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0 pointsRetra11y ago0 comments

EDIT: I have a clearer analogy for you. Imagine that we lived in a world where the US watched lots of action films and Spain watched lots of documentaries. Furthermore, imagine that there was a lot of money and power flowing into the documentary industry, and that the action film industry is relatively dry.

That's a proxy for socioeconomic inequality. Now what you are trying to argue is that Americans just might prefer action films. Ok... great. Americans prefer action films. But why?

So we go out there and we ask Americans how they feel about documentaries:

    "They are boring. We'd prefer not to watch them."

Hypothesis confirmed! So we ask them why the prefer action films:

    "Because they are in English. All the good documentaries are in Spanish."

Ding ding ding! Of course Americans prefer action films! They don't have access to good documentaries! Why would they prefer documentaries when they are all in Spanish?

---

So when you ask why women prefer not to work in STEM, you'll learn something about the cause of the social inequality. Saying it's a "matter of preference" tells you nothing. It just sounds like you're trying to invoke a naturalistic fallacy and stop investigating.

Maybe if you invested more in good English documentaries, they would be quite popular. Maybe the preference would disappear. So it doesn't matter if there's a preference. What matters is why there is a preference.

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darkmighty11y ago

I think you have to challenge your perception professional preference has to be gender-balanced, or else there is something wrong going on.

Men and women are physiologically different. They have an intrinsically different hormonal and social development path. Their movie preference shows this well: you can't possibly think that even in an "ideal" society men and women would prefer exactly the same movies? Why would they prefer the same professions? Surely you've met some nurses and seen why it might be a popular occupation among women?

The "preference" model hints what part of gender unbalance would be present even in an ideal world, and the rest we should address. That's the point you're missing here.

RetraOP11y ago

>I think you have to challenge your perception professional preference has to be gender-balanced, or else there is something wrong going on.

Why? What are my goals? Why should I be assuming that women should not have the same opportunities as men with regard to professional preference?

>Men and women are physiologically different. They have an intrinsically different hormonal and social development path.

Obviously. But the culture of business doesn't have any innate hormonal path, so why should it conform to mens' hormones and not women's? Why can't we change the realities of STEM to create a balance?

What is it about STEM that makes it incapable of accommodating different brain chemistry?

>The "preference" model hints what part of gender unbalance would be present even in an ideal world

An ideal world would have gender inequality? Got it.

>Surely you've met some nurses and seen why it might be a popular occupation among women?

Are you serious right now? Explain this to me. Why do women prefer to be nurses? Tell me all about how nursing requires vaginas and estrogen.

darkmighty11y ago

> But the culture of business doesn't have any innate hormonal path, so why should it conform to mens' hormones and not women's? Why can't we change the realities of STEM to create a balance?

"Business" is far different from the realities of mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, etc -- which go from very specific courses in education to certain work environments.

For example, take children of age ~7. Boys love playing with cars; girls do like them a bit too, but it's pretty clear they prefer simulating social interactions, specially dolls talking. Should we address this imbalance too? That would be like making a toy which is a car with a doll strapped on it's back and forbidding all other toys -- we'll achieve equality, but won't it be artificial? Will boys and girls actually be happier with their toys?

I'm not claiming all unbalance in STEM comes from preference, I'm claiming some may come, and it's important to recognize that to effectively address the situation.

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0 pointsRetra11y ago0 comments

That's a proxy for socioeconomic inequality. Now what you are trying to argue is that Americans just might prefer action films. Ok... great. Americans prefer action films. But why?

So we go out there and we ask Americans how they feel about documentaries:

    "They are boring. We'd prefer not to watch them."

Hypothesis confirmed! So we ask them why the prefer action films:

    "Because they are in English. All the good documentaries are in Spanish."

Ding ding ding! Of course Americans prefer action films! They don't have access to good documentaries! Why would they prefer documentaries when they are all in Spanish?

---

0 comments

darkmighty11y ago

I think you have to challenge your perception professional preference has to be gender-balanced, or else there is something wrong going on.

The "preference" model hints what part of gender unbalance would be present even in an ideal world, and the rest we should address. That's the point you're missing here.

RetraOP11y ago

>I think you have to challenge your perception professional preference has to be gender-balanced, or else there is something wrong going on.

Why? What are my goals? Why should I be assuming that women should not have the same opportunities as men with regard to professional preference?

>Men and women are physiologically different. They have an intrinsically different hormonal and social development path.

What is it about STEM that makes it incapable of accommodating different brain chemistry?

>The "preference" model hints what part of gender unbalance would be present even in an ideal world

An ideal world would have gender inequality? Got it.

>Surely you've met some nurses and seen why it might be a popular occupation among women?

Are you serious right now? Explain this to me. Why do women prefer to be nurses? Tell me all about how nursing requires vaginas and estrogen.

darkmighty11y ago

> But the culture of business doesn't have any innate hormonal path, so why should it conform to mens' hormones and not women's? Why can't we change the realities of STEM to create a balance?

"Business" is far different from the realities of mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, etc -- which go from very specific courses in education to certain work environments.

I'm not claiming all unbalance in STEM comes from preference, I'm claiming some may come, and it's important to recognize that to effectively address the situation.

1 more reply

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