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EDITORIAL
Missing From Science Class
Too Few Girls and Minorities Study Tech Subjects
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: December 10, 2013
A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population as uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them.
Women make up nearly half the work force but have just 26 percent of science, technology, engineering or math jobs, according to the Census Bureau. Blacks make up 11 percent of the workforce but just 6 percent of such jobs and Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the work force but hold 7 percent of those positions. There is no question that women and minorities have made progress in science and math in the last several decades, but their gains have been slow and halting. And in the fast-growing field of computer science, women’s representation has actually declined in the last 20 years, while minorities have made relatively small gains.
These jobs come with above-average pay and offer workers a wide choice of professions. Opening them to women and minorities would help reduce corrosive income inequality between whites and other groups, and would narrow the gender gap in wages.
Posts
53 comments:
"We've 'written them off!' or maybe those women and minorities just decided they weren't interested in STEM professions and chose a different, less demanding one.
After all, the quota system gives women and minorities many easier choices in professions that are less demanding.
A million different programs designed to encourage "women and minorities" to "STEM" = "writing them off"
And what percentage of the workforce was female when the US dominated these fields?
No mention of Asian overrepresentation in these fields.
I wonder why not?
>Opening (STEM jobs) to women and minorities would help<
They *are* open to women and minorities.
“A big reason America is falling behind…is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population”
An even bigger reason is that we’ve spent the past 50 years importing 3rd world dullards.
However I have some questions: Who is the “we” that has written off women and minorities? Is it a secret committee? Is it possible for me to get a seat on this committee? Why are women and minorities merely inanimate objects that either excel or get written off depending on how this committee votes? Will women and minorities ever not be inanimate objects and assume responsibility for their own fate? Finally, isn’t the idea that women and minorities are inanimate objects waiting for the secret committee to decide their fate sexist/racist?
“These jobs come with above-average pay and offer workers a wide choice of professions…”
However Zuckerweasel and others are working hard to end this.
“Opening them to women and minorities would help reduce corrosive income inequality between whites and other groups, and would narrow the gender gap in wages.”
Please provide some facts to support this ludicrous assertion.
Opening them?
They aren't closed!
Anyone who can hack the material and has an interest in the fields can apply to college and learn them. Undergraduate colleges drool all over themselves at the prospect of women and minorities jumping in and give them every possible assist with money and assistance. Similarly, graduate programs are practically begging not to have to take so many foreigners and strongly desire more qualified American applicants. Their actions are relly almost downright embarrassing when seen from the perspective of those who make it on their own.
That so few do jump in and make it is either from a lack of interest of a lack of aptitude. The problem for many is that STEM fields still have right and wrong answers, and the right answers are difficult to figure out but are required to work in the field. There isn't a gray area between a bridge design that stays up and one that falls down, or a computer program that works or is hopelessly defective. STEM fields also require a lot of work for the money they pay, and often require frequent travel away from home. Most people are just looking for easy street and really aren't smart enough to hack it.
>>" There is no question that women and minorities have made progress in science and math in the last several decades, but their gains have been slow and halting."
Steve, Steve. I read this sentence and was waiting for you to imitate Steve Garvey it out of the park. Come on.
IRONY: Earlier this month the PISA scores particularly relevant to Math and Science scores were released as well as broken down by race and gender.
Come on, this phrase in particular is asking to be knocked over center field.
IS there really "no question" that minority test scores in math and science have significantly improved over the past few decades? Is this an accurate statement or wishful thinking on the Times behalf?
And of course the corollary that always goes unmentioned: If both minorities and women's test scores have improved, what about white males test scores? Do their scores merely stagnate for 40 plus years?
But, seriously, this sentence has to be knocked out of the park.
A talking Barbie doll has more insight into STEM than these imbeciles.
OT: I feel the fake sign language interpreter at Mandela's funeral is crying out for a Steve comment.
Yes, I've long noticed the terrible way that American technology companies and universities exclude minorities such as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and Pakistani scientists and engineers. Similarly, when's the last time you saw a Jew in the math or physics faculty of a major university?
Really, something needs to be done about this horrible discrimination.
Love the headline for your post Steve.
Mark Perry has been pointing out "gender disparities" for a few years now.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/?s=gender+disparities&submit=GO
He also has a fun post on "racial disparities."
