Gender politics has now infected engineering as well.

[EEVblog]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Err, we all know about engineering and the engineering industry, it's the entire point of this forum.
We also have opinion and various experiences in discrimination in the industry, many of us have worked in it a long time. Even if most of us are male, it doesn't mean we don't understand what goes on, and heck, many of us will have experienced various forms of "discrimination" at some point. Gender is but one form of many types of discrimination.

Why don't you illuminate us on what's really going on?

[IanB]

Err, we all know about engineering and the engineering industry, it's the entire point of this forum.

To readers of this forum it is easy to think of "the industry" (or "tech"--whatever that is) to be electronics and maybe computing.

My impression is that electronics is very "nerdy" and not so appealing to women. But there is a much bigger world with many more branches of engineering. If you look beyond electronics to mechanical, chemical, civil, aerospace, you may see a different picture. For example, if you watch videos about the construction of Crossrail in London (a huge civil engineering project) you will find women engineers showing up in high-viz jacket, hard hat and doing project management. They are never going to be 50%, but they are represented.

In my own engineering work (not electronics), I have many women colleagues. I don't see any obvious gender bias in hiring decisions. We try to pick the best people and everyone gets on with the job.

[b_force]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Err, we all know about engineering and the engineering industry, it's the entire point of this forum.
We also have opinion and various experiences in discrimination in the industry, many of us have worked in it a long time. Even if most of us are male, it doesn't mean we don't understand what goes on, and heck, many of us will have experienced various forms of "discrimination" at some point. Gender is but one form of many types of discrimination.

Why don't you illuminate us on what's really going on?

Because I om far from an expert on the psychological aspect of this?
I don't have a problem with sharing experiences or thoughts and coming up with questions.
I do have a problem with some subjective beliefs that are written down as absolute facts.
You don't need to be an expert to see that certain arguments aren't necessarily based on facts.

A friend of mine is actually a scientist in that field (although not a 100% related).
As far as I understand is that the science behind it is rather complicated since both sexes have been taught to fulfill a certain  role in society for so long.
Being in that (artificial) role doesn't automatically mean a person isn't capable of doing something else.
But since there are such heavy social expectations it's almost impossible to distinguish it from the objective reality.
Compare it a bit with a placebo effect. If someone believes strong enough that he/she isn't able to do certain things that becomes reality.

My personal experience is that I don't see much gender discrimination around.
But that really depends on the country i am living in and level of work I realize.
It's a little different for lower class workers or higher up in the organization.
From my observations i see that sometimes both genders make the issue a lot more complicated because they already start from the socially expected role they think they need to fulfill.

[julianhigginson]

http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:811504/FULLTEXT06.pdf
"The sickness absence patterns between demo graphic groups are to a high degree similar in the Nordic countries. In general, women have more sickness absence than men."

sorry but while it makes a qualitative claim, this document doesn't even seem to claim any meaningful quantitative measured percentage difference on sex or gender based sick day usage...

I can see a few data points of average sick days (as recorded in some system by some process and analysed in some way that has not been explained in this article)  of men vs women (eg Norwegian, 9.5 vs which is a ~18% difference of sick days, but when you turn it around to what matters it's well under 0.5% difference in available working time... which can be SWAMPED by individual performance.  (hell, there's people I'd be happy to hire at 50% availability over other people I know at 100% availability - they would *still* do way more useful work over the course of a year... come to think of it there's people I know where I'd rather hire nobody to work a role, rather than hire them to work it 100%)

Even then though - if you want to claim that women are more often sick than men, you need to control for the same level worker doing the same job in the same industry, with as much as reasonably possible the same about their lives.  Otherwise you are basically measuring what could easily be outcomes of the system we are discussing as a problem, and claiming those outcomes to be the naturally occurring way of things, in order to justify the system.

https://www.jcpsp.pk/archive/2008/Aug2008/05.pdf
"Study participants (n=172) had mean age of 21.2 + 1.9 years. Eighty-nine (51%) girls met the criteria for PMS recording  to  ICD  –  10,  among  them,  53  (59.5%)  had  mild  PMS,  26  (29.2%)  had  moderate  and  10  (11.2%)  had  severe PMS. Ten (5.8%) girls were found to have Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) according to DSM – IV criteria. The order  of  frequency  of  symptoms  were  anger,  irritability,  anxiety,  tiredness,  difficult  concentration,  mood  swings  and physical symptoms like breast tenderness and general body discomfort with great impairment in social life / activities and work  efficiency/productivity."

so 5.8% of the population in one study have an issue for maybe 3 days a month, that could possibly include a symptom that could effect their performance?
sounds like we need to get better at organising work so this can be planned around for this very small but still significant proportion of the population when necessary...

