We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.
The undergrad boys in STEM I swear have never met a woman aside from their mothers. No, please don’t follow me home. Please don’t buy me food because I was next to you in line. Please don’t follow me into a store so you can buy me anything I’m purchasing. You are not invited into my conversation because you think I’m pretty, even if you just want to interrupt to tell me I’m pretty and you want to take me on a date. You are not allowed to hug me and hold me as long as you want just because you want to and it feels good for you, I didn’t want a hug and I didn’t know you. It isn’t cute for you to take things from me and play keep away because you are stronger and taller, it makes you a bully.
Teachers: please don’t ignore me when I try and participate or ask a question. I’ve gotten Cs with no explanation, no marks aside from the grade itself. When I check other’s work, theirs is written up with mistakes and they have a higher grade. Honestly that was just one teacher in an undergrad, the rest were pretty awesome, or at least not sexist.
My CS classes were 90% male, and every professor was male, too. They all genuinely enjoyed my participation, and it was the only environment where I wasn’t objectified or disrespected. Same with my coworkers (again 90% male) when I went into the FAANG workforce; the men were happy to see women excel in a previously male-only field.
The general public was a different story until recently. Women were thrilled, a disturbing number of men refused to listen to me.
It probably depends on the university. There are definitely dregs of “incel” culture that get in but they can’t socialize and are usually left alone. In the workforce, interviews stop them from getting much further then that.
In the workforce, interviews stop them from getting much further then that.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
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Just like there are lots of jerks and incels, there are lots of really nice shy guys that would make the world a better place by opening up a little more. Being brave at making contact is totally acceptable, and probably good for you, if you do it in a respectful manner. Actual nice guys should drown out the jerks that are self proclaimed nice guys by treating women, men and themselves with respect.
Should, yes. They don’t always. And there are still far more than enough guys (and people) who do nothing when they see women (or others) treated very poorly but men/boys. I sort of understand college and high school, everyone is exploring and unsure what’s ok, and observers may be entirely unsure what to do.
It’s pretty common for a bunch of people to see something bad happen and everyone think someone should do something without realizing they are someone who could do something.
The bystander effect is really common. I remember when I got first aid training, they told us that in an emergency, you have to tell a specific person to do something rather than ask “someone call an ambulance”.
I think bystander effect should be regularly discussed in schools so people will be aware of it. Getting people to automatically respond and do something and offer help is a pretty important step to making our society safer and healthier.
So you first said they try to do/offer to do something like walk you home, buy you something, etc. and you said you don’t want that. Now here you say you want them to do something, in particular when they see something bad happening (i think you meant when they see girl treated poorly by a boy/man). That seems kind of confusing.
If someone wants to try making friends, it’s reasonable for them to try and start a conversation. If the person they are pursuing isn’t interested, LEAVE THEM ALONE. CONSENT IS IMPORTANT.
If I’m screaming for help, if I’m being attacked, if I cannot defend myself, even if you see someone not respecting someone else’s consent, help the person who’s consent is not being respected. CONSENT IS IMPORTANT.
Hope this helps.
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Incel is an abbreviation of involuntary celibate. It is 100 % a self proclaimed title from the word “involuntary”. I am merely categorizing those that label themselves as such to be often having a distorted view on sex and women. None of this was a philosophical debate on the existence of evil and my point was clearly defined: Timid, kind people should be a little bolder. Everyone should be mindful of other people’s boundaries.
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Socialized people work with them on instinct, others can’t do that.
This is a valid point. Some on the autism spectrum, for example, have difficulties due to lack of this instinct.
And my point was that boundaries are never that clearly defined.
This is also true, but not so much a problem. Everyone is bound to overstep at some point. However, that is most likely going to yield a negative response from the other person, and it is actually somewhat their responsibility to express this plainly. Where jerks and unaware people diverge in action is how they respond to being made aware. Say sorry and not push further and you are in the clear.
