"Historical bias in education" seems like a bad justification that just draws on modern buzz words. Girls outperform boys in every subject in school, science included, and always have in our modern education system (last century or so). The idea that girls are getting worse education is not plausible.
On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - which is that women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion and better learn that vocabulary while men are more interested in the science (or science fiction) and technical terms and learn that vocabulary.
> which is that women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion
So, this is actually quite a modern phenomenon. At some point in the early 19th century, high status menswear started evolving into a near-uniform (it's finally started to pull away again a bit in the last few decades), while women's clothes started going in the opposite direction, especially in the early 20th century. But before that, high fashion was very much a male-focused thing. If someone in 1750 in Europe was obsessed with different fabric types, they'd be likely to be a wealthy man.
(For an example of this, see Pepys' Diary; he goes on about fashion constantly.)
I don't believe we have anywhere near the data needed to reliably describe the vocabulary or interests of the people of the 19th century. Most of all history is narrowly focused on the goings on of elites - which may, or may not be broadly representative. I don't think we have quantitative studies or surveys of populations from that time.
Oh, yeah, we basically only have what the elites wrote. Fashion would generally have been an elite thing then, though; it simply wasn't accessible to normal people.
> women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion
Why? There are only two possible answers: Either there's some sort of genetic predisposition for women to care about fashion (quite a claim!), or that disposition is a product of the way we raise girls.
Given that we know our culture strongly associates fashion with women, and we don't have any evidence for some "fashion gene," historical bias in how we rear our children is simply the least presumptuous hypothesis available to us.
If we were to enter a mental clean room where nothing we knew of life on Earth could accompany us, and then sit and speculate about the nature of men and women, I agree that we would have no reason to suspect an interest in fashion might be related to biology. At least, I doubt I would come up with the connection.
In reality we know that there are biological differences between men and women. We know these differences affect the brain in terms of size and structure. We know these differences affect the mind in terms of personality and emotional experience. Should we expect that men and women have identical biological predispositions towards areas of interest? I would say no. Given that we then expect to find differences of interest stemming from biology, and that we have found a difference in interest, and that there isn't a plausible alternative...
> Given that we then expect to find differences of interest stemming from biology, and that we have found a difference in interest, and that there isn't a plausible alternative...
There is a more plausible alternative though. Our society demonstrably raises boys and girls differently, and we know for a fact that the way we raise children affects who they are. In fact, women were much more common in the field of computer science until a cultural shift around the '80s that saw computers portrayed as "boy toys" [1], so we know this affects things as complex as career aspirations too.
Contrast that plausible and well-supported hypothesis with the other one: "There are biological differences between men and women. They affect many things. Therefore it's plausible that there is some effect on personal interest. Therefore it's safe to assume that any given difference in personal interests between sexes can be attributed to biology." This isn't even logically sound; it's fallacious to say that, if X affects Y, any behaviour exhibited by Y is likely attributable to X.
And this is still all a-priori non-empirical reasoning; there's no evidence that sex is responsible for areas of interest at such a granular level as this, while we do have such evidence for culture (e.g. pink used to be a boys' colour [2]).
Person 1: I've just measured a thousand men and women. I've found that men are typically taller than women. This is because our society systematically underfeeds infant girls so they don't grow to be as tall as their male counterparts.
Person 2: That's horrible! Is there any evidence of this systematic underfeeding?
P1: None at all.
P2: But, society at large tacitly endorses the practice of underfeeding young girls?
P1: Not at all. In fact, it would be a horrible scandal and a severe and rare crime if anyone were found to be intentionally depriving an infant girl of nutrition.
P2: So... why do you think this is the explanation for height differences?
P1: Well, it would explain my results in a way that accords with my political beliefs.
Your argument seems similar to Person One's argument. There just is no evidence that we are not educating girls fairly in science or any other domain. As I've previously referenced girls outperform boys in science (as well as every other subject) and have for the last century. It would, in fact, be a huge scandal if some school system were found to be educating girls differently.
You are pointing at these really small things, like commercials targeting toys to boys versus girls. You assume that these small things cause major changes (as opposed to companies targeting their commercials where they find they get the best return). You ignore giant influences like the education system which does a better job educating young girls in science and math than boys.
> Is there any evidence of this systematic underfeeding?
I provided evidence that our cultural ideas of what careers are and aren't masculine impacts women's interests in terms of career path. You provided no evidence that interests are a product of sexed brain chemistry. Your height analogy makes no sense and doesn't match up to our discussion.
> There just is no evidence that we are not educating girls fairly in science or any other domain.
I never argued that schools discriminate against women by offering them a worse education in those areas. I argued that our culture encourages certain interests above others in boys and girls by gendering those interests. Consider the example I linked, where the number of women pursuing careers in computer science fell precipitously after messing with computers became coded as a "boy hobby."
> You ignore giant influences like the education system which does a better job educating young girls in science and math than boys.
Girls get higher marks than boys in every subject, and the discrepancy is actually less pronounced in STEM fields [1]. But this is really irrelevant to our discussion.
