To think that scholarships for women shouldn't be open to men?

[HermioneWeasley]

So, scholarship to support women in STEM - a massive issue for all societies that we're not harnessing th talents of half our populations in this area.

But if you "identify as a woman in a way that's meaningful to you" you can apply.

What the ever loving fuck?

Another example of the damage being done to actual women, by saying that "woman" is a feeling in a man's head.

They would be able to identify with cultural references and have a genuine insight into the culture which someone who is white wouldn't have

Exactly! So someone who had grown up a man will not be able to identify with the 'culture' of growing up as a women. Your black heritage argument was about DNA not culture. It's all very confused.

Your example is of someone who is intersex presumably - not the same at all as a biological male or female identifying with the opposite gender.

'Certainly though if you are prepared to take the minimum amount of maternity leave your career will not be damaged.'

Are you for real?

80s. It sounds like your friend is intersex. Intersex conditions are rare (about 1/1000 people) and are completely different to being trans (definitively one sex but "identifies" as the other).

The existence of intersex conditions does not prove that sex is a spectrum. We are a sexual,y dimorphic species - that is how we reproduce. The occasionally anomaly doesn't change that

FTM - I think you'll find that quite a lot of the people on this thread are women who have already got a degree or two, and a decade or two or three in a STEM field - and we care about this issue because we know that there are still too few like us, and what the problems facing girls and women are.

Thanks vera

Ah, people who can't read science criticially are fun...

I agree with running. ** Mumsnet is a horribly transphobic place. I am grateful that irl that I have never come across these sorts of attitudes but equally sad that there people somewhere out there who are so intolerant.

sorry, FTY not FTM that was responding to.

Jesus, the misogyny allowed on MN is vile.

JustChangedForpThis can you say why you think this? An awful lot of people tend to pop onto these threads , say "how horribly transphobic" and leave. It would be interesting to k ow precisely what it is you find intolerant?

The current push for women to go into STEM reminds me of the push in the late 80s to get girls into chemical engineering. I was keen. Picked for a mixed week at a uni with visits to plants.

Awful. Misogynist men being patronising and not a woman to be seen on site who wasn't clerical. Totally put me off. I ended up in STEM by a fluke while working in another field. Love it. Natural fit. Still have to push back, have thick skin, fight the boys club. Very few female peers, socialising geared round the male majority, hard to find common ground to build relationships.

If a paid ride through college makes girls go into STEM then bloody brilliant. And that means growing up female. Not I identify as female so I can go into a field I was going to go into anyway.

I would also like to see stats on MTF in STEM, I bet there is an atypical amount.

How is it transphobic to say that a scholarship for women should be for people born and socialised as women? They should be including FTT - as it stands an ftm would be likely to think they were excluded.

Are the "you're so meeeeaaaaaan!" Comments supposed to appeal to our socialisation to be nice and STFU even if we're being hurt?

That New scientist article that a few have kindly posted/referenced seems to say that there are 'male' and 'female' brain traits, but most people have a mix rather than exclusively one or the other. So then an anatomical male could have a brain with mostly or wholly female traits?

And YES to girls in single sex being more likely to go into STEM. I do occasionally wonder how they will get on when out of single sex, hopefully they will be resilient enough by then to not put up with misogyny.

Just every time the word "transphobic" gets used to describe something that really isn't, it loses a little bit of its power, so carry on, do.

Words mean things, you can't just change their definition through wistful thinking and being easily offended.

Not saying that is the explanation for transgender btw, it's just that article doesn't seem to debunk, in any way, there being a biological basis for being transgender?

Oh but we're not being hurt! Us women have it ALL don'tcha know

*dybil

What about when trans-men use men's bathrooms?*

not a priority

Why would a man have a woman's brain? Unless he kept it in a jar on the mantlepiece? Surely everyone has their own brain...I have my brain, I'm a woman, ergo....

And what exactly are "female traits"?

Is that a way of describing behaviours ground into women as the grow up? Or gender stereotyped nonsense where all the behaviours that make men successful are classed as not favourable in women?

Unless of course we have a soul as somehow when people are born a female soul gets put into man's body. Is that what you mean?

Brain plasticity and causality. For a start.

"I have no problem in women moving aside for the more deserving trans."

I do

"More deserving" according to what criteria?

I don't want to patronise such an expert who links magazine articles though :)