What if men are just better?

[ruby sparks]

Gender representation gaps are sometimes cited 'as if' they were down to sexism and the like. Ditto earnings gaps. Anything can be overstated. By the same token, so would saying that such things have nothing to do with sexism and the like. I always seem to be saying things like this, but yet again it's not one thing or the other.

As such, and given that sexism and the like are almost certainly part of the issue, and without getting into exactly how big a part, I'm pretty much fine with efforts to address the inequalities. Encouraging more girls and women into STEM (or into business or into government or whatever)? I don't see much of a problem. To some extent, we're probably talking about slightly untapped societal resources here.

 

[Toni]

Fortunately, sexism in males is very easy to diagnose.

Yeah, WTF barbos? Get off my side of the argument with that sh!t. And I say that as someone whom Toni just made an equally sexist fallacious personal attack against.

I made no attack at all, and certainly not a sexist, personal or fallacious one.

 

[dismal]

If you would like to PM me your mailing address, I’d be delighted to mail you copies of Hidden Figures and Lab Girls.

Open invite. If amazon will deliver to your address, I’ll send you copies.

Hidden Figures is not math either.
Here is a woman who was doing math https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani

Hidden Figures is about women doing math under circumstances where their abilities and contributions were largely ignored.

As you continue to do now.

Very few individuals pursue mathematics at the same level as Mirzakhani. That doesn’t mean they are not doing math.

It seems like your argument would be stronger if a few women doing math weren't cause for books and movies.

 

[ronburgundy]

Discussions of too few women in STEM regularly treat the unequal representation as itself a problem and as evidence of discrimination, which disregards that there may be ability and/or interest differences that are largely responsible. There is no rational reason to even cite the gender gaps in representation, if the concern is actual barriers to people who are capable. Because representation gaps are not any sort of evidence of barriers, unless you are dogmatically denying the possibility of differences in aptitude or interest. Thus, the pervasive discussion of the gender gaps in representation are clear evidence that many are treating unequal representation as itself a problem, and/or irrationality dismissing the possibility that unequal representation can be due to differences in aptitude or interest.

The fact that you think the many studies that show that the gender gap is specifically due to sexism in the system, at the grade school, secondary, college, and professional level, because the 'difference in interest' has already been accounted for (there are many studies along these lines), may point to sexism.

Despite your incoherent non-sentence, I get the illogical point you tried to make.

The fact that you think there is research that fully accounts for interest effects (which isn't even methodologically possible) or that doing so would show the gap is due to sexism in the system shows a failure of evidence based reasoning. The fact that you also think this is even relevant to the failed reasoning of those who claim the gap is itself evidence of sexism further suggest a lack of reasoning capacity.

The fact that you aren't even willing to entertain that idea? Points to sexism.

The fact you baselessly inferred that haven't entertained the idea that there is research claiming to show evidence of sexism in the system shows, yet again, failed reasoning skills. I have entertained the idea and read the research, but unlike you, I have actually understood the research and not just blindly accepted the conclusions. Even that research that does show evidence of sexism, does not show evidence that this sexism is responsible for most of the gender gap. Thus, pointing to the gender gap as though it reflects the degree of sexism is a logical fallacy engaged in by those too intellectually dishonest to entertain the possibility that there are other unaccounted for factors contributing to the gender gap.

As for your passive aggressive insinuation that I'm some sort of misogynist who would be scared of competent women in STEM, I'm a proud husband of woman scientist who has done research related to teaching methods that could increase the retention of women in STEM fields. So, your pathetic Ad-hominem is factually wrong in addition to being a fallacious substitute for anything of intellectual substance in your post.

You probably have black friends too.

Ah, so you share Toni's desire to engage in baseless Ad-hominems to discount arguments you cannot intellectually refute. I don't merely happen to have a wife in STEM, I am with her in part because of it and am proud of the work she is doing to increase the intellectual development of women in STEM courses. People are not proud of others who do things they do not want to be done or are ideologically opposed to. So, yeah, my feelings for my wife and her work are in fact strong evidence against Toni's and your claim that I am opposed to women in STEM. Your red herring response suggest that you are as incapable of reasoning about how behavior reveals underlying psychology as you are about this thread topic. Your and Toni's insinuation that arguments are motivated by sexism are themselves based in nothing but your own sexist assumptions about men. If I was a woman making these same arguments (such as my wife who makes these same arguments), then you wouldn't infer my motives were fueled by fear of women in STEM fields. As with all bigots, you use your bigotry as an easy excuse to discount information you don't want to accept.

