Girls in STEM is failing both girls and STEM? 99

[moltenmetal]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/com...m-culture-is-failing-both-girls-and-stem.html

Read the article, THEN discuss...

Growing up, I increasingly saw my good grades as a trap locking me into a single career: STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). It felt like a dystopian YA novel, and my high school report card was The Choosing. A’s in math and science? Here are your jeans and sweatshirt.

Well-meaning people lied to me. They said computer science was a great work-from-home career if I wanted children (when in fact a majority of women quit STEM because the culture of poor work-life balance makes it too difficult to raise a family), that STEM careers are secure (actually the industry has frequent layoffs and is very competitive), and more....

 

[solid7]

Art and Engineering are totally incompatible. Guys like MC Escher and Frank Gehry are complete quacks...

 

[IRstuff]

I don't see that as the case. Even in the case of pure engineers/scientists there are those who imagine what was seemingly impossible, and over time and with the application of engineering and math, they became realities. Less than 45 years ago, it was only imaginable in Dick Tracy and like to have phones and computers as wearable items, and yet, here we are. When I first started working, it was difficult to imagine own the power of a Cray 1 or 2, and yet, today, we blithely carry such power in our pockets. We sneered at people who thought that Thomas Brothers maps could computerized, and yet we now use them without much thinking.

Some things still remain impossible, for now.

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[nonplussed]

drawoh,

I read your comment in the article and I agree with what you say. However, the problem I see with the article is that the author believes this has anything to do with art or engineering. In fact, you could easily replace the 'art' and 'engineering' with any other field and get the same result. In order to create anything impressive and extraordinary you first need to understand the basics and underlying principles of a field. To learn the basics takes an incredible amount of time and effort, and most people find the effort very boring and tedious. The example the author gives is that the students want to immediately create amazing 3d printed art without spending months learning how to use the equipment. The fact that the students are 'artists' or 'female' is completely arbitrary and irrelevant.

The article could have easily been written about music (or carpentry, or bricklaying, or any other field):
“I had a lot of students that had never taken music lessons before who kept coming to me, and they knew that I knew how to compose music and I was creating these interesting compositions — interesting to them — and they wanted to make them, too,”
But after she encouraged the students to take some intro lessons in music, she was dismayed to discover that the students quickly lost interest after taking the music lessons. When she looked into the reason behind their disinterest, Somersall discovered “the way that music is being taught in many universities is very different from the way I learned how to play music.”

 

[beej67]

beej67, no and no. I would expect engineering to be on par with doctors, surgeons, attorneys, and judges, which is around 34%, if memory serves.

Thanks for being candid.

So given Google is at 31% today, do you think that the public reaction to Google's current diversity breakdown, and internal diversity initiatives, is fair?

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[lacajun]

beej67, I believe in candor.

I am not knowledgeable enough about Google to comment. I tend to think of Google as a software company and software, when my sister and her friends got into it, had more women than men. This was in the 80s and 90s. Sometime that shifted.

As a general comment about Google's diversity initiatives, diversity will always need to be addressed, I think. I'm thinking of someone specifically, who has big problems with transgender people and many others unlike himself. He's quite ugly, behaviorally, and abusive. He called me ugly, dog ugly. He's a Far Right Wing Christian and hates anyone that isn't that.

For whatever reasons, I have seen some of the worst of human behaviors and I don't have much hope for diversity initiatives ever going away.


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[Lomarandil]

lacajun, I imagine that shift in the software industries demographics mirrored a trend we see now in consulting engineering.

In earlier decades, technologists and technicians were an important part of business workflows to incorporate computing. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the women in software filled these roles (echoing back to the Wrens staffing the first computers).

Nowadays, as technology user interfaces are streamlined and simplified, more engineering is performed directly by the designer -- a role which historically skews male.

----
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[CWB1]

Interesting observation Loma and I believe you are correct at least on the engineering side, I have too little experience to comment on the software aspect. I duly hope we will not but suspect we will see a day soon where even drafting is largely turned over to engineers. JMO but I've always believed that complex drafting is a bit of a learned art form.

 

[lacajun]

Lomarandil, by the 80s and 90s, many women in software were electrical engineers, which was true of my sister and her peers. I heard someone say that men began moving into software engineering/computer science, when they learned good money was there. I've not followed it so I cannot verify that person's statement.


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Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

http://nspe-co.org/events.php

 

[Lomarandil]

CWB -- in (non-architectural?) structural engineering, we're already there (or well on our way). I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg, but it's getting harder to find and hire "draftsman-artists", and the workflow isn't as valuable (e.g. with current software, is it more efficient to give a draftsman markups, or do it directly?), so fewer draftsmen are employed and moving toward that level of expertise.

I agree 100% -- a good draftsman is worth their weight in gold.

Lacajun -- that makes sense, given the nature of technology at that time. I suppose the question then becomes why the women didn't follow higher salaries like their male peers.

----
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[nonplussed]

I suppose the question then becomes why the women didn't follow higher salaries like their male peers.

This leads into one of the many flaws in the modern diversity ideology and its erroneous assumptions. The way men and women are portrayed in the current media is that they are adversaries and directly competing against each other. In reality, man and woman, husband and wife, work together as a team to achieve the best outcome for the family unit.

