<story><title>The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>partiallypro</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why modern society doesn&amp;#x27;t understand&amp;#x2F;want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it&amp;#x27;s not all because of society.</text></item><item><author>lgleason</author><text>It all comes down to equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. When there is equality of opportunity women choose different fields...often (but not always) because of different interests. Equality of outcome forces people to do things that they may not have an interest in.&lt;p&gt;And that is before you get into interests vs natural talent and how that does or does not affect ones success in a field. On a fundamental level I personally prefer equality of opportunity and freedom of choice.&lt;p&gt;As to the men being jerks&amp;#x2F;toxic etc argument. Are there times when that is true? Absolutely. But, men do not have a monopoly on being jerks, creating toxic work environments or harassing people. Personally I&amp;#x27;ve seen bad behavior from both sides. I&amp;#x27;ve also seen exceptional talent, skill, empathy etc. come from both groups. Many corporate cultures are toxic to everybody, irregardless of your gender.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure this will be down voted, but it is what it is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tarsinge</author><text>What I don’t understand is the obsession to draw conclusions as soon as possible. We just don’t have the data yet. From my experience developers are still seen as black magicians by other roles. Being initiated is having been a weird unpopular boy which used computer since he was young. It’s slowly starting to change, and maybe real trends will emerge in 20 years, but why the hurry?&lt;p&gt;Our only responsibility is that we provide welcoming environment and equality of opportunity. But I may be missing some US context on the obsession here.</text></comment>
<story><title>The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM (2018)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>partiallypro</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why modern society doesn&amp;#x27;t understand&amp;#x2F;want to believe that men and women have different career interests than men. Men and women value things differently, and it&amp;#x27;s not all because of society.</text></item><item><author>lgleason</author><text>It all comes down to equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. When there is equality of opportunity women choose different fields...often (but not always) because of different interests. Equality of outcome forces people to do things that they may not have an interest in.&lt;p&gt;And that is before you get into interests vs natural talent and how that does or does not affect ones success in a field. On a fundamental level I personally prefer equality of opportunity and freedom of choice.&lt;p&gt;As to the men being jerks&amp;#x2F;toxic etc argument. Are there times when that is true? Absolutely. But, men do not have a monopoly on being jerks, creating toxic work environments or harassing people. Personally I&amp;#x27;ve seen bad behavior from both sides. I&amp;#x27;ve also seen exceptional talent, skill, empathy etc. come from both groups. Many corporate cultures are toxic to everybody, irregardless of your gender.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure this will be down voted, but it is what it is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smadurange</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a whole lot of people who have studied fields that are irrelevant to today&amp;#x27;s industry needs and have ended up with no real marketable skill. Various forms of activist movements have money in it.&lt;p&gt;Modern developed societies have solved most of the serious, basic problems making it easier for a group of people to capitalise on solving more lofty problems. I have seen someone who did a degree in communication studies or something like that going after video games for sexism and raise millions for the cause.&lt;p&gt;This trend will probably continue until we have more serious things to worry about. This is very eloquently described in &amp;quot;Fate of empires&amp;quot; by Sir John Glubbs.</text></comment>