actively picking less qualified female-identified persons over more qualified male-identified persons in the STEM fields so they can fill quota's.
I know many women which are in the science field, however less females are encouraged by their home (especially in case of the religious) societies to do so. That is what this study is all about, the perception by people's home societies is that males are 'better equipped' to do STEM, this isn
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You forgot to elaborate how on earth was this about "access to professions regardless of gender".
The idea that gender disparity can only be caused by some sort of discrimination is based pretty much on religious views and have nothing to do with science.
Men and women are different and TEND TO choose different professions. .
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I think the belief that women and men are so psychologically different is what causes them to be different.
There are some general differences in chemical composition (estrogen vs testosterone), and that mainly only plays an affect during & after puberty, but the most formative thoughts of our youth are environmentally malleable (their parents thoughts). These thoughts are products of physical results of those chemicals guiding the formation of social roles around physical form: men are generally stronge
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So how about we just let people go into any career that makes them happy and fulfilled, and not worry about their gender? Want to be a nurse, a scientist, a homemaker? Male or female, who cares, just do it.
The only issue here is that society doesn't see it that way. The issue isn't that "oh man, women are 51% of the population but only 41% of the scientists (numbers not meant to be accurate, just illustrative) so we have a crisis and we better do whatever before the sun implodes." The issue is to allow and
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Women are still going to be 100% of the mothers and men 100% of the fathers.
Not necessarily. Men can carry a baby to term via embryo implantation and abdominal pregnancy [wikipedia.org]. A gynecologist once discussed abdominal pregnancy on a TV show, and mentioned that it was possible for a man to gestate a baby, but she didn't think any man would be interested. She later claimed that she was contacted by dozens of men willing to volunteer.
Disclaimer: I was not one of the volunteers.
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Was Arnold Schwarznegger one of the volunteers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Men can carry a baby to term via embryo implantation and abdominal pregnancy.
This is so insanely dangerous (to both parent and fetus), that any physician who assisted in setting such a thing up would be in danger of having their license yanked. A number of healthy live births have been reported, but most often this special case of ectopic pregnancy ends up being surgically aborted -- because when allowed to proceed the likely scenario is massive hemorrhage followed by demise of the fetus (and maybe the parent too).
That being said, it makes for an interesting thought experiment. You'd probably want to select for a male embryo to implant, as the man's hormones will cause abnormal genitalia in a female infant. You might be able to alleviate this problem with testosterone suppression therapy (after all, females normally have a small amount of circulating testosterone naturally -- but it really doesn't take much excess to virilize a female fetus). What to do about other hormones is also an interesting question -- for instance, how necessary would it be to supplement progesterone, for instance?
Another important issue is the immunological tolerance that occurs in the female, we don't know if males will respond appropriately to with induction of the special partially-suppressed state that occurs during pregnancy. We also don't really know what all the hormones and other substances pumped out by the placenta and fetus would do to the male host.
Different genders, different choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Should women be given free choice or not? One wonders exactly what the social-justice crowd had in mind.
The vast majority of women choose to study social sciences. Men don't.
Should their freedom of choice be curtailed? Should we 'force' women to study something they're not interested in? Because if such inhibition of personal freedoms is not acceptable then perhaps we should stop treating these obvious gender-aligned differences in preference as "flaws", and start treating them as "features" of our s
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If by "truth" you mean reaving nuttiness that you made up, then sure.
But seriously, I think you need to seek a professional therapist. You're anger at the world is certainly doing you harm.
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Here's the thing. There may be programs trying to get men into nursing. I have no interest in being a nurse, and I never have. I know it can be a rewarding career, and there's certainly little in the way of layoffs in that field. I just don't want to do that kind of work.
And you know what? I can see why a woman may say the same thing about IT or STEM. I certainly didn't get into IT for the social aspects, I had to actually like what I was doing and want to do it.
I don't think you can make a field welc
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gender studies majors do.
See, they make their career out of pushing to get more women into careers that nobody is keeping women out of but in which there are not nearly as many women as there are men, because women choose to go into things like... gender studies... instead.
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except for these
http://pattyinglishms.hubpages... [hubpages.com]
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See, they make their career out of pushing to get more women into careers that nobody is keeping women out of but in which there are not nearly as many women as there are men, because women choose to go into things like... gender studies... instead.
But, why wouldn't women want to enter a field with heavily competitive behavior (both for grants, and for credit) and high risk (because you might not discover anything)? It's not like women don't like risky competitive behavior any more than men do. I know, because men and women are identical.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nursing and Childcare are *still* seen as female professions. Who gives a fuck?
