New study into lack of women in Tech: It's not the men's fault A new study into causes of the scarcity of women in technical and scientific fields says that it is not discrimination by men in the field keeping the ladies away. Nor is it a repugnance felt by women for possibly dishevelled or unhygienic male nerds. No, the reason that young women don't train in Science, Technology, …
It starts at home with the parents and how they encourage a child. Girls tend to be told they are smart and clever when they do something, where as boys are told they tried hard. This leads to girls giving up when things get difficult and boys keeping at it in order to succeed.
This is then reinforced at school - teachers offering different praise to girls than boys, and so the problem persists. Ultimately it results in girls not trying as they don't like failing where as boys keep pushing until they get it right.
Fixing it early means we won't see any change for years, and there is no real fix for those who are making the choices now.
"This is then reinforced at school - teachers offering different praise to girls than boys"
Or just offering flat-out bigotry. When I was in grade school (primary school, elementary school), the teachers were very clear that only boys were supposed to be good at math. Luckily, I hated that school and thus felt no need to conform to their expectations.
(The teachers were equally clear that only girls were supposed to be good at spelling and composition, with equally predictable results.)
Were the teachers making "it clear that only boys were supposed to be good at math" male or female? I'm really curious. I did not encounter a male teacher until high school. The math teachers there however were evenly split and they seemed truly interested in the math and with encouraging others to love the subject matter. And this was back in the late sixties and early seventies. I can hardly believe that good teachers would fail to nurture talent wherever they found it. Perhaps teachers are worse now.
I realize this is n=1, but my wife, whose father is a chemist, decided to go into social psychology. She took chemistry and hard maths in high school and university. She never once heard a teacher or professor say women shouldn't go into science, directed at her or at any other girl in the classroom. Nonetheless, she was only one of three girls in advanced girls in high school advanced chemistry.
Well, considering my wife's observations, perhaps we can day it's n>1.
@Cari
"Unfortunately, for the impatient types that want the imbalance "corrected" Right Now, addressing the real cause would take too long."
And this is the case with nearly any real or perceived issue that governments put their noses into. They are stuck in the mentality of election cycles and partisanship and very, very few have any real interest in fixing anything. (And those that do tend not to advance to positions where they can affect any change.)
In this instance, I believe the 'problem'* is a self-perpetuating one and thus one that will only get fixed gradually. It's also quite possible that it is related to sexism but I contend that it is not related to sexism today - at least not in a major way.
While I think it is perfectly possible that innate differences in gender contribute at least part of this, I suspect that it is a hangover from earlier times when women just didn't go into these fields and were not generally considered as good as the men.
The next generation of girls were raised by mothers who didn't have any real background in 'STEM' and as they were growing up, there were very few female role models in those areas. As it was more acceptable for this generation to be educated similarly to males and work in whatever fields they wanted, more did end up in these areas. Their children would be a bit more likely and so on.
In other words, the environment in which girls are raised and the visibility - or not - of women in these areas is a contributing factor to how interested they will be in STEM.
In that sense, I can see some benefit in artificially trying to boost the numbers of women in these fields as seeing more women in these professions will have a flow-on effect.
BUT, it can't be fixed just by doing that - you need to tackle it from all sides, especially by trying to get girls interested in these subjects early on.
* - I don't actually believe it is a 'problem' per se - after all, is it really some great societal ill that there aren't many female coders or sysadmins? Are there women out there who have missed out on a life of fulfillment because they never cared for maths at school and thus never even considered a career in technology or physics or engineering? Maybe but no more so than there are people of all stripes who 'missed out' on a life of celebrity because they were born into a middle-class working family of no great creativity or who missed out on being high-paid footballers because their parents were academics.
Unproven and doubtful.
People keep pretending we're living right after the 1960s. It is now 2015. I would say my US middle school classes were evenly balanced between the men and the women. And yes, I was in the highest academic group at my school. We were all taught algebra at the same time and we all progressed through geometry, trig, and calculus. As these were essentially the required track for academics, the numbers in those classes didn't change. I will observe however that for the only optional math class I took (probability and statistics), the numbers fell off by about half.
