Re:Girls perform better academically in almost all countries...
by asdff on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @01:49PM
(#26402210)
I think the training environment at the undergraduate level is still toxic for women. I graduated 4 years ago, and while I wasn't in the CS program I had a female friend who was and she often lamented how isolating that program could be. This was a huge program at a huge school (50k undergrad), yet she was often one of only a few women in the program, and as she progressed she became even more of a minority as others switched majors. Of course there were hardly any women professors or role models as well.
Engineering is a field that selects for a certain personality, not all the time, but I think everyone here knows at least a couple classmates like this who are pretty arrogant, stubborn, self validating, the type to argue with the TA over their wrong homework answer for half the class, and never one to admit shortcomings. It's also a major that encourages regular group projects, where you might be stuck with personalities like this, or legitimately total creeps with questionable hygiene (I've seen all of this even outside CSE in my program). I think we all remember a few creeps from the undergrad days, too. Frankly, many of these men, especially in that age between 18-22 when you are basically a high schooler in maturity and might never had a female friend before due to social awkwardness, are overtly misogynistic, maybe without even knowing it just by cracking dumb jokes for cheap laughs among their male friends.
In majors with more representation among women, you are less likely to be saddled with these personalities (or even have to do massively weighted capstone group projects), and more likely to have camaraderie among people in the same boat as you, and are more likely to see through the major without switching to another one.
Engineering is a field that selects for a certain personality, not all the time, but I think everyone here knows at least a couple classmates like this who are pretty arrogant, stubborn, self validating, the type to argue with the TA over their wrong homework answer for half the class, and never one to admit shortcomings. It's also a major that encourages regular group projects, where you might be stuck with personalities like this, or legitimately total creeps with questionable hygiene (I've seen all of this even outside CSE in my program). I think we all remember a few creeps from the undergrad days, too. Frankly, many of these men, especially in that age between 18-22 when you are basically a high schooler in maturity and might never had a female friend before due to social awkwardness, are overtly misogynistic, maybe without even knowing it just by cracking dumb jokes for cheap laughs among their male friends.
In majors with more representation among women, you are less likely to be saddled with these personalities (or even have to do massively weighted capstone group projects), and more likely to have camaraderie among people in the same boat as you, and are more likely to see through the major without switching to another one.