Extra supports and possibly quotas for women in mathematics? (Irish Times article)

iptba

I'm not convinced by this argument:

Maths needs to factor in more women

Opinion: quotas help shortage of women in science

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/maths-needs-to-factor-in-more-women-1.1913427

TheBody

Personally, I'd be against the idea of a quota.

People should be awarded a position on merit, not gender.

Anyway, if I was a woman, I would be insulted if I got a job just because I was female.

Blackpanther95

Well, obviously quotas would mean more women in the field, but it would also mean that they are not necessarily any better. If you're a woman and you're getting in on 150-250 points just because you're a woman, its going to boost the quantity of women in the field but certainly not the quality.

Yakuza

Total PC bullsh!t. As stated above, positions should be awarded on merit. By all means, more women should be encouraged into maths and the sciences, but artificial quotas won't help anything. They're trying the same nonsense in political parties, forcing gender quotas by party.

Michel Destrade

Michel Destrade wrote:

The reason for that state of affairs is that the vast majority of them leave the career early due to pressure from a combination of practical issues, cultural stereotypes, gender bias and sexism.

Citation Required please Michel.
I wonder has any statistical analysis prompted this as the most probabilistic reason for the current gender imbalance?

Or as I would imagine, is it an opinion presented on anecdotal evidence?

I wonder if Michel has considered the life cycle of inequalities. How even if you instantaneously remove all restriction (and there was an awful lot!) to progression for females in the field, that there are still 30+ years of catch up to go through to find a more equal balance.

"Positive discrimination" is discrimination. Quotas are not the answer.

Blackpanther95

Deleted User wrote: »

Citation Required please Michel.
I wonder has any statistical analysis prompted this as the most probabilistic reason for the current gender imbalance?

Or as I would imagine, is it an opinion presented on anecdotal evidence?

I wonder if Michel has considered the life cycle of inequalities. How even if you instantaneously remove all restriction (and there was an awful lot!) to progression for females in the field, that there are still 30+ years of catch up to go through to find a more equal balance.

"Positive discrimination" is discrimination. Quotas are not the answer.

Hey, leave my lecturer alone hahahaha!
He's a sound man, but he's talking out of his arse here

Davidius

I do not see why it is particularly desirable that there be more women in mathematics. No more than it is particularly desirable that there be more short people. It is not even proven that the ratios should be equal if every 'cultural' factor could be controlled. 'Cultural factors' is a nebulous (so hard to analyse) notion in itself and is often use as a hand-wave for situations where outcomes don't match up with expectation.

Everybody has the right to be afforded respect in the work place, and exposing children to mathematics in order to foster their appreciation for it is noble enough regardless of sex. Beyond that I don't think it is the responsibility of the wider community, only that of each individual.

sponsoredwalk

I don't see anyone tackling the question of unconscious social biases which hamper a woman's chance at being evaluated on their merit, it's ripple effect, the results of implicit association tests, nor the question of confidence, in all of the blanket dismissals in here.

∃ better links...

What if it's true that gender quotas are a partial way to dispel the hesitation in unconsciously association women to STEM subjects, and to bolster confidence in a visually concrete fashion, let alone bypass the unconscious biases in those who hire, just as it's been required elsewhere in the workforce?

No mention of these issues anywhere in sight... Are any of you aware that in voicing the opinions you can find in here you're blindly using the name of open-minded fairness to intellectually contribute to potentially preventing a partial cure to this problem?

Fine links, thank you for them, none of that information was contained in the original article which we were discussing.

Instead we were talking about quotas as a means to correct any bias.

In my opinion, an utterly terrible way to do so. Why not educate (being that we're talking about science) the hiring managers in case study 1 correctly (that women are just as suited to STEM) so that the bias is removed? Why not ensure that the teachers in study 2 and teachers in general are aware that this social bias exists and to be careful to control for it? Show them study 4! Socially engineer to remove the construct that women are not geared to scientific work.

Quotas for anyone in anything is positive discrimination. Which in kind is negative discrimination. If 100 people apply for a position, of which 63% of them are men (within reasonable bounds of expectation in a 50/50 scenario), and the employer has 3 roles, 2 of whom must go to females, how is that fair? All being totally uniform, an individual woman has a 5.4% chance of winning employment here, an individual male has a 1.6% chance.

