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Sociology: A puzzling fact about women in science and gender equality

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Introversion

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Women go into science careers more often in countries without gender equality

Ars Technica said:
A large number of social factors have discouraged women from pursuing careers in science and technology. But in a number of countries, an increasingly egalitarian view of gender differences has been associated with rising math and science scores for girls. However, that change hasn't been followed by increased participation in science and tech careers; in fact, the frequency of women pursuing degrees in these areas is often higher in societies that are far from egalitarian.

Two researchers, Gijsbert Stoet of the UK and David Geary in the US, decided to explore this paradoxical trend. Their analysis suggests that the situation may be the product of a complex mixture of relative talents, general confidence, and social factors. The results drive home that, if we want to attract and retain some of the best talent in the sciences, it's going to take more than simply ensuring they have equal access to advanced degrees.

Global testing

Stoet and Geary's research relies on a lot of publicly available information. One of the keys to this work is the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which gives standardized tests to students around the world. The most recent iteration of these tests was given to about half a million students in a total of 71 countries, and so provides a trans-national measure of students' skills in math, science, and reading comprehension. Critically, when it came to science, the PISA survey also asked about students' interest in and enjoyment of science, as well as if they felt confident they could do some basic scientific analysis without supervision.

To understand the context of a country's test scores, the two researchers also obtained information on gender gaps in different countries from the World Economic Forum, educational data from UNESCO, and the overall life satisfaction in the country from the United Nations Development Programme.

Overall, the data showed that the gender gap in science is pretty small among the children tested. While boys outperformed girls in science in 22 countries, girls came out on top in 19. There was no clear relationship between these results and a country's gender equality.

But things got complicated when Stoet and Geary looked at each student's relative strengths. This involved averaging their scores for all three subject areas, then comparing the score in each subject to the average to identify the student's strongest subject. Thus, someone could be below average overall, but still have math be their strongest subject, or could be well above average in reading comprehension, yet be relatively better with science. Among boys, it is far more common to have science be their strongest subject—this was true in every country but two (Lebanon and Romania are the outliers). Which means it was also true in most of those 19 countries where girls on average outperformed boys on the science test.

In math, this analysis favored boys in every single country; in reading, the converse is true, with girls coming out on top in every single country. As a result, even in situations where girls outperformed boys in science, they typically outperformed them in reading by an even larger margin.

Relative strength

It might seem that this alone could account for the relatively low percentage of women pursuing a career in science and technology—but it doesn't. In every single country, the percentage of women getting degrees in relevant fields was lower than the percentage who had science or math as their strongest subject. So, even if people were being drawn to get degrees in the areas they were best at, it wouldn't explain the gender gap among the graduates.

So what could explain this?

...
 

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If I'm reading correctly, it sounds like one of the possible conclusions is that social expectations play a big factor.

I also have to wonder about working environments, which was outside the scope of the study. As someone who originally went into software in the 1980s, I'm not at all surprised that the number of women in that field is dropping.
 

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The reason, I would speculate is about meritocracy. Gender equality is an absolute nonsense on that matter! You don't incite a woman not even a man to pursue a career in science just because you allow her/him to. It has been proven countless of times that it's not about women and ability but about women and interest. Your numbers prove it: Women are just naturally less interested to do Math, Physics, Chemistry, astrology and else... To force women by any means to pursue things that don't interested them will for sure bring equality in number but mediocrity in quality. The last time I checked when women were truly and sincerely interested in a matter they excelled at it! So it's not about country with gender equality or inequality (despite the fact that I acknowledge that women in some countries can't do what their truly desire to do), it's about genuine interested. Yea, sometimes it can be that simple.
 

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\Women are just naturally less interested to do Math, Physics, Chemistry, astrology and else...

When I was in college, there was a study done where people were handed an infant to play with for a bit. In some cases they were told the infant was a girl, in others that it was a boy. All the subjects, whether they considered themselves feminist or not, treated the baby differently based on assumed gender.

