[dnbgfher]

> When this topic does come up -- and it does -- it's done specifically with the notion of normalizing the idea that people of all backgrounds can, should and will be scientists and mathematicians.

This line of thought always confuses me a bit. Unfortunately the image of those that question such things is so poor it's rather discouraging to even bring up. I should really try to stress that I'm not trying to say how things should be. I think these issues are more complex than most anybody gives them credit for, and everybody has their own desired outcomes, timelines, and acceptable consequences. All I'm trying to do is explain perceptions, really.

The main line of thought that tends to result in all the focus on women in science and programs to help women succeed in science seems to include the idea that the societal conception that scientists are male pushes females away from science. There are of course other issues like you brought up that impact retention of female scientists, but much of the science-specific efforts aren't focused on retention but rather initial interest. That's fine, and a decent enough issue to go after.

However, what many people seem to have trouble seeing is how these programs can reasonably provoke reactions like the one you responded to using the very same logic that promoted the creation of those programs in the first place. If you can see how media depictions and general expectations so severely shunt women away from science, is it really so hard to understand how the focus and programs promoting women in science may be having a negative impact on men wishing to go into science? The pressures aren't exactly the same, what with one being sort of a general thing while the other is more purposeful and focused. Who knows how they balance relative to each other, and people won't even agree on where that balance should be. However, I do understand how people can take the more purposeful one more personally. You have specifically putting out these influences that you can latch onto, while you can't really do that with a vague general feeling.

So, hell if I know how to even determine who is right here, though I suspect nobody is or ever will be. But I'd really like to see more thought put into how things effect everybody and some more understanding that people may have justifiable negative responses to things you personally consider to be positive. And neither of you has to be wrong. Or fix themselves.

[troutwine]

> If you can see how media depictions and general expectations so severely shunt women away from science, is it really so hard to understand how the focus and programs promoting women in science may be having a negative impact on men wishing to go into science?

Hi, yes it is hard to understand. If you are a child and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "Welp, I clearly am not welcome here." then you need mentoring help from an adult to prop up your self-esteem. If you are an adult and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "OOOOH I AM NOW OPPRESSED" then you are either pitiable for how far off the rails you've gone or are now pushing a motive distinct from leading your people out of the inhospitable land where talent and ambition are primary.

> So, hell if I know how to even determine who is right here, though I suspect nobody is or ever will be

Nobody is... nobody is or ever will be right? Listen, here's my motivating principles. I believe in the equality of opportunity. I believe we live and die and have a responsibility to leave the world more just and free than we found it. I believe we're working off partial information and even with the best information any attempt to leave the world more just and free will, inevitably, do a little bit of the opposite. That's why we should leave wiggle room for future generations. Now, access to opportunity in this particular discussion is limited owing to a systematic preference for a subset of humanity, shutting or pushing out the otherwise talented and ambitious from science and mathematics. It is entirely possible, though I argue not probable, that by pushing for a world in which all people from all backgrounds can do science if they have a talent for it is going to somehow have dystopic results. I know for a fact that our current approach of letting in-group dynamics and selective representation act as a filter of otherwise talented and ambitious people is actively dystopic. So, move along the gradient. Move from "absolutely very bad" to "very, very unlikely to be just as bad but also in a different way".

In passing, I will also note that your comment and grandparent weight a hypothetical bad equally with a demonstrable bad. I reject this weighting.

> And neither of you has to be wrong.

Seems like pretty dichotomous positions to me.

> Or fix themselves.

The grandparent should absolutely fix their heart.

[username90]

> Hi, yes it is hard to understand. If you are a child and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "Welp, I clearly am not welcome here." then you need mentoring help from an adult to prop up your self-esteem.

You are grossly misrepresenting the problem here. I grew up in the 90's in a more progressive country than the US and there were plenty of science events that I thought would be cool to attend which were girls only (almost all of them actually, not many events for kids here). My spot on a science competition team was given to a girl since the competition required at least one girl on each team. Also it seems like people taking stock photos loves including girls and women in them. Every time I got to the next level I was surprised over how there were so few girls there, nothing I learned stated that women were not common in STEM as I grew up.

When you go through all of that, is it really that strange you start believing that the odds are stacked against you? And is it strange that when every time you hear "equality" they go on to say "boys need to take a step back in favor of girls", that you read it as boys need not apply? So when almost every job posting is asking for "equality", what you read is "boys need not apply" because that was what it always meant before. I don't care what the exact definition of these terms means, in practice this is what boys hear when they grow up in such an environment. And when you get ghosted by such job postings explicitly encouraging equal representation, then it is very easy to assume that they ghosted you due to your gender.

Anyhow, all of this has lead to nobody taking the shortage of women in STEM seriously, I mean this has been going on for around 30 years and they still can't attract girls to these programs...

[dnbgfher]

> If you are an adult and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "OOOOH I AM NOW OPPRESSED"

That... is not at all what I said. At all. I am confused how you got that from what I said. I said that women have the problem of not seeing women in science, while men have the problem of seeing public interest and support for only women in science. Nowhere did I suggest seeing women in science would be detrimental to men. The reason I bring them up together is because one is a result of attempting to fix the other.

So, to try again. Remember I am not talking about end results, or ideals or where the world should be, or any of that. I'm talking about how things make people feel. You accept that not seeing women in science makes women feel they are unwelcome. Meanwhile we have people repeatedly stressing the importance of women in science, and seeing many groups formed explicitly to promote women in science. Men are not seeing any of this directed towards them. The parallel here is pretty trivial. Men can see this and feel unimportant and like they are not welcome.

Is that an acceptable or even necessary consequence to achieve a more egalitarian society? Maybe? I don't know. But either way it's rather callous to brush off these feelings as merely a result of people being "broken" and "wrong."

> Nobody is... nobody is or ever will be right?

Basically? I don't even know how to define "right" in a meaningful way here without the ability to run world simulations or predict the future. Your motivating principles are all great and I agree with them. The differences emerge in the details of how to act on them. For example, some people view the goal as exact equal representation in all fields, presumably with respect to population demographics though I don't hear that often said explicitly. Other people think the goal should be for each person to have equal opportunities without requiring exact proportional representation. Some people think the time limit on reaching the goal, whatever that goal is, is immediate, while others are fine seeing this take a more natural (and lengthy) course. Some people are more okay with the ends justifying the means than others.

These are all significant details that people can argue about at length while all wanting to see the exact same outcome. I want the outcome you do. That does not mean I need to agree with you about how to get there.

> In passing, I will also note that your comment and grandparent weight a hypothetical bad equally with a demonstrable bad. I reject this weighting.

I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion one is hypothetical while the other is demonstrable. We're seeing men react poorly to the current actions, and not always in appropriate ways. Considering I'm arguing largely about how people are justified in feeling a certain way, I'm not sure what else you need here before you consider their feelings to be sufficiently demonstrated.

> Seems like pretty dichotomous positions to me.

Hopefully by now you see how they are not. You are largely saying that certain actions are good things because they solve problem X. Grandparent is saying those actions are also causing another problem Y. Actions need not be purely positive or negative.

> The grandparent should absolutely fix their heart.

You're really getting needlessly personal and as I keep trying to show, are basically telling them their feelings are wrong because there are other problems in the world. It's really rather condescending and makes it harder to take your argument in good faith.