As a secondary point, from a totally and utterly anecdotal viewpoint, the numbers that would apply would be skewed. There wasn't a 50% (nor near it) mix in graduates or postgraduates in either of my courses at university level, (nor in other STEM courses of which we worked with). Are the hiring managers to have their selection criteria hampered by the education system's errors 20 years previously in not getting 5/6/7 year olds interested in Math?

Blackpanther95

We forgot to mention the shear resentment that this will cause. Imagine losing your place in college to a woman who you got double the points. Women CAN get into maths. On average, they even do better than men in the LC, so why do we even need quotas? How many men do a women studies course? How many do midwifery? - Not many. Thats just because they don't like it. There are many women that do like maths, and they go on to do maths. Why should we assume that the same proportion of women as men prefer maths?
This is a matter of interest not intelligence. No one is saying that women aren't as intelligent as men or vice versa. But what gives us the luxury to assume that the proportion of women interested in a given academic field will be the same as the proportion of men interested in that same area.

I actually think the problem is the reverse here: if we really want to solve the problem, all we have to do is decrease the amount of women allowed to do medicine. (anecdotal) I knew many women who were talented at maths in school but for some reason they feel that they must go on to be doctors. Its almost like being a doctor is the (only) sign of being a bright young girl.

Of course you see the opportunity cost here. There are only so many intelligent men and women produced by society each year. Quotas don't change that. At best we can simply re-assign from one area to another. Less female doctors= more female mathematicians so... imo the quotas are futile.

ardmacha

The government should stop fiddling with quotas and ensure that girl's schools give as much prominence to maths as boys schools. You would think this shouldn't be a problem in 2014, but it seems that it is.

sponsoredwalk

ardmacha wrote: »

The government should stop fiddling with quotas and ensure that girl's schools give as much prominence to maths as boys schools. You would think this shouldn't be a problem in 2014, but it seems that it is.

This doesn't attack any of the issues I mentioned in my post, let alone any of the other easily googlable issues related to this question.

Guys do you ever imagine the counter-arguments to your points?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYDc1LA0I4

sponsoredwalk

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Guys do you ever imagine the counter-arguments to your points?

Yet to hear a single counter argument to the point that quotas are a discriminatory policy.

sponsoredwalk

Deleted User wrote: »

Yet to hear a single counter argument to the point that quotas are a discriminatory policy.

I've already mentioned a counter-argument:

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

What if it's true that gender quotas are a partial way to dispel the hesitation in unconsciously association women to STEM subjects, and to bolster confidence in a visually concrete fashion, let alone bypass the unconscious biases in those who hire, just as it's been required elsewhere in the workforce?

If it is true then it means that no in fact quotas are actually a counter-discriminatory policy rather than a discriminatory policy. I believe a feminist would refer to your response to me as an example of privilege, you have no awareness of the fact your own perspective sneaks in all these presuppositions which women have no possibility of assuming, in this case the assumption that it only becomes discriminatory when women take action regarding quotas, completely ignorant of the fact that there literally is already an unconscious quota policy in place.

I know you think it's fun to talk about educating managers that they are sneaking in their own unconscious biases, like if we just showed them those studies then the problem would go away, but you seen those studies and happily went along happily claiming discrimination, ignoring the fact that you're potentially labeling a potentially anti-discriminatory policy as discriminatory, seeing those studies doesn't magically remove unconscious bias against women as we now clearly see...

Further, the mentioning of probabilities and percentages in your post is pretty sickening, I mean god you literally said "(within reasonable bounds of expectation in a 50/50 scenario)" which is completely false in this topic, you completely ignored the point I was making, but even if you did listen to me & assumed non-50/50 odds, how would you even quantify the amount by which unconscious bias skews our probabilities? You're now using bad math to justify a bad argument, I'd personally take that as a warning sign...

That's a pretty insulting, reaching and wrong post. I'd appreciate if you'd remove the personal insults or else give a reason/cite your reasons for posting them.

Quotas mean discrimination. See example given above for how a quota on female positions would be discriminatory against men.

Remove the gender labels if you wish to understand the point.
Quotas for Group A individuals means discrimination against Group B individuals.
That's a fact. Nothing changes that fact.