There's still no info here that shows women will do a less valuable job than a man.

If she doesn't have post partum depression, for which the aftermath of the hormonal war she waged with her baby won't help (humans have some really screwed up evolutionary quirks in their reproductive mechanics, women get the worst of it).

sorry. no data. what's the actual cost here?

But the thing is, even if you can find a humdinger of a study to support that claim, that shows real measured actual productivity loss... BUT EVEN THEN -  after all these things above, we aren't even talking about problems men have (higher death rates at relatively young ages due to misadventure, untreated depression issues, anger/violence issues in the work place that not just effect them but effect coworkers...) with everything you brought up so far you're not even close to showing any kind of support for your claim that men are naturally better employees than women.

Possibly, but part of it is due to the reality of the statistics of what women do. There are few managers who haven't been bit by the reality of young women, maternal leave and the frequent decision to become home makers. Their job isn't to create more equality, their job is to value signal an interest in equality only to the extent necessary for profit optimization.

you just quoted an article that showed someone wanting to be able to rejoin the workforce with flexible roles.
again, you are showing the results of a messed up system and touting them as justification for the system.

Maybe, but I find regulation often far more harmful than anything it tries to fix. Give men equal subsidized leave to women, I don't care. Have companies value signal to their heart's content, I don't care. The moment you want courts and lawmakers to step in to punish companies for not having the correct wages or diversity according to you, then you get my enmity.

you are going to have regulations either way, unless you are some kind of anarchist?
we have a system of laws that regulate individual liberties for a reason.
that reason is so we can all live together without killing too many of each other.
why not use what we learn about people's lives to make their lives better where we can?

I don't see professional success as all that important in personal actualization. I think the opportunity to become a home maker, western culture and wealth provides many women isn't exactly ripping them off. Sucks for the ones who do want to find it in professional success of course, who will be bit by the statistics and profit optimization, but life can't always be fair.

well that's all well and good that you are happy with the choices women tend to have with their lives under the current system.. but I can't help but think that we should be more concerned with how women see it.

The liberal pretence that it can be is a dangerous fantasy. They would bring us all to a lowest common denominator with no freedom, to achieve equality. Communism.

Seems from that, when we talk of the word equality, you're thinking equality of outcome.
I'm actually talking about equality of opportunity. A very different beast.

I can't even begin to understand what you mean when you use "freedom" in that sentence.  economic freedom maybe?

[Marco]

Even then though - if you want to claim that women are more often sick than men, you need to control for the same level worker doing the same job in the same industry, with as much as reasonably possible the same about their lives.  Otherwise you are basically measuring what could easily be outcomes of the system we are discussing as a problem, and claiming those outcomes to be the naturally occurring way of things, in order to justify the system.

I was looking for a study for office workers in government from some Nordic country from memory, but I can't find the one I was looking for . If you hunt down references though there's a ton of these studies which try to control for workplace, level of male dominance in workplace etc. and in the end gender still has a large influence.
http://www.sjweh.fi/show_abstract.php?abstract_id=2909
"Controlling for occupation accounted for half of the female excess in self-certified and medically confirmed episodes lasting >60 days."

I did find the following study which I found funny. Having a woman as a manager seems to increase absenteeism of workers :
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2158244015574208

so 5.8% of the population in one study have an issue for maybe 3 days a month, that could possibly include a symptom that could effect their performance?

Actually 55 out of 172 self reported "Reduction of productivity or inefficiency at work, school, home or in daily routine". I think the PPMD and severe PMS groups mentioned were separate, not overlapping, since 27 had severe dysmenorrhea.

Any way, my point was not to put an absolute number to the cost ... just to show how common it really is. Percentages add up, it's not like the wage gap for similar occupations is some huge number either.

There's still no info here that shows women will do a less valuable job than a man.

