Women in certain industries.

[Tonka4]

Just wondering what your thoughts are on certain industries being male dominated in terms of jobs? I'm thinking mainly science, technology and engineering industries. Is it sexism at play?

There is a follow up question to this.

And you lot stop being mean to the OP.

You know as well as I do that planes will only fly properly if you use a penis to fly them and that's why the ladies can't do it. Stands to reason.

Men can't be nurses either, because their giant testicles of reason get in the way.

Women: Know Your Limits!

*In return, I bring you Taxi drivers - as you can see, brain scans of adults show that what you do changes your brain significantly.

You'll also note from your own study that:

Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds

Doesn't prove these so called hard-wired differences are innate at all..*

Nah, that just proves some people were born to be taxi drivers

Isn't is amazing that apparently women are wired to enjoy shitwork and poorly paid work! How handy for the technical and logical men.

Funny that assasinated

Where did tonka go?

tonka are you called tonka because of the trucks? I used to like tonka trucks

tonka reminds me of that poster from a while back wh9 kept going on about gun toting middle eastern women. Wonder if he'll be back. Kind of sad I missed the fun today. Me and my damn stem work, taking the jobs off the boys. Terrible really.

He is called Tonka because you need a Tonka4 flying planes

If the very low proportion of women in engineering in the UK is down to choice, can you explain why in many countries it is significantly higher? Multiples of what it is in the UK.

Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds

I can't be arsed to go back and look if there was an actual link, but that does strike me that it's a strong correlation, at least in England, that that's around the age you choose options for GCSEs, then A-levels, i.e. when our educational system starts getting narrowed and more restrictive.

Why do countries that have patriarchy and sexism on steroids, counties like China, Russia and India have women in stem, in numbers well in excess of the likes of Sweden Norway and Denmark, countries widely accepted to be the least patriarchal and sexist in the world?

Not sure about India, but during Soviet times in Russia, many STEM occupations were not really seen as a high prestige, highly complex jobs, but more of 'tinkering in lab/sitting at your desk, doing some calculations' and were therefore considered suitable for women. Real men were doing blue-collar jobs, which were also better paid. For example in my ex-soviet country a blue-collar factory worker would earn 200 rubles when an engineer would get 120-140. So that has probably something to do with it.

Very interesting chat on R4 Women's hour at the moment which is relevant to this thread.

Back to the USSR and so on, there was also the ideology of equality, everyone contributing, which meant there was good provision of childcare and so on, compared with western countries, plus higher numbers of women in areas we see as male dominated - but it was far from totally equal. Women were more likely to study engineering, then go into teaching, and men would be more involved with engineering as a job.

Then, in countries like India and African countries, other factors are at play again - being able to work in STEM roles

...being able to work in STEM roles means you are probably educated, even well educated, which isn't a given in all countries. Plus unlike cleaning, laundry or agriculture (which will be among the other limited options for female work,) It's seen as clean work, so has higher social cachet for that reason.

And then in some countries, particularly Asian countries, differences in the educational systems also mean they don't get the gender differences, partly because questioning the teacher or each other is far less acceptable.

The gender differences we see in STEM careers are definitely cultural, and primarily an issue for western-style economies like the USA, UK, northern Europe, Canada, NZ, Australia. These are some of the dominant countries in the global tech economy, which emphasises it.

(I am a techy, but I am inept at using a smartphone...)

I read a really good article about why STEM is more equal or even female dominant in other countries but I didn't save it Basically the author indicated a link between wealth, increasing gender stereotypes and lack of participation in STEM