Suggesting that our government impose a discriminatory policy is discrimination. That is the point that has been made. Several times now.

sponsoredwalk

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Further, the mentioning of probabilities and percentages in your post is pretty sickening, I mean god you literally said "(within reasonable bounds of expectation in a 50/50 scenario)" which is completely false in this topic, you completely ignored the point I was making, but even if you did listen to me & assumed non-50/50 odds, how would you even quantify the amount by which unconscious bias skews our probabilities? You're now using bad math to justify a bad argument, I'd personally take that as a warning sign...

This entire point was written to show that quotas are discriminatory. I'm sorry that you missed that. Again, if you use Group A vs Group B instead of gender labels, what I've written is still a fact.

sponsoredwalk

Assuming you took 'privilege' as the insult rather than a word to describe your use of flawed logic, I spent a paragraph explaining that.

If we remove gender labels, then the reason for quotas in favour of Group A is that Group B already has quotas for itself, thus quotas for group A simply tries to reverse the unfair advantage Group B already has for itself. That's a very simple point to understand, why does gender cloudy that up for you? Nothing changes that fact.

You seem to think it's 50/50 as things stand now, & that quotas will make it like 60/40 in favour of women, but the whole reason for implementing gender quotas is that as things stand it's like 70/30 in favour of men, so the quota aims to try to bring it closer to 50/50 - it's almost surely not even going to get it back to 50/50, that's the hilarious part of all this, seeing people cry discrimination when the 'discriminatory' policy most likely wouldn't even bring it back to 50/50, classic.

Saying Group A & Group B have 50/50 chances is to completely miss the whole point, it's the root cause of you not understanding this issue with quotas, think about it.

GarIT

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Assuming you took 'privilege' as the insult rather than a word to describe your use of flawed logic, I spent a paragraph explaining that.

If we remove gender labels, then the reason for quotas in favour of Group A is that Group B already has quotas for itself, thus quotas for group A simply tries to reverse the unfair advantage Group B already has for itself. That's a very simple point to understand, why does gender cloudy that up for you? Nothing changes that fact.

You seem to think it's 50/50 as things stand now, & that quotas will make it like 60/40 in favour of women, but the whole reason for implementing gender quotas is that as things stand it's like 70/30 in favour of men, so the quota aims to try to bring it closer to 50/50 - it's almost surely not even going to get it back to 50/50, that's the hilarious part of all this, seeing people cry discrimination when the 'discriminatory' policy most likely wouldn't even bring it back to 50/50, classic.

Saying Group A & Group B have 50/50 chances is to completely miss the whole point, it's the root cause of you not understanding this issue with quotas, think about it.

It's an exam though. The people who answer the questions right will get the marks. There is no need to change how things are marked to help a group no matter how badly they are doing because if they aren't getting the marks they just aren't good at maths.

If you take the gap between children who's parents have university degrees versus those who dont you will find it is much bigger than the male vs female gap. Or you could take the gap between those who's parents speak English versus those who don't that's an even bigger gap again, do you suggest they get a boost too. Then there's people with severe mental disabilities, they score less than any other group, should we bump them up so on average people with learning disabilities get the same results as people with no disability?

So when everything is fair and we find a reason for everybody to get the same result in every exam how do we judge who is better?

The results of an exam are supposed to show your ability in that topic, that is all, is it not currently doing that? If we change things and it causes the results of an exam to not truly reflect the persons ability what is the purpose of the exam?

sponsoredwalk

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Assuming you took 'privilege' as the insult rather than a word to describe your use of flawed logic, I spent a paragraph explaining that.

It was this perceived knowledge you had that I found it "fun to talk about educating managers that the.. " that I took exception with. Never met you before, no idea who you are. Please refrain from making stuff up about me. Attack the post not the poster and all that.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

If we remove gender labels, then the reason for quotas in favour of Group A is that Group B already has quotas for itself, thus quotas for group A simply tries to reverse the unfair advantage Group B already has for itself. That's a very simple point to understand, why does gender cloudy that up for you? Nothing changes that fact.

You seem to think it's 50/50 as things stand now, & that quotas will make it like 60/40 in favour of women, but the whole reason for implementing gender quotas is that as things stand it's like 70/30 in favour of men, so the quota aims to try to bring it closer to 50/50 - it's almost surely not even going to get it back to 50/50, that's the hilarious part of all this, seeing people cry discrimination when the 'discriminatory' policy most likely wouldn't even bring it back to 50/50, classic.

