Encouraging girls and women into certain fields

An unrelated thread on the new Super League of all things got me thinking about this.

There is a huge amount of effort currently to get women into traditionally "male" pursuits like STEM.

While I have no problem with this, in fact I encourage it, having two daughters myself, one in STEM, there seems to be a disconnect in that girls and women have to be interested in the field first. It would be like trying to encourage men to take up ballet or flower arranging. Some would be interested, but most won't. My daughter's riding classes are 99% girls. No amount of advertising will change this.

Secondly something like STEM requires A LOT of interest, passion, ability and hard work. It's not something like working in a post office. Anyone likely to be interested is already most likely dickying about with it since they were small kids. And in fact the majority in the biological sciences and medicine have been women for quite some time now.

The absolute opposite of the cringe below - this was an official EU promo video.

Thoughts?

biko

That is one stupid video alright.

Young scientists programmes are good to encourage girls into the sciences, I think mainly of Sarah Flannery Barthelet but also Maria Louise Fufezan and Diana Bura.

Thelonious Monk

The thread title sounds like you're looking for tips on how to do something dodgy

jam_mac_jam

I think more exposure at a younger age will get people more interested. My nephew was doing programming in his after school club which I thought was a great idea.
More emphasis at primary school age.

Bob Harris

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

The thread title sounds like you're looking for tips on how to do something dodgy

I thought the same. Fields with tall hedges around them are probably best to keep out of sight.

Eric Cartman

The loudest voices asking for more women in stem or boardrooms tend to be from the gender studies / academic homeopathy type courses, we have universities constantly adding more useless (and even likely career harming) degrees that appeal to women where they teach women to deride the lack of women in stem.

If you want more women in stem, perhaps first stop encouraging them down the easy box ticking degree path

nolivesmatter

Something oddly sexist against women in that video that's supposedly encouraging women into science.

amen

Both my wife and I are science grads with some friends lecturing in universities and the ITs. We both graduated over 25 years ago. Approx 18% of my class was female. Engineers running at 10%

Yet after 20+ years of programmes to encourage stem it seems that the number of females in stem has actually decreased.

For some reason the interest in females pursing stem has dramatically decreased.

From talking to my daughters some of it relates to the stem promotion , others with engineering seen as a dirty manual job, boring lab jobs st.

Leg End Reject

Pitch to aptitudes and interests, not genders. It's that simple.

Leg End Reject

Leg End Reject wrote: »

Pitch to aptitudes and interests, not genders. It's that simple.

Mary Mitchell O'Connor is receiving legal counsel from Josepha Madigan on the matter.

Eric Cartman

amen wrote: »

Both my wife and I are science grads with some friends lecturing in universities and the ITs. We both graduated over 25 years ago. Approx 18% of my class was female. Engineers running at 10%

Yet after 20+ years of programmes to encourage stem it seems that the number of females in stem has actually decreased.

For some reason the interest in females pursing stem has dramatically decreased.

From talking to my daughters some of it relates to the stem promotion , others with engineering seen as a dirty manual job, boring lab jobs st.

College used to be about getting a good job, now its ‘do whatever you want’ , with the rise of influencers, bloggers etc.. a course that has declining income prospects (journalism) should have been contracting over the last 2 decades but no, courses like that and the new made up social sciences are haemorrhaging women. Itll take another 2 decades to see the poor outcomes really take hold.

It's going to be stiff competition for STEM opportunities pitted against OnlyFans.

Ah but seriously, all this 'encourage this, encourage that' seems like drivel to me - unnecessary social engineering. Left to our own devices we all usually find our own measure.
30 years ago the girls I knew going to University did whatever course they bloody well wanted and had the points for - in our first flat share of all girls we had Law, Medicine, Accountancy, History and Agricultural Science students. All excelling at their course work and doing what they bloody well wanted afterwards - some becoming for example high flying professors and some choosing for example to be home makers - some did not mind endless hours working to rise through the ranks, some did not relish the thought of that over domestic commitments.
Not sure how it could possibly have transpired in the intervening decades that things have gotten more difficult for women (or men!) to do whatever they bloody well want. And yet it is spun that way eternally - policy makers need to excuse their raison d'etre, I suppose.

Mimon

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

The thread title sounds like you're looking for tips on how to do something dodgy

Or something on that should be on the farming thread and he calls his cows/sheep his girls :pac:

mohawk

Science grad here. Some areas of science are definitely dominated by men. Such as a Physics or Maths degree. Chemistry was in my day more of an even mix. Then many of the biological sciences tended to have more women in them than men. I am a woman and went the route that I was most interested in. Physics and Maths just don’t appeal to me.