 

[dismal]

For the longest time, the Airline industry was completely male-dominated. There was a chauvinistic expression... "If god wanted women to fly, he would have painted the sky pink"
As it turns out, it was found that women are actually better pilots than men, on average. Modern flying is less "stick and rudder" and more "cockpit resource management"... women make better cockpit managers. They are generally more risk adverse than men and they are generally more detail oriented. These are critical traits for a commercial transport pilot.
It is still a very male-dominated industry, but far, far less so.

How can women be better at something if they are equal at everything?

 

[ronburgundy]

Fortunately, sexism in males is very easy to diagnose.

Yeah, WTF barbos? Get off my side of the argument with that sh!t. And I say that as someone whom Toni just made an equally sexist fallacious personal attack against.

I made no attack at all, and certainly not a sexist, personal or fallacious one.

quote=Toni "I’m not trying to scare you but women are more than ready, willing and able to tackle all STEM fields."

You implied that I would be afraid of there being more women in STEM in order to insinuate that my arguments are motivated by misogyny. That is a personal attack. There is nothing in my arguments that imply this, that makes it fallacious. The only plausible basis for your inference was that I was a man who'd be afraid of the competition of women in STEM. Therefore your comment was obviously rooted in your sexist view of men and what motivates their discourse.
So now you've added dishonest back-peddling to your list of rhetorical bile.

 

[Gun Nut]

For the longest time, the Airline industry was completely male-dominated. There was a chauvinistic expression... "If god wanted women to fly, he would have painted the sky pink"
As it turns out, it was found that women are actually better pilots than men, on average. Modern flying is less "stick and rudder" and more "cockpit resource management"... women make better cockpit managers. They are generally more risk adverse than men and they are generally more detail oriented. These are critical traits for a commercial transport pilot.
It is still a very male-dominated industry, but far, far less so.

How can women be better at something if they are equal at everything?

exactly.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Despite your incoherent non-sentence, I get the illogical point you tried to make.

The fact that you think there is research that fully accounts for interest effects (which isn't even methodologically possible) or that doing so would show the gap is due to sexism in the system shows a failure of evidence based reasoning. The fact that you also think this is even relevant to the failed reasoning of those who claim the gap is itself evidence of sexism further suggest a lack of reasoning capacity.

The fact that you aren't even willing to entertain that idea? Points to sexism.

The fact you baselessly inferred that haven't entertained the idea that there is research claiming to show evidence of sexism in the system shows, yet again, failed reasoning skills. I have entertained the idea and read the research, but unlike you, I have actually understood the research and not just blindly accepted the conclusions. Even that research that does show evidence of sexism, does not show evidence that this sexism is responsible for most of the gender gap. Thus, pointing to the gender gap as though it reflects the degree of sexism is a logical fallacy engaged in by those too intellectually dishonest to entertain the possibility that there are other unaccounted for factors contributing to the gender gap.

As for your passive aggressive insinuation that I'm some sort of misogynist who would be scared of competent women in STEM, I'm a proud husband of woman scientist who has done research related to teaching methods that could increase the retention of women in STEM fields. So, your pathetic Ad-hominem is factually wrong in addition to being a fallacious substitute for anything of intellectual substance in your post.

You probably have black friends too.

Ah, so you share Toni's desire to engage in baseless Ad-hominems to discount arguments you cannot intellectually refute. I don't merely happen to have a wife in STEM, I am with her in part because of it and am proud of the work she is doing to increase the intellectual development of women in STEM courses. People are not proud of others who do things they do not want to be done or are ideologically opposed to. So, yeah, my feelings for my wife and her work are in fact strong evidence against Toni's and your claim that I am opposed to women in STEM. Your red herring response suggest that you are as incapable of reasoning about how behavior reveals underlying psychology as you are about this thread topic. Your and Toni's insinuation that arguments are motivated by sexism are themselves based in nothing but your own sexist assumptions about men. If I was a woman making these same arguments (such as my wife who makes these same arguments), then you wouldn't infer my motives were fueled by fear of women in STEM fields. As with all bigots, you use your bigotry as an easy excuse to discount information you don't want to accept.

And your anecdata is useless. You seem awfully defensive for someone who claims to be just so darn supportive of women in STEM fields (and you probably are, in your wife's case). Here's a clue for you though: My wife is also in a STEM field. In many of her (MS) classes, she was literally the only woman in the classes. She has seen plenty of sexism first hand, (and been on the receiving end), usually not even terribly malicious, but the casual sexism that most guys wouldn't even noticed if it happened right in front of them.