That's always a problem, there are few occupations where you can truly have an objective metric of performance.

sorry. no data. what's the actual cost here?

You had no data either for claiming women could just return to work with little interruption. Why not give me some courtesy and accept that the exception exists and is common without needing a level of precision you never offered yourself?

with everything you brought up so far you're not even close to showing any kind of support for your claim that men are naturally better employees than women.

We do know how employers judge the cost of maternity though, very highly.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/40-percent-of-managers-av_n_5732836.html

you just quoted an article that showed someone wanting to be able to rejoin the workforce with flexible roles.
again, you are showing the results of a messed up system and touting them as justification for the system.

She's arguing for flexibility for returning mothers after the early years of child rearing, that changes nothing about the cost of losing the employee for maternity leave AND often having little idea what the outcome of the coin toss will be if she stays or if she goes after the kid is born.

you are going to have regulations either way, unless you are some kind of anarchist?

The problem with assigning penalties based on statistical evidence is that it's so fucking capricious, it will just cause businesses to waste a lot of time with red tape and gaming of the system. The rules will by necessity also be open to interpretation since smaller companies will have so many outliers, a vague mess. On the upside MtF transsexuals will suddenly become a lot more employable, meets the quota, can't get pregnant.

Let the market judge the cost and value of a female employee. If you don't like the numbers it arrives at and you want to solve it with big government,  just find ways to subsidize employment/remuneration of women until you globally arrive at the level of equality you think it should be. Of course doing so is embarrassing, because it could be interpreted as an agreement with the market opinion about that value ... but I think embarrassment is preferable over red tape and capricious enforcement based on circumstantial/statistical evidence.

well that's all well and good that you are happy with the choices women tend to have with their lives under the current system.. but I can't help but think that we should be more concerned with how women see it.

I'm only concerned in as far as I'd like them to agree with me

I can't even begin to understand what you mean when you use "freedom" in that sentence.  economic freedom maybe?

Economic, thought, freedom of association. All freedom disappears as equality becomes a matter of principle which can not be questioned.

[ajb]

But ajb likely thinks that was a big mistake on their part because a males almost 30 years experience in the industry has absolutely zero value, less than useless in fact 

 
I know you're just being deliberately obtuse for effect, but let me spell it out for you: your experience *as a man* is irrelevant when discussing the experiences specific to *women*.  Saying "I as a man have never observed a thing that specifically affects women, so it must not be a big deal" is what's less than useful.  Just because you don't notice a thing happening doesn't mean it's not happening, or that it doesn't affect people to the extent that they say it does.  Listen to women!

A friend of mine is actually a scientist in that field (although not a 100% related).
As far as I understand is that the science behind it is rather complicated since both sexes have been taught to fulfill a certain  role in society for so long.
Being in that (artificial) role doesn't automatically mean a person isn't capable of doing something else.
But since there are such heavy social expectations it's almost impossible to distinguish it from the objective reality.
Compare it a bit with a placebo effect. If someone believes strong enough that he/she isn't able to do certain things that becomes reality.

This is key.  Children have gender roles projected upon them by adults literally from birth.  Pay attention to the types of words people use when talking about boy vs. girl infants. 

I think that perhaps using the word "discrimination" has done a disservice to the conversation, because when people hear it they think only about blantant "girls can't do math so they can't be engineers" type stuff, but in reality there are many other more subtle things happening that are just as harmful because they're constant.  Gender bias is a better way to put it.  Stuff like rachaelp mentioned, where people automatically focus on the men in the room vs the women, for instance.  Men, and even women, tend not to even notice that sort of thing, but when you start to pay attention to those behaviors you see them all the time.  A lot of that stuff may seem like no big deal, but when you experience it your entire life it has a serious and undeniable impact.  Obviously a lot of this stuff is cultural, so I'm speaking from the US perspective because that's what I'm familiar with, but the sort of subtle and implicit bias absolutely permeates out society, and its reflected in individual interactions and mass media and everywhere in between.

[Beamin]

When will this insanity stop?

When most in the western world will be incapable of doing anything useful for fear of offending someone who's loud enough to drown out sanity.

I can't stand that shit. It alienates people who won't talk to you because they are afraid of using things like the wrong pronoun and offending you. It's easier just not to talk to that person or if you are working for a corporation risk your job and having a trip to the HR department. Try keeping up with all the acronyms in the politicly correct side of the LGBT (LGBTQRSUV...) community.