Now when you look at the sciences it is a whole other story. There we had some flexibility. While everyone took something they called Earth Sciences (I can't even recall exactly what they taught in that one) and Chemistry, in the following years we had choices of Biology, Anatomy, Physics, Nuclear Science, Geology and Astronomy. A fair number of the women ditched Physics in favor of Anatomy and there were none in the Nuclear Science group. Sadly it turned out the Geology and Astronomy classes were the ___ for Jocks classes.
When I got to college, there was one woman in my Astronomy group and maybe three in our Physics (boffins not engineers) group.
Whatever choices they are making, it is NOT societal pressure which contributes to them. The only ones pressuring anyone are the ideologues who are committed to the idea that the science must equally represent women even if the women are freely choosing otherwise.
Construction, roadworks, rubbish bin operators, truck drivers. mechanics carpenters... no maths required there, yet not many females in those occupations either.
Let's just face facts. Different jobs appeal to different people and for some reason or other the set of people who are drawn to STEM is typically male.
This is not necessarily a problem and doubtlessly any PC government program to intervene will just end up causing more problems than it solves.
"its a bit of a self fulfilling thing: after all who wants to go into a profession dominated by the opposite sex?"
i remember the 'good old days of the eighties' I saw many a job advert along the lines of:
"Male or Female bricklayers wanted. Must be willing to strip to the waist in summer".
I kid you not.
Unless you really hate the opposite sex, or you're homosexual, why, why should you really want to go into a profession dominated by the same sex???
If I knew I would have ended up in a male only environment working in IT, I would have reconsidered my choice, thirty years ago!!
Usually when a sex dominates an environment, bad behavioiurs are amplified, and good ones softened.
The main point I'm trying to make is that these gender biasses are just natural and we'll break things if we try to force then to obey some idealogical ratio.
Back in the 1960s, medical doctors were almost exclusively male. Until then there had certainly been a socailly driven gender role bias that made medical doctoring a male profession. By the 1980s there was a large % of females in medicine. When I was at university in mid 1980s my gf was a medic. Around a third of her class were female. Now over half the medical graduates are female.
From that you can see the effect of Western women's lib which opposed gender bias in the late 1950s/ early 1960s. There was a lag for the changes to be felt, and the early 1980s was when the change came through.
So why did the same happen in engineering? It would be absurd to say that medicine was given the nod, but the patriarchy held on to engineering as a male domain.
Nope, the restrictions were removed. Engineering etc just has less appeal for women as a group.
I've found that people are quick to think that there's one, and only one, cause of a problem/issue instead of the possibility that multiple factors play a part. I'm sure that lack of appeal is a major factor, but so too is lack of encouragement/support during the formative/developmental stages. Math can be very hard for some people, ridiculously easy for others, and somewhere in between for the rest of us. Depending on where you fall in ability the kind of support, or lack thereof, can be a major contributor. Of course some individuals will manage to persevere in their goal(s) in spite of any obstacles, but how many of them are there and how many just give up, or never even try, and do something else? True equality comes not from having some near perfect 50/50 split, but from ensuring equality of access so that those who would, could pursue those goals...
"This is not necessarily a problem and doubtlessly any PC government program to intervene will just end up causing more problems than it solves."
Isn't it funny how the "equality" compaigners never make a fuss about the lack of men in nursery school teaching or nursing or elderly care etc etc? Seems to me the fuss about a lack of women in IT is just an excuse for self righteous right-on whiners and complainers to justify their otherwise pointless existence by making a fuss about a non issue.
> Isn't it funny how the "equality" compaigners(sic) never make a fuss about the lack of men in nursery school teaching or nursing or elderly care etc etc?