So yeah, the study I'm thinking of (not sure you're worth the effort of looking up links) tracked women who were interested and dedicated to their fields, and wound up leaving them. Most of the women at least made it as far as a BS, but the prevalent, persistent sexism in the academic world caused many to drop out. The same happened to a significant number of them after they had a degree and were working in their field.

So yeah, it doesn't seem all that baseless. You walk like a duck and quack like a duck.

 

[Metaphor]

What if men are just assholes, idiots, and wholly undesirable?

Then build your own society without men, like the lesbian separatists did so successfully in the 1970s.

 

[Metaphor]

?

It depends. In a sex-segregated high school, it'll be one or the other. Otherwise, both.

I'm not sure what your comment is about.

Yeah, I think that's the point. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that schools teach demographics, not individuals. It doesn't matter if one gender in general could be better than another gender in any academic field if individuals from both genders can excel in it. Which is why we teach students as individuals, not gender demographics.

I don't know how you go from my OP to "you believe schools teach demographics".

 

[Metaphor]

If there is a biologically-based difference in math ability, it is rather small. And if it is small, then the question is whether allowing for such a difference in math-ability influenced job outcomes is worth the certain discriminatory bias that would create, as it has certainly already created due to the widespread belief that such a biological difference exists. IOW, if a small difference in actual ability is allowed to be used as a justification in unequal outcomes, the difference in outcomes will become much larger than the difference in innate ability, due to the biases and prejudices that will inherently follow.

From the AEI article:

Adjusting for the much greater number of female high school students who took the 2016 SAT (875,342) compared to males (762,247), we could also determine that only 5.1% of female test-takers scored in the 700-800 point range on the SAT math test (45,068 total) compared to 9.4% of boys ( 71,999) who scored in the highest range.

Small differences become very noticeable at the top end of distributions.

So, allowing for such biological difference to be openly treated as fact and acted upon in the employment and education sectors, will actually create false beliefs that are against the facts regarding the real size of that difference and logically fallacious applications of that fact from the general to the specific in terms of how individuals are prejudges and how their performance is interpreted. There is far more evidence to support the certainty of this consequence than there is to support even a small difference in innate math ability.

The demonstrated difference in mathematics ability has been demonstrated repeatedly for decades; it isn't uncertain.

Thus, it isn't a simple matter of arguing that we should acknowledge and apply the fact of a difference, if doing so is guaranteed to produce the misapplication of those facts and creation of beliefs that contradict the facts.

Wouldn't it be better to treat individuals without prejudice than to deny facts? And if people unconsciously act on prejudices, wouldn't it be better to put systems in place to minimise the influence of that, rather than simply deny the facts and pretend the opposite is the truth?

 

[Patooka]

*snip*
Western countries now have government policies - as well as widely accepted rhetoric - that boards should have equal gender representation, regardless of any other factors whatsoever.

Okay. You can name at least one company that does this, I assume?

 

[Metaphor]

My post above is based upon the assumption that there is in fact a biologically based difference.

Why would any difference, if it exists, have to be "biological"?

Let's say that all the differences between men and women in occupational choice is "social" - and not biological. That means that adults now have preferences, talents and interests that have been shaped by society (as everything is), but that does not mean their preferences, talents and interests are not their own.

There's a current mania to encourage girls into computer coding. Why? Is it for the girls' benefit? Why do people believe that the occupation of "computer coding" is as appealing, or ought be as appealing, to girls as it is to boys?

A far leftists response to this would be to argue that even if there are differences in actual ability due to beliefs that impact ability development, gender equality in those jobs should be required, b/c that will impact development of those abilities for future generations by undermining those beliefs that are currently leading to under-development of abilities in women. It is the epitome of social engineering, basically forcing actions that harmful and even unjust (e.g., hiring/promoting objectively less able/qualified people) in order to try and reduce other future harms and injustices (e.g., continued lack of development of potential ability in some groups) caused by basic cultural flaws in the system (e.g, prejudices beliefs about potential ability).

But this assumes that equal representation will result in equal perception of ability. Indeed, it seems to me unintended consequences could arise. Seeing equal numbers of men and women in professions does not mean people will believe that there is equal ability, talent, and effort in those professions, if there are policies that are known to force equality regardless of ability, talent, and effort. Further, there are professions where equal numbers will make differential success even more obvious. For example, if women are appointed to half of academic mathematical positions, but 90% of mathematical papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals continue to be published by men, people will notice (even those of us who aren't mathematicians).