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/06/the-nba-and-wnba-get-an-a-for-racial-hiring-practices-despite-significant-racial-disparities/
Just as a man with no tools but a hammer thinks every problem is a nail, a man with no mental tools but "we need diversity" thinks every problem looks like discrimination.
Now, women often do feel uncomfortable in STEM fields, and many women have stories about being treated very badly. (Though I'll point out that most people have stories about being treated badly at work or at school.) To the extent women aren't in STEM fields because of stuff we can change, we should change it, just because it's lousy to have people who want to become engineers but get driven out of the field for reasons unrelated to engineering. But the claim that the disparity between men and women in STEM fields is caused by discrimination or hostile work environmnents or too many neckbeards or whatever needs evidence, not just a convenient assertion.
Leaving out Asians = lying.
I thought places like NY and elite colleges like Harvard are 'liberal' and 'inclusive'. So, why did they 'write off' all those smart blacks and Hispanics?
Sometimes, I wonder to whom the NY Times Libs are are addressing their complaints to. I mean NY and elite schools are not run by Bull Connors but by the kind of people who write editorials for the NY Times.
So, logically, the Liberals in high places 'wrote off' the blacks and Hispanics.
So, what the hell are they bitching about if THEY are the problem?
Libs not only have scapegoats but scapesheep. If scapegoats--KKK at Oberlin--are blamed for everything, scapesheep are the Lib readers who comprise the sympathetic sucker audience of NY Times and such publications.
Scapesheep are necessary because they are gullible enough to lend a sympathetic ear to NY Times complaints when, in fact, reality shows that Liberal Urbanites and elite institutions have 'written off' black and Hispanic talent.
Of course, they wrote it off because blacks and browns don't apply themselves in such areas because they either prefer TV or Rap music than hitting the books or feel that they are just not good at that stuff.
It's like Mexicans and Asians don't even try to succeed in the NBA and NFL, and so elite sports organizations mostly 'write them off'. It's simple as that, but I suppose Libs could(if they wanted to)gripe about how American sports is 'falling behind' because it 'writes off' so much Asian and Mexican talent.
By the way, is the US lagging behind in science and technology around the world? It never seems to lose its dominance in winning the Nobels and coming up with new technology. (And Israel 'writes off' Arab-Israeli and Ethiopian-Jewish 'talent' but seems to be doing well in the tech sector.)
Of course, if we wanna be honest, US is ahead of the world in science and technology BECAUSE IT 'WRITES OFF' INFERIOR TALENT. Same goes for American sports.
American basketball wouldn't be so dominant around the world if it were 'more inclusive' and reduced the number of black players in the name of diversity. I mean would the US Olympic team would be as good if it were 1/5 white, 1/5 black, 1/5 Asian, 1/5 Mexican, 1/5 Arab?
Would the Manhattan Project have succeeded if, in the name of 'inclusion', the number of Jewish scientists were limited to only 10% of the whole?
Would Harvard science department be better off if it reduced the number of Jewish, white, and Asians and increased the number of inferior blacks and Mexican students and faculty?
No, America leads in science because it weeds out the talentless and favors the talented. Same in American sports, which is why the NFL and NBA are so dominated by blacks who are stronger, faster, more explosive, and more rhythmic in their movements.
But I guess NY Times has to write such tripe once in awhile to make minorities feel that their 'victim-hood' is being mulled over by wonderful and caring Libs and to make Libs(the editorial writers and the scapesheep)feel oh so very good about themselves. You see, they care!! They care sooo much!!
"A talking Barbie doll has more insight into STEM than these imbeciles."
They're not imbeciles - they're simply lying as part of a political agenda.
"Anyone who can hack the material and has an interest in the fields can apply to college and learn them. Undergraduate colleges drool all over themselves at the prospect of women and minorities jumping in and give them every possible assist with money and assistance."
Can you imagine what it would be like to be a 17-year-old black female with a 700+ math SAT and an interest in STEM fields? Someone ought to find one (there has to be at least one, right?) and ask her if she was ever "written off" by any colleges she approached.
The Guardian has commented on HBD
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/11/genetics-variation-exam-results1?commentpage=2
Most of the commenters have wet their knickers on cue.