But they do - you just don't hear about it here. My other half is a teacher: the TES and the NUT rag regularly run articles about the lack of male teacher role models at infant and primary level. IIRC they also diagnose the problem as boys being steered towards "traditionally male" occupations, the irony being that they are in a better position to do something about it.
"My other half is a teacher: the TES and the NUT rag regularly run articles about the lack of male teacher role models at infant and primary level. IIRC they also diagnose the problem as boys being steered towards "traditionally male" occupations, the irony being that they are in a better position to do something about it."
Wait...what? It's all the fault of female teacher steering boys and girls into stereo-typical roles but Libbers blames the men in STEM related positions for oppressing the weaker sex?
"truck drivers, yet not many females in those occupations either."
Originally this had something to do with the lack of power assistance on the steering making it very difficult for a woman to control a HGV. These days, with modern trucks, it's much easier and we do see more women driving trucks. It's still seen as a 'male dominated' job, of cause, but nothing like it once was.
"Originally this had something to do with the lack of power assistance on the steering making it very difficult for a woman to control a HGV. These days, with modern trucks, it's much easier and we do see more women driving trucks. It's still seen as a 'male dominated' job, of cause, but nothing like it once was."
Well, in Australia and the 'mining boom', we have seen that lots of the people driving the big dump trucks (which are electric) are women.
As told to me by a friend driving one, the view is that women are the more careful drivers, which is a useful trait. Unfortunately, that's sexism because it is impossible to say that women are more careful without asserting that men are less careful. That's how comparisons work!
But maybe this, like the lack of women in STEM areas is down to upbringing as well. Perhaps - and I am only speculating here - the interest in big machinery and trucks and so forth that many boys have means that they get a thrill out of driving these machines whereas women aren't really fazed and to them it's just a job and so they do it without injecting any excitement and thus are more careful.
The mining companies did a *lot* of trials and analysis, and found that men in general are heavier on the throttle, which puts more wear on the tyres. Since the main cost associated with the big mining trucks is tyre wear, the hiring companies were instructed to pick the candidates with the lighter touch, which was predominantly the females in each intake. If you're only picking 3-5 candidates, and there are 60 applicants, even if only 10% are female, you'll get a lot more coming through the system.
Yes, a driver might earn $100,000/yr, but each tyre on a big caterpillar is currently costing between $90-150,000 and you need 6 on a truck.
Apparently underinflation also burns up to 15% of tyre life - it's something they *really* pay close attention to.
That is not merely an assertion but a statistically proven fact. US insurance companies couldn't make money selling car insurance to women at lower rates than men if women weren't more careful drivers. Yet they did so for decades, including the so called sexist 50s and 60s. They only stopped when some male got his panties in a bunch and sued for sexual discrimination. Now women subsidize male insurance.
How many TV progs, Newspaper pages etc etc are given over to Fashion, makeup, hair care etc. (The only way is Essex etc etc etc)
IMHO these all seem to gove off an image that it is 'not the done thing' for a woman to get their hands dirty. Many progs actually go out of their way to re-inforce the steretype view that a woman can't fix anything mechanical or electrical.
With this and the bombadrment of 'Pink is wonderful and fluffy and girly' adverts that are aimed at girls is it any wonder that most women don't even give a nanoseconds thought to studying STEM subjects?
That directly leads to the lack of women in Science, Engineering and Tech outside of managerial positions.
It was nice to see a good number of Female Engineers working on Crossrail but sadly I have encountered very few women in my 40+ years of working life that were prepared to get their hands dirty.
Those that I did work with were pretty good at their job.
A sorry state of affairs.
Looking on the bright side, both of my grandaughters are at Uni. One is taking Physics and the other Bio-Mechanical Eng. Sadly they are in the minority.
" 'Pink is wonderful and fluffy and girly'"
The neighbours' kids were given a new ball which happened to be pink. A 6 year old boy handed it to a girl - saying "I don't like pink - it is for girls". Possibly nothing unusual in that - except he is the only boy in the after-school ballet class - by his own choice.