I say we find the person who started all this: Anika sarkasian with her feminist videos, and make an example out of her by forcing her to marry a male shovenist husband and make her work in the kitchen in a skanky French maid costume wearing high heels. Also she will have to dye her hair blonde and no more of this red/purple hair shit. Why do all feminists have neon red/purple hair anyways? She claims to speak for women and trans/gay people and she doesn't but people think she does. Show her a pink crayon and she will find a way to profit off of getting offended by it.


For me personally I would love to spend all day in the kitchen or cleaning the house while my husband is at work and serving his needs.

[Marco]

Children have gender roles projected upon them by adults literally from birth.

They have a culture projected upon them, gender roles are but one part of it.

in reality there are many other more subtle things happening that are just as harmful because they're constant.

Harmful posits that you can just eliminate them from culture while strictly improving its felicity. We're just evolved monkeys, there's a whole lot of non-linearities in how such changes work out. Western culture seems doomed demographically in a multicultural competition and our abandonment of monogamy is likely to have negatively affected our happiness for instance. We might have thrown out a few too many babies with the bathwater.

Gender bias is a better way to put it.  Stuff like rachaelp mentioned, where people automatically focus on the men in the room vs the women, for insnce.  Men, and even women, tend not to even notice that sort of thing, but when you start to pay attention to those behaviors you see them all the time.  A lot of that stuff may seem like no big deal, but when you experience it your entire life it has a serious and undeniable impact.  Obviously a lot of this stuff is cultural, so I'm speaking from the US perspective because that's what I'm familiar with, but the sort of subtle and implicit bias absolutely permeates out society, and its reflected in individual interactions and mass media and everywhere in between.

First world problems. We've all got expectations put on us based on appearance, short men didn't chose their lot in life either. They'll just have to rise above it.

[ogden]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Exactly. Why don't we talk about male discrimination in nursing? 

[edit/hint] It's fine that firefighters are males and nurses - females.

[b_force]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Exactly. Why don't we talk about male discrimination in nursing? 

[edit/hint] It's fine that firefighters are males and nurses - females.

I can name more subtle things, like that males are mostly expected to fix the dirty or technical jobs (i am not saying physical jobs, since on average most males are physically a bit stronger).
Ironically I hear that expectation a lot from feminists, so go figure.
I can imagine that people vote for equality, but that means equal responsibility as well.
Also for the little things that aren't so nice to do.

[EEVblog]

As far as I understand is that the science behind it is rather complicated since both sexes have been taught to fulfill a certain  role in society for so long.
Being in that (artificial) role doesn't automatically mean a person isn't capable of doing something else.

No one is saying, or has said women aren't capable of doing engineering.

The two sides of the entire argument about women in engineering and the poor numbers are either due to:

a) Girls *on average* just aren't as interested in "things" as boys are.
or
b) It's all just a "social construct" and girls are just as interested in "things" (and hence leading to engineering) as boys are, if only they weren't conditioned into liking other things instead.
or
c) A combination of the above.

Well, studies have been done and policies enacted to try and "level the playing field" in terms of how kids are bought up, and encouragement to get into these fields etc.
And what the studies show, fairly conclusively I'm lead to believe, is that not only are girls *on average* less interested in "things" than boys are. But when you try and correct for the "social construct" aspects (i.e. you let them choose for themselves as much as possible), the complete opposite happens to what social constructionists believe. Instead of getting more girls in engineering, you get less.
It's a slam dunk that girls simply aren't as naturally interested in engineering that than boys, again, on average. And well, there is nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with boys not being interested in nursing or child care or veterinary science or a multiple of other professions that involves caring for people or animals.

So I assume from that finding that it's just as possible that just as many girls might feel pressured into getting into engineering than those who are pressured out of it. And it kinda makes sense that you'd get some of that.

[b_force]

You could only run these tests wih babies more or less.
Kids already are very biased about which gender needs to fit what role.
That already starts from a very early age.
Even more so in cultures were the females put more time into raising the kids compared to males.
With an already biased start you will get a biased outcome.

