To complain to Sunday Times on "UK girls flop" headline

[Duckdeamon]

Today's Sunday times (can't link as they have a paywall) has an article about the UK having one of the biggest gender gaps in science at age 15 of 67 countries (upcoming OECD/ Pisa report). Article is interesting: through quotes it discusses sexism, science and maths and technology leading to well paid job opportunities, that girls are being prevented from doing, gender imbalances in science, and evidence that girls are as good at maths and science as boys.

But why use the headline "UK girls flop in science league"? Which suggests that the girls are at fault!

The results are shocking, and girls are being let down.

I had two science teachers that were memorable. One was fantastic, he would encourage anyone and everyone and had a big time love for the subject, he used to have kids staying a bit into their breaks to hear his science related story.

The other was, to be frank, a twat. Most of the class failed and he was 'let go' for that though there were rumours. He ignored the boys, just set work and brushed away their comments, he also ignored a small percentage of girls. The other girls he laughed with, flirted with, tried to set himself up to show off and get his ego stoked like the narcissist he was. The girls he ignored were the ones that found him creepy and a twat, he showered his attention on the ones who seemed to like his attention or at least put up with it. As a result there were rumours of inappropriateness and his creepiness and no one wanted to be in his classes.

Thankfully, when he left we got another teacher like the good one.

The other science teachers just taught the subject and obviously had no love for it so I doubt they inspired any scientists.

I haven't read the article but I hope it doesn't 'blanket' all sciences. Biology is very female dominated, for example, so professionally wise we aren't lacing there. Chemistry and physics related we are more so. Sadly, there are few women at top levels of their field and the ones I know have have had to fight very hard to get there.

YANBU about the headline it;'s not the girls flopping, it's other things.

Everyday on my way to work, I drive through major road engineering works.
I have noticed that there are very few, if any, women dumper truck drivers, crane drivers, and manual labourers but no one makes a fuss about that and I wonder why not.

Girls were definitely the minority in my Higher physics class. Maths was more of a 50:50 split, though of the people that only took 4 Highers I suspect more girls dropped maths than boys dropped english. Chemistry was also pretty much 50:50, possibly because the head of chemistry was always very vocal about what a great subject it is and how it was a great option to take. He was the only teacher to encourage me to think of engineering as a career option

Doing engineering at university (96-00) classes with a 90:10 m:f split were considered to have an incredibly high number of girls in.

From my industry experience I'd say numbers of girls going into engineering continued or even increased a little over the next 5 years or so. I'd be incredibly disappointed but not entirely surprised to hear that was reversing again. (Lack of) careers advice must play a part, along with lack of visible role models but are these symptoms or cause of the Lego Friends trend?

There was an interesting programme with Hilary Devey of Dragons' Den fame who decided to balance her business's workforce for commercial reasons and was looking to recruit women as forklift drivers.

But there is a bias against engineering in the UK, the 'cool' subjects are more law and economics so you can swan around in the City and make a small fortune (hopefully) very quickly - standing around in a hard hat or in an engineering office isn't popular or respected. So girls do law and medicine.

"I have noticed that there are very few, if any, women dumper truck drivers, crane drivers, and manual labourers but no one makes a fuss about that and I wonder why not."

I do! I'd have loved to have been a crane driver. I always feel sad when I go along the motorway and see it's all men working.

Those areas are incredibly closed to women though. I mean really, really closed. You have to be just hard as nails to get by.

I wonder what the pay is like compared to jobs which are very female dominated, which require similar level qualifications. I know you have to get various certifications but not sure what the equivalent would be.

Re civil engineering: You would have to use the shittiest portable toilets too!

Oh sorry just realised the correct answer to that should have been "well obviously feminists only want things for women when it suits them, they aren't interested in getting into the jobs that men do that are a bit harder and colder because they don't like hard work or getting dirty and stuff and you know they might break a nail".

Sorry about that, just a little misunderstanding.

I mean seriously a lot of those jobs are much more lucrative than the "female equivalent" why the fuck wouldn't women want to do them.

