The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)

Re:The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) by foldr on Thursday December 12, 2019 @04:26PM (#21776677)

I'm not saying that law and medicine are perfect. But they were once just as stereotypically male as tech is now, and yet have radically shifted their gender balance. Fifty years ago people would no doubt have told you that women just weren't interested in becoming lawyers or doctors. Now a majority of attorneys in the US are women, and more women are enrolling in medical school than men.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) by TulliusCicero on Thursday December 12, 2019 @05:34PM (#21777302)

> But they were once just as stereotypically male as tech is now, and yet have radically shifted their gender balance.

You say this as if the fields themselves decided, but it could just as easily be that women pushed in harder.

> Fifty years ago people would no doubt have told you that women just weren't interested in becoming lawyers or doctors.

Again, what was the difference? You've suggested a relative difference in sexism at the time, but I've seen no data suggesting this. It just looks like a guess on your part.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) by foldr on Thursday December 12, 2019 @06:37PM (#21777739)

I think you are reading a lot into my comment that isn't there. I don't know exactly why women fifty years ago made the decisions that they did. You don't, either.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) by TulliusCicero on Thursday December 12, 2019 @06:50PM (#21777814)

You're being vague and deflecting here. In one comment you suggest that the cause is law and medicine being relatively less sexist, and here you just say, "well, we don't know why they did what they did." Well, which is it? What basis do you have for your earlier point?

> You don't, either.

Why would you even say this? The comment you responded to didn't have me asserting a reason why. It's like you're attacking a strawman.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018) by foldr on Friday December 13, 2019 @02:15AM (#21779734)

>. In one comment you suggest that the cause is law and medicine being relatively less sexist

I claimed that this is the case today. You are the only one of us making any assertions whatsoever about levels of sexism in the 1960s and 1970s, which are irrelevant to choices women make now.

[ Parent | on HN ]