We need to do neither of those things. Women who are smart enough to contribute to science are also smart enough to make their own mind about whether or not they want to contribute to science.
I found great solace in Joan Feynman's story,
> “Women can’t do science, because their brains aren’t made for it,” Lucille Feynman declared to her eight-year-old daughter Joan. The news was a huge blow to the little girl’s ambitions which, at the time in 1935, were firmly set on following her brother Richard into a life scientific. “I remember sitting in a chair and weeping,” she recalls.
> whilst the doubts about a woman’s abilities to undertake a career in science, planted in her by Lucille, remained, Joan’s interest in science continued to be fuelled by Richard’s progress through university. Before he’d left home, her brother had made a deal with her that whilst away at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), studying for his bachelor’s degree, he would answer any science question that she sent him.
> “So I did,” says Joan, “and I got a little further each time. And then one day there was a figure in the book of a spectrum and underneath it said ‘the relative strengths of the Mg+ absorption line at 4,481 angstroms… of Stellar Atmospheres from the work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin’.” The caption was a revelation to Joan. Cecilia was a woman’s name, and the hyphenated family name indicated she was married. It was proof that a married woman was capable of doing science.
Representation matters. That one hyphenated name, proof that someone like her could contribute, gave us an exploration of auroras and solar wind. It enriched our world immensely.
If some other little girl, even one, can find solace in one of these wikipedia articles, then it's worth it.
For some.
I wanted to be a Formula 1 pilot as a kid because I liked fast cars, not because pilots were men.
I wanted to be an astronaut because I was obsessed with space and spacesuits, but I saw them in comics where the protagonists where animals and I clearly wasn't.
You know, sometimes people like stuff because they like it, not because they saw a male or female name somewhere.
Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper existence has not discouraged me from becoming a male programmer and the fact that when I was a kid everyone said that knitting and crocheting were a girls' thing hasn't stopped me from learning them, it was a fun thing to do with my aunt.
> If some other little girl, even one, can find solace in one of these wikipedia articles, then it's worth it.
I read this sentence a lot, but there is no reason why we should believe it could happen.
If the fact that these people exist and are alive wasn't enough to make them known, what can a Wikipedia article about unknown people actually do?
Unless a marketing department with a budget pushes them to a larger audience under the assumption that they are important because they are women, regardless of the importance of to actual body of work they produced, they're gonna stay unknown.
That's a very modern take
Where I am from 90% of the people were farmers or worked in construction
I liked math and then I discovered computers, nobody in my circle knew about 'em, except one of my youngest uncles
People used to refer to it as "wasting time in front of a screen"
I have become a computer programmer nonetheless
People must understand that bubbles are much older than social networks and they were real bubbles, like people that never moved farther than a 100 kms from where they were born.
If this "theory" was true, we would all still be hunter gatherers.
People evolve despite the odds.
Columbus parents had a small shop that sold wine and cheese in a small city called Savona.
He became an explorer
Science as a profession is still not mainstream, there still an high chance of failing at it, it's pretty obvious that it is more common among people who are less risk adverse: young men.
Outliers aren't too helpful in analyzing this. The question is: do people get discouraged from seeing few people like them doing something? Yes, in general, they do.
e.g. even if 99.9% of women get discouraged and avoids the profession as a result, every single one that doesn't is an exception one can point to. Individual outliers don't lend any basis for argument.
> If this "theory" was true, we would all still be hunter gatherers.
This isn't a very meaningful point. I'm not talking about things in disequilibrium. I'm saying, if you're a kid looking at a whole bunch of basketball players that are very differently shaped than you: maybe there's something wrong with your shape to go to the NBA. If you're a girl and see everyone working in math is male, you may rationally wonder about whether there's a path for you to succeed working as a mathematician.
(And you might also rationally wonder what life will be like if you're female in a 95% male industry).
that's a good question and the answer is not definitively yes.
For a number of reasons.
First of all, there's the outlier and there are the pioneers.
Columbus was a pioneer (among others), not just an outlier.
