[tzs]

She mentions her field of STEM (mechanical engineering) has a particularly low percentage of women among its members, and cites another site. On that site, there is this interesting list:

   39% of chemists and material scientists are women;
   27.9% of environmental scientists and geoscientists are women;
   15.6% of chemical engineers are women;
   12.1% of civil engineers are women;
   8.3% of electrical and electronics engineers are women;
   17.2% of industrial engineers are women; and
   7.2% of mechanical engineers are women.

Does anyone have an explanation as to why chemists and material scientists have such a relatively high percentage of women?

The two highest are science, as opposed to engineering, so it could be that science in general is more women friendly than engineering, but even if we just look at the engineering disciplines on that list, there still is a big difference among them. Why would chemical engineering be much more women friendly than mechanical engineering?

[kansface]

Women make up about 50% of undergrad chemistry degrees. On the other hand, they make less than 20% of physics/math degrees (engineering funnels). I don't have any real idea why women are so low in math and physics, but I suspect you'd have to look back much further in time.

[tomp]

I studied math in Slovenia. There were about as many female as there were male students. In financial mathematics (and e.g. pharmacy, IIRC), there were more women than men. On the other hand, in computing and physics there were more men than women.

I am very inclined to think this is mainly a matter of preference. On the other hand, maybe the situation in the US is completely different, and Slovenia is just so much more equal when it comes to sex (e.g. the unadjusted gender wage gap is only 2.5% for Slovenia).

[ankey1]

Chemistry is often seen as a "softer" science out of the others on the list with supposedly more work/life balance. That was how it was explained to me as a woman when I declared that I was going to study electrical engineering in college. A lot of people tried to steer me towards chemical engineering but I was horrible at chemistry and my interests were more aligned with electrical engineering so I stuck with it.

[clarebear]

I agree that (early) science is friendlier to women than (early) engineering. Another factor might be that, if all else is equal, pick the major that already has some women, so you have some peers.

[kriro]

Maybe it's due to Marie Curie, arguably the most renown female scientist? Eventhough she did Physics and Chemistry she's mostly portrayed as a chemist I think.

[Mz]

I'm a woman. I was inducted into Mu Alpha Theta in the 11th grade, a college level math honor society. I didn't take any math my senior year in high school because I would have had to go to school an hour earlier to take the class they made available to the three people who qualified for it (the other two students did opt to go in early -- but I have serious health problems that had not yet been identified). So I got to college and was told I could either retake trig or enroll in calculus. I did not want to retake trig and I enrolled in calculus. Having had no math the year before, I ended up dropping out of calculus. I still feel scarred by the experience.

Years later, when I was going back to college and trying to choose a major, I knew I wanted to do something with the built environment. I went through university catalogs and looked at what different majors entailed. I took "civil engineering" off the list pretty early in the process because of the requirement to take multiple calculus classes.

Women often do not have great math backgrounds. They may do fine in math up through middle school, but often start falling behind in math in high school. It is not clear if this is because of social factors or innate lack of ability. But it is a known phenomenon. So I would wonder if the ones where women are very seriously underrepresented are the ones with the most significant math requirements. If that doesn't check out, I don't know what I would look at next. But that is the first thought that comes to mind for me.

[rndn]

You may find this interesting: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required...

(I haven't read it yet though, only one of the linked articles in the third paragraph.)

[jholman]

Based on two recommendations, I went and read the slatestarcodex article. I too enjoyed it greatly, though I had a methodological quibble or two.

The main reason I'm commenting is because I want to note that the entire point of the article you linked is to debunk the articles in the third paragraph (none of which I have read).

[rndn]

I know. Initially, I wanted to link the article I've read, however, Google referred me to this slatestarcodex article, so I figured I would directly link to a discussion about it.

[TeMPOraL]

I read it and I second the recommendation. It's a very good post.

[lilibalfour]

I think it might have to do with the careers that are attached to each major.

[crazy1van]

Maybe women on average just prefer some jobs more than others?

Really, I'm sure there are millions of factors that enter into to those stats -- about one for every woman because everyone woman is unique with her own goals and tastes -- but I think the occam's razor for this topic is that men and women on average have different preferences. Would we be hunting for a root cause in social pressure or discrimination if we found women were a much higher chunk of the audience for Twilight and men were a higher percent of Avengers viewers?