 

[Metaphor]

this is why there are wars - because men run the countries.

Yes. I note that the OP "mysteriously" only defines the things that he thinks men are better at, and does not delve into the list of things that women are (statistically) better at.

There's nothing mysterious about it. If you want to start a thread about the human pursuits that women are better at, feel free.

Let's assume some these stupid stereotypes are true and that women are more empathetic, caring, nurturing, etc. Wouldn't we want women to be in charge in social situations in that case? Sure, let the men all sign up to be firefighters, and whatever other jobs require 'upper body strength', but if this is going to be used as an excuse to segregate society, let's go whole hog and put the women in charge of all the things they are better at.

Why should your immediate instinct to a difference in group averages be a desire to segregate the population and deny individual differences?

I suspect maybe metaphor only thinks women are better at making sammiches and babies, but that would be stupid, wouldn't it?

Women aren't better at the culinary arts, if you take as a barometer the sex ratio of the chefs in the most celebrated restaurants in the world.


It's true that men tend not to have wombs and so are terrible at gestating babies, but men are necessary, if not sufficient, to make a baby - just like women.

 

[Metaphor]

The OP brought up genders and alleged generalities, which is just dumb.

Statistical facts may be inconvenient, but that does not mean they are "dumb".

So many fields consisted primarily of just white males.

Western chauvinism in the left is so adorable. Do you think most of the musicians, bridge designers and basketball players in Japan, Korea or China are white males?

Was it because women couldn't play in an orchestra, design bridges, or play basketball?

Women obviously can play in orchestras; I assume the gender of female-presenting musicians all the time and I can see them.

As for basketball. Hoo boy. Even leftists won't countenance de-segregating sport, because if women had to compete against men, there'd be no women in elite sports.

 

[starwater]

From the AEI article:



Small differences become very noticeable at the top end of distributions.

So, allowing for such biological difference to be openly treated as fact and acted upon in the employment and education sectors, will actually create false beliefs that are against the facts regarding the real size of that difference and logically fallacious applications of that fact from the general to the specific in terms of how individuals are prejudges and how their performance is interpreted. There is far more evidence to support the certainty of this consequence than there is to support even a small difference in innate math ability.

The demonstrated difference in mathematics ability has been demonstrated repeatedly for decades; it isn't uncertain.

Thus, it isn't a simple matter of arguing that we should acknowledge and apply the fact of a difference, if doing so is guaranteed to produce the misapplication of those facts and creation of beliefs that contradict the facts.

Wouldn't it be better to treat individuals without prejudice than to deny facts? And if people unconsciously act on prejudices, wouldn't it be better to put systems in place to minimise the influence of that, rather than simply deny the facts and pretend the opposite is the truth?

So in your view, this data can only be interpreted one way? How about how the math is taught. Visual versus analytical, female students are not called upon, do female students get as much support, are females encouraged to do well, are they brainwashed from an early age that females just don't do good in math, etc.

 

[Metaphor]

Are you really going to stick with that misogynistic statement?

If statements of fact are misogyny, then the universe is misogynistic. You'll have to blame god - and she isn't taking calls right now.

I am a normal woman and I am interested in math. All the women I know are interested in math.

What is the representation of women CPAs?

As long as nobody has discriminated by gender in accepting people into CPA courses, there'd be no problem with 0% or 100% of CPAs being women.

 

[Metaphor]

I don’t know anybody who thinks that we must hire equal numbers of male and female anything.

The Australian government thinks we should, as well as many academics who point to occupational segregation as explaining some of the gender pay gap.

The push to encourage more women in STEM is not to mandate some quota but to encourage males and females to pursue STEM education and careers

In what universe are female-focused and female-exclusive pushes into STEM to encourage males into STEM?

(or whatever path) as their interests and talents lead them, and recognizing and removing barriers that discourage or event prevent such pursuits. An equal distribution among genders might or might not be reached but barriers should be removed.

Removing barriers is wonderful and there should be more of it.

 

[Metaphor]

Except for pissing for distance, can anyone name a physical or mental skill/trait/action, which every man can be expected to perform better than every woman.

There are zero such examples. Are you suggesting we should treat people as individuals without prejudice?

 

[ruby sparks]

It's like two runners in a race but one is farther ahead because they have been shackled. So I guess if we could just take off the shackles, that'd mean we'd have addressed the issue, or something, even though the unshackled runner is still way ahead. I see how that works. We should be that fair. Then, assuming we could even do that in the real world (it wouldn't be easy) and not just on paper, there'd be no barriers. Wouldn't we be so egalitarian.