Women and STEM

For John, BLUF:  Either men and women are alike or we aren't.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Pick One!

Acronym Alter:  STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

From the Blog Cat Rotator's Quarterly, by TXRed, 9 March 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

So which one is it? Women don’t go into STEM because there aren’t enough female role models, because we don’t like “geek culture” stuff, or because we aren’t smart enough.  Pick one, dang it, and stick with it.

What? You didn’t know that Star Trek, Star Wars, and other sci-fi things were sexist and off-putting to women?  That’s according to a librarian at MIT, so it must be true. Especially since there is an academic study to support the assertion (“Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science” by Cheryan et al in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2009, Vol. 97, No. 6, 1045–1060)

And then we have one of the colleges at Oxford helpfully giving female students a few more minutes on their exam:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/02/01/oxford-university-extends-exam-times-womens-benefit/

And then there’s a dissertation that pretty much argues that women and minorities think differently from males of European descent, and so we need science changed so more women can learn science.  [The second link is a not-unbiased synopsis of the article].

Of course maybe, given that there have been a number of very accomplished female members of "STEM", it is possible that the success in the field has little to do with gender, but rather there is some other dimension of the human condition that we have yet to identify.  Although I will grant you that sexism does exist, although those who have broken through seem to have overcome it.  Why they broke through is a question worth asking.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff
Sat 3.5