Quite a lot of health sciences such as radiography, pharmacy, physiotherapy have huge numbers of women in those fields and are quite technical/ scientific in nature.

Engineering still seems to get very few women getting degrees in all its specialties.

Another poster says it’s down to interests. Both men and women go for the subject area that interests them and I think that is definitely a large part of it.

Area I work in now in very 50:50. At lower end most of management team are women but the further you go up the food chain the more male dominated it becomes. A large part of this is many women take the foot off the gas with their career once they become mothers.

KaneToad

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The loudest voices asking for more women in stem or boardrooms tend to be from the gender studies / academic homeopathy type courses, we have universities constantly adding more useless (and even likely career harming) degrees that appeal to women where they teach women to deride the lack of women in stem.

If you want more women in stem, perhaps first stop encouraging them down the easy box ticking degree path

I disagree with your assertion that some degrees are "useless" and that non STEM degrees are "easy" and "box ticking".

I say this as someone with a STEM degree.

BrianD3

There are already too many people in many STEM fields. The women in STEM obsession is due to virtue signalling, the desire to flood the STEM jobs market with graduates, feminists trying to appear relevant etc.

E.g. a university wanting more women in STEM so it has an even bigger source of cheap labour (PhD students and postdocs) for its research activities and this being cheered by feminists (useful idiots)

As Philip Greenspun writes,

A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job?

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Mary Mitchell O'Connor is receiving legal counsel from Josepha Madigan on the matter.

Mary is a private citizen, and former politician. Just in case you hadn’t heard.

Hamsterchops

We have a field near us but it's full of nettles.

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

The thread title sounds like you're looking for tips on how to do something dodgy

classic!!! first thing I thought to post,, well done.

it sounds like a step by step written by the late james saville!

meeeeh

This thread is very old farts whinging how things were so much better when they were young.

Anyway I have a daughter who is very good at maths and a son who is very good at being pretty. It would be stupid not to let them reach their potential.

meeeeh

meeeeh wrote: »

This thread is very old farts whinging how things were so much better when they were young.

Anyway I have a daughter who is very good at maths and a son who is very good at being pretty. It would be stupid not to let them reach their potential.

OnlyFans for him then

Outkast_IRE

Where are the shouting masses for more men in primary teaching where it must now be 90% female , or in nursing , childcare ?

The Atlantic did a very good write up on the push for women in STEM looking at data from all over the world and found categorically the more freedom of choice you give women over their college courses and security re safe future such as in western countries the less they naturally pick stem.

Countries with a greater stem uptake by women were generally countries with restricted freedom and opportunities for women and women seen stem as a way out and possible way to the western countries .

With all things being equal in western countries women will naturally pick stem courses less. There is nothing wrong with that.

Some fairly prominent engineering lectures and professors in Ireland have refused to take part in women in stem events as they don't see them as promoting equality at all and believe they should be open to all .

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553592/

biko

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Where are the shouting masses for more men in primary teaching where it must now be 90% female , or in nursing , childcare ?

This thread isn't about that, nor about female miners or binmen before someone brings that up.

I'm all for more females in the sciences. I'm not sure what benefits it will have have but I'm sure there are some, even if it is only the female perspective*.



*If science was almost exclusive female that'd be cool too. The important bit is good science, not genitals.

Eric Cartman

KaneToad wrote: »

I disagree with your assertion that some degrees are "useless" and that non STEM degrees are "easy" and "box ticking".

I say this as someone with a STEM degree.

Im not saying all non stem degrees are box ticking. Im not having a go at history, or law or latin or anything here.

But the ‘soft / social ‘science’ degrees : gender studies, minority studies, racism and equality studies, womens studies etc.. are absolutely the easy way out degree wise compared to anything in stem. Theyre basket weaving for the perpetually offended.

All the ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ we’ve given women in the world should have helped but exploitative platforms like onlyfans and gouging universities offering these courses are determined to wring our young women for a bit of cash and leave them as a drain on society no employer wants by their 30s

conorhal

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The loudest voices asking for more women in stem or boardrooms tend to be from the gender studies / academic homeopathy type courses, we have universities constantly adding more useless (and even likely career harming) degrees that appeal to women where they teach women to deride the lack of women in stem.

If you want more women in stem, perhaps first stop encouraging them down the easy box ticking degree path

There's so much of that going around it's practically a meme...

BrianD3

For all the criticism of gender studies type degrees, they could be more useful (for getting a job) than some STEM degrees, in particular those in the biological sciences.

With a degree in gender studies there would be jobs in quangos, NGOs, charities, lobby groups, HR depts, journalism, the civil service, universities, the social inclusion dept of county councils etc.