Secondly, we don't have the data.
From my anecdotal experience as a long time tech worker, women are hired in greater numbers compared to the number of applications.
From my anecdotal experience and context (Europe, Italy) it's much harder to find them than men.
But when companies find them, they have no bigger problems than men to get the job.
I would say that if there are ten open positions and 20 men apply, 8 get the job, for the same job 3 women apply and 2 of them get the job.
I've been interviewing for the company I work for and I've adviced them to hire all the women that applied, not so much for men, approximately 1 in 2 is coming to the interview either under prepared or to test how much more they could ask to their actual employer.
> if you're a kid looking at a whole bunch of basketball players that are very differently shaped than you
There's a good chance that you are not fit for basketball.
Listen, I understand your point, I was a volleyball player in my teen years, I was good, not great, but I was shorter than most of the other players.
Turns out that's important to succeed as a professional player because other teams will get the tallest player they can find to win.
You are actively encouraged to persist if you're taller than average and discouraged if you're not and I think it's completely normal (of course there are exceptions, but the Karch Kiraly(s) don't grow on trees)
I did not succeed and that's ok. I wasn't crushed by that discovery, I just understood I wasn't playing in the same league of professionals.
It's nobody's fault.
In the same ballpark there's the fact that I probably succeeded as a programmer because I wasn't fit for volleyball and computers were much more satisfying.
If I was born 2 meters tall, maybe I would have abandoned CS for volleyball, who knows.
Maybe it's the same for other people too, they get more satisfaction from other jobs than science and choose them.
The issue that rubs many the wrong way is that advocates often simply replace one form of exclusion with the other. For example, at my local children’s science museum they have a large exhibit titled “this is what a scientist looks like”. It includes six large posters of women scientists. This is not “inclusive”. It’s also not uncommon. I’ve seen similar within some of my kid’s science classrooms.
Lastly, I think it’s not surprising that the example you quote is from the 1930s. Today’s bias (in the usa at least) is most definitely towards promoting female achievement.
Yes it is. The aim of the diversity initiatives isn't to be neutral in their representative, pretending they exist in a vacuum, they are there to counter-act an existing bias in the world[1]. No boy is going to see that poster and think they can't be a scientist, because they're going to have grown up hearing about Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Hawking and listening to people like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The reason you think that the inclusion initiative is exclusionary is because you are factually wrong about the likelihood of women going into certain careers in the USA today. From that source I cited:
>For the 2017-2018 academic year, women secured 22% of all bachelor’s degrees in engineering, and just 19% of degrees in computer science.
So you can say airy things about the USA being biased towards promoting female achievement, but the fact is the statistics show that there are still lots of areas in which women demonstrably don't see certain career paths as options.
90%+ of elementary school teachers are women, which means almost all kids are taught from a young age that women are teachers. Should society be doing more to get men into teaching young kids? Or can we accept that maybe most guys don't want to deal with kids all day long?
Society should absolutely be encouraging more men into teaching. But that's the classic conundrum - people are working to fix a problem and you come in and say "No, no, don't fix that problem, fix this problem instead". I agree with you - more men should be encouraged to go into teaching, we need great teachers and it can be a very rewarding career - why don't you go and do something to make that happen.
That's a complete strawman, nobody is saying that. People are pointing out the hypocrisy. The only problems in society that get widespread attention and support, are problems that impact women.
So no, if you want to be taken seriously then there would need to be parity in how these issues are treated.
>So no, if you want to be taken seriously then there would need to be parity in how these issues are treated.
Firstly, they already are taken seriously. Secondly, go ahead and look, there are plenty of campaigns to try and get more men into early years education.
Are you replying to the wrong message, or intentionally not quoting what you say I "literally" said?
Meanwhile, I have also noticed there aren't enough women working in mines and on roofs, collecting garbage etc. so I'm off to start my campaign to help.
As for your comment, your sentiment is based on no evidence what so ever, and prolonged efforts to attract more women to male dominated STEM fields results in zero gains.