Men learn early in life that their most important role in their future family is to make money and use that money to support their family. To achieve this they focus on a career which is; (a) the highest paying, and (b) the most financially stable. Things like long hours, unpredictable deadlines, high stress, is the price that has to be paid in order to hold a high paying stable job.

Women learn early in life that their most important role in their future family is to provide direct support and care for their children. Spending time with and looking after their children is crucial. To achieve this they focus on a career which is; (a) flexible, (b) have the potential to work part time if required, and (c) have strict predictable working hours. Things like deadlines which require impromptu long shifts is at odds with the more important job which is to provide direct care for the children.

If both the man and woman work a job which is high paying with long hours, or both work part time flexible low paid jobs, then there is a higher potential for the family unit to break down. Well, you might say, why doesn't the woman do the high paying long hour job and the man does the flexible part time work and look after the children? This would be fine if it were planned before choosing you and your partner's career. However, most people do not pick their partners before starting their career, so a 20 year old male choosing a lower paid flexible career runs a huge risk of not finding a higher paid wife (nor would that wife be attracted to him), so he is forced to choose the highest paying career possible simply to hedge his bets.

 

[IRstuff]

"To achieve this they focus on a career which is; (a) flexible, (b) have the potential to work part time if required, and (c) have strict predictable working hours. Things like deadlines which require impromptu long shifts is at odds with the more important job which is to provide direct care for the children."

I think this is an ideal use-case, that for at least 50% of the population is completely untrue and irrelevant, because their primary decision is to take any job or go homeless. One of my wife's employees works two jobs to support her and her child.

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[moltenmetal]

nonplussed, your post has given me food for some thought.

Perhaps what you meant to say is that these things may be true in stereotypical or perhaps normative average terms. And yes, that distinction matters- a lot.

Partners with families are still individuals with their own need for self-fulfillment, aspirations and interests. Sometimes these needs come ahead of the seeming "best outcome for the family unit", or even ahead of the relationship itself.

Many men and women who are married choose not to have children or cannot have them biologically and are unwilling to adopt. Many men and women remain single. All such people resent having their employers make decisions about their pay, retention or advancement based on assumptions about whether or not they're likely to have a family in future and whether or not that will reduce their level of commitment and availability to their jobs...and, regrettably, human nature being what it is, normative stereotypes DO inform such decisions on the part of managers and employers even when they try to set aside such assumptions and bias. That's a real problem, leading to real experiences of unfair treatment particularly by women, and it's a very tough one to solve.

Not everyone meets their spouse before either have chosen a career. The age of 1st marriage and the woman's age at the birth of her first child have both risen a lot over the past few decades. It is true that a partner's career choice can change, or the choice can be taken away or altered by circumstance. It is also true that even very well educated, analytical and rational people can completely throw these attributes to the wind when choosing a spouse- and though that can sometimes lead to a brilliantly successful outcome, it can also lead to years of misery or a complete disaster.

"Power balance" is something that all relationships need to manage and negotiate- that goes for economic power, decision-making power and all sorts of other sorts of "power" in a relationship. Couples who are well matched, mature and not mentally ill can have successful and long-lasting relationships despite a power imbalance in either direction, or with a very equal power balance, or a power balance which varies at times throughout the relationship. A equal power balance in the most trivial sense, i.e. where both spouses have jobs of similar responsibility, social prestige and income potential, is not necessarily a good predictor of a successful or unsuccessful partnership or marriage. A very unequal power balance can be an ongoing source of stress even for people who are otherwise very well matched.

 

[SnTMan]

I'd say maybe nonplussed's comments applied fairly well to the old or traditional economy, while IRstuff's comments apply more to the new or modern economy which, I confess, I don't well understand.

Regards,

Mike

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[aap2]

I posed this question to my sister and she simply said that it is a lack of interest in the subjects. She didn't mention anything about difficulty or the male/female gender ratio.

 

[IRstuff]

"I posed this question to my sister"

That's not exactly a definitive survey, is it? And would she even be cognizant of the peer pressure? My arch rivals in junior high were both girls, and we were always vying for the top scores. When we went to high school, things drastically changed; they both dropped any semblance of STEM desire, and took classes like Home Ec, etc., and one majored in Asian Literature in college. My take on this was that it was "cute" in junior to be "brainy," but being "smart" was an impediment to achieving the MRS degree that was the desire of many a baby boomer.

As for marriage; I think any notion of rational processing occurs last and often only after the divorce. Chemistry almost always trumps rational thought. And this really has nothing to do with new/old generations or new/old economies. My wife and I, who are baby-boomers, split the driving chores to drop off/pick up kids from school, as do many millennial couples that I know.

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[JohnRBaker]

People at first thought that this was some sort of joke, but it turned out to be totally legitimate:

College’s ‘Women In Math’ Panel Features Only Male Speakers

Who thought this was a good idea?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...ale-speakers-utah_us_5a8dcfa1e4b0273053a75035

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[SLTA]

* slowly beats head against wall *

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[ScottyUK]

Hey SLTA, we even have an emoji of you doing it!

 

[moltenmetal]

SLTA- it'll feel great when you stop...

 

[CWB1]

Seems to me like many folks overreacted to an innocent bit of circumstance.

Women in Math club adviser Martha Kilpack told Fox 13 Salt Lake City on Wednesday evening that she had taken down the posters from campus.

She added that the club often hosts panels and, this time around, they chose all men. In the past, Kilpack noted, they’ve had many women speakers.