Thanks for bringing that up, OP. I'd been thinking about that too, in the wake of Gamergate and Shirtstorm.
I've got a number of points about this which I'll link to issues others have brought up. Looking at the judo class across the courtyard, I think this is a succinct statement on female representation in traditionally male-dominated fields in general.
Firstly, I'd like to call bullshit on the idea of institutionalised misogyny or a boy-club atmosphere in STEM. This isn't politics or the police force. StrikeBack has a point about the thirst and the penis paradise factor in the field. Yes, it's a totem of masculinity, but not in the alpha-footballer sense. Rather, STEM guys tend to be a core manifestation of the sort of masculine traits that maths and science represents -- systematic problem solving via spatio-numerical methods. It's basically cognate to the autism-spectrum being a condition of the heightened male brain -- incidentally, this is representative of more than a few cases in STEM -- more on that later. Typically, guys in these fields would have little of a history in relating to the opposite sex in their formative years.
I also want to point out, even in STEM the correlation of female representation within each discipline as being inversely proportional to the 'hardness' of that field. Look at how many girls there are in environmental engineering compared to Comp Sci or Software engineering.
Look at the the girls you know in these professions. As someone who has slaved away far too long in a STEM major, I will tell you that they are definitely towards the masculine end of their gender. I'm not just talking about their cognitive slant -- it shows up physically too; they tend to wear backpacks to uni, dress a bit more manly and a few even have more masculine jawlines. I swear I couldn't imagine a few of them wearing a dress or makeup, or they don't look natural when they do so. (And you thought Aussie chicks couldn't be less feminine as it were, but I digress.)
So their intellectual makeup is really an extension of the sort of masculine-end qualities that they were born with. The ones I know go as far as to believe that they are exceptions in terms of the feminine brain -- vis-à-vis their peers in high school, they actually clicked with spatial reasoning abilities --
something they accept that girls aren't inherently slanted towards. While their brains may still be womans' brains at the end of the end, they're still bloody switched on at what they do, and I have no doubt that some of them will make far better engineers than I'll ever be.
Quote: (11-18-2014 08:46 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:
Nice observation about boys being more curious. The other side of that coin is all the times we got punished in the classroom for our curiosity. Boys are curious; the conformist women in the school system do their best to stomp that out. This, I think, is the real story here.
I've told about how I was the best reader in my first grade class but got punished because I did extra work and read ahead of schedule. I was curious as to what the other stories in our "reader" were like, so I read the whole thing. My "breaking the rules" was more important to them than me reading on a fourth grade level or better in first grade. My desk was moved into the hallway for a week, where I sat, alone, like a dog. I'm sure I'm not the only one with a story like this.
It's quite amazing to see pre-teen children embody gender-specific qualities via play-acting -- and their pastimes. I still recall when playing in the schoolyard and weekend at that age, the boys would tend to gravitate towards investigative and adventurous roles.
Like you, I also recall having my inquisitive side being curtailed while insisting on observing and wanting to accompany my parents doing the gardening or cooking.
I think young children are actually naturally red-pill like that. In a play I acted in in high school -- The Alchemist -- I recall the female protagonists little brother and sister yelling "I wanna be an astronaut!" and "I wanna be a ballerina!". Somehow I can't see those lines getting past the SJW brigade unscathed were this to show in Broadway today.
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Quote: (11-18-2014 09:03 PM)Badamson Wrote:
There's a reason why the stereotype of the "computer programmer geek"
exists. It's because one often has to sacrifice any social life or dating startng at a young age, to dedicate themselves to master these incredibly complicated systems. Sometimes this is done involuntarily(a kid sucks at sports and is awkward so he stays inside and starts reading astronomy books.) Even unattractive women typically always have plenty of attention. Rarely are they forced to become completely isolated to where they would build a high tolerance to boring subjects and turn their energy to weird science stuff.
Again, this is a gender-quality thing. Girls are more socially-oriented being than girls. When was the last time you saw a chick go to the flicks on her own? Science and engineering requires a fuckload of hardcore swotting which not only is a drawn-out process, but often a lonely one. In the weeks that you'd see Arts, Music and Law students on campus hanging out at the pub or lawns, STEM kids are buried under their books and computers. Whether the Sheldon Cooper stereotype is a cause or consequence of such habits is debateable, but I can tell you that there's a completely different methodical approach to study in terms of the social psyche.
Quote: (11-18-2014 08:46 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:
It comes from other girls.
Anyone who has been in high school for more than a day knows there are no humans on the planet more conformist, judgmental, and in-your-face than teenage girls. There is a reason the movies stereotype them the way they do.
And teenage girls are the first to chastise any of the girls who put being scientific before getting their nails done.
Boys don't care -- especially nerdy boys. They love to have girls around at their geek parties. I remember the one science/math team girl we had in high school was provoking fights between the nerds because she was so sought after. It's the teenage girls that rejected her.
I agree about girls being more judgmental and exclusionary in terms of pursuits. STEM girls, much like girls in rugby and aikido, tend to be outliers among their peer groups. It's really after leaving the tribal nature of high school that they can flock towards their kind.
Conversely, how often do guys have a go at one of their own for ending up in nursing or teaching?