Look, everyone knows that this level of discrimination has to start at an extremely you age, if not in the womb, or even before that!!!
Gee, don't you people even know how to think???
"A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population as uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them."
Whereas in reality they're only largely uninterested in those fields and largely incapable of succeeding in them.
"These jobs come with above-average pay and offer workers a wide choice of professions. Opening them to women and minorities would help reduce corrosive income inequality between whites and other groups, and would narrow the gender gap in wages. "
Spoken like a liberal arts major. There's no law saying women can't sign up for Electrical Engineering classes. I've seen a few do it actually. The know there's money in the STEM world, they just didn't seem to think it worth there while. I like how the authors of pieces like this ALWAYS want someone else to take this route.
Women make up nearly half the work force but have just 26 percent of science, technology, engineering or math jobs, according to the Census Bureau. Blacks make up 11 percent of the workforce but just 6 percent of such jobs and Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the work force but hold 7 percent of those positions. There is no question that women and minorities have made progress in science and math in the last several decades, but their gains have been slow and halting. And in the fast-growing field of computer science, women’s representation has actually declined in the last 20 years, while minorities have made relatively small gains.
The women in CSIT-STEM tend to be management and lawyer types, the blacks and Hispanics in CSIT-STEM are HR-Personnel bureaucrats.
"women’s representation has actually declined in the last 20 years, while minorities have made relatively small gains."
So, white Hispanics are 'minorities' but yellow Asians are not? Is yellow the invisible color?
"Minorities? What minorities at Cal-Tech? Gee, you mean that's yellow? I though it was transparent."
>>"The women in CSIT-STEM tend to be management and lawyer types, the blacks and Hispanics in CSIT-STEM are HR-Personnel bureaucrats."
Yes, however, neither law nor HR-Personnel are relevant to STEM fields whatsoever. None.
Unless you mean that women and minorities are for the most part being hired as window dressing "out front". Example: A major STEM discipline hires a entire gaggle of minorities to fill up their HR dept. Now that would make sense.
But majoring in law for example has little relevance in training a person for a career in say, Electrical Engineering and/or Quantum Physics. None whatsoever. in order to actually get a job in Electrical Engineering you have to actually major in EE during your college yrs.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be a 17-year-old black female with a 700+ math SAT and an interest in STEM fields? Someone ought to find one (there has to be at least one, right?) and ask her if she was ever "written off" by any colleges she approached.
There are about 250 blacks who score 750 or above on the Math SAT every year. So you know that black females who score highly on the Math SAT are few and far between- and will be recruited highly. By comparison, my high school class of 160 had 8-10 who scored 750+ on the Math SAT.
I wonder how many of those who bewail the lack of "diverse" engineering students realize that most engineering students have to put in work weeks of 60+ hours for class time and study. Very few, I believe.
Some women, blacks and Hispanics do choose careers in math, science, and technology and are very successful. Why are they "too few?" Do percentages of workers and students in every field need to align perfectly with their share of the U.S. population?
If so, how come there are only 8 women, one black, and zero Hispanics out of the 20 people on the NYT's editorial board? And why are whites, Asians, Jews, and men statistically overrepresented?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html
What social engineering programs could fix the problem of inequality on the NYT editorial board?
The red-haired kid is sorta yellow.
That's why they made him red-haired.
"more minorities + women in STEM"
=
"more non-whites filing TPS reports 'Office Space'-style + average white guys who misguidedly value a paycheck will stand down as ordered"
Since the people who are fine with doing cubicle drudgery tend to be female already the Times can easily set tangible benchmarks for Mission Accomplished.
>>"There are about 250 blacks who score 750 or above on the Math SAT every year. So you know that black females who score highly on the Math SAT are few and far between- and will be recruited highly. By comparison, my high school class of 160 had 8-10 who scored 750+ on the Math SAT."
So then, 250 blacks in all America who score that high annually, compared to about....5-10,000 whites and asians who score that high annually...hmm. Yes...where exactly are these 250 persons? What becomes of them during high school and college yrs?
And of those 250, perhaps about 190 are going to be women (since, if we are honest, they are the strivers meaning prison-free and no baby daddies) gosh, just getting over those two hurdles alone certainly helps make a difference in school and quality of education, doesn't it?