It is not a matter of brainwashing. It is a matter of giving young people the tools to overcome the intrinsic bias they encounter.
My experience of computer science labs in the 1990s were testosterone drenched pits of bullying and bragging
It was not just women put off by that. Brilliant women were not, they achieved. It was the average women, and average indigenous, average queer, etcetera who were driven out.
It is not sustainable to keep out people who do not look like, sound like, and smell like the main stream.
"brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals" Pfftttt
That leaves you with the notion that maybe something innate to the female brain simply makes them less interested.
But a funny analogy I've heard is: why are there way more woman cellists (people who play the cello) than woman guitarists? We know women can play instruments, but is there something in the female brain that makes them more interested in cellos and violins than in guitars?
For that, the cultural explanation, that guitars are more masculine-coded in our culture, is way more compelling. And then I wonder what other trends culture could be enforcing.
>the patronizing attitude of people who think they can brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals, as if these smart young women are not more than capable enough to think for themselves.
I think the concept of libertarian free will that you're assuming here is a religious one. It doesn't really exist. Your sense of pride has been wounded on others' behalf by the assertion that forces outside of people's control influence people. But of course they do. We're all products of our environment. Being mad about it and denying it only distances you from the goals you want to accomplish.
>As for your comment, your sentiment is based on no evidence what so ever, and prolonged efforts to attract more women to male dominated STEM fields results in zero gains.
Is there evidence for that?
Here's some claiming a huge increase in women participating in STEM: "Women made gains – from 8% of STEM workers in 1970 to 27% in 2019 – but men still dominated the field."[0]
0: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/01/women-making-...
Up until a few decades ago being a scientist was not imaginable for more than a few thousand people in all the West.
Up until 80 years ago, the west wasn't even a thing.
My dad was a huge fan of science, unfortunately his small town in Italy was invaded by Nazis when he was a kid and he had to survive and then take care of a widowed mother.
In Spain they had a fascist dictatorship till 1975.
The fact that in such a short timespan the presence of women in science is at the level it is today is frankly something that should be considered a huge success, not a failure.
And frankly I do not think young people are making career decisions based on representation. That's more of an academic's way to look at life.
Where in their statement did they make that claim?
You're inventing arguments.
But you've just echoed a sentiment that I've had for quite some time relating to the "representation matters" claims.
I grew up loving Star Trek. DS9 is one of my favourite of the series and I considered the character of Benjamin Sisko to be a huge role model and influence on me. I felt similar sentiment towards the characters Katherine Janeway and Seven of Nine on Voyager. Seven of Nine was particularly relatable to me as a nerdy outcast trying to fit in with "normal society." More recently, I felt a powerful attachment and kinship to the character of Elizabeth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit. To the point where I have never felt so personally represented by any fictional character in my life. The obsession, drive, ambition, social awkwardness, the anger issues, being ruthlessly self-critical and even the drug abuse (was stimulants for me as a teenager) were all characteristics that felt like they were taken directly from my own life.
But according to many, that shouldn't be possible because those characters have different skin pigmentation and genitals than me.
What a racist and sexist proposition that is. Almost as if ideas, character, personality and morals don't matter. We just need to go back to assuming those things based on little more than superficial irrelevancies.
[Citation needed]
I don't think you could find an example of even one feminist claiming that you can't find representation from people with different demographics to you. This is not what people are claiming when they say "representation matters". In fact, minorities are MUCH more likely to find representation outside their demographic, out of necessity if for no other reason. What people are claiming (many from personal experience) is that a lack of representation in a given pursuit makes it harder for people to imagine those pursuits as something available to them.
In other words: Yes, a black woman can empathize and relate to characters of any gender and race. But that's not a good argument that we shouldn't correct the underrepresentation of black women in media and STEM. It's also not an argument that black women won't be helped by seeing increased representation in media and STEM.
I'm assuming this is a good faith misunderstanding, but if it's not, it's a very good example of what you call "twist and manipulate words to fit any meaning they want to ascribe".
> What people are claiming (many from personal experience) is that a lack of representation in a given pursuit makes it harder for people to imagine those pursuits as something available to them.
