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Being told that female students fair poorly in STEM subjects, or that the tech industry is lacking in female programmers, for instance, can reinforce those beliefs within women’s minds, leading them to confirm those stereotypes themselves. Beliefs? Stereotypes? Those are facts, dude. As things currently stand, women do perform more poorly than men in STEM, and their numbers are lacking in tech. And what are we supposed to do? Not tell women that, once they join the tech field, they will be viewed as anomalies, treated as sex objects and feel very lonely? Are we supposed to con women into joining tech? In order to improve the status quo, we first need to acknowledge it, openly and fearlessly. There's no way around that. Facts won't go anywhere just by refraining from stating them. For instance, this quote from Upstart: “Stereotypes remain a huge limiting factor for women, who are often seen as ”too aggressive“ when they succeed, Sandberg said. ”As men get powerful and successful, everyone likes them better.” But when women achieve success, “everyone likes them worse,” Huh, I thought we were trying to avoid generalizations and stereotypes here... |
It turns out that which facts you focus on affects your performance. Reminding women of all of the negatives makes them less likely to succeed. That's worth remembering.
Speaking of which facts you focus on, did you notice that the article was not written by a dude?