The bottom line, whatever the reason for discrepancies, is in your daily professional life to treat both sexes the equally.

[wpietri]

There are few things in discourse I hate more than this sort of "just", the kind of ignorance-encouraging, status-quo-supporting "just" that tells people to stop thinking.

Given that we have a millennia-long history of gender discrimination and given that women got the vote less than a century ago, this "just" is ridiculous.

Look at this graph:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...

I guess in 1970 women "just" didn't like medicine or law. (That's certainly what people said then.) And now, using your helpful explanatory framework, they "just" do! It's unexplainable! Things just happen without relation to other things. Who could possibly know anything?

[b3tta]

Hmm... Sometimes even I say "maybe women just prefer [...]", but actually mean exactly that, what you said: There are social trends and in this case there is a social trend specific to women wrongly being taught that they are not as good as men in STEM fields. So much in fact (here in Germany) that it's kind of unsettling, when they tell you "haha I'm just not good in math haha" and you can't even, because it's so effing wrong.

I believe many (young) people will tell you that women are "just" like that, but actually mean "they are just taught to think so", because in their male position there is no need to choose are careful wording. I'm also pretty sure that, while the society at large is fault for this herd thinking about this, the parents play the biggest role in where the daughter places herself in the world.

[wpietri]

Could be, but a lot of people take that "just" as meaning "there are essential gender differences rooted in the very fabric of the universe, so there's no point in talking about it". So if I were trying to point at the social factors that shape general preferences, I'd look for a phrasing that can't be taken for a call, as here, to ignore those factors.

[Retra]

>Would we be hunting for a root cause in social pressure or discrimination if we found women were a much higher chunk of the audience for Twilight and men were a higher percent of Avengers viewers?

Why would you compare socio-economic inequalities to taste in media? That would be like comparing national budgets to a lemonade stand and asking why we don't put the same effort into managing a 12-year old's summer business.

These issues have entirely different scopes and priorities, and your comparison is invalid based on that alone.

[tzs]

Why do we test drugs on mice when it is their effect on humans that we actually care about (almost no one actually cares about lowering high blood pressure or addressing erectile dysfunction in mice)?

Answer: because understanding what happens in mice might give us some insight into similar mechanisms in humans, and it is easier to do many tests and experiments on mice.

Same goes for media tastes. Factors that lead to gender difference in media preferences might also lead to gender differences in employment (either by affecting what jobs women seek, or affecting how employers perceive candidates), and it might be easier to gather data on media preferences.

[Retra]

This is from the post I was responding to:

>Would we be hunting for a root cause in social pressure or discrimination if we found women were a much higher chunk of the audience for Twilight and men were a higher percent of Avengers viewers?

What is this question suggesting? Is it saying that media preferences and employment differences are similar in such a way that the fact that we do not investigate media preferences means we should not investigate employment differences?

What you are saying is different: that investigating one will give you information about the other. I don't really disagree with that. I disagree with the implication that employment differences are to be trivialized as 'matters of preference,' and thus not worth investigating.

[crazy1van]

> I disagree with the implication that employment differences are to be trivialized as 'matters of preference,'

I dont think that's trivializing the issue at all. Millions of people in the world with different preferences in all manner of things from movies to professions is hardly trivial. What's trivializing is thinking we can do some studies and find some kind of root cause of what is really an average of millions of personal choices.

[Retra]

I don't even know what you're talking about. People have preferences for a reason. It's not a static property of reality. So what if men don't like Twilight? We could easily rewrite Twilight if we wanted so that they do.

Women don't like STEM? Change STEM so that they do. What do preferences have to do with anything? We don't have to abide by them.

Preferences are not a problem, social inequalities are a problem.

[anigbrowl]

Or maybe some companies in some industries took discrimination/diversity issues more serious at an earlier stage than others, leading to a disproportionate number of applicants in those fields. It's often misleading to assume everyone began at the same position on some imaginary starting line, and that present discontinuities are thus reflective of fundamental differences.

[saraid216]

> Would we be hunting for a root cause in social pressure or discrimination if we found women were a much higher chunk of the audience for Twilight and men were a higher percent of Avengers viewers?

FYI, there is a root cause in social pressure for this.