So then the question becomes: What becomes of these ca. 190 black women with amazing and outstanding math scores? How come we never hear of them out in the real world years later? Why aren't they front and center stage somewhere, someplace, at some major University teaching in the Math depts and/or in the science labs?
Where are they?
By comparion, we can usually tell where the amazing math and science prospects are going to end up during high school and college yrs.
Where are they, where are they? Tis a puzzlement and even the New York Times is completely baffled and stumped.
We has pickle, we does.
>>" Steve Sailer said...
That's why they made him red-haired."
Better to be made red-haired than to be caught red-handed.
"The red-haired kid is sorta yellow."
Chirish?
Anonymous said...
No mention of Asian overrepresentation in these fields.
I wonder why not?
You didn't get the memo, apparently. Asians are not minorities and are, indeed, "lily white" and have been so since at least 1998:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/asian.htm
JN
Correct for IQ, and blacks and Hispanics are likely over-represented in STEM. I doubt there's any interest gap there, just The Gap. Does anyone have such an analysis?
On the other hand, there's a large interest gap between men and women which is undoubtedly partially, and perhaps wholly, biological in origin.
As a white man in STEM, it amuses me to no end to hear about this supposed white male conspiracy to exclude everyone else from STEM fields. White men have been an under-represented minority at every job I've ever held and in nearly every class I've ever taken.
I actually just accepted a job offer from an Indian man. He undoubtedly wrote off numerous better qualified black women. You have to admire his commitment to the white supremacist movement.
I wonder what percent of Japan's engineers are women?
Isn't it selfish and ludicrous to believe that women can do EVERYTHING? I mean there's always some loss for some gain, or some disadvantage for some advantage.
If you major in law, you won't have enough to time to major in medicine. If you choose to be good at football, you won't have enough time to be a good boxer or baseball player. If you focus on math, you will have less time to be good at music.
This is why most people have one main profession and then hobbies on the side. A math professor may play an instrument as a hobby. But, unless he's superman, I doubt if he's gonna be both Einstein AND Vladimir Horowitz.
In a free society, women have to make choices. Some want to spend good deal of time with family. They would rather invest in producing and developing human beings than math theories or corporate products/services. It's a matter of win some, lose some.
The notion that women should be 'allowed' and 'encouraged' to succeed equally in both is like saying we should expect someone to excel as both an ace doctor and ace lawyer. I suppose if the person has a super IQ and super work ethic, it's possible. But most people, even smart people, are not that talented or energetic.
It's selfish for these Libs and feminists to think they can have it all. It's like some engineering major bitching and whining that society didn't support him to also be a world famous pianist.
Sorry, kid, you can't always get what you want.
A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population as uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them.
Even if you are an HBD-denier, you really have to hate White people to put it that way instead of simply using Ockham's razor:
"A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that a huge chunk of our population is uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them."
"They *are* open to women and minorities" I work in the IT Department of a major medical group in Illinois with over 90 locations and many hospitals. Approx. 1/2 or so of the 300+ employees in this department are women. Also, many blacks, Hispanics and Asians. This includes many programmers, data analysts, DBAs etc. I have worked in IT at other medical organizations as well and it was about the same. I went to school with many women in the higher math and computer science classes one needs to get a degree in this field. Many of the women (as well as many men) were black or Hispanic. In fact, my cousin (female), a DBA, got me my first job in IT and she was the head of the department at that company. The women I have worked with have been as good as their male counterparts and seemed to have no problems working around them and it is ditto for the men. I don't know where they come up with this stuff! BTW, Computer Science is considered a higher math degree at most universities.
Too Few Girls and Minorities Study Tech Subjects
Let me guess......women and minorities hit hardest?
If the engineering work force is half women, I suspect we will end up getting about half as much engineering done.
"Opening them to women and minorities would help reduce corrosive income inequality between whites and other groups, and would narrow the gender gap in wages."