All the divorced men who get to see their kids every other weekend because the courts say women are 'better' at nursing and childcare (unless she's a drug addict or something, then *maybe* - only maybe - the father might get custody). If the guys are really lucky they might even get to keep enough to survive out of their paycheck too.
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What exactly is your argument? That because the law on child custody is broken women should be punished in other areas to make up for it?
Seriously, what is the point you are trying to make, or is it just a general complaint that adds nothing to the debate?
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This makes it seem like they wish there were more female serial killers.
Well.. as long as they were killing men, of course.
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Have you noticed that anything seen as "women's work" is devalued?
Secretaries used to be paid better before it was seen as a "woman's job" - same with teaching. Nursing is seen as "easy" compared to being a doctor, and the pay very definitely reflects that. Programming used to be a ladies job - once dudes started realizing it was important, it was reframed as a dude's thing and the pay went up.
So yeah, perceptions and stereotypes matter.
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When a woman can do it, it is less worth. Women always strive to grab the lowest hanging fruits. Programming was a ladies job? Too bad it became more complicated and scientific. So only natural the pay went up. And comparing nurses with doctors... ridiculous.
Big hole in that theory (Score:2)
It started that way FFS. Seriously guys, how many PHP cut and paste dudes know assembly for a CPU, any CPU? Programming has got a lot LESS complicated and scientific over time, far less than when Grace Hopper was at the keyboard.
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Nice assertions. Now provide some links to real stats.
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the corporations need more cheap labor (Score:5, Insightful)
Science is Anti-Family (Score:4, Informative)
Amen! Science is a difficult profession with a long and winding road until you get a stable career, and no guarantees even after boatloads of education. You often have to be willing to sacrifice a family and personal life early on to make coin in the profession.
Women tend to value family life and family issues more than men. I won't put a value judgement on that preference here, but the practical side is that science is NOT a family-oriented line of work.
Unfortunately, this is women's perception (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as female culture remains the culture of fear (anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, anti-vax) it is women who will see STEM as being a man's world.
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Re:Unfortunately, this is women's perception (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as science is mostly male, it will be seen as a mostly male profession.
I didn't know the tautology club [xkcd.com] was having a secret meeting here. But seriously, you know what could fix this imbalance? Maybe women who have an interest and the knack for science could, I dunno, go to school for it and become scientists themselves? Then it might balance the gender ratio a bit. I mean, it's worth a shot.
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As long as female culture remains the culture of fear
What is 'female culture?'
Serious question.
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As long as female culture remains the culture of fear
What is 'female culture?'
Serious question.
Culture specifically targeting women and primarily consumed by women, such as women's magazines and a long range of TV show. I think you know a few if you think about it.
They ironically tend to be way more sexist (against women even) than mainstream culture.
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?????? Slashdot thinks this is insightful ??????
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Yes. Slashdot is ... unenlightened ...
You'll find countless cowards (anonymous and otherwise) terrified that they'll be unable to compete with "inferior" groups as their undeserved privilege erodes.
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There is no "correct" gender. There are different genders, each with their own privileges.
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I know, hence the scare quotes. My intent was to highlight that the person to which I replied believes one gender to be inherently superior to another.
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Not superior overall, but some of the differences lead to superiority in certain fields.
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For clarity: You actually believe one gender to be inherently superior to another?
How did you come to hold such a belief?
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There is no "correct" gender. There are different genders, each with their own privileges.
The feminists would have you believe that men keep women down because they dominate politics/etc: The Patriarchy.
This is however quite a bit backward. Men do not dominate politics because they keep women down. Men dominate these things because men have always been the primary protectors and women the primary caregivers. Men build the defenses. Men go to war. The feminists institution present the cause and effect backwards, and they know it but would rather be disho
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Fear in female culture is as big a problem as aggression in male culture. Both the fear and the aggression may have their roots in primordial gender roles ("Protect the cubs!" "Defend the cave entrance!"), but if modern civilization is going to advance we need to grow culture in ways that counteract both these effects.
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if modern civilization is going to advance we need to grow culture in ways that counteract both these effects.
Who decides what is considered "advance" ?
Feminism Friday (Score:5, Funny)
Came a day late this week?
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Sorry, I submitted a better story well in advance but it seems to have been rejected. I'll try harder next time.
Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
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So today is "two wrongs make a right" day?
Having equal but opposite crappyness doesn't offset the original crappiness, it just makes the world twice as bad.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you'd gone to college, you might have noticed that men make up 62% of faculty.
If you had gone to high school, you might have noticed that women make up 84% of the teaching staff. Citation [edweek.org]because you don't.