That's also why my friend said that these experiments are so extremely difficult to do.
You basically need to raise up two groups of kids (plus a control group) were one group is being isolated from any form of bias. Unfortunately that's being considered heavily unethical for the most of us.

I am very curious what research you're referring to?
Not saying I don't agree with you but I taking everything into consideration I find it impossible to make any conclusions about it.

[Beamin]

As far as I understand is that the science behind it is rather complicated since both sexes have been taught to fulfill a certain  role in society for so long.
Being in that (artificial) role doesn't automatically mean a person isn't capable of doing something else.

No one is saying, or has said women aren't capable of doing engineering.

The two sides of the entire argument about women in engineering and the poor numbers are either due to:

a) Girls *on average* just aren't as interested in "things" as boys are.
or
b) It's all just a "social construct" and girls are just aren't as interested in "things" (and hence leading to engineering) as boys are, if only they weren't conditioned into liking other things instead.
or
c) A combination of the above.

Well, studies have been done and policies enacted to try and "level the playing field" in terms of how kids are bought up, and encouragement to get into these fields etc.
And what the studies show, fairly conclusively I'm lead to believe, is that not only are girls *on average* less interested in "things" than boys are. But when you try and correct for the "social construct" aspects (i.e. you let them choose for themselves as much as possible), the complete opposite happens to what social constructionists believe. Instead of getting more girls in engineering, you get less.
It's a slam dunk that girls simply aren't as naturally interested in engineering that than boys, again, on average. And well, there is nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with boys not being interested in nursing or child care or veterinary science or a multiple of other professions that involves caring for people or animals.

So I assume from that finding that it's just as possible that just as many girls might feel pressured into getting into engineering than those who are pressured out of it. And it kinda makes sense that you'd get some of that.

I think that's true. It all comes down to testosterone and estrogen, or more like estrogen and lack of estrogen. Things that are emotional "touchy feely" and things like math and science seem cold and detached when your brain is full of estrogen. You can still like those things on estrogen but they are not as appealing. Knowing both worlds I can say estrogen completely transforms your brain and your personality. The more technical things seem kind of "dry or cold" to me now, still interesting but lacking some type of emotional reward you get when you do something that helps people or makes them smile or laugh. Also without testosterone you lack that drive to push through things as there is no emotional reward at the end. 

[tooki]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Exactly. Why don't we talk about male discrimination in nursing? 

[edit/hint] It's fine that firefighters are males and nurses - females.

There isn’t any discrimination against them. Males that apply to nursing programs and jobs pretty much get fought over like fresh meat on Grindr! (Yes, I’ve set this up for a very reality-based joke. Somebody run with it! )

[Beamin]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Exactly. Why don't we talk about male discrimination in nursing? 

[edit/hint] It's fine that firefighters are males and nurses - females.

There isn’t any discrimination against them. Males that apply to nursing programs and jobs pretty much get fought over like fresh meat on Grindr! (Yes, I’ve set this up for a very reality-based joke. Somebody run with it! )

I'll run with it:
Some male nurses are hot. Also I'm not just a set of tits with great legs I have great brain too! 

[Howardlong]

I’ve worked on some projects in the UAE, and it is not at all unusual to have more female engineers than male on a project. The last project I worked on had seven engineers on the team, five of whom were female, in power electronics, embedded systems, mechanical engineering, materials science and space control systems.

Now at first I thought this was really an extraordinarily progressive and unexpected scenario considering the parochial narrative about the Middle East that we’ve all been fed with in the Western world.

However, it’s somewhat the opposite of what you’d think. Paradoxically there is a demonstrable inverse correlation between a culture’s gender equality, and the number of women in engineering. For example, Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Noway and Finland have “excellent” Gender Wage Gap credentials, but have far fewer women in STEM (20-23%) compared to, say, Algeria, the UAE and Turkey (36-41%), that have far worse Gender Wage Gap credentials.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/

Now while I was delighted to see more females in engineering, there are some cultural things that, as a Westerener, I have difficulty in coming to terms with. For example culturally in the UAE, unlike a man, it is verbotten for me to shake the hand of a woman. Of course fundamentally I am going to respect their culture, because a man not shaking the hand of a woman is judged to be the respectful cultural norm, whereas in the West it’s precisely the opposite.