I will admit there is a little bit of a problem with a supreme narrative based on personal experience if applied indiscriminately in every context. However, as long as it is confined to one’s own body, it is perfectly fine since everyone should have their bodily autonomy respected and thus their experience is the supreme narrative in this instance always.
There are training one can do if one lacks social intuitition and basic rules like do not touch at spots other than briefly on shoulders etc. without consent. I have lots of sympathy for all those who struggle socially, but do not see laxing on demanding respect for others as being helpful in any way. I would also speak up if someone ridiculed a nice person for being just awkward, but that is not the issue discussed here.
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I always hope people learn from their experience. I have no idea if they learned anything after interacting with me or assumed I’m some crazy female.
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From your perspective, what was cruel? I’m interested in how different people interpret the same scenarios. What would be a more constructive way to address the situation?
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Telling somebody that they are not good enough to talk to because of not knowing how to do that is cruel because it gives them no escape
Not really… First, I don’t think they ever said that those people “weren’t good enough” to talk to. Those are your words.
But also, there is a very obvious “escape” when you’re ignorant or uneducated about something. It’s called learning.
They probably haven’t. My experience was a lot of these guys were on the spectrum and the only social understanding of women they have is media. I would say the sexism is very malicious from the faculty, but from fellow students a lot of them this is the first time they’ve been allowed away from their helicopter parents and to begin learning social skills, sadly at your detriment.
Fortunately the ones who seemed socially awkward were the ones who did understand no. The majority who gave me scares were likely on the spectrum but none went too far. The ones who went too far and never respected no were definitely not on the spectrum, they were self centered and didn’t pay attention to others.
There are plenty of men who act like boys because they have seen grace for their actions their whole lives. The result is that they cannot learn from their actions because they never learned how. They cannot understand when others don’t let them do whatever they want, and they don’t recognize consequences for their actions because they never had any. This may describe some on the spectrum but it has nothing to do with autism.
Not to mention that gay STEM students are more likely to face homophobia. It was rampant at my uni. We could not keep any sort of gay-related posters up without them getting ripped off and trampled within hours. Which in retrospect is wild because there were so many of us, and more who came out years later. lol
Uh… aren’t gay people the only segment likely to face homophobia? Like, you can’t be homophobic to a straight person…
Can’t you? What about not having “girly” hobbies because that “makes you gay”? Or having to dress a certain way? I feel like straight people aren’t excluded from homophobia…
100%, when I was in middle school and highschool I was regularly called gay for not liking football, or not knowing random car facts, or not liking spicy food, and other stuff like that. It was much better in university, but it was in a different region so I can’t compare directly.
Interestingly, one of these bullies came out as gay 10 years later, which I find sad that someone had so much internalised self hatred that he had to project it outwards to feel better about himself.
I don’t know what middle/high schools are like today since I don’t know anyone in that age range, but I bet it’s much better now with today’s internet culture being much more queer positive.
Or much worse thanks to the redpill movement and andrew tate.
Damn, I forgot that pile of garbage existed.
I believe they were implying in STEM vs non-STEM
STEM students…
I’ve seen people being homophobic to straight but feminine men.
Anyway, OP meant that homophobia, just like sexism, seems to be more present in STEM.
Meh not sure if it counts but an ex-client of mine decided to work out his fox news rage on me about my trans sister-in-law. Don’t worry, his manager was informed, the Google maps review of his employer now mentions it, and he really wasn’t expecting me when I knocked on his door late one night smirking and telling him what I did.
Christians going to Christian.
I was called gay long before I ever had a gay thought in my head (on account of being prepubescent).
When I was being brutalized by bullies, gay was a generic derisive, associating things with homosexuality, the way cuck (now a generic derisive) associates with cuckold fetishists.
“why aren’t heterosexuals subject to homophobia!?!?”
(ti’s a joke)
I’m not even involved in a STEM job any longer but I still see tons of STEM employed men spewing manosphere bullshit all the time. I’m also starting to see more and more well educated, articulate women parroting it. These women also tend to be overwhelmingly conservative in their political positions, too. Especially well educated white women.
