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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 4:20:38 AM | | Math is very much a part of science. In fact, math is a science all its own that is used in problem solving in virtually all other sciences. It is a science of numbers and their operations. Math brings logic to measurements. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 5:44:29 AM |
math is a science
Given that science is the philosophy of nature (and used to be called natural philosophy) and given that mathematics is not a product of nature, I would say it's erroneous to call math a science. It is more correct to call it a philosophy. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 6:56:26 AM | RE Msg: 27 by JustDukky:
Given that science is the philosophy of nature (and used to be called natural philosophy) and given that mathematics is not a product of nature, I would say it's erroneous to call math a science. It is more correct to call it a philosophy. Many universities regard it as both, a philosophy, and therefore an artform, and a science, because it follows rigorous reasoning, and applies often to real life. That is why it was one of the few degrees in my university, in which you could get a BA or a BSc, simply because you asked. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 9:09:53 AM |
Many universities regard it as both, a philosophy, and therefore an artform, and a science, because it follows rigorous reasoning, and applies often to real life. That is why it was one of the few degrees in my university, in which you could get a BA or a BSc, simply because you asked.
That's why I prefaced my statement with "I would say", to make it clear that the issue is a contentious one and that it was my opinion only (which I justify with my arguments); not necessarily the only one on the matter. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 4:34:40 PM |
There have been advances in women entering fields that were previously closed to them, but if you think that prejudice and stereotypes still don't exist, you are wrong. And the advances are much more recent that you think.
That isn't sufficient to explain it. The fact is, few women CHOOSE to go into math or science despite incentives to do so. At the academic level, a qualified woman has an advantage in math and physics simply because many departments WANT to hire a woman because there are so few. Peruse the ads for academic positions and you'll find the ads target women. However, the majority of women applicants are not from the U.S. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 6:33:04 PM |
That isn't sufficient to explain it. The fact is, few women CHOOSE to go into math or science despite incentives to do so. At the academic level, a qualified woman has an advantage in math and physics simply because many departments WANT to hire a woman because there are so few. Peruse the ads for academic positions and you'll find the ads target women. However, the majority of women applicants are not from the U.S. This study might go a bit towards explaining things:
Whereas research indicates that women and men are earning their Ph.D. degrees at similar rates, the research also indicates that women often face unique challenges when embarking upon a career in academia. Some of these challenges include motherhood, working in a male dominated field, retention, and earning tenure. Mason and Goulden (2004) found, for example, that women having a child within five years of earning their Ph.D. are 30% less likely than women without children to obtain a tenure-track position. Of women who had children early on in their careers, 56% earned tenure within 14 years of obtaining their Ph.D., whereas 77% of men who became fathers early on earned tenure. http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/1/7/2/p171725_index.html | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/4/2009 8:37:02 PM | Blah Blah Blah Blah
Get a grip - Did you know that half the stupid people on the planet are women?
Can you guess who the other half are?
Now there is a difficult math question for ya.
My daughter got three scholarships (so far) and is entering University in the Fall to study MATH. She is doing it because she loves it. I did NOT encourage her in this choice. My theory is to stay out of the way and let my girls make up their own minds about stuff they want to do. She also will have a half year of university credit before she starts. She also placed fourth in the Western Canadian Gymnastics Competition this last year on the trampoline.
The younger one got three athletic awards, soccer, basketball and track and field as well as getting herself on the Gold Honor Roll in academics with an average of 93%.
As a MAN, I just decided to mind my own business and as long as they let me know ahead of time if they need me for something. It seems to be working well so far.
They are also both involved in major social justice issues and do tireless work in that domain. YES - I am proud of them.
I had nothing to do with their successes except maybe keeping my big mouth shut.
Keep groovin' - I am. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 6:03:48 AM | | ^^^^ Exactly....the answer is, because women are free to pursue careers that are of interest to them. Last time I checked, so were men. There are professions with low male representation as well, but for some reason no one ever highlights that fact. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 8:10:30 AM |
There are professions with low male representation as well, but for some reason no one ever highlights that fact. The news was mentioning how the British government is very very concerned about the fact that there are very few male primary school teachers in the UK. It means that young children have lots of female roles models from school, but few male role models from school. That's a worrying fact for those people who are growing up with very poor male role models in their life, outside of school. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 8:57:50 AM | I stand corrected. The media highlights the lack of male role models for kids, but actually what I meant was that the general public doesn't worry that men aren't entering into professions that would be of a benefit to the men themselves. I can't think of one profession that we as a society would try to increase the number of male participants just because it is highly paid. When we do encourage an increase in men's participation, it is for the good of someone else.
