We Don't Need More Women in STEM

The endless stream of initiatives to get more women in STEM under the guise of addressing 'institutionalised sexism' is futile and based on faulty assumptions. I refer to a recent lecture by Johnathan Haidt to do some of the heavy lifting.

Sources:

TWITTER: @scroweman

[gunn]

The only women we need in STEM are the ones who a. want to be there and b. have the skill to be there.

Thats it.

[hermanPla]

so when are they going to demand gender qoutas in mining, wastdesposal, housebuilding and other hardlabour Jobs?

[lukejreid]

Boys are under performing in almost every field in Australian schools and have been for years and yet there is no special funding to address this. If it was the other way around imagine what a fuss would be made.

[richardlbowles]

I used to be a lecturer (Computer Science) in a small university in South West London. There was a government initiative to get more female students in science, particularly chemistry, but the result after about five years was that so many females were dropping chemistry at the end of their first year that the chemistry department was almost empty. It closed soon afterwards. This turns out to be a pattern up and down the country, with many universities closing their chemistry departments.

[rowsdower]

It's an issue when it's women, but for men there's crickets

[shaunpatrick]

What's frustrating about this $3.9M budget is not just that it's being wasted but that it will be spent employing people whose only talent is to create division and encourage girls to think of themselves as victims.

[NosterTheToaster]

Women need to stop choosing majors they want and start choosing ones I want them to!

[leightonleigh]

This is basically just my own experience and I have to vent a little:
I live in Germany, I am a woman and I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Physics. I refuse the idea that women need help to go into STEM fields. It basically sounds like I by myself am not good, smart or determined enough to make it in a "male dominated field". During my entire time of studying chemistry and physics I never ever had any advantage for being a woman rather than a man. I had to write the same exams as everyone else, had to have the same amount of knowledge (sometimes just as little or even less) than everyone else. No amount of "helping women" short of giving extra points because of me being a woman would have made any difference.
Funny enough I have seen a few areas of sciences during my studies being chemistry, physics and mathematics (plus a few friends in biology). From what I've seen and heard there are only a few women in physics (half of them like me aiming in their Masters for a higher education teaching position in school), in math there are about half women, in chemistry (including molecular biotechnology and biochemistry) there are slightly more women than men and in biology we have the physics situation again just flipped around - a lot less men than women. I wonder why that (fyi it's similar in the "Oberstufe" where students in school can choose what science they take for 2 years. Most women choose biology, then chemistry, then physics and then computer sciences - everyone has to take maths).
I just feel like that people do not want to acknowledge the fact that female and male brains work differently - I know how that is since I have a more male than female brain (too analytical and pattern seeking for my own good >.>). When I was 14 years old I had already figured out that I wanted to either be a teacher or a scientist. During my studies I found out that I was very good at replicating experiments and explaining them rather than doing my own research (I really suck at it outside of a theoretical chemistry point of view and doing calculations on a computer absolutely doesn't sound that appealing to me). With becoming a teacher in sciences for schools and hopefully inspiring a few students to go into the field of science I feel like I can do better than being a half baked scientist.
Pfuh - This was a pretty long but in the end people and politics should stop turning something into an issue that biologically doesn't make any sense to turn it into an issue. Why can't people just choose to do what they want to do without it being a gender or even race issue....

[cqa]

I was thinking earlier about gender quotas, and realised that they will actually act to increase the disparity between men and women in a field. If you have 100 men and 50 women applying for 100 places, and you must let all the women in (a 50/50 quota), then you end up only choosing the 50 best men. That leaves the average, and sub average women, competing with a field of only above average men.

[Darkshizumaru]

My feelings about these programs as a woman is that I'm against the discrimation. The programs getting kids into tech is noble and education is important. The idea they are for girls only is unacceptable. Boys and girls both should be taught these skills. It'd nice to have more educational programs for tech aimed at children, but not just one gender. I do not believe that making extra stem grads in the future is going to be an issue if you teach children to either be very competitive or to chose career based on demand.

[noahkrietsch]

Great vid man. I'm in the engineering field, and I've been saying this for years now...
"Why aren't there more women!?" "Why are the men keeping the women out of engineering?!"

Ummm, maybe they just don't wanna!!

[Sarah-gkyi]

What a non-issue. The countries worried about "the gender pay gap" should be worried about their low birthrate.

[DrumWild]

Regarding "Systemic Sexism, " I'd hope they can look at divorce judgments. There's an example of Systemic Sexism.

[FuriKitten]

STEM where you need to actually be talented or attend your lectures, Damn this egalitarianism is too hard.
Apart from the fact that in URPSL (Unilever Research Port Sunlight Limited) when I was there Males represented only 10-15% of the Techs in analytical and research, strangely in the Industrial and Process Chemistry half, it was the otherway around.

[matty]

Having more women in STEM will not solve the hoverboard problem

[BitThoughts]

It's nearly 2017? Happy new current year!

[aimbt]

Jonathan Haidt is excellent. His lectures on liberals vs. conservatives is also really excellent, full of great information (as well as his talks on The Righteous Mind - which is also a book). Really helped me gain perspective. Great vid :).

[Death_Networks]

So when does the course "Getting men to be stay at home dads" course start?
That's pretty much majority women, come on it's [insert current year] and men make up nearly 50% of the population!

[ncunico]

This comment is just a comment to help with youtubes new algorithm.

[no-bozos]

Correct. We don't need more women in STEM, we need more PEOPLE in STEM disciplines. Whether they are women or not.