This is pure leftthink. Right up there with every kid 'deserving' to go to college, as though everyone were actually equal in all abilities and it is just selfish white men giving out PhDs and tenured faculty positions to undeserving white men who are unrelated to them in every way except for skin color and gender. This is especially insane to anyone who actually works in academia who all know how blatantly the professors and the ivory towers discriminate against white men applying for positions there. Its pretty common for Universities to even demand of professors and other faculty to declare in writing when preparing their portfolio of accomplishments for each periodic job review how they have demonstrated their 'commitment to diversity' - i.e. discriminated against white men.
Why don't they take it to the next 'logical' step like Comacho and just put everyone to work at the mint making millions for everyone?
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/d4a8ff5ebe/president-camacho-the-economy
The Old Gay Lady has been steadily moving out and replacing straight white males managers with women and gays.
It is no longer anywhere near being the serious newspaper it once was.
They only matter because people still THINK they do.
i very seriously doubt africans have 6% of the STEM jobs. very seriously doubt. more like 1%.
maybe they are counting sales guys at best buy as having tech jobs. maybe they are counting nurses as having medical jobs. if not, i have no idea where they're getting these numbers. 6% means 1 in 20 guys in these fields is african. NO WAY.
there's less africans in STEM than there are at heavy metal concerts. i've been to hundreds of shows and while they're there, they are never more than 2 or 3 percent of the crowd.
they make up less than that in STEM. you're more likely to see one with a slayer shirt than with an oracle shirt. there are more actual heavy metal bands with african members than there are IT start ups with african founders.
"A million different programs designed to encourage "women and minorities" to "STEM" = "writing them off"
pretty much. it's the exact opposite of reality, as usual. millions (billions?) of dollars per year are spent on these groups explicitly to get them into fields where they are barely participating. they are encouraged, coddled, and have their egos massaged constantly. meanwhile, european guys are actively discouraged from playing sports and told to leave them to the 'real' athletes. no sports scholarship for you. walk on, if you dare.
imagine if mexicans, women, africans, muslims, were actively discouraged by their high school teachers to drop out, give up, forget trying to learn, because they could never do it or make it. imagine if every day the other students told them to their face "You can't do it." how do you think they would perform in STEM then.
I mean would the US Olympic team would be as good if it were 1/5 white, 1/5 black, 1/5 Asian, 1/5 Mexican, 1/5 Arab? --Gubbler
No, but it would be a hell of a lot more interesting to watch!
http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/185284/janet-yellen-brings-jewish-side-to-fed-again/
I guess they are 'writing off' goyim--of all colors--for this position.
>>Jody said
"there's less africans in STEM than there are at heavy metal concerts. i've been to hundreds of shows and while they're there, they are never more than 2 or 3 percent of the crowd."
Way way wait. Hold it. Jody, gotta take issue with that. 2 OR 3 PERCENT at Heavy Metal concerts are black? No way! That's WAY TOO HIGH a percentage. More like 0.5 and some of that could be cause they have a white GF or something. Death metal isn't being played in the hood unless a few songs were sampled with hip hop and gangsta. The brothers just aren't into metal period.
No way.
I daresay, you look at metal concerts and you HARDLY SEE ANY WOMEN at the shows, period. The ones that are there mostly are there cause of their BF or sig. other.
Metal as a genre is about 90-95% male and 99% white male at that.
Wnat to know what women listen to? Go to the mall or Starbucks. You ever hear any metal or death metal being played in Starbucks?
Didn't think so.
That's the stuff that chicks listen to.
No way in hell that women listen to metal in any huge significant numbers. For most of them Led Zeppelin's too heavy and hard rock so you can't expect today's music to have tons of fans among women. The tiny percentages of women who honestly and truly like the metal music genre are going to be the stoner-ettes, usually the "losers". The borderline.....Ellen Degeneres, so to speak.
But to honestly go around and say that tons of blacks truly dig metal music in any form is smoking something and its not reality.
It ain't them cause its too white. And that wont fly for the brothers in the hood.
re: "Computer Science is considered a higher math degree at most universities" Dahinda
Actually Computer Science is where those who start in Computer Engineering and can't hack the work end up except for those who switch to the Humanities, Teaching, etc.
A near neighbor's son, valedictorian, Doctor's progeny, started in Computer Engineering and finished in Computer Science told me personally that he could do the coding fine but the math and physics was really too hard for him. He was always an honest boy.