Get a job with your gender studies degree and get paid to spout sh*te about how there aren't enough women in STEM. Meanwhile the women who are in STEM can't get a job. Oh wait, it must be be because of discrimination rather than there being too many graduates (regardless of what they have between their legs) for the number of jobs.

biko

From HBR https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
Pattern 1: Prove-it-Again. Two-thirds of the women interviewed, and two-thirds of the women surveyed, reported having to prove themselves over and over again – their successes discounted, their expertise questioned.
Pattern 2: The Tightrope. Women need to behave in masculine ways in order to be seen as competent—but women are expected to be feminine.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 5: Isolation. Our new study uncovered a fifth pattern of bias that seems to apply mainly to black and Latina women. On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence

Silentcorner

conorhal wrote: »

There's so much of that going around it's practically a meme...

And you can't explain that image to them...it's too much for them!!!

Eric Cartman

biko wrote: »

From HBR https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
Pattern 1: Prove-it-Again. Two-thirds of the women interviewed, and two-thirds of the women surveyed, reported having to prove themselves over and over again – their successes discounted, their expertise questioned.
Pattern 2: The Tightrope. Women need to behave in masculine ways in order to be seen as competent—but women are expected to be feminine.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 5: Isolation. Our new study uncovered a fifth pattern of bias that seems to apply mainly to black and Latina women. On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence

Id love to see the absolute crap explanation for 5 , 3 absolutely makes sense, nobody can be primary carer and worker of the year.

biko

Dads/Mams, try introducing your daughters to Youtube STEM influencers like Dianna Cowern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGR1NDNSROI

Lillyfae

biko wrote: »

Dads, try introducing your daughters to Youtube STEM influencers like Dianna Cowern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGR1NDNSROI

Or Mams?

Seriously though, that’s good stuff, I love it, can’t wait until the smallies are old enough!

joseywhales

As someone who has always been stem focused for the last 20 years at least, I always find these programs to be well intended but a bit too busy. As a kid I attended endless "fun science" events intended to encourage interest. But if you really have a curiosity about these subjects, the most important thing to teach a child is simple maths with a pencil and paper, problems to solve with interesting and curious twists, critical thinking, some general outline in classical philosophical ideas and why in general we do what we do. The desire will come from these "Aha" moments and building the mental framework and having confidence in their ability, it will not be done by telling them they should be interested in science or by the promise of money or status. We want people to do their jobs because they like them if we can, not pushing square pegs in round holes.

joseywhales

Hamsterchops wrote: »

We have a field near us but it's full of nettles.

You might want a good sized blanket handy

conorhal

biko wrote: »

From HBR https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
Pattern 1: Prove-it-Again. Two-thirds of the women interviewed, and two-thirds of the women surveyed, reported having to prove themselves over and over again – their successes discounted, their expertise questioned.
Pattern 2: The Tightrope. Women need to behave in masculine ways in order to be seen as competent—but women are expected to be feminine.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 5: Isolation. Our new study uncovered a fifth pattern of bias that seems to apply mainly to black and Latina women. On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence

I've worked with some extremely competent women in engineering fields, possibly the very best engineer I ever worked with was a woman.

I've also worked some extremely incompetent women in the field, I'll let you guess which would routinely rattle off those talking points....

fits

I knew before opening it that this thread would annoy me and it hasn’t disappointed.

Did STEM degree a good few years ago. All of my classmates are doing very well for themselves. Not really comparable to men doing ballet A good basic STEm degree can open all sorts of doors.

jrosen

Should we be introducing science and more critical thinking in primary school? Have an actual science teacher in the school and every class takes science twice a week?

Or 1st years having to take all subjects for first year and only choosing in 2nd year? If kids are not being exposed to these topics then we cant really expect them to show an interest.

.anon.

Leg End Reject wrote: »

Pitch to aptitudes and interests, not genders. It's that simple.

And do it from an early age. I went to an all-boys secondary school, but there were two girls in our physics class because the subject wasn't available in the local girls' school.

mohawk

jrosen wrote: »

Should we be introducing science and more critical thinking in primary school? Have an actual science teacher in the school and every class takes science twice a week?

Or 1st years having to take all subjects for first year and only choosing in 2nd year? If kids are not being exposed to these topics then we cant really expect them to show an interest.

