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Re:‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for sci... by rsynnott on Monday June 10, 2019 @05:07AM (#20145046)
I think this stuff actually is pretty regional/local; participation rates by women are much better in some non-Anglosphere countries.

Edit: It can also become weirdly specific; participation in computer science and physics remain quite low here (Ireland), say, but I believe most chemistry undergrads are now women.

Re:‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for sci... by xondono on Monday June 10, 2019 @05:59AM (#20145248)
I was referring way more the prevalence of those type of comments through education. I don't think participation rates are very different than other countries. From my experience (I have a rather weird educational path, so I have anecdotal data on engineering, math & physics undergraduate courses).

Engineering and physics have similar ratios around 10% to 20%, while maths is way higher around 50/50 (the rates for the classes I was taking were actually higher, but that's another story). Chemistry here also is mostly women.

The only hypothesis that fits my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, is that there's quite a difference in the interests of men and women, and that the country differences in enrollment are more a symptom of how the curricula are structured.

For example, Spain does not have CS degrees structured like in the anglosphere, so depending the subfield you intend to work on, you should go to engineering instead. Most of the women I met at engineering would have chosen a CS degree over engineering if there was one. I have seen stark differences too in physics, were the majority of women there wanted to pursue pure theoretical physics with pretty much none of them showing interest in applied physics.

Re:‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for sci... by 0815test on Monday June 10, 2019 @05:19AM (#20145091)
It's a bit puzzling/weird because as it turns out, participation rates in technical fields tend to be "better" in places where women are comparatively worse off, and vice versa. Many people think that these "better" participation rates don't actually reflect anything like a full equalization in underlying interest, and that can still be a problem for women in the longer run.