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Comment by SiempreViernes | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, and after all those words about how even in advanced gender equality countries differences persist they offer the following qualitative reason for it:

> The sex difference in interest in people extends to a more general interest in living things, which would explain why women who are interested in science are much more likely to pursue a career in biology or veterinary medicine than computer science.

Right, so because as a woman she intrinsically like people more, my friend is now doing a postdoc about moths?

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Not to mention that there's nothing touchy-feely about biochem, which is chem except you take orgo almost immediately. But the prefix "bio" in it allows them to dismiss it.

For the proposed mechanism to work there doesn't need to be anything actually "touchy-feely" about biochem, it's enough if the prefix "bio" makes it appear as such in the minds of men and women who consider going into it as opposed to some other field.

This is a misstatement of what the biochemistry coursework I am familiar with looks like.

Biochem, when offered as an undergrad program, is offered through the biology department and has a number of standard biology department requirements that would be elective at best for chemistry undergrads. Biochem majors also take orgo following gen chem, just like chemistry majors.

I don’t know what “touchy-feely” means in this context, but “chem except you take orgo almost immediately” does not match with my experience at all.

My son is in UIUC's biochem program. It's offered through the Chemistry department, has him in orgo next semester, and has a first year shared with chemical engineers.

At UIUC biochemistry is offered through Molecular and Cellular Biology. It's a good program but distinct from Chemistry. Next semester sounds like sophomore fall, which would be on schedule for chemistry majors as well as biochem majors at most programs I know of.

I have no idea what bringing up ChemE has to do with anything: undergrad ChemE has little to do with chemistry and a lot to do with continuum mechanics and steam tables. It's common for engineering students to do their natural sciences classwork (it isn't called "earth sciences", that is something else) together along with major students.

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