STEM is 90% men because of the way young people are socialized and then harassment, discrimination, and oppression that are endemic in the industry.
What about Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin? If you know jack about the history of computing, what about Ada Lovelace, Margaret Hamilton, and Grace Hopper?
This gender essentialist bullshit is demonstrably false.
We do not, at this point, understand brain development well enough to prove or disprove sex essentialism / sex culturalism. The article says it: "Cause-and-effect is tough to tease apart". What it should have said is "Cause-and-effect are impossible to tease apart with 2015 technology". That is the only credible position to hold in 2015. What we do know is that there are observable biological differences between men and women, even at the level of the individual cell. To what extent they influence higher cognitive functions and their relationships to environmental stimuli is not clear.
what about Ada Lovelace, Margaret
Hamilton, and Grace Hopper?
The only discrimination and oppression is against men and the only harassment is for people who point out the data.
Btw, PhD students as well as professors have been ripped off since forever - it is what makes a lot of people leave academia. You only focus on Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin etc. because they are women.
Men hate other men because they want to prove themselves - it is genetically wired among our brains. Women have been using that to select mates since the dawn of time. It doesn't make them immoral, but let us not got so much carried away that "facts" and "science" look less important to us.
No one could reasonably think that's always been the case though, so saying "There's been no female Isaac Newton" during the past 400 years of patriarchal society believing women are inferior and incapable is a bit unfair. I have no doubt that there have been women (and men) of equal ability but circumstances stopped them fulfilling their potential.
The list of academic disciplines which has over 90% of participants in a single gender is quite long, with only a minor few topics which has a balanced 50%/50%. In Sweden, only about 10% of work professions are considered to have a fair balanced between the genders, and on university level, female students outnumber male students by 2:1 and are the dominating group in every disciplines except STEM.
Should we argue that the primary reason for this is harassment, discrimination, and oppression?
That's just a theory.
My theory is that it's not gender but differences in hormone balance, meaning circuits is same but without sufficient level of hormone needed to drive them, they won't function well.
Testing this theory should take much shorter time and less resources than yours. Another interesting yet controversial test could be whether raising the need for the circuits to work can change hormone balance.
There are strong social pressures to shut up people who disagree with the 100% social explanation (as if life would ever be as black and white as that). The debate is like a boxing match where one of the other fighter has his hands tied, and everyone pretends as if this isn't the case ...
So what if different groups of people are actually different? That is genuine diversity and valuable in its own way. Unlike this perpetually frustrated vision of the modern world. Aiming for a future where gender and ethnicity are just meaningless character skins.
Hormones in young age in boys may push for a need to solve things, to explore how things work in order to make things more efficient, mechanically or in any other STEM areas.
Also, the urge for boys to measure strengths against each other, physical or mentally, may be a drive for more involvement in games that are more directed into exploring the physical environment, in effect enhancing spatial capabilities.
well yeah i'd agree with that.
also you say it's demonstrably false but don't demonstrate anything.
Are you basing this on personal observation, or some documented studies, research etc?
I disagree with you completely, but I'd like to know on which specific grounds I should debate this topic with you.
EDIT: Just to be specific, I think that individuals will have "totally different social behaviours, instincts, communication styles, interests and temperaments". You can't just say "Males and Females", as you could just as easily insert any two discernible groups into that sentence. Inuits vs. !Kung would fit the bill just as well. Males and Females aren't defined by their gender, but by all the other things that make up their individual personalities.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd9_g7lAICxtlGbxh4_z8...
is it a discrimination toward men or just the way society is forcing women to pick up easy jobs?
it's often said that while men and women have the same average IQ that women hug the mean while men spread far more in each direction.