Having gone back and re-read my comment, I have a difficult time seeing the distinction between your choice of words and how I expressed the sentiment.
To illustrate why: what does "relate to" or "empathize" mean if not to imagine yourself in the shoes of another?
I think where the disagreement might enter the picture is in the emphasis on systems and institutions. You specifically used the words "available to." I've never looked at the world in terms of what is or isn't available to me. Not when it comes to how I choose to live my life. Maybe it's because I grew up in an era where we taught kids that they were capable of anything they put their mind to. I actually believed it. And I certainly never considered that I couldn't do something because of my race or gender. If I had then I wouldn't do so much cooking in my household.
When it comes to personal anecdotes, empirical data is always called for. I can [Citation Needed] your clarified statement of the claim just as easily as you can mine. These are just claims, at the end of the day. A claim that I find suspect because, to restate my position, if someone has a difficult time imagining themselves in the shoes of others because they see race and gender (even if it's a belief in societal systems rather than individually held prejudice), it is still a personal choice to see the world that way. And it's not a very good look on the person making that choice in my humble opinion.
My [Citation needed] was for your assertion that "many" are making that claim. I emphasized the difference between the two claims. Your version of the claim is that it's impossible to relate to characters of different demographics. The non-strawman version of the claim is that the how and when demographics are represented impacts people's perception of those demographics. If you want me to cite people claiming the above, I can. If you want me to cite evidence for the claim, I can also do that.
>You specifically used the words "available to." I've never looked at the world in terms of what is or isn't available to me. Not when it comes to how I choose to live my life. Maybe it's because I grew up in an era where we taught kids that they were capable of anything they put their mind to. I actually believed it. And I certainly never considered that I couldn't do something because of my race or gender. If I had then I wouldn't do so much cooking in my household.
For someone complaining about people not imaging themselves in the shoes of others, you're sure slow to imagine yourself in the shoes of others. Read some of the comments in this thread, and you'll find plenty of examples of people who never considered that they could do something, because of their race or gender. At least, until they saw examples of positive representation in media.
Have you considered that the reason other people had difficulty imagining themselves doing something when you didn't may be because of the different messages you received growing up rather than them being prejudical?
>it is still a personal choice to see the world that way
This isn't as relevant to my point, but I would absolutely argue this isn't true. If societal systems exist (as you seem to admit) that discriminate based on race and gender, is it a personal failing when those systems make you aware of your race and gender? Have you considered that the reason you are less aware of your race and gender than others may be due to the fact that your race and gender has had less impact on you than others' has on them?
Or, is it the case that people are actively discouraged because they aren't "represented" in the field? If they can't overcome that challenge, then how are they going to make any real progress in the field?
I think there's a valid question of, do people want these jobs for the status of having them, or do they want these jobs because they have a deep passion for the subject itself? I presume that if it's the latter, then simple "representation" poses no barrier to those people. If it's the former, then I'm not at all bothered by their inability to chase status in a particular field.
The challenges of fighting unethical social and political resistance to your inclusion in a community are distinct from the intellectual challenges of the associated field of study. Having to overcome both is certainly not fair to anyone.
And, "representation" fixes this? I see the connection between the two, but I don't think it's direct.. and I think calls for "representation" step over this chasm entirely in the hopes that the solution will sort of just materialize.
I also think it is highly likely that focusing on this alone creates the opposite social pressures, pushing people into highly competitive landscapes filled with driven people just to serve as an undistinguished poster child who's meant to merely be a token of "representation in the field."
I don't think genuine "unethical social" or "political resistance" to inclusion is solved this way. Further, if there are these gate-keeping mechanisms in front of what should be pure meritorious pursuits, then all you might be doing is forcing those gatekeepers to put a different face on their lack of ethics rather than throwing them off the sciences entirely.
It's not so much that I disagree with it or think it's not a valid concern, I just think this sole focus on "inclusion" and "representation" is entirely half thought out will only serve to make the actual problem worse.