Have you been around babies and small children? Or spoken with someone who has raised them?
Differences in character are evident between children, and statistical differences between boys and girls are very visible.
Your argument has a flaw. It's right we don't have evidence for the fashion gene but it's also right we know the female and male brain are different and behaviors are different (even if we cannot pinpoint the cause of the difference we see different behavior). It is sufficient to consider the genetic explanation as possible.
Anything's possible, but I find it less plausible, given that "we know sex has some effects on behaviour" is weak evidence, and we have strong evidence that gender norms affect life choices in adults (such as female CS majors declining after computers became a "boy thing" in advertising).
If we view fashion as part of an effective female mating strategy, which it observably is, then it’s unsurprising that success at that intrasexual competition would be selected for.
> On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know -
I read this and immediately assumed you were going to say its obvious that women are taught how to behave, and that they're taught things related to what they're supposed to know.
Your comment alone is enough proof that society is telling women they aren't supposed to like science. Any young engineer reading HN may start/continue to subconsciously question their affinity to the field.
Women ARE taught that they don't belong in stem fields, and that science is not for them. I was picking out books for a 5yo girl and boy twins for christmas recently, and the nice lady at the bookstore told me to get a glittery princess book for the girl and a scientist book for the boy. It was not a malicious act meant to keep women out out science, but just something we take for granted in society. Fromm a young age we tell girls what is and isn't for them, subconsciously.
IEEE has studied the affects of engineering graduation and job retention, and its correlated to a womens self-identity as an engineer and their perception that they belong. Starting from a young age, society is damaging that perception. I'll link one study, but they've done a number of studies, including tracking workplace treatment of coworkers, and women are consistently treated worse and are questioned more and trusted less.
Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed? Since women's relative disinterest in science apparently comes from society, and there are many societies on Earth, surely there are some societies in which women are more interested in science than men, right?
All of this stuff seems like obvious post hoc rationalization. You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women. Are we socializing young girls to be accountants, claims adjusters, or advertising specialists? If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants? (Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender)
The survey you cite is pretty meaningless. They survey some engineering freshman and then find a few questions where the results are statistically different between men and women.
"We conducted t-tests to determine gender differences in
survey responses. We found that women tended to have
lower self-efficacy perceptions: they reported less
confidence in their ability to complete the physics
requirements (5.75 vs. 6.13, p < .05), less confidence that
they could do well in an engineering major during the
current academic year (5.75 vs. 6.07, p < .05), and less
confidence that they could complete any engineering degree
at this institution (5.08 vs. 5.41, p < .05). In contrast, women reported higher outcome expectations than men: they
reported greater agreement with the statement that
engineering will allow them to find a well-paying job (6.48
vs. 6.33, p < .05), and that doing well at math would increase their sense of self-worth (5.66 vs. 5.46, p < .05). "
So - women tended to have less confidence but higher expectations for their career and that's supposed to be evidence that society teaches women they can't be engineers?
> You know girls aren't taught to be engineers because relatively few engineers are women
No its clearly that there are few engineers who are women because we teach them they shouldn't be. You got it backwards. There is ample evidence of this.
> Accountants, by the way, are close to an even split on gender
Thank you for this example, by the way. I've never seen a single children's book on accounting, and its pretty even. I've seen lots on science, doctors, construction, nursing, etc. And they're pretty non-even careers.
> If girls are just reading sparkly books about princesses where do they get the idea to become accountants?
Because sparkly princess is not a job and most people need a job. We're not teaching anyone to be an accountant from a young age and people do it because it interests them. But when we teach only men to be engineers... we get a gender imbalance.
> Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed?
This is a really weak argument. 1. There are plenty of matriarchal societies throughout history. 2. The identity of science as we see it in western society today is a relatively western idea that doesn't translate well historically. Euro-mediterranian history dominates our cultures idea of science, and that cultural history is male-leader dominated. Plenty of societies across the world had women do things, but we just learn about what happened in Europe (from men).
As you said in another comment, women outperform men at school, so why do they have lower confidence? That seems like a discrepancy that has a logical social explanation (they're told they don't belong, so they aren't confident in their work). Studies have proven this. Unless you think women are unconfident as a matter of biology? (studies have not proven this)
Aside, have you ever talked to a female engineer? MANY will tell you they were not pushed to be an engineer, and that they face sexism and were constantly told they're not supposed to be there. Many experience higher levels of criticism and mistrust over their work compared to male coworkers.
Sorry, but it's just not a serious thought to think that the subjects of children's books decide the demographics of careers later in life. Especially when you think decades of education do not.
Regarding your response to my quick question - which matriarchal societies are you thinking of? The "identity of science" (whatever that means) is not really at issue. We are discussing the reason behind why women know more fashion related vocabulary and men know more science and technical terms. If the "identity" of science changes over the years, that wouldn't seem to change whether or not men have greater interests in what we now call science.
Your theory, that career differences are caused by acculturation is first, absurd. The theme of children's books, kids TV shows, or whatever you posit is part of this, is minuscule compared to spending 8 hours a day in a classroom. Yet, you think the minuscule effects outweigh the massive effects, and nevermind the widespread effort to get girls into STEM.
