[cdmcmahon]

If women aren’t having the same access to more lucrative positions or fields that men are, then that is discrimination — in education or the workplace or both. Unless you believe that something about women drives them away from such positions/fields or makes them less qualified in such positions/fields, in which case you are in the Damore camp.

[zarkov99]

Of course something drives women away from some professions, and similarly for men. Where is the outrage about gender parity in lumber jacking, oil rigs, fishing, truck driving, etc, at nauseum, for most if not all the most dangerous jobs in the world? Its only the cushy, high-paid jobs that seem to be a concern and then only if there are more men in them. Where are the diversity committees to protect nursing from the horrors of gender imbalance? What an age of bullshit we live in.

[chemochemo]

Agreed -- if they aren't having the same _access_, it is discrimination. But once again, nothing in the study points to that.

Do you believe men don't have access to jobs in the field of nursing? On average, women outnumber men 9.5 to 1 in nursing in the US. [0]

[0] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk...

[cdmcmahon]

I think nursing may be a field where certain stereotypes, etc. keep the gender balance of the working population a certain way. And I think you correctly point out that men do have _access_ to the field of nursing so it’s not ad much of a problem per se. That said, the reason I think you can say men aren’t denied access is because you don’t have hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, as you do in technological fields today, so I don’t think the comparison says what you wish it did.

Furthermore I think it’s telling that you being up nursing, a not particularly lucrative field, as a female dominated one. It’s not a secret that the most scrutiny is going to those fields that are the more lucrative/powerful as discrimination in such fields serves to keep wealth/influence concentrated in whiter, maler hands.

[belorn]

A few years ago there was a nice government report here in Sweden on gender segregation for teachers, and guess what they wrote? Hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, very similar to that in technological fields today, and cited research which points that any work place which is dominated by a single gender has a tendency to create a discriminating culture against the minority.

I would bet that if one looked at the drop rates of male nurse students it will look very similar to that of female programming students. If one looked at the reason cited why they decide to drop it will align to very similar answer, where the minority will cite an increase self-doubt and low support. If one looked at the rate people leave the field after working the first year, again we will likely find identical reason for programmers where many will citing clashing work culture as a top reason for leaving the profession. Looking at those staying after 3-4 year, again there is a similar pattern where the minority will move towards specialization (sub groups of the profession) where there is a higher ratio of members of the minority.

We have medical specializations which have a gender segregation that is above 99%, where for every person of the minority gender there is several hundreds of the majority. Why do such extreme segregation exist where both men and women has equal access to the same profession?

[cm2187]

Not really. In France 60% of doctors are female. 80% for new judges. Is that the self perpetuation of a stereotype? Are these low pay/low influence professions? If you measure discrimination just by the outcome provided it is a lucrative/powerful profession then these should be deemed to be discriminations. I don’t believe they are.

In the technology field, I have studied engineering in France, where the top school were only accessible through an anonymous competitive exam. There is very little room for discrimination there. Just math and physics exercises on an anonymous piece of paper. But both the candidates and the students who were selected were 80% male. Of course recruiters end up hiring 80% male engineers, how could it be not the case? But that’s not discrimination.

[tudelo]

Why can't it be a combination of both, ignoring compensation? Why can't one sex have a higher propensity towards a profession than the other, independent of compensation? It seems to me that it is a complex issue that has a lot more factors than simply discrimination.

[cdmcmahon]

I suppose it can be. The natural follow up is what you think it is about, say, engineering or law or finance or [insert field here] that men have a higher propensity toward? And why is it that nearly all of the most lucrative and powerful fields are the ones that men have a higher propensity towards? Trying to answer these gets prett hairy (and depending on your answers, very revealing about yourself) if you are trying to minimize the role of discrimination.

[tudelo]

Maybe men and women are not driven to accomplish the same goals. For example, take a look at the StackOverflow developer survey. There is certainly a difference in what men consider valuable for a job and what women consider valuable given that specific data point. I don't wish to make broad assumptions about every man or every woman. I also don't think to point out these things has much to do with discrimination. Men and women have been evolving for a lot longer than men and women have been working in desks next to each other... it's no simple feat to coexist when the rules of the game are not clear. I think it only gets hairy if you don't fundamentally think there is a difference between a man and a woman, really the rest follows axiomatically.