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In my experience the technology related fields are greater perpetrators than the base sciences. Though there is still an image problem for things like math (the not tech, engingeering or finance version) and a problem with people outside the field having sxcist expectations about those in it, I genuinely think the environment itself to be very inclusive.
I don’t know why any women sticks it out in that segment. The crap they deal with. No amount of money could make it worth it. The shitheads won.
One truth about the modern media landscape: stories that pit groups against each other play well
The division was there already, some just didn’t notice it. If you think we’d do better united, maybe consider challenging the sexists and other bigots creating the division.
It reminds me of MLK Jr denouncing the “negative peace which is the absence of tension” as an obstacle to true equality, as opposed to the “positive peace which is the presence of justice”.
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We can be less bigoted than the past while also having a long way to go still. You could even count as a sign of this improvement that these issues are taken seriously and discussed rather than ignored as “just the way things are”.
But we can’t take it for granted, because progress is not guaranteed and equality can decline. Say, such as the matter of abortion rights in the US and consequently how pregnancies are policed, leading to possible arrests even for natural miscarriages.
If you acknowledge that we aren’t finished fighting bigotry, I don’t really understand what’s your concern here.
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I get that clickbait is a thing, but as a community focused on Technology it seems pertinent to consider what the experience of different people in this area is like.
Should we pretend it doesn’t happen so that the journalists don’t “win”? It is upsetting to know that this happens, but I don’t see how we “lose” by being informed. This isn’t someone trolling on social media, it’s the reality of the world we live in.
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What is good example comment of gaslighting for $400 Alex?
Must be nice being able to go thru life and thinking bigotry doesn’t exist while blaming the people who are reporting it. Yes it is the messenger that is at fault.
We are less bigoted compared to the past, what the 1720s?
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Name 5 societies in all of history, that are as diverse as the western world today and have the levels of opportunity for minorities
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Bullshit and it’s time for the Western World to admit that is bullshit.
Just in my city, solid blue district in solid blue state, the local Jewish temple has a police car in-front of it every time they have services due to a bomb threat over a year ago. People dropped fliers in mailboxes complaining about a person putting up a sign on their door in Arabic that said “god bless this house” The fliers called it un-American. The city next to mine had a mass protest against a Mosque being built.
Ever been to Thailand? The tolerance of the pagan feels like an understatement. Everyone there believes whatever they want without any shame. People worshipping statues and making offerings to ancestors. Signs everywhere bragging about hallel food and prayer rooms. And before you even try it I am an atheist and have had zero issues there, unlike the US where I have to occasionally lie. The atheist groups I go to half the members don’t want their picture taken or name recorded.
In what way are we Westerners less bigoted? It isn’t racism, it isn’t feminism, it isn’t religion, it isn’t LGBT. Go ahead and get a few beers in any minority in your country and ask them what they really think. Or you know you could spend thirty minutes of your life looking at all the documented peer-reviewed evidence gathered that paints a picture of our supposed tolerance.
quoting MLK
Wow smh far right extremist /s
One truth about the world is that oppressor wants the oppressed to shut up and take abuse.
As a woman engineer, yeah we’re probably disproportionately responsible. I’m sure science and math have more sexism than say art, but biology has to treat women better than engineering I assume.
I’m a guy so I realize I don’t see or understand everything from women’s perspective, but I’m genuinely surprised by this. I’ve worked for decades at companies with mostly engineers and mostly men, and my experience is that engineers have on average much more progressive views than, say, my neighbors. My current company recently switched from a male to a female CEO and I haven’t even heard anyone mention her gender, much less express any negative views in connection to her gender. My previous employer also had a female CEO and it just wasn’t a thing on people’s mind. At my current employer we have anonymous surveys to find problems in the workplace, and there were exactly zero people who reported observing any sexist actions.
I’ve heard sexist remarks twice in 20 years, and both times I was so flabbergasted that I didn’t know what to do or say before the conversation had already moved on. So if I’m bad at speaking up when it happens, it’s only because I didn’t get enough practice.