My secondary school made science mandatory until Junior Cert. Friends in other schools didn’t go near science because they thought it would be too hard. Give kids a taste of everything and let them follow their interests and strengths then.

joseywhales

biko wrote: »

From HBR https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
Pattern 1: Prove-it-Again. Two-thirds of the women interviewed, and two-thirds of the women surveyed, reported having to prove themselves over and over again – their successes discounted, their expertise questioned.
Pattern 2: The Tightrope. Women need to behave in masculine ways in order to be seen as competent—but women are expected to be feminine.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 3: The Maternal Wall. When professional women have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
Pattern 5: Isolation. Our new study uncovered a fifth pattern of bias that seems to apply mainly to black and Latina women. On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence

What I find interesting about this is that as a man I experience all of these patterns except for pattern 3 obviously. Pattern 2 annoys me, pattern 5 is just good judgement, socialising with work people is something I've always kept to a minimum. Pattern 1 is a positive I believe, if you want a high performing team, you must constantly be reviewing, questioning, challenging everyone, noone can be safe from criticism and they should not take it personally.

Coillte_Bhoy

Anyone else see the thread title and think of that scene with Bridie in The Ballroom of Romance?

Kermit.de.frog

Was about to post an "in before the lock" based solely on the thread title and wish the OP farewell :eek:

biko

biko wrote: »

From HBR https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
Pattern 1: Prove-it-Again. Two-thirds of the women interviewed, and two-thirds of the women surveyed, reported having to prove themselves over and over again – their successes discounted, their expertise questioned

As a man I knew once I was given a start date I just had to show up at 8.30 and I'd never be asked anything again.

jam_mac_jam

jrosen wrote: »

Should we be introducing science and more critical thinking in primary school? Have an actual science teacher in the school and every class takes science twice a week?

Or 1st years having to take all subjects for first year and only choosing in 2nd year? If kids are not being exposed to these topics then we cant really expect them to show an interest.

I completely agree with this. Get them interested as young as possible and they are more likely to know if they are good at it.

Kids have a natural curiosity and generally like science and are interested in nature at primary school level. Let them do some fun experiments and not leave it till secondary.

rightmove

.anon. wrote: »

And do it from an early age. I went to an all-boys secondary school, but there were two girls in our physics class because the subject wasn't available in the local girls' school.

If yo look at linked in learning you'd swear men didnt even exist. Search TED up on youtube and first 10 vidz will be diverse. Diverse is everyone but white men. Saying that black men dont seem to get any platform time either.

ByTheSea2019

I definitely don't agree that if you've any interest in STEM you've probably been interested in from childhood. As someone who is entering a mathematical career later than most, thank God I was incentivised to do honours maths by the school system because this would not be an option now if I had not and I had no interest at the time.

CageWager

jrosen wrote: »

Should we be introducing science and more critical thinking in primary school? Have an actual science teacher in the school and every class takes science twice a week?

That would all go great until the day the critical thinking science teacher shows up to teach biology.

Yellow_Fern

Can we stop telling kids that there are loads of jobs in STEM as its just a misleading statement as so many fields in STEM have terrible job prospects. Certain areas like quality control in pharma and IT have loads of jobs but many other niches in biology and physics have far too many graduates for the available openings.

khalessi

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

I completely agree with this. Get them interested as young as possible and they are more likely to know if they are good at it.

Kids have a natural curiosity and generally like science and are interested in nature at primary school level. Let them do some fun experiments and not leave it till secondary.

We've been doing STEM for a few years in school and the kids love it. Great buzz watching them discussing planning, designing and constructing whatever project it is. It is a class they love forward to because they can get up move around, work in groups and have a bit of fun while they are doing it. We have a STEM programme from Jnr to 6th.

jrosen

khalessi wrote: »

We've been doing STEM for a few years in school and the kids love it. Great buzz watching them discussing planning, designing and constructing whatever project it is. It is a class they love forward to because they can get up move around, work in groups and have a bit of fun while they are doing it. We have a STEM programme from Jnr to 6th.

Sounds great.
Its not something thats across all schools though is it?

amen

amen wrote: »

Both my wife and I are science grads with some friends lecturing in universities and the ITs. We both graduated over 25 years ago. Approx 18% of my class was female. Engineers running at 10%

Yet after 20+ years of programmes to encourage stem it seems that the number of females in stem has actually decreased.

For some reason the interest in females pursing stem has dramatically decreased.

From talking to my daughters some of it relates to the stem promotion , others with engineering seen as a dirty manual job, boring lab jobs st.

Jordan Peterson was saying that in Sweden, where people have the most freedom to do what they want, there is increasingly a split where both men and women seem to prefer to follow traditional men/women careers. In other words, women are LESS likely to work in STEM careers, despite having the greatest opportunity to do so.

Which is completely fine. I feel sorry for any girl who feels a pressure to follow a STEM career in order to be a good feminist. Nobody needs that type of pressure. Vive la difference!

Galwayguy35

Often wondered why more women don't train to become electricians, the money seems to be good once qualified.