[avatarlite]

The cause of sex-related ability tilt is irrelevant with regard to the consequences on STEM employment. Whether due to socialization alone, innate ability alone, some combination of the two, or causes we don't understand, the outcome is the same and the consequences are the same.

[loorinm]

Exactly. It doesn’t matter what the causes are. The fact is it’s harming people as a whole and talented women aren’t being treated fairly. All the biology in the world doesn’t explain or fix this very real problem.

Also, we are not slaves to “biology”. We are perfectly capable of murdering each other but we don’t, because we have rules. Rules trump biology.

[creep]

Hi. Female in STEM here.

>The fact is it’s harming people as a whole and talented women aren’t being treated fairly.

What do you mean by this? Talented women aren't being treated fairly? Every girl has the option to choose a STEM field, but most don't. Nonetheless, women are in the majority for general enrollment at universities in Canada [1] (and I believe it is the same in the US). At my university in Alberta, we have numerous clubs, organizations, and programs supporting women going into STEM fields-- not including government-sponsored advertisement campaigns to encourage the choice for STEM. Around the world, there are countless organizations created to support and encourage women going to STEM [2], never mind various campus-specific programs and clubs especially in North America.

I don't really see how women are being harmed. Maybe most women don't want to go into STEM. Maybe the biology argument is valid? Even if it's not, where is the harm, exactly?

[1] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/2008001/article/10561-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_for_wome...

[orionblastar]

Thank you for choosing STEM. Be the best you that you can be. STEM does not matter what gender, race, etc just having a human brain and good ACT and SAT test scores.

I think the harm they are talking about is this metoo movement. Sexual harassment, sexual abuse, etc.

In the 1950s and 1960s women dominated computer science and math and other things and then , not enough women taking classes so the microcomputer was aimed at boys because of video games but they forgot girls play video games too.

My mother worked on a punch card system and trained by IBM and did work for the public school system on an IBM mainframe. She quit because I was born and she wanted to take care of me. But that was her choice.

[stcredzero]

Exactly. It doesn’t matter what the causes are.

That's pretty illogical. If you test positive for a virus, you'll want to think twice about taking antibiotics.

Also, we are not slaves to “biology”. We are perfectly capable of murdering each other but we don’t, because we have rules. Rules trump biology.

Culture trumps conscious mental entities like rules. Such an idea is needed to explain many of the things we see around the world and in history. (Like, why have Jewish people been able to locally dominate in tailoring in so many instances across literally thousands of years? It's certainly not because of some kind of tailoring gene, and it's not about "rules.") A strongly cultural view basically dismantles huge swathes of Alt-Right ideology, replacing it with something else which allows for everyone to participate. However, such a view also dismantles much of the current day Far Left ideology. I think it's high time that something more rational and more fitting with evidence came to replace that, however.

[vixen99]

Sometimes rules can trump biology and sometimes they simply cannot and wishing it were otherwise changes nothing.

[stcredzero]

But what one would rationally choose to do about it might well be very different.