Dan Kurt
Anonymous wrote:
"http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/185284/janet-yellen-brings-jewish-side-to-fed-again/
I guess they are 'writing off' goyim--of all colors--for this position. "
I think this is a case of you having to have your "bones" made in NY. That city is the center of the FIRE sector, they call the shots in this country, and they are going to ensure that their interests are held paramount.
When was the last time we had a fed chairman who wasn't part of that Boston/NY Axis? I say that because it is "theoretically" possible you could get an academic appointed to that position.
But I'd wager any such animal would have worked on Wall Street, and they would have to be comfortable with him for that nomination to succeed.
I'm no expect on the history of the Fed, but I can't remember anyone who hasn't done time on Wall Street being in that position. Given its origins, and the time it was founded I'd wager a guess that there was only a brief time, from say '32 to maybe '76 than any outsider could have been named.
Just looked up Paul Volker. Apparently he wasn't Jewish, so he is our last non-semitic Fed chair. Appointed in '79 by Carter.
Look if you want to have a non-Jewish Fed chief, do one of two things:
1) Upset the applecart and go to War with the FIRE sector. While that may be in the countries best interests, and something I believe circumstances will force on us down the road, well good luck with that.
It's going to take some crisis, which I believe is coming to start that ball rolling.
2) Take over the FIRE sector and insert your own ethnicity or interest group in positions of power. This is more likely in both the short and long run, I think.
Indians are even more clannish than Jews, they network, oh god do they network, and they pay no more than lip service to "enlightenment" ideals.
If you think as I do, that ruthlessness and raw venality will do a lot more for you in that environment than raw brainpower, I'd say that Indians are well positioned to take that roll. They'll have to bring in more countrymen, and start squatting in the nerve center (NY), but I think they are equipped to do this.
I think the Chinese can do the same thing. Clannish like the Indians, though not as extreme. Jews may be smarter, but the IQ gap is close and they don't work anywhere near as hard as Chinese at academics.
If you invoke another belief of mine, that China is destined to be the new "United States," or at least fill it's present role in the international system, you can easily imagine Chinese leveraging ethnicity to muscle out Jews.
Remember: the players may change, but the rip-off is forever.
For a little while. Because even if some crisis forces us to take Wall Street to task, a la '32, they'll be back.
Just the way this country rolls. Mammon is the real god here, you know.
At least America had the Fast and Furious series, and Paul Walker...
What a joke, no women and minorities are the reason we have fallen behind in science? What universe do these morons inhabit? Back in the 1950's and 1960's science and engineering was almost entirely white and male with maybe a handful of Asian males, and that was the generation that built the nuclear navy, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, the ICBM, the IBM 360 computer, the Boeing 747, and the transistor, silicon transistor and the integrated circuit, and relational databases not to mention founding Silicon Valley and Route 128 and starting the venture capital industry. The entire world lagged behind us then when we were apparently rigidly sexist, far more than today.
I find this ironic since there were more women in the sciences before AA and "gender bias". Yes, the doors are closed for them, that's why they're given more help and a guidealong than anyone else.
i said the crowd maxes out at about two percent africans. that means 1 in 50 people. that's definitely what the crowd is like at a show in some cities. in no way, shape, or form did i say africans were into metal in general. but they are into music, and a few of them are into metal.
how do you explain metal bands having african members, but no tech startups, literally zero, having african founding members?
I teach math at a reasonably elite public university. A high proportion of my female students are plenty good in math. I think the discrepancy in career paths owes to these smart girls being mostly motivated by their perfectionism (I am smart therefore will take higher level math and get an A) rather than deep interest in the subject. And they definitely don't care anything about a technical career. I get the impression that half of our top female students would be happier doing something else, but do the degree for the prestige. They definitely don't spend their spare time building model airplanes, like the boys do.
"Miriam said...
I teach math at a reasonably elite public university............."
Interesting observations. I have noticed that myself: the tendency of women to want to do something as some kind of personal growth marker, rather than because they were interested in it, or sought some particular outcome. In short, they often want to be something, rather than do something. Not that there aren't also men who are this way. There certainly are. But it is less common among them.
As you pointed out: Women can get good grades in math, science, and engineering, just as men can. But how many women want to fix cars, or rewire a light fixture, or figure out how something works by taking it apart? Not that many.
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