Saying Group A & Group B have 50/50 chances is to completely miss the whole point, it's the root cause of you not understanding this issue with quotas, think about it.

So, in essence, you're completely mis-representing what I'm saying to make me look a fool? At no stage have I claimed there exists a level playing field. At no stage. I presented a hypothetical situation as a pretty straightforward example of how quotas are discriminatory.

Lets keep it simple. Quotas are discriminatory policy. Fact or Fiction?

GarIT

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Lets keep it simple. Quotas are discriminatory policy. Fact or Fiction?

The simple facts of it are that quota's could make it appear that one student did better than another when this wasn't the case, the reason that the male student would be made to appear worse than the female that they scored better than would be gender alone, so yes discrimination.

InReality

In Civil service interviews people are given a numerical score. When a man and woman have the same numerical score , the woman would get the role.
I think its an "ok" system , numbers of women in senior grades in civil service is shooting up.

GarIT

InReality wrote: »

In Civil service interviews people are given a numerical score. When a man and woman have the same numerical score , the woman would get the role.
I think its an "ok" system , numbers of women in senior grades in civil service is shooting up.

What logic results in that conclusion though? Surely they should look for another way to separate them other than gender, experience, references?

sponsoredwalk

GarIT wrote: »

...

This isn't about exams, I'm not trying to find some PC reason to give an A+ to someone who doesn't know why triangles are part of trigonometry (me at age 20), it's about the potential necessity of quotas for professionals (who can pass all the exams), unconscious bias against women (that we find even in this thread) & the justifications people make thinking they're noble ones.

Deleted User wrote: »

It was this perceived knowledge you had that I found it "fun to talk about educating managers that the.. " that I took exception with. Never met you before, no idea who you are. Please refrain from making stuff up about me. Attack the post not the poster and all that.

I don't see anything personal in that, I certainly didn't mean anything personal so I apologize for giving the impression that I did, my point is that it would be fun for anyone (in general) to think the solution to the problem is as easy as you made it out to be, but as I've shown even you, after you've read those studies, are susceptible to unconscious bias against women (***) so your solution to the problem doesn't make it all go away like you implied it would, it's more complicated as I hope we see by now.

(***) Unconscious bias against women means that your default assumption is that it's only discrimination when measures are taken to give rights to women that men already have. In other words, you're biased because you think that re-adjusting the already skewed playing field back towards a fair playing field is discrimination, completely ignoring the fact it's simply a counter-measure against the discrimination that already exists (why are you not on your high horse about that discrimination?). That's nothing to take personally, it's something to think about and challenge. Studies show this happens to normal people in all walks of life, don't take it personally take it as a sign of humanity. In other other words:



That goes for anyone who thinks it makes sense to say it's discrimination only when women do it & can't actually justify themselves (which I bet none of you can)... I don't mean to point fingers but if people are blithley going to argue from ignorance using charged rhetoric with potentially awful consequences, lets analyze the presuppositions going into all this and see who's happy to admit it openly or admit they're going down a bad road (or somehow show that I'm full of nonsense, which I'd love)...

Deleted User wrote: »

So, in essence, you're completely mis-representing what I'm saying to make me look a fool? At no stage have I claimed there exists a level playing field. At no stage.

Except the stage where you did it twice:

Deleted User wrote: »

(within reasonable bounds of expectation in a 50/50 scenario)

Deleted User wrote: »

All being totally uniform,

I'm sorry but if you think your example showing "Quotas for anyone in anything is positive discrimination" has anything to do with our discussion, & literally say "example given above for how a quota on female positions would be discriminatory against men" is an example to justify your point that "quotas mean discrimination", then you are completely contradicting yourself because you are using the application of quotas to a level playing field as an example to say there are flaws in applying quotas to a non-level playing field. The only way you could use that example is if you thought our scenario also had a level playing field, otherwise your example becomes totally irrelevant, it makes no sense to use it.

Deleted User wrote: »

I presented a hypothetical situation as a pretty straightforward example of how quotas are discriminatory.

Your example is not straightforward at all, it just doesn't apply to this situation. I know the way you meant it, but it's not applicable in the way you meant it, it's irrelevant. Using quotas in a level playing field example does not say anything about quotas in a non-level playing field example, so no it most certainly does not prove "Quotas for anyone in anything is positive discrimination", it merely shows (at best) you are mis-interpreting the words.