What I believe is that while you can encourage STEM, it’s hardly the best for everyone if you try to force individuals to do something they’d rather not, whether or not their interests are skewed innately, or socially from an early age.

Now while you can skew the outcome to a limited degree to fit an arbitrary quota, at some point you are going to find that there are fewer and fewer qualified females, so inevitably unqualified females will then take those roles whether or not they wanted to. Meanwhile there’s a heap of disgruntled unemployed males who were perfectly well qualified who can no longer even apply. What is the benefit to society and the individual themselves in forcing the individual to do things they’d rather not be doing?

[EEVblog]

I think that's true. It all comes down to testosterone and estrogen, or more like estrogen and lack of estrogen. Things that are emotional "touchy feely" and things like math and science seem cold and detached when your brain is full of estrogen. You can still like those things on estrogen but they are not as appealing. Knowing both worlds I can say estrogen completely transforms your brain and your personality. The more technical things seem kind of "dry or cold" to me now, still interesting but lacking some type of emotional reward you get when you do something that helps people or makes them smile or laugh. Also without testosterone you lack that drive to push through things as there is no emotional reward at the end.

Very interesting to hear someone who has gone through that, thanks for sharing.

[EEVblog]

I am very curious what research you're referring to?
Not saying I don't agree with you but I taking everything into consideration I find it impossible to make any conclusions about it.

I don't have exact paper links to hand, but maybe start here with this random article, this "paradox" has made a lot of press in recent years:
http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
and
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
It's not just one recent study, I believe there have been at least several showing similar results.

I have not read this, but seems to be a paper on the subject:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153857

[b_force]

When will this insanity stop?

When most in the western world will be incapable of doing anything useful for fear of offending someone who's loud enough to drown out sanity.

I can't stand that shit. It alienates people who won't talk to you because they are afraid of using things like the wrong pronoun and offending you. It's easier just not to talk to that person or if you are working for a corporation risk your job and having a trip to the HR department. Try keeping up with all the acronyms in the politicly correct side of the LGBT (LGBTQRSUV...) community.

Can we please change "western world" to "certain English speaking countries"?
Especially the Germanic and Scandinavian countries you will find quite the opposite.
Although basically in whole Europe freedom of speech and expression is very highly valued.
Sometimes to an extend that I even think that a tiny little more respect would be not to much to ask.

Speaking of respect, deep respect for you Beamin. I mean that on the best possible way.
Must have been a total rollercoaster on so many aspects.

[james_s]

Well, studies have been done and policies enacted to try and "level the playing field" in terms of how kids are bought up, and encouragement to get into these fields etc.
And what the studies show, fairly conclusively I'm lead to believe, is that not only are girls *on average* less interested in "things" than boys are. But when you try and correct for the "social construct" aspects (i.e. you let them choose for themselves as much as possible), the complete opposite happens to what social constructionists believe. Instead of getting more girls in engineering, you get less.
It's a slam dunk that girls simply aren't as naturally interested in engineering that than boys, again, on average. And well, there is nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with boys not being interested in nursing or child care or veterinary science or a multiple of other professions that involves caring for people or animals.

This is anecdotal of course, but my observation is that absolutely nobody had a problem with this (well aside from a lot of us nerdy guys who wished more women had even a passing interest in things we were interested in) until the tech industry became big money. Once engineering became associated with money, suddenly people come out of the woodwork and complain that women are under-represented.

It's the only thing that makes sense too, I mean why would we (guys) want to keep women out? What possible benefit is that? Once past the age where girls have cooties I can't think of many men who don't like being around women.

There is another amusing paradox here as well. On one hand the argument is that having a diverse workforce is advantageous from a business standpoint, yet another argument from the same people is that people of all genders/races are exactly equivalent and the differences come down to societal pressures, etc. If there were no fundamental differences then diversity would be irrelevant from a business standpoint. It's the different thought processes that make diversity a useful trait in the first place.

It seems some people have difficulty separating average from individual, ie because people of a particular gender on average are less interested in something doesn't mean certain individuals can't buck that trend. Also the stating that on average women or men are more or less interested in xyz is not the same as stating that women or men are incapable of being as good at xyz.

[tooki]

When will this insanity stop?

When most in the western world will be incapable of doing anything useful for fear of offending someone who's loud enough to drown out sanity.