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It's hard work, and the pay tends to be far below the amount of work expected. Pre-school is exhausting, and grade school and high school often demand as many hours of support work, meetings, after-hours activities, and lesson preparation as hours of actual classroom teaching Many of those teachers also hung on through several deep recessions, and have reached retirement age or worked well past retirement age. And many "district" educational boards are encouraging senior teachers to retire early, so that
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1) The Selective Service should be abolished. There is no reason to have a draft pool anymore.
2) If the Selective Service is to stay, then women should be included in it.
It was a rather large Feminist group, but since Im at work, I cant exactly look up who they are.
Power to the blamers! (Score:2, Insightful)
But things like the Rolling Stone UVA rape hoax, global warming, GamerGate, &c have blown the lid off what a bunch of cheap hucksters the Grievance Industrial Complex are.
Go back to hell and stay there, creeps.
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But things like the Rolling Stone UVA rape hoax, global warming, GamerGate, &c have blown the lid off what a bunch of cheap hucksters the Grievance Industrial Complex are
What? I don't even. How did you get modded up for equating global warming and a rape hoax? How many sockpuppets do you have?
What's more obvious to me ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Order in the universe (Score:3, Insightful)
The greatest unsolved mystery to Man is Woman. Men who don't score try to understand why that is. Men denied a solution are programmed to decompose problems. Less complex than Woman is Science. One cannot hope to comprehend the one prior to the other.
The greatest unsolved to Woman is why Man doesn't get it. Women are programmed to multitask. From birth, they apply a duality of logic: How to serve Tribe and Family equally. To that end, they give hope to the scientists who by extension serve Tribe, and they give body to real men who by application serve Family.
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The greatest unsolved mystery to Man is Woman.
No, not really. Or at least not to anyone with even half of a shred of a clue. The thing to bear in mind is that women are first and foremost people and female comes in at a distant second place.
Most people who "don't undestand" women insist on some sort of dichotomy and "otherness" about women that's almost entirely manufactured. They also conveniently forget about the many women they interact with every day who don't do anything strange. A co-worker, a bus dri
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In both cases if the pussy doesn't do what you want where are you exactly?
And in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Far more men than women are interested in joining the sciences as a career.
So really, Science is predominantly male and that is by choice of the women. The good thing is that any woman that wants to be a scientist and has the talents and skills can be one in the western world. The reality is that most do not want to. Deal with it.
Re: And in other news (Score:2)
You are such a sexist pig. Shame on you. (BTW, women are also badly trailing men in other occupations like mining or welding)
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+4 insightful, with no evidence or even logic presented. The fact is that in many counties 50%of science students at university level are female. The numbers are equalising in work too, although obviously it takes longer. So on what basis do you claim women are less interested? Other countries don't force them into science.
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The fact is that in many counties 50%of science students at university level are female.
What kind of science ? And where's your evidence ?
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Five seconds with Google: http://www.randalolson.com/201... [randalolson.com]
Physical sciences and maths are both above 40% in the US.
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LOL There needs to be a +1 Troll mod, this certainly warrants it on quality alone. I am humbled and impressed. You, sir, are a master baiter.
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Right... I make an argument based on facts, that's trolling. There needs to be a -1 MRA block meta-mod.
Go on, explain why my post is a troll. I dare you to try.
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Whilst your comment MAY be accurate in your experiences it is not true for all (which I suppose you know). It matches much of my experience but there are certainly exceptions. It is like pointing to the black people in prison without actually acknowledging why and expecting that statistic to support that blacks are criminals. Even if it were true there is no reason to post it except in an effort to rile.
But you knew this... Which is why you are the master baiter, I would have posted such myself, had I thoug
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Oh, wait... My comment is not to you. See who it is threaded under.
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That's not terribly interesting. The question you should be asking now is "why".
Because higher levels of testosterone influence the brain to optimize for things that are good for doing science.
Fortunately, we have zillions of studies that indicate it's a social, not a biological, consequence
How do these studies explain why so many gay men go into hairdressing and fashion design ? Because society pushed them ?
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Because higher levels of testosterone influence the brain to optimize for things that are good for doing science.
We call that "pseudoscience" where I come from. In this specific instance, because you're wrapping a belief in the trappings of science to lend the claim credibility without the benefit of actual scientific inquiry. You might as well claim that your healing crystals work because they've been exposed to tachyon energy.
How do these studies explain why so many gay men go into hairdressing and fashion design ? Because society pushed them ?
To my knowledge, that has not been addressed. I am also unaware of any study that establishes a propensity in gay men to become hairdressers and fashion designers.
Your bias is showing...
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without the benefit of actual scientific inquiry
http://pss.sagepub.com/content... [sagepub.com]
I am also unaware of any study that establishes a propensity in gay men to become hairdressers and fashion designers.
Do you really need a formal study for that ? Just walk into a couple of hair salons. It's quite obvious. Also, having been on dozens of plane trips, I yet have to meet a straight male flight attendant.