With women, there is a push to encourage them to enter professions where it would benefit the women. Not saying that I'm against that; in fact, I think to make the best decision, anyone should have all the facts presented to them. However, all of us have intrinsic interests in life and we have to follow what feels best for us. As long as the opportunities continue to exist for both sexes and that all the necessary information is presented for choosing careers, then I don't see the problem.
Kind of unrelated, here in Canada, we had a very unfortunate incident 20 years ago, when a young man entered a technical college (École Polytechnique) one evening and went on a hunting spree for women. He had been turned down for the engineering program and so he went to an engineering class, ordered the young men to leave and then killed about 13 of the women. His reason for doing this was that he felt the feminist women were taking the place of men in previously male-dominated fields. After that our government made a concerted effort to ensure that women were not fearful of entering engineering and really encouraged them to enroll, which resulted in an increase in female enrollment of about 1% per year (not sure how long the increase lasted).
So, yes, informing people about their choices certainly does help. It is unfortunate that it took such a horrific event for this to become obvious in our country | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 9:00:50 AM | I would have to look up the statistics for the OPs post, but I seem to see ALOT more female students than I do male students around the two universities I have lived around the past few years. I don't think that stereotype holds true today as much as it may have in the past. There are more women pursuing higher education than men and I think the trend will only increase in the future.
But in a general sense too many girls (children/teens) get taught from an early age that the level of attention they get from men is somehow a measure of their self worth. Children are inquisitive and ask a billion questions about anything, but later society and the public school system kills that, especially in females. They are taught by society norms that it's much more important to be fashionable and attractive than intelligent and successful. Throw in the gender stereotypes that women are not supposed to be direct, outspoken and driven and you have lots of girls who grow up into women whom have lost all interest in things academic. I am amazed that as many women pursue advanced degrees as what they do. Plus it seems most of the students I have met are in Science fields, and in most of those math plays a HUGE role so they have extensive mathmatical training as well. I don't have statistics, but my own experince would says the Ops premise is wrong today (but not in the past).
But I also have to mention that I see a lot of Vandy students around and it is interesting to me how many of them are either foreign students or 1st generation Americans. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 2:10:54 PM | Can't tell you "why", but I can tell you that the situation is rapidly changing. In my generation there were few women. There were no women in my graduate school "class". But now there are far more female grad students in our program (biomedical research) than males. Last year it was 7 females and 1 male. This year it is 5 females and 2 males.
The faculty ratio is about 2 males to 1 female, whereas when I went to graduate school it was 15:1. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 2:14:52 PM | RE Msg: 35 by novascotialass:
I stand corrected. The media highlights the lack of male role models for kids, but actually what I meant was that the general public doesn't worry that men aren't entering into professions that would be of a benefit to the men themselves. I can't think of one profession that we as a society would try to increase the number of male participants just because it is highly paid. When we do encourage an increase in men's participation, it is for the good of someone else. I noticed that myself. I think the main reason why, is that we seem the same for all men's rights, that they seem to not be mentioned, unless it is either to state that they should have less, or that it will help someone else if they have more.
I think this is an outgrowth of how feminism has been pushed. Whenever the topic comes out, the main stress always seems to come out about how many women's lives have been made the worse by men, and how women need to be encouraged to redress that "oppressive" balance. The thing is, those calls ignore all the women who liked a heck of a lot of their lives. A lot of women were beaten by their husbands. But a lot were treated very well by their husbands, and many women had the upper hand in their marriages, from the first date to the end of the marriage. That seems to have been ignored.
So men have been blacklisted, been treated like social pariahs, and like the scourge of humanity. So it's no wonder that you have a story about a young man who killed 13 women, because he felt that he was being pushed out of life by women. That's pretty much the feeling of all those men on POF who say they don't want marriage anymore. It's not that they don't want the pleasures of marriage, or that they don't accept the commitments. It's just that things seem so unfairly stacked against men in the divorce courts, that men aren't getting enough of the marriage, to make it worth it. But it's women who want marriage. So women are suffering just as much as men, when society focusses on womens' rights alone, rather than focussing on mens' AND womens' rights.
That's why I decided a long time ago, that I would be a humanist, not a feminist, or a mannist, but someone who believes in the rights of both genders. When the rest of the world catches up with that notion, we might see less animosity of men to women, and more openness to them in the workplace. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 3:21:04 PM | To me, women's rights mean human rights. The only reason it got labelled as women's rights is that we had a lot of catching up to do originally because men had all the advantage in the political and professional world.
