To think societal conditioning has a big influence on women more often choosing to study Arts/Law/etc. rather than Engineering/Mathematics/etc.

[Hmmtheplant]

To think societal conditioning has a big influence on women more often choosing to study Arts/Law/etc. rather than Engineering/Mathematics/etc. I ask because I often end up in discussions with male friends/family members about the extent of the role of nature versus nurture in all of this.

And why do you think there isnt the same drive to put men in caring roles such as child minder, nurse, primary school teachers?

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319592.php

Some examples brought to bear on these "innate differences" often come from studies on different primates, such as rhesus monkeys. One experiment offered male and female monkeys traditionally "girly" ("plush") or "boyish" ("wheeled") toys and observed which kinds of toys each would prefer.

This team of researchers found that male rhesus monkeys appeared to naturally favor "wheeled" toys, whereas the females played predominantly with "plush" toys.

This, they argued, was a sign that "boys and girls [may] prefer different physical activities with different types of behaviors and different levels of energy expenditure."

The perspective that "gendered" preferences can be explained through hormonal activity and differences in the brains of men and women remains, therefore, controversial.

Of course these male colleagues/family members often believe that genetics is the primary influencer, but I can't help feeling that's partly because it let's them off the hook for helping to change society, in order to give more equal opportunity to women in these areas :)

Errr... yes. Do you have male friends and relatives who think ‘wimmin can’t do maths’? If so I don’t envy you these ‘discussions’ as they must be pretty thankless.

One of my girls is hoping to studying engineering, the other medicine.

They love science, and they are getting so much support and encouragement from their teachers, both male and female, it's absolutely fantastic.

Part of it is down to society, take-up of physics A-level is higher for girls in single-sex schools.

Part of it is because girls outperform boys in the vast majority of subjects at GCSE (usually just maths for the boys), and so they have a much wider choice of subjects to take. Boys are more likely to take maths because it’s their best GCSE.

I read somewhere before that girls score higher than boys at maths, but this changes when they become teens.

So yes, I think social conditioning plays a part, maybe they lose confidence in their ability?

DD is going to do a science degree. Her BF is a history student.

There is evidence that infant boys prefer wheeled toys to infant girls, however this in no way means that ‘genetics proves boys are better at engineering than girls’. For a start a significant preference across a group doesn’t mean all boys like trucks all girls like dolls. Secondly, a preference for trucks does not magically confer mathematical ability. Thirdly, what an infant preference for trucks or dolls has to do with adult decisions is not explained by these studies, and how could they prove that they are in any way connected?

I suspect there's no drive to.put men in many caring professions because they don't pay as well.

Perhaps the rhesus monkeys have already been societally conditioned :)

I accept there are biological differences between men and women, I'm just not convinced that they have any bearing on someone being an engaged competent Scientist. I'm not sure it's possible to leap from a preference for wheeled things, to a preference for engineering. It seems far too simplistic to me, and also a failure to communicate the traits and practices of the daily work of an engineer, e.g. teamwork, collaboration, creative problem solving. Some of which are considered to be genetically "female traits".

The A Level result for 2019 have shown that for the firs time ever more girls than boys have taken science subjects. Hopefully this is a sign of things improving.

Girls are taught from day one that they should play with certain toys and these toys don’t generally involve problem solving. We force our kids into gender roles without even realising. The parents that put there young girls in open toe and heeled shoes in the playground so that they can’t run and climb. The books about dinosaurs in the “boys section” and the books about butterflies in the “girls section”. The slogans on t-shirts declaring that boys will be astronauts and girls are “daddy’s little princess”. It’s pervasive and extremely damaging.

I don’t doubt there is some genetic element to the preferences of boys and girls (my daughter absolutely loves babies but I have never encouraged it) but I can’t believe it isn’t more nurture than nature.

It frustrates me to see people constantly pushing women into the sciences without similar efforts to push more men towards the arts. I feel somehow that it implies that the sciences are better than the arts.

@PinguDance exactly

@noblegiraffe re take-up in single-sex schools, very interesting

Glad to hear there are a lot of well-supported daughters out there choosing science/eng

I would find conversations with these men absolutely infuriating I’m sure - just Hand them a copy of Inferior by Angela Saini and don’t talk to them about the issue until they’ve read it. It’s a good book in that it shows that yes there are certain biological differences but basically sexism is the bigger issue.

I believe there are biological differences, not necessarily so much in terms of ability, but in terms of what each sex finds engaging and interesting.

Then there is societal conditioning on top of that.

It's very complex.

My theory is that, while some people adore maths and the more mathematical sciences, the vast majority of people find them difficult and/or boring. Girls are more likely to choose the things they like, find interesting and are good at whereas boys, whether conditioned by society or hormones, are more driven to go for these subjects because of their perceived benefit in status and potential earning power regardless of whether they actually like them. As soon as computer science became a lucrative option, all the boys switched to that, because they find it more interesting as a bonus.

Interesting observation i made re ‘the arts’ at uni - when I did french it was overwhelmingly female, when I did Arabic and Russian there were more boys than girls in the classes, though only just. Apparently Chinese and Japanese were also slightly skewed towards having more men, although seemingly almost half and half. There are evidently hard, manly languages that get you a job in the government, the city, the army... and then french which is for the ladies.

I think some of it is also because tradionally male careers tend to be better paid...so if a teenage DS is doing well at maths and sciences and says they want to study engineering at uni, parents probably aren't going to feel much of a need to get the DS to explore other career options.

My theory is that, while some people adore maths and the more mathematical sciences, the vast majority of people find them difficult and/or boring.

Women are being pushed towards maths and sciences while men are not similarly being pushed towards the arts because there is a massive shortage of people in England with mathematical qualifications to fill all the jobs we need them to do. Women are underrepresented in these areas so are an obvious talent pool to tap.

The government did want to make maths compulsory to 18 but the conclusion was that we don’t have enough maths teachers to do this.

well duh! Of course it is.

I find it really annoying that people haven't universally accepted this is the case a long long time ago.

YANBU OP

I went looking for gender neutral baby clothes yesterday, for a gift for a friends baby. It's ridiculous how little there is.

@herculepoirot2 I don't think the Sciences are better than the Arts but I do think they are better paid, and sadly money tends to equate with power. Although of course we really should adjust what we value in society.

There has been a drive in Scotland to attract boys to nursing with male nurses going into schools to target pupils from P7 up to 2nd year.

One of the reasons why single-sex education was so important to me.

Opens so many more doors IMO.

noble similarly its interesting there is more push to get girls into dinosaur printed baby clothes, than there is push to get boys into hearts/rainbows/unicorn clothes.

Toxic masculinity is a major issue and I for one would like to see if dressing baby/toddler boys the way we do girls would fix it....

That's a fair point and shows the bias in society even further.

This that are 'for men' or that men more commonly do tend to be more prestigious, better rewarded, treated more seriously.

This is true for things like hobbies as well as work / paid work.

When men do things that are usually done by women they get a lot of kudos and often rewarded better (phenomenon of men been under represented in eg nursing, primary school teaching but over represented in senior roles).

Roles which change from mainly male to female see a reduction in respect and pay (medicine is the usual example).

Also that different countries have diffetent ideas at what girls and boys are 'supposed' to like / do and the children follow suit, taking up and doing the things that are 'for' them even though it's opposite in other countries eg football (soccer) is 'for girls' in usa and, foget where could be Japan, maths is a girls subject.

So nature / nurture/ how much of each + of course things are used to preserve the status quo.

So 'women can't do engineering because of some moneys' comes out, but of course lots of women will be great at engineering and lots of men shit at it.