Second, your theory is soundly rejected by evidence. Girls choose not to go to engineering because of those kids books, but they perform better in math and science throughout school? Where is the effect of these books in K-12 education?
Third, your theory predicts everything and therefore nothing. When a survey shows that girls have lower confidence and higher expectations, well, that's because their confidence is undermined by our patriarchal society! If the results were reversed, and girls were more confident but had lower expectations, why, that would be because despite their abilities they knew they wouldn't be treated fairly by our evil patriarchy!
Conversely, I would say that if you survey a thousand people, divided them into two groups, on dozens of questions, you will probably find some that have significantly different results. I would think the results were meaningless unless they confirmed some prior prediction or were all aligned in some surprising way. That is, actually, what I think about that survey.
No you're directly wrong, and its not absurd. The affects of those childhood books (and of course, the views and behaviors outside of literature of people who choose how to distribute them!) have a huge affect on someones life. Early childhood development is disproportionately important in someones growth as an adult.
The cultural affect of childrens books, tv shows etc doesn't stop in a classroom. Teachers are often complicit in furthering stereotypes and tropes throughout someones academic career. But again, someones home environment, even when smaller in time than a classroom will be more impactful.
Women do better in the classroom, but despite their performance, report that they feel less confident in their abilities than their male peers. At the same time, they say that a stem career would have a great improvement on their life. Then they choose to pursue another field, and you're interpretation is that they must like fashion more as a nature of human biology? THAT is absurd.
Again, if you ever talk to women in stem (or those who left stem), you'll quickly find tons of people who directly tell you why they act and think the way they do. And it is what i've been saying - they're being made to feel like they don't belong explicitly and implicity. I can confidently say you've never had a serious conversation with a woman about this topic based on how you discuss this.
> Quick question: In which societies on Earth is this trend reversed?
Iran, oddly enough; about 70% of STEM graduates are women.
More generally, though, the trend in the west has been, for any given subject, it's all male, then there are one or two women, then a few more, and suddenly a tipping point is hit and it's 50/50 within a few years. This happened to medicine and later biology and then chemistry in most places. I'd expect the pattern to continue.
My, uneducated, guess on Iran is that college-eligible men are likelier to go to madrassas or the like seeking government or religious power over education. Do you think that, or some other explanation, is right, or do you think that women are better represented in STEM in Iran due to a more egalitarian childhood?
Neither. Obviously Iran is not an egalitarian society; the idea’s absurd. However, Iran is also not Afghanistan; most people have a broadly secular edification. Iranian men do go to university in quite large numbers.
I think you’re missing the obvious explanation; the gender biases in STEM may be basically arbitrary; go to a very different society and you’d expect them to be different.
We see this in the west, too. From the 40s through 70s, women were far better represented in programming than today in western countries. Part of this was a legacy of the war, but that can’t explain the whole thing. And in the other direction, practically all chemists in the west were men until the 80s or so; this fairly rapidly flipped and now most new chemists are women in many countries (similar tipping point shifts happened earlier for medicine and biology).
> women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion and better learn that vocabulary while men are more interested in the science (or science fiction) and technical terms and learn that vocabulary.
So why are there women in stem if they really want to learn about fabrics?
Or, do you really mean that women only enter jobs when men leave openings?
I think you're forgetting the term "tend". Even in Iran my expectation is that if you were to repeat the experiment from the featured article you would get similar results.
I assume though that Iran has a smaller portion of the population in college and that men are preferentially pursuing political or theological power over STEM education. Of course, these are assumptions which is why I'm asking questions to understand better.
Do you think that in Iran their children's books more prominently feature female scientists?
I think you're seriously misreading the above person's comment to the point of putting words in their mouth. Saying "X gender is less likely to be interested in Y" is not saying that people of that gender "aren't supposed to like Y" as you put it. It's making the observation of different gender distributions. Women are more likely to be interested in equestrian sports. This is an objective fact, there's more than 2 women for every man in equestrian sports. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a man that shares this interest.
It's also difficult to see a correlation between weaker gender roles and more interest in STEM among women. If anything, the correlation is reversed: more equal countries see less women interested in science and technology [1]. Different preferences of toys among infants are observed even before they're able to talk [2][3].
It seems to me that these claims of societal influence or bias is rooted in the assumption that everything is going to be perfect 50/50 distribution, and thus anything that doesn't conform to an equal distribution is evidence of some sort of pressure or bias. On what grounds do we claim that 50/50 interest in science and technology is the default? This is almost never answered, people just postulate it as fact.
You're dismissing millennium due to a generation of reasonable parity in education, and entirely dismissing culture passed between generations of women. My grandmother wouldn't really know any of those fabric words, she grew up on a plantation in the 30s. Probably means she's not a woman.
On the other hand, there is an obvious explanation, which, I feel all of us with sufficient exposure to both genders must know - which is that women tend to be more interested in fabrics and fashion and better learn that vocabulary while men are more interested in the science (or science fiction) and technical terms and learn that vocabulary.
https://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-...