A bit off topic, but I agree that men seem to get a bum wrap when it comes to divorce. I'm happy to report that in my case, my then-husband and I agreed that we didn't want lawyers getting their hands on our money, so we made our own decisions on the division of assets. We've always shared the children 50/50, creating a unique schedule that worked well for us and the kids, and neither of us has had to pay the other child support. In our custody agreement it stated that neither person could move and take the kids with them. For anyone going through a separation, I would highly recommend that you take control of the situation and put the emotions aside to come up with agreements that work best for the family. You save a lot of money, you end up with an agreement that is customized for your family, and you don't spend all that time fighting. It gives you a head start on the healing process.
I would hope that having a bad marriage and divorce doesn't turn men off women completely. Obviously my marriage was not a good one, but I still respect a lot of men. Like a good humanist should, you judge the individual and not generalize the entire gender.
Also, even though I agree with you on the point that men often get a bad deal by a divorce judge, I would caution you to compare the men on POF with a murderer, for obvious reasons.
Besides, Marc Lepine, the guy who murdered those engineering students, was abused by his father, which is probably more related to his feelings of inadequacies. Here is a portion of his bio:
Lépine was born Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi, the son of Algerian immigrant Rachid Liass Gharbi and former nun Monique Lépine, in Montreal and was baptized a Roman Catholic as an infant.[2][3] He spent much of his early childhood in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, where his father was working as a successful mutual fund salesman. The family moved back to Montreal permanently in 1968, shortly before a stock market crash led to the loss of much of the family's assets.[3] Gamil's father had contempt for women and believed that they were only intended to serve men.[4] He was verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children,[5] once striking his son so hard on the face that the marks were visible a week later. He discouraged tenderness between mother and child, as he considered it spoiling
I would argue that Marc Lepine murdered those young women because his father showed disdain for women; he was just continuing that negativity...unfortunately to the extreme. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 4:26:34 PM | RE Msg: 39 by novascotialass:
To me, women's rights mean human rights. The only reason it got labelled as women's rights is that we had a lot of catching up to do originally because men had all the advantage in the political and professional world. I understand that, and agreed with it. But that's not what's happened.
What really changed my mind, was watching an interview with Christine Keeler, the woman in the Profumo scandal back in the 1960s. She said that women got the power, even back then, but they didn't get the emotional maturity to know how to handle it.
That's what I've seen with women today. They've got tremendous power even now. But they aren't being helped to learn how to deal with that power in a mature and responsible fashion. So they aren't.
That's why you see so many teenage girls now getting drunk every night, and getting often into fights, to such an extent, that both the police and nightclub bouncers say that women are an absolute nightmare, and would much rather deal with a drunk and violent man, than a drunk and violent woman.
I would hope that having a bad marriage and divorce doesn't turn men off women completely. Obviously my marriage was not a good one, but I still respect a lot of men. Like a good humanist should, you judge the individual and not generalize the entire gender. Unfortunately, that's not what most men are seeing. Today, many men are getting into living together, or marriages, very early on, often with the woman having children from a previous relationship. That ends, he gets shafted, and so he gets turned off all types of relationships.
I'm not saying that is happening to all men. But the men I know who are optimistic about relationships, who aren't currently in one already, seem to be either male chauvinists who target women who are vulnerable and easy to manipulate, or men who've dated a lot, but never been in a relationship.
I would caution you to compare the men on POF with a murderer, for obvious reasons. All the men I've met who don't believe it is OK to hit a woman if she wasn't pushing for a fight, would never hit her even if she was. But I can understand that this type of feeling of oppression is so common amongst men, that SOME men are liable to end up doing such atrocities, merely due to the numbers of men who are already going through this.
Just today, I was watching an episode of Wife Swap. With one couple, the woman did everything to make her man happy. The other, the woman went out to work and paid attention mostly to the kids, not her partner. I was a bit shocked, because the woman who had everything HER way in her life, made changes in the household, and he adapted. She said that she was envious of the other woman, because he was in her eyes, the perfect man. The woman who did everything to please her man, pointed out that the other guy was clearly downtrodden by his partner, and he agreed. He wanted to be a policeman, but because she was going out to work, he was a house husband, and he felt that door was closed to him. Oddly enough, he was the one to get violent.