Where I come from, the engineering fields are dominated by men but medical fields have a female majority. I wonder what’s the difference with medicine
Medicine is more aligned with the cultural idea of “what a woman should be/do”. Taking care of others, showing compassion and so on is regarded as more “feminine qualities” than “masculine”. Note this is not something I agree with, but I think it probably is part of the picture.
I’d recommend Acollierastro’s YouTube video about the rampant sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in physics and astronomy. While engineering is certainly a big part of the equation, every hard science except biology is dominated by men and that definitely feeds all of these issues
Anecdotally, the biological engineering department at my university has a much higher fraction of women than the rest of the college of engineering, while mechanical/aerospace has the lowest, so it varies even within engineering.
Girls suck at math (Obligatory XKCD.)
r/transgendercirclejerk incoming
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This is the most “not all men” answer I could ever imagine. You literally got angry at the data, not because there’s sexism, but because there are other men who exist in other places who aren’t sexist.
It’s well-documented that women don’t go into STEM. When data explains why women don’t go into STEM, getting pissy because there are men who are in other fields who aren’t sexist completely misses the entire goddamned point.
I think he may have stumbled past a interesting point (his main point was kind of dumb)-
While I would say the STEM crowd is more susceptable to a certain kind of intellectual narcissism that allows shitty behavior, anyone doing this kind of study should hopefully be making an effort to address the idea that if like 1/6 of dudes are extra shitty then are the STEM students uniquely shitty or are they just normal shitty and the classroom breakdown just means that there’s like 50% more shitty dudes and half as many targets for their shittyness.
That said, I’d love to see the stats on law schools as they tend have the “bro-est bros”
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Or, hear me out, it’s just sexism.
So not worth studying? How do you address things like sexism without attempting to understand it? the tech bro sexism itself might be an overlap with incel culture which may be solveable in a variety of ways or religious sexism which could be harder for a public US institution to address.
IMO it also affects how many extra counselors you’d need to hire to expand tech degrees vs non tech degrees and whether maybe some kind of socializing class should be included in curriculum - this isn’t just some game, both the victims and perpetrators are real people who have to be accomodated/resocialized appropriately.
Does the data explain why women don’t go into stem, or does it simply state what women in stem self-report?
Don’t go into stem, you can’t read data. And I say that while honestly not caring about your genitals.
Dismissing sexism within a particular group because it is disproportionately prevalent in that group is, frankly, treating that sexism as acceptable.
You can just as easily extend this approach until you either reach a group where it’s evened out, or is the entirety of humanity.
“It’s more prevalent in stem? No, you have to look at university students overall”
“It’s prevalent in university students overall? No, you have to look at all students”
“It’s prevalent in students as a whole? No, you have to look at everyone involved in education”
“It’s prevalent in education in general? No, you have to look at public services as a whole”
“It’s prevalent in public services as a whole? No, you have to look at all non-private entities”
“It’s prevalent across non-private entities? No, you have to look at all forms of work”
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I studied at the Technical University of Denmark and there was so much sexism towards the women there. I was oblivious to it the first year, and then got into a friend group of primarily women. It was mind-blowing hearing their stories, and of the way that university management and leaders shut them down every time they formally brought up the issue. There was (and still is) serious cover-ups of multiple rape cases.
Don’t think it’s not happening just because you don’t hear about it. People in power are actively trying to keep this quiet, and it’s working.
That sucks dude here in the united states i have known professors to keep pretty masters or phd students for near a decade not letting then complete their projects
Do you have some examples so I know what sort of stuff may be going on?
I’m curious if they asked the men if they’d experienced sexism too. Most stem subjects are predominantly female so this seems to be a study seeking an answer that suits a narrative.
STEM is dominated by men. Especially the workforce. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/. About 50% of women that take STEM majors switch to non-STEM majors, while about 35% of males switch. This is a Yale source, though.
You’re being disingenuous. The study posted relates to sexism at university where stem subjects are predominantly female.