I can't stand that shit. It alienates people who won't talk to you because they are afraid of using things like the wrong pronoun and offending you. It's easier just not to talk to that person or if you are working for a corporation risk your job and having a trip to the HR department. Try keeping up with all the acronyms in the politicly correct side of the LGBT (LGBTQRSUV...) community.

Can we please change "western world" to "certain English speaking countries"?
Especially the Germanic and Scandinavian countries you will find quite the opposite.
Although basically in whole Europe freedom of speech and expression is very highly valued.
Sometimes to an extend that I even think that a tiny little more respect would be not to much to ask.

I don't think you can generalize about Europe, or even just Germanic and Scandinavian countries.

First of all, gender-inclusive language has been a Big Deal in German for a while, thanks to gendered nouns, which is why you'll see wordings like "Elektroniker/in" or "ElektronikerIn", gender-inclusive rewordings like "Krankenschwester" to "Krankenpfleger/in", or introductory sentences like "For the sake of brevity, we use the male form throughout this text, by which we expressly mean both males and females, except where specified." (Originally, that was the default, but gender-inclusive language kinda demands it be stated.)

As for directness: it varies WILDLY. Germany tends to be far more blunt than Switzerland. But then Austria is extremely formal.

As for freedom of speech: As an American living in Switzerland, who has hands-on experience living in both countries as both child and adult, I can tell you that Europeans don't value absolute freedom of speech as much as Americans do. Europe is far more willing to allow government to place limitations on expression (e.g. Germany's bans on nazi insignia or holocaust denial). Even if the reasons are quite understandable, I don't really like it. That said, the US is (or, well, used to be until 2016…) more willing to bow to political correctness in practice. And companies watch out since they can be sued for discrimination. (In other words: Americans believe in "absolute freedom of speech, but not freedom from repercussions".)

But there are plenty of people here just looking for ways to be offended, just as in USA. Social justice warriors are equally insufferable no matter where they are from…

[ogden]

The only advice I can give, is to REALLY read a bit more on the subject than just what electronic science has to offer.
Otherwise, please just don't judge anything before you know what you're really talking about.

Exactly. Why don't we talk about male discrimination in nursing? 

[edit/hint] It's fine that firefighters are males and nurses - females.

There isn’t any discrimination against them.

Indeed. That was sarcasm. Men and Women are different, they make different choices as well. So what?

For those interested in subject, I suggest to check Jordan B Peterson lectures or at least following interview:

[NiHaoMike]

It's the only thing that makes sense too, I mean why would we (guys) want to keep women out? What possible benefit is that? Once past the age where girls have cooties I can't think of many men who don't like being around women.

Maybe guys who have been in at least one bad relationship? The opposite (women who have no desire to be in relationships with men) is surprisingly common and Micah Elizabeth Scott is one example of that. (Maybe she's saying that to stop random guys asking to marry her.)

[Marco]

You basically need to raise up two groups of kids (plus a control group) were one group is being isolated from any form of bias. Unfortunately that's being considered heavily unethical for the most of us.

Greater society can function as the control group. I don't see what's unethical about raising your kids in a commune without mass media access. It just takes a lot of self-sacrifice and funding. Funding because without outside funding communes will almost always be agricultural and agriculture even with machines benefits a lot from physical strength.

Kibbutzim were halfway there, dragged down by the realities of agricultural work. Though I think that if they had ever succeeded as high tech egalitarian communes where male biological strength is less relevant, they would have seen another problem. The same problem which threatens the continued existence of our own culture, lack of fertility. In an age of birth control I don't think their communal child rearing would have been able to sustain the drive to have children. All that pain and inconvenience for something which you only have a tenuous bond with?

Personally I see far more pressing need to make classical liberalist western culture stable, fertility wise and isolation wise. Women might face gender role reinforcement ... but trying to fix that in western culture, while it is dying out from lack of fertility and displacement seems a bit futile to me.

[coppice]

You basically need to raise up two groups of kids (plus a control group) were one group is being isolated from any form of bias. Unfortunately that's being considered heavily unethical for the most of us.

How would you determine that there is no bias? You would need to raise a child devoid of all normal emotional interactions with others. That's going to have a few undesirable side effects.

The kinds of people who see bias everywhere will just claim you didn't remove all the bias when any research result doesn't match their ideology.