& for that matter I can think of plenty of men I know who wouldn't want to work in that kind of role.

I heard a talk from a woman in Engineering who went to visit sites (I forget her job title) and she said the biggest problem was the outrageous attitude towards her by the men.

If you think those places are woman friendly and it's just that women don't fancy those jobs you are deluded.

In the 80s there were equal numbers of men and women coal miners in Pennsylvania, I don't think there were female miners in the UK.

The thing with manual labour is that there isn't a shortage of people to go into those roles.

The country is severely short of engineers and STEM qualified people. There's an extreme shortage of qualified maths and physics teachers in schools which makes the problem worse. If, given this shortage, we have 50% of the population excluded from these careers for stupid reasons, then that is a huge talent pool which is being completely wasted.

I work in a global IT company and the problem is cultural.
In India 50% of IT graduates are female - it's seen as a real high status job to aspire to with lots of opportunities.

In Western Europe it's woeful with fewer women doing the subject and a disproportionate number of women dropping out or careers stalling after having children. The longer I have stayed in the company the fewer women of my age are about.

In DD's old class she was told she was a freak for being a girl who is good at maths while a boy who was good at maths was told of course he was, as he was Russian!
Stereotypes and prejudice are everywhere. Luckily the school science and maths teachers have encouraged DD and all the other able pupils to do well in the subject regardless of gender. But DD is generally in male dominated classrooms and she is tired of them generally being arses - boys will automatically gang up on the girl in the class, and it takes a lot of character to counter that one.

My grandad and uncles worked in civil engineering and it was very hard work, away from home for weeks at a time and poor working conditions.
It's not really a job compatible with picking up from nursery or cm.

As a woman I have no idea how one goes about becoming a crane driver.

I'd faaaaaar rather be a crane driver than be a cleaner or work in a care home or cut people's hair. I bet the pay is similar.
I imagine it's a bit like a computer game, with buttons, making things happen, and you are high up, by yourself so you don't have to deal with people all the time, it sounds cool. Imagine the views!
Nobody I know is a crane driver. I have never heard of a woman crane driver.

How do you get to be a crane driver?

Actually, I bet women get treated like shit if they try to be a crane driver when all other crane drivers are men and everyone else doing similar jobs on sites are men too, and you can't do it self employed I guess. I don't think I'm going to pursue it.

With one of the specialist big cranes you would get sent about the country to new locations too!

I bet the ones at the top of their game who work in places like Central London get paid £££. Highly skilled, high risk if something goes wrong etc.

The other job I always liked the look of was oil rig stuff, offshore, all that.

Oh and driving helicopters hell yes

Train driving is relatively well paid.

Boring as all fuck though. Never appealed to me.

Driving a ferry I could quite like.

i know a few tube drivers. The tubes equal ops stuff is paying off I think, women drivers are common now.

Ditto bus drivers. Since they got the power steering in it's all changed hasn't it.

Interesting isn't it.

Before power steering, women didn't go into it because it was "heavy" and therefore men's work.

You get plenty of women who are very strong though so was it more the perception than the reality.

"It's not really a job compatible with picking up from nursery or cm."

So women shouldn't do it then?

Of course not duck.
All women have children, all women base their life choices when they are young on the fact they are absolutely certainly going to have children years down the line, and of course all women with children have 100% of the responsibility of carrying out or arranging their care.

Obviously.

I work on oil rigs as part of my job. We have a small child.

When I'm offshore DH has to make sure he can be home for nursery pick up every evening and/or draft in grandparents / friends to help. It's not really any different to what he has to do if I'm at a conference or just away overnight for a meeting. To be fair I'm no longer in the sort of job where the phone rings and your on the next chopper so we always have a few days notice to fix plans.

DHs work also takes him off to site. Those days I have to make sure I can be home for pickup etc. Sometimes one or other of us has to say we can't do site support on given dates. We are lucky that we are both in technical specialist roles and senior enough that we have some say in timings of jobs, rather than junior site engineers where if you turn down a job you may not get asked again.

Just because you might have to be away from home once in a while doesn't make it an unsuitable career for women