Deleted User wrote: »

Lets keep it simple. Quotas are discriminatory policy. Fact or Fiction?

Your question is so loaded with presumptions that a simple yes-no answer would give credence to them, you've asked a half-question leaving out important details where leaving out the details is the only way you can make your argument stand.

Discrimination in this case just has to mean skewing the playing field away from 50/50 (because you've made the distinction away from fairness via 'probability'), therefore if it's 70/30 & you do something to offset that away from 70/30 nearer to 50/50 it's anti-discrimination. It doesn't actually make any sense to say that going from 70/30 to 65/35 is also discrimination (your word is "positive discrimination"), the word 'discrimination' loses all meaning then, because 70/30 was not fair to begin with - moving away from this equilibrium state is not moving away from a 'fairness equilibrium state' hence it's just not discrimination... "Positive" has to refer to something outside of 'upwards' (percentage-wise) for the phrase "positive discrimination" to have any meaning (e.g. something society deems favourable). You'd have to say "positive anti-discrimination" to be making any sense - it makes sense to say that going from 70% to 75% in favour of men is negative discrimination, but it really doesn't make sense to then say going from 75% to 70% is thus positive discrimination in favour of women, it only makes sense to say it's positive anti-discrimination (until we get beyond that 50/50 mark, which is crucial because of the meaning of the word 'discrimination').

So to try to answer your question without the missing details, quotas in a 50/50 context are a discriminatory policy, quotas in a non-50/50 context are either discriminatory or anti-discriminatory policy depending on what way they apply. Beyond this, we can attach adjectives like positive or negative, but the way you're using the phrase "positive discrimination" makes no sense under any circumstances beyond some fear-mongering intent, which I'll assume is not your intention. I completely know what you mean to say in the phrase "positive discrimination" but I don't think you are aware of the presuppositions that go into thinking such a phrase is useful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51USLgPWhgc

Blackpanther95

^This is a ridiculous fabrication. Its obvious the poster is smart and using clever (albeit "longshot") reasoning to somehow say that there is a bias in selection WHEN THERE IS NOT. Its not that women cannot get into maths, THEY DON'T WANT TO. Just like men don't want to do nursing (much). Thats the problem. Every single woman who does medicine also had enough points to do mathematics #fact

See, I know a few men doing mathematics who had enough points to do medicine but they CHOSE not too.
All your points are irrelevant. Its not the same as oppression because woman CAN & DO get enough points for mathematics, NOT A FEW BUT A LOT. Quotas will not change that. It will not change the fact that you want at least 10% of the TOP (not the bottom) woman to go into mathematics. Quotas just redistribute the lower performing woman. It would be interesting to see the percentage of women with mathematics as #1 on their CAO. I think it would tell all tbh!

Yeah, not sure there's any point really in engaging with you on this sponsored walk.

The hypothetical situation I gave as an example to show how Quotas are discriminatory was straightforward. It showed that Quotas are discriminatory. It showed that a totally reasonable (hence use of reasonable expectation) scenario with Quotas can result in discrimination.

You are suggesting a discriminatory policy. I disagree with all forms of discrimination. You're either misrepresenting, or mis reading pretty much everything that I have written. At no stage have I said the current situation is acceptable, I've said Quotas are not the answer.

Once more. I am arguing against the use of Quotas, because they are discriminatory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-discrimination_law

By all means, show us that Quotas are not discriminatory. Use a generalised example to do so please. I can easily reduce my previous example to a general example which shows that Quotas introduce discrimination.

Please refrain from using gender labels, and use Group X and Group Y so as to avoid any perceived biases that one might have in dealing with these groups.

http://www.academics.com/science/the_drawbacks_of_the_quota_47961.html
http://www.mpg.de/1197767/quota_system_downsides
http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/statements/liu.html
----
Then, back to the actual issue (not the simply proven "Quotas are Discrimination" issue above)
Interesting Video - You should watch this.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hanna_rosin_new_data_on_the_rise_of_women?language=en

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/women_science_no_discrimination_says_cornell_study-75984

The data show that women scientists are confronted with choices, beginning at or before adolescence, that influence their career trajectories and success. Women who prioritize families and have children sometimes make "lifestyle choices" that lead to them to take positions, such as adjunct or part-time appointments or jobs at two-year colleges, offering fewer resources and chances to move up in the ranks.