I've seen parents rush over to stop their young children playing with gendered toys when they are the wrong apparent gender. Recently there was a male child playing with the princess lego set so the parent took it off the child and gave him the weapons of mass destruction lego set instead.
My experience is rather different from yours, before I got involved in IT I spent many years as an archaeologist. Now that's a profession with a high percentage of women in it and they do get their hands dirty (and just about every other part of their anatomy). Being an idle sod I can't be bothered to find any stats, but again in my experience they also form a large part of the more scientific sectors of the archaeological world.
In many jobs were women are the main force they gets their "hands dirty" - being a nurse, cook, factory worker (and even farmer worker) etc. requires to work with your hands, and often getting them really dirty. Probably some jobs were regarded too heavy or even dangerous for women, especially when machines were not available.
Archaeology is a subject that was depicted by media as a woman acceptable subject since at least the invention of the exotic adventure novel - how to get the young beautiful heroine in some remote exotic location to be saved by the mysterious fascinating hero? What better than an archaeologist looking tor a forgotten town? Then came Lara Croft...
Anyway Archaeology still requires little math. Linguistic skills may be more important, and languages always appealed to women. Also it requires patience - a lot of - and careful digging and handling. Qualities often easier to find in women than in men. Conservation and restoration are also jobs that attract many women, probably because it's something between arts and technology - still technology is a tool, not an aim itself.
It's like photography - there are many women in photography - and it also requires good technical skills. Yet you will still see less women interested in the deep technical knowledge of image making - like Ansel Adams for example did to achieve his art - and more in using it as a medium only to reach an artistic/social/whatever result.
Still, it's funny how even accomplished women fall into the "princess mania" when, for example, the day of their marriage come. And how they can drool over their photos for the years to come...
Heck, people like wedding planners (and all their supporting services) and photographers can earn a (good) life from that mania alone! Very few escape that plague.
It's not only that. Look at all the Hanna Montana, Violetta & C. show silliness - hey, if you want to be someone you have to be a singer/actress/dancer/model! Math? Sciences? Nahhhh! They make your skin too pale, and to use a keyboard you need to trim your fingernails!
It's not strange all these characters are female and aimed at girls (of course knowing boys will also watch them for the "esthetic" part...)
You become really someone only if you appear on TV. American Idol, X-Factor and other stupid shows are on the same wavelength.
And it's not strange most of the audience of those shows is female (and often, the winners....). It's an auto-feeding mechanism. It's business, and it works well - who cares of the future of millions of women who will never become famous actresses/singesr/dancers/models? Also, if you work in the showbiz it's good, because you can even exploit easily many of them... and if you work in the showbiz there's a good chance you have very little ethic also...
30 years ago when I was at university (I shudder when I say that) there were - and 'class' size was around 30 students - 4 women in the Chemistry course, and 2 in the physics course.
Across the university campus (which had no arts subject) the ratio of men to women was worse than 10:1, the only course where women were in a majority was pharmacy.
thankfully times have changed.
The media is the greatest purveyor of propaganda there is. They have been responsible for more sexism than any individual. However, none of the brainwashed will ever recognize that fact.
Between soap operas, "reality" tv and womens magazines there are fewer good role models and ideals being proposed than a bus load of sex offenders would.
Congratulations on your grandchildren. Looks like they were raised right despite society's influence.
Some years ago I worked in an overseas country not famous for developing the rights of women. New work roles were being developed for the first time and filling them was proving a challenge. The first few women taken on in the programming and support roles proved as a group, considerably better than the men who had been tried in the roles. More careful, more adaptable and all round more reliable at doing what was required.
Perhaps they saw it as an opportunity in an otherwise, (for them) narrow field.
I guess the narrowness of choices here is why we have no female bus drivers, or truck drivers at all - oh hang on who's driving that bus?
I would say that the selection criteria is completely different.
You pick men who are already all in the field, so you end up with average Joe Bloggs,
Advertise select position for 1 or two female staff ... Get the elite.
