Why Young Women Don’t Go Into STEM Explained

Why Young Women Don’t Go Into STEM Explained
   Julie Coates reported on her own original research explaining why women do not go into or stay in STEM professions.  Some 75% of women drop out of STEM professions, according to research reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, as compared to only 25% of males.
   Coates said that women in more economically prosperous and democratic nations such as the U.S. go into STEM less than in less developed and less democratic societies. Having the choice, women tend to favor professions where they perceive they can make a direct difference in people’s lives, she noted. She also reported an ASQ survey just out noting that women tend to take fewer risks than men, with risk taking more essential in STEM professions.
   Coates said that intervention programs such as STEM camps for girls and other programs, on which hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, have no impact on young women’s choices.
   Coates said schools and colleges should adhere to Title IX and stop giving males worse grades than females. This gender bias keeps out 2 million smart males a year from college, causing the STEM crisis.

Julie speaking at the seminar.

Comments

[D. P. Lubic]

This sounds something like an assessment of differences between men and women I read about a long time ago. Basically, this assessment or study said women were better as "soft" problem solving, while men were better at "hard" problems. "Soft" and "hard" didn't mean "easy" and "difficult" in this context; rather, "hard" would mean, perhaps, "definitive" (2+2=4), while "soft" meant "not definitive," not hard and fast, but something that had to be judged. I personally picture it as a woman who can pick up a baby so gracefully, while we men are often clumsy and fearful of breaking it, or at least I am!

This would tend to put men largely in things that require "hard" answers, such as engineering (how much stress can that wing structure take with a given safety margin?), while women would more likely be in "soft" fields, such as nursing (while nursing today certainly has much in the way of technical knowledge today, traditionally--and still today--much of its art and craft are in making people comfortable, in that special "touch" ladies of any age have for calming and comforting others). This doesn't knock or demean the men who can be, say, great chefs (and daddies with babies), and it certainly is not meant to keep women with a special touch (and an alternative outlook) out of architecture or automotive design, but this is perhaps the more typical patern.

Most important of all, there is or should be no talk of one being superior to the other; rather, these gifts, in dealing with "hard" and "soft" problems are really complimentary. We need both sets of talents in our society and our families. It's also why we should not have anything like sexual harassment in the workplace.

I never could understand that horrible thing, considering that women in the workplace are somebody's mother, daughter, sister, or grandmother or something, and that no one, not even the lowest piece of scum, would want to mistreat or see someone mistreat their mother, daughter, sister, or grandmother.

It's not rocket science. . .