These women, however, are not held back by sex discrimination in hiring or in how their scholarly work is evaluated. Men with comparably low levels of research resources fare equivalently to their female peers. Although women disproportionately hold such low-resource positions, this is not because they had their grants and manuscripts rejected or were denied positions at research-intensive universities due to their gender.

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/sex_discrimination_go_byebye_gender_differences_math_choice_not_social_pressure_or_ability

One thing Williams and Ceci did rule out was sex discrimination - it's just the opposite today. One large-scale national study found that women are more likely than men to be invited to interview for and to be offered tenure-track jobs in math-intensive STEM fields.

evolving_doors

If there's no "intrinsic" difference between men and women then why have quotas that favour women.

Why not have quotas that favour marmite eaters over non-marmite eaters. What if it were found that 80% of people doing STEM ate marmite!! do we have a problem? Should we instigate a campaign to address this bias against non-marmite eaters?

InReality

GarIT wrote: »

What logic results in that conclusion though? Surely they should look for another way to separate them other than gender, experience, references?

Your given a mark out of 50 for each "competency" in the interview , so experience/abilty etc can be shown there.

Essentially there was a ratio about 80/20 women to men in lower grades and the reverse in the higher grades.

ray giraffe

Positive discrimination in mathematical subjects at university is old news.

A girl starting a PhD in physics 5 years ago at UCD was told she got the place because it was university policy to encourage equal gender ratios - indeed a guy was declined the PhD place even though he had better undergraduate results. (No I was not that guy, in case you're wondering)

Ficheall

Davidius wrote: »

I do not see why it is particularly desirable that there be more women in mathematics. No more than it is particularly desirable that there be more short people.

I spent four years in an office of Maths PhDs where there were only men, and not once did anyone ever say "Man, I wish we had some dwarves around here..."

Valmont

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. Is it so bad to accept the fact that in general, women are less interested in mathematics and science than men? I studied psychology and I was one of three men in a thirty person year - men are in general not as interested in psychology as women.

Blackpanther95

Valmont wrote: »

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. Is it so bad to accept the fact that in general, women are less interested in mathematics and science than men? I studied psychology and I was one of three men in a thirty person year - men are in general not as interested in psychology as women.

Exactly, now society can change that, but honestly what is the point! I can understand in things like medicine it would be important to have female doctors (women sometimes feel more comfortable around them), but not in mathematics.

shruikan2553

Im in engineering which would suffer the same issue of a lack of women. There are fewer women in the workforce. Multinational companies at least want more women so it is not a hiring problem. From my experience a higher percentage of women would be in manager positions than men.
So if the companies can't get enough women we need to look down a tier, at the colleges. The colleges accept everyone based on points in the country so thats equal, there are even female only awards and scholarships. I did notice that a higher percentage of female graduates go on to do a postgrad which doesnt help the companies.
So we come down to the secondary schools, physics would have the least amount of girls in the class.

There are less women but quotas wont solve anything, from the colleges up they are trying to get more women so it is coming from further down. Any lack of women is down to personal choice or people around them urging them towards a different path.

What I also find strange is people only seem to care when women are in the minority. I havent come across awards and scholarships for male nurses (tbh I havent looked that much into nursing awards so there may be some)

iptba

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Im in engineering which would suffer the same issue of a lack of women. There are fewer women in the workforce. Multinational companies at least want more women so it is not a hiring problem. From my experience a higher percentage of women would be in manager positions than men.

A guy in the sexism against men thread gave an example like this that was statistically significant: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91217772&postcount=1602

sponsoredwalk

Valmont wrote: »

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. Is it so bad to accept the fact that in general, women are less interested in mathematics and science than men? I studied psychology and I was one of three men in a thirty person year - men are in general not as interested in psychology as women.

Someone who studied psychology should know better than to think this, or at least check their belief against any relevant research (even my 4 little links refute your 'fact'), tbh

evolving_doors

Valmont wrote: »

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. Is it so bad to accept the fact that in general, women are less interested in mathematics and science than men? I studied psychology and I was one of three men in a thirty person year - men are in general not as interested in psychology as women.

Also 'in general' a lot of men are less interested in maths than the few men who are. Should we try and discern why it is those men aren't interested and maybe have some positive discrimination for them too to get them applying?
I think not.