Either way, who cares how many are in the profession, so long as its open as a choice to all.
I understand what you mean, but in some countries there is a very different social structure and different expectations. In some countries I've seen men exploiting women skills to do less work themselves, and hiring women for many tasks because men were usually less willingly to study hard, work hard, and less willingly to take orders, especially from someone they might feel inferior in "social" status - because of family origin, age, etc. Usually, I found a male "boss", several women working in delicate roles (often requiring good results at school, like business/law knowledge, foreign languages knowledge, etc.), and then men in lower roles but requiring far less responsibilities and knowledge - in some countries often drinking their wives wages too...
All the places i have worked in IT have had female tech people, less numbers than male, but there nonetheless.
Also women use IT in non-technical jobs like anyone else and in their personal lives like anyone else and they are no better or worse at using IT than non-technical men. It is simply that they don't want to do that job... whats so hard to believe... I don't want a job in fashion because i think its nonsense (wearing what someone tells you because everyone else is), not because i think its a female (or gay) dominated industry although it is.
In the 1960s the computer industry had many women - in programming and tech support they sometimes outnumbered men. Only in hardware engineering departments was it unusual to find a woman. Computer operators were often male - but in those days there were restrictions by some companies on women working night shifts as operators.
Most of the women I worked with had studied maths to "A" Level - but that was often the minimum selection criterion for men too. A university degree was favoured by some development departments but the subject was largely irrelevant. One woman I knew had a degree in Chinese but had failed to get into a Foreign Office career.
The balance changed drastically after about 1980 - possibly as the entrance criteria shifted to favour degrees in computer science. Women were apparently not choosing that subject.
I don't believe it was CS degrees - I believe it happened when home computers broke the CS barrier for many well before university. Before, outside universities, government or big companies, access to a computer was impossible but for a very few lucky ones. In turn, it made a career around computers just a kind of career as any other.
Unluckily, home computers were too often seen and aimed as boy toys - like Meccano or game consoles (although my sister had her own favourite games) - and became soon associated to the nerd stereotype. It is true that when I was a teenager in the '80s, there was already very little interests by girls in computers which became availabe - but for some games they may have liked, usually those where you weren't shooting at something. The "art of programming" never touched them much.
I wouldn't have really cared if my sister had used the computer to make fluffy unicorns play with pink smiling balls instead of spaceships hunting ugly aliens - she would have mastered programming anyway. The good of computers is you can program them to perform what you like.
But she studied maths just to pass her grades, and was never interested - like her female friends - to "play" with it outside school.
Anyway, home computers flooded the market with males who already mastered computers well before entering any uni - and often choose a CS career because of they early interest in computers.
From their response, their last line is what convinced me that they are talking rubbish:
"In light of these analyses, the claims we made in Leslie, Cimpian et al. (1) remain valid as originally stated: Fields whose practitioners idolize brilliance and genius have fewer women."
People who actually knew what they were talking about would not say "we don't like the statistical analysis on this paper which contradicts ours, so ours is definitely true." It's a massive logical flaw that if the proof of the statement is false then the statement itself is false.
While good maths is essential for some branches of STEM related careers - for others it is hardly needed.
Most IT roles have no maths involved - or hardly any basic arithmetic. Maths is my poorest subject - yet in 45 years of IT trouble-shooting and development it was never a handicap. It was surprising how few of my colleagues in recent years had any idea how to handle simple binary arithmetic - something I learned on entering the computer industry after leaving school.
What has been useful in my IT career was my schoolboy knowledge of physics, chemistry, electronics, and English essay writing.
Well it depends by what you mean by most IT roles... I've been in 3rd line IT support for many years and tbh I just google, copy and paste, err I mean I diagnose the problem and identify what technical solutions are available. Now if I was to lets say get into any type of development and I mean the building blocks that we apply to create a "solution" then I would think that maths especially sadistics would be very important.
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