When all of us unconsciously reinforce cultural stereotypes in newborns, how can you even remotely claim to know what's "natural"?

Also, your...rebuttal assumes a neutral society in which people are evaluated only for their abilities. This does not exist anywhere in the world at this time, and particularly not in STEM fields anywhere.
 

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The reason, I would speculate is about meritocracy. Gender equality is an absolute nonsense on that matter! You don't incite a woman not even a man to pursue a career in science just because you allow her/him to. It has been proven countless of times that it's not about women and ability but about women and interest. Your numbers prove it: Women are just naturally less interested to do Math, Physics, Chemistry, astrology and else... To force women by any means to pursue things that don't interested them will for sure bring equality in number but mediocrity in quality. The last time I checked when women were truly and sincerely interested in a matter they excelled at it! So it's not about country with gender equality or inequality (despite the fact that I acknowledge that women in some countries can't do what their truly desire to do), it's about genuine interested. Yea, sometimes it can be that simple.

ORLY?

Well, I'm not interested in astrology, so that much is true. Astronomy, otoh...

So, what are women interested in?
 

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Well dang, there goes my big comics project.

Here I thought I was interested in illuminating science for non-scientists.

But it turns out the shape of my reproductive organs dooms me from any such interest.

The weird thing is I thought I read books with my eyes and brain, not with my ladyparts.
 

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When all of us unconsciously reinforce cultural stereotypes in newborns, how can you even remotely claim to know what's "natural"?

Cultural stereotype? (sigh) I do not want to get into that kind of conversation but here's a little example for you about what's "natural". An experiment had been conducted following young girls and boys who were exposed to more or less the same environment. They realized that up to 12 years old or so, there is an "indifferentiation" (that's the term used) between boys and girls. They generally have the same interest no matter the gender, they can both play with a doll or a car, both play chess or soccer, both love math or history... But it happens that after 12 years of age, when adolescence kicks in, there's a "differentiation" in their behavior and mentality. Boys are still incline to violent and aggressive behavior and girls are more psychological and delicate. Here is some "natural" for you. It is called Testosterone. The same substance some women athletes injected in themselves to be stronger, the one that makes everyone horny, the one that increase aggressivity, the one that makes people being bolder and take more risks...
 

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Cultural stereotype? (sigh) I do not want to get into that kind of conversation but here's a little example for you about what's "natural". An experiment had been conducted following young girls and boys who were exposed to more or less the same environment. They realized that up to 12 years old or so, there is an "indifferentiation" (that's the term used) between boys and girls. They generally have the same interest no matter the gender, they can both play with a doll or a car, both play chess or soccer, both love math or history... But it happens that after 12 years of age, when adolescence kicks in, there's a "differentiation" in their behavior and mentality. Boys are still incline to violent and aggressive behavior and girls are more psychological and delicate. Here is some "natural" for you. It is called Testosterone. The same substance some women athletes injected in themselves to be stronger, the one that makes everyone horny, the one that increase aggressivity, the one that makes people being bolder and take more risks...

Source?
 

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Cultural stereotype? (sigh) I do not want to get into that kind of conversation but here's a little example for you about what's "natural". An experiment had been conducted following young girls and boys who were exposed to more or less the same environment. They realized that up to 12 years old or so, there is an "indifferentiation" (that's the term used) between boys and girls. They generally have the same interest no matter the gender, they can both play with a doll or a car, both play chess or soccer, both love math or history... But it happens that after 12 years of age, when adolescence kicks in, there's a "differentiation" in their behavior and mentality. Boys are still incline to violent and aggressive behavior and girls are more psychological and delicate. Here is some "natural" for you. It is called Testosterone. The same substance some women athletes injected in themselves to be stronger, the one that makes everyone horny, the one that increase aggressivity, the one that makes people being bolder and take more risks...

Dearie me.
 
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