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Sociological studies. I'm going to guess you don't have any formal background in science.
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Feel free to provide some scientific evidence that contradicts the well-established fact that this is a social and not a biological issue.
Oh, wait, you can't. Sorry about that.
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Feel free to provide some scientific evidence that contradicts the well-established fact that this is a social and not a biological issue.
http://edge.org/conversation/t... [edge.org]
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Here's a study that shows gender-related differences starting in neonatal brains:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov]
Biggest bit of non-news ever (Score:3)
It turns out that in countries where more scientists are men, more people associate men and scientists. Total shocker, I know.
Not Ichthyology (Score:3)
Dorothy Latimer - the coelacanth, Evelyn Trewavas - Rift cichlids, Lynne Parenti - Killifish and presently curator of fishes at the Smithsonian.
It was a woman who identified the DNA molecule as Pauling's alpha Helix, Crick and Watson literally stole her notes form her desk. Madam Curie was the first person to win a double Nobel. This Is off the top of my head. If the report is true it's changed, while the first two women mentioned did have to fight a bit I don't believe Parenti did, by the 80s things had changed I could ask her I guess, maybe I will soon.
Te genus and family of the Coelacanth is named after Dot, Trewavas has fish named after her, Parenti will in time be recognized with honorific scientific name of some Cyprinodont I'm sure.
I don't think it's as bad as the report make sit sound in Ichthyology.
But silence (Score:2)
That test is unscientific (Score:4, Informative)
The implicit bias test used is controversial, to say the least. According to mainstream cognitive psychology, it measures temporary perceptual associations via priming. These do not have a causal relation with higher level opinions. The effect can be caused by something as uninteresting as the local way of referring to science and scientists.
Methods? They had a large number of factors to correlate with their data: 25 (possibly a few more, depending on what you read), and ran a multiple regression over it, and are reporting an effect for every p .05. That's bad science at multiple levels.
It's just another fishing expedition.
Yet another sexist article (Score:3)
Journal of Educational Psychology (Score:3)
Re: Guys just look better in lab coats. (Score:2, Informative)
There are solutions, but it is very hard to convince Americans to accept the hiring of the third-best job candidate in order to get more women into a field. They start going ape and pretending that hiring should be a meritocracy, conveniently ignoring the fact that the playing field for opportunities is skewed male.
Source: I am a woman who plays with particle accelerators for a living. I fix them. I write control software for them. I smash atoms together with them. The women I work with, though woefull
Re: Guys just look better in lab coats. (Score:4, Insightful)
How about if we believe your conclusions but do not think your data supports your claim, ie you are viewing what you wish due to your observations which are obviously (and not a fault) biased?
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Re: Guys just look better in lab coats. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Post made as AC
Welp, I'll gladly be part of the problem not believing something posted on the internet anonymously.
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Yes comrade, we should send them to political reeducation so they learn to think right!
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Yes comrade, we must. For the people and the people's party.
Re:Genderwar Bait Thread (Score:5, Insightful)
I know. So what? They want hatred. They get hatred. For serious discussions I go elsewhere. I would never write anything constructive on /. anymore.
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In other news, crochet, knitting, child care, and midwifery are STILL seen as "Female" professions.
Except when they aren't. [amazon.com]
Re:Can Political Correctness please wake up? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a New York state law banning male daycare teachers from changing diapers.
There is a strong preference in custody cases that the child will end up with the mother, even if she isn't nearly as fit to parent.
There is actually more of a written inequality against men then woman.
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A. The study hasn't been published yet. This is a preview only.
B. It's a psychological study and not sociological. That makes a significant difference as the question only relates to the generic meaning of science, the methodology - or some part of it, is trickery, swapping answer keys randomly, thus getting statistical data for keystrokes.
C. A sociological approach would be more considered and break science down to various disciplines where I feel that results would be different.
The study makes the assumpt
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Oh, yes. Just replace Patriarchy with Matriarchy. That will solve all problems. Not. It will be a bit different, but it will be evil fuckery just the same.
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Indeed.
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I was playing guitar but stopped to check the various feeds before shutting down and heading to bed. Snowshoeing early tomorrow.
[John]
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Not sure why the response. Playing Rage Against The Machine and some Biffy Clyro about 20 minutes ago and will head up into Rocky Mountain National Park around 7am tomorrow to hike around bear lake with my girlfriend.
But hey, hope your parachute works and good luck with the Hooters girls. :)
[John]
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You mean the courts who follow a policy almost wholly dictated by the National Organization for Women, a massive nationwide lobbying organization which has virtually singlehandedly stonewalled any attempt at custody or alimony reform?