It seems to me that this was another case of "behind every great man, there's a great woman". A lot of women don't realise just how much of an influence they have over their man. By and large, men take their cues from the women in their life. Not as to their opinions, but as to how they act in general. A weak woman just makes a man feel like his has too much power and not enough discipline. An overbearing woman just makes a man feel like he has too much discipline and not enough control over his own life. But, like it or not, men tend to decide how to act AFTER the woman has showed how she behaves, and not the other way around. At least, that's what I've seen, from wimps to players, and nearly every man in between.
Besides, Marc Lepine, the guy who murdered those engineering students, was abused by his father, which is probably more related to his feelings of inadequacies. About 15% of men are sexually abused. Add in the numbers who are physically abused, and you've got huge numbers of men with similar feelings of inadequacies. Unfortunately, their issues are not too often addressed. I once asked about centres for domestic violence for men. I was informed that there are a number of centres for domestic violence for women, but none for men, and none who would even treat some men. So I suspect that this incident is the tip of the iceberg, of how much this could kick off. It's not quite a timebomb. But it could be.
I'm just saying that it's time that men's rights need to be addressed as well as women's, or we're going to end up with a society that is just as unhealthy as when men were dominant. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 4:31:54 PM |
I once asked about centres for domestic violence for men. I was informed that there are a number of centres for domestic violence for women, but none for men, and none who would even treat some men.
Out of curiosity, I looked up "domestic violence centers" online and looked at several of them--*all* help both men and women. So I call BS on your source whom you asked-- once.
So now this has become a discussion of how men are getting the short end of the stick in Western culture? ARGH | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 7:44:00 PM |
I'm just saying that it's time that men's rights need to be addressed as well as women's, or we're going to end up with a society that is just as unhealthy as when men were dominant.
I believe in equality, people having the ability to choose their career, and the genders having equal rights. To be honest, I don't know how many rights' problems there are for men, so I won't belittle what you think. It is natural when status quo is challenged for the pendulum to swing too far before everything is balanced out. But it will
I do know that there are male jerks and female jerks (probably in equal numbers) and that you're best to avoid them when possible.
Anyway, we're way off topic | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/5/2009 9:53:44 PM | I'm going to PMS all over you guys here.
In a family of scientists, I was urged to seek science as a career path. Yet show me one degreed female family member who was able to get even an entry level job in their chosen field? Most ended up in social work which was what I was already doing at the time.
There have been numerous studies on this, and I'll tell you guys to google it, but saying girls nuture and men hunt makes no diff. Saying girls want friendly and sociable careers and more men are content with the anti-social and independent jobs is true. Science careers aren't friendly. Saying girls want to apply their intuition to their work day and men want to apply their brute force of body or logic is also true. Science doesn't like intuition.
I was crazy good at math. What needed many steps to complete I could figure in few. Teachers would SCREAM at me for it. I could never learn the process and did things backwards. It was unimportant that my incorrect processes were accurate. I never ever learned simple column addition subtraction right. What is 392 plus 457? I'd instantly add 40 and 45 without thinking. 850 minus 1 and I was done. I had one math teacher who loved the way I worked, the rest punished me for it. Chemistry was as easy as cooking to me. I was a natural cook. I'd change formulas with a little tweak here and there because I knew that room temperature and humidity and age of the product affected the outcome. No, that's bad, better to get a failed result by following the instructions to the letter. I was even better in life science. I showed how the experiments with peroxide in the petri dish weren't because it was useless, but because we weren't using the right strength. You'd have thought that I had vandalised the lab. Astronomy and meterology were great, but the boys in the class kept saying that, because I was pretty, I could be a weather girl. I was tested at college level in all subjects since fifth grade, and the best aspirations people had for me was weathergirl. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 4:11:59 AM | Although I can't remember my source someone recently told me that more women are entering science and math than before (and the performance of girls in these subjects is outranking that of boys in grade school; another change), but that women just aren't following through and obtaining careers in science. One could surmise it's because work/family life balance is compromised in these fields and/or after a woman gains a PhD she is at child-rearing age, but I don't know. I imagine that there are studies on this.
Me, I ended up in a sideline related to my studies: I obtained a 4-year science degree, but it wasn't the right concentration to get me into what I really wanted to do (water quality studies). That has nothing to do with my being a woman but more to do with not having a family who was savvy in the ways of academe.
To Hereshecomesagain: there is another thread going on right now on a Simple Puzzle. If you're good and that type of thing and have a few minutes you should go have a look. It's not the original question, it's about crossing a river with 5 dogs and 5 owners. Go to the end and work your way up. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 6:53:55 AM | According to the IEEE, the trend in women entering electrical engineering has reversed and is going back down. I would say the women who chose not to enter technical careers will have to respond but I doubt they would be in this forum. As noted on the POF web site, science and technology are some of the least desired topics for women.
When I went to college, the technical areas had very few women. Of the few there, virtually all received financial help to be there simply because they were women. Almost no men received financial help. There were virtually no minorities even though there was a virtual financial free ride for them. Despite a long array of awards etc. in school and having a single mother, all my scholarships combined could barely cover the first semester books. That is the privilege of being a white male. Over the years, electrical engineering changed and many more women entered the field but in more recent years, the percentage has dropped significantly. When I was in school, it was pretty common knowledge that many of the women in the engineering schools were actually after their Mrs degree, not a profession. In my career, I have interviewed many engineers applying for work. Very few were women.
I freely admit I have been biased and pushed for hiring every woman I ever interviewed but was actually successful in getting only one hired. In nerd quotient, she topped everyone in the department. Some women lab assistants came to me complaining about her total lack of fashion sense as if I were either knowledgeable myself or would even try to respond to their complaints. One woman I pushed for had been a cheerleader in college but a liberal physicist blocked an offer based on technical questioning. A week later, I saw her written answers and found she was absolutely correct and he was wrong. Several of us were ready to string him up and it was decided, all technical questioning would be left to me.
Explanations for the lack of women in engineering could be the wiring differences, and the lack of preparation, as well as social and family pressures. Being as I have seen financial bias in favor of women in engineering my entire working life, I doubt that argument any merit. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 8:03:13 AM | This has been going on for a very long time...I think it is learned. If you are interested in something, then you like it. My mother just pressured the hell out of me to excel in all areas in school. I was good in math, and I always excelled in English. Science I learned to like later after I started studying it.
Young ladies need to learn to study. I was pushed to excel so I learned early in life that studying is so very important. Also, they do not study the books like I did. I was reading all the time....almost daily and relating a lot of reference to my studies. My mother was highly educated so I was eccentric or considered a nerd up until at least 2005. Of course, I was so smart that I had to do everyone's work for them because they did not understand...sometimes it is not so good to be so PROGESSIVE and sometimes it is grand! In effect, I have a hard time with relationships with men because I can outpreform most of them! So I have to not show my smarts so often so I don't make them mad! | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 8:24:23 AM | Hey, I have a career in that! Strong emphasis in Computer programming, science and math. LOVE IT! Physics too. ...to me it all comes together eventually. Music is part of that too. I am no genius I am just curious about everything. Good news, my daughters are 21 and 23 and both science whizzes...I think it is because I never saw that as off limits. Oldest tested out of college calculus and has a BFA from IU...used both parts of her brain. I love to work on cars too....there is hope!
I think in general many are just not pursuing the sciences. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 8:25:54 AM | One thing that might skew the stats is that women start and run more micro and small businesses than men and many of these businesses are based upon inventions, improvements, processes and designs engineered by the female entrepreneurs. Also, most at home writers tend to be women, and the part-time freelance writer knows the bread and butter money is in technical ghost writing for science oriented companies. I've made a dollar or two myself that way.
As far as science not being an interest of women on POF, the bottom line is that dating is their number one interest, but it's not here at all. Three quarters of my bookmarks on my smartphone are science sites which I read from everyday, but I don't think I listed it as an interest on my profile (guess I should go look, LOL), note that good cooking requires a chemistry aptitude and no small amount of knowledge and women who sew from scratch, make their own patterns, have engineering knowledge for materials- trust me, it's complicated - when you change a fabric type or thread or even stitch, many other adjustments must be made. I used to make my own bras and pants because manufacturers just didn't get that pressure on the breast causes "bra bulge" and that the crotch gets camel toe with a classic "C" curve but none with an "L". China has the first ever bra engineering degree program at one of their international universities. I hope to go, someday. But my point is that home economics is very much a science in and of itself that many women enjoy and practice daily - and have for a long time. It's a shame it isn't taught anymore. It's not like this knowledge comes automatic. to women.
Finally, open up an standard women's non fashion focussed magazine and you will find science related articles from garden answers to cooking to health and more. Now I know someone's going to say these aren't serious sciences. Whatever. I know a geologist, surveyist, mathemetician, molecular biologist and a physicist along with a lot of engineers who are all helpless at home. | |
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| Why aren't there more women involved in math and science?
Posted: 7/6/2009 9:50:05 AM |
It's not like this knowledge comes automatic. to women.
That wasn't the question. Science refers to a specific set of disciplines. Home economics, cooking, bra making and engineering in general, are not among them. That would be a different thread. | |
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