Workforce stats /= University stats which I think you’re aware.
Source? The Yale link above specifically mentions:
Nationally, women make up 57.3% of bachelor’s degree recipients but only 38.6% of STEM bachelor’s degree recipients.
Anecdotally, I was in a STEM-focused school and major over 20 years ago, and it was overwhelming male-dominated. One of my colleagues graduated less than 10 years ago, and her experience was not dissimilar. She had to deal with quite a bit of sexism too, unfortunately.
Your own damn link contradicts that bullshit stem bachelor degree stat.
I’d search for another but people shooting themselves in the foot amuses me to no end 😂
What are you even going on about? It literally says:
Women represent 57.3% of undergraduates but only 38.6% of STEM undergraduates
That means women are obtaining most of their degrees via non-STEM studies.
Women represent 52% of the college-educated workforce, but only 29% of the science and engineering workforce.
And that is reflected in the study’s figures for employment as well.
I’d search for another but people shooting themselves in the foot amuses me to know end
Well let’s look over the score here. Someone has provided two different links to back up their argument and you’ve provided… Oh look, none. You’re making claims and pointing out things that clearly do not exist or are anecdotal. Nothing you have done in the last three comments indicates to anyone that any of us should take anything you have to say with any kind of value.
So I guess you are amused to know [sic] end, but a point or logical argument you have not made. But hey if you thinking you took the W here and that keeps you quiet, then good job you totally owned everyone here. Amazing wordsmithing.
Your Yale link is nonsense as I think you’re aware. Your original link shows a closer stat to reality though it’s based on 2020 data - currently stem is predominantly female.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6759027/
Interesting; you have to dig past the usual misandry sites to find an impartial source but Pew research found 53% of stem graduates female in 2018 and rising.
You can also just check unis individually.
Well I mean, do you read the links you provide?
While women now account for 57% of bachelor’s degrees across fields and 50% of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering broadly (including social and behavioral sciences), they account for only 38% of bachelor’s degrees in traditional STEM fields (i.e., engineering, mathematics, computer science, and physical sciences; Table 1).
There’s where your 50% comes from. And as you can see, your link also aligns with the 38.6% previously mentioned.
See? Now was that hard? See how once you explained yourself we could clear up the confusion you were having? Nothing wrong with that, easy to be confused by the various terms that are being tossed around.
Dude is crying about misandry. 🎻
Interesting; you have to dig past the usual misandry sites to find an impartial source but Pew research found 53% of stem graduates female in 2018 and rising
I mean, at this point you’re just cherry picking and not doing all that well with it. As indicated from, again YOUR source.
The gender dynamics in STEM degree attainment mirror many of those seen across STEM job clusters. For instance, women earned 85% of the bachelor’s degrees in health-related fields, but just 22% in engineering and 19% in computer science
That lines up with the whole thing I had mentioned here. You keep wishing otherwise, but you also keep providing evidence to the contrary.
So I mean at some point I guess you’ll read your own sources OR you won’t. But the sources you keep providing agree with the original statement that women are under represented in traditional STEM studies. So I mean you square that with yourself however you want.
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That seems to say that there is a slight over-representation of women in STEM (degrees earned) overall but only because of a single subject/job-cluster, “health-related”, with a slight to very large under-representation in all others.
No “predominant” anywhere.(well maybe health-related)Yep, pretty much. Slightly more women in stem these days and rising.
Slightly to much less in traditional stem, and rising in some subjects/clusters, decreasing in some. I get that you have a hard time understanding that I pointed out that what you said was wrong, but you should admit to it too, instead of just posting another comment that is misleading.
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44% is workforce stem. This article deals with university stats.
The relevant data is:
In STEM fields, the pipeline is leakiest in life science, psychology and social science fields, which are female-dominated at the undergraduate level — the female share of degree recipients in these fields was 58% at the doctoral level compared with 66% at the bachelor’s level in 2017. In contrast, the four fields with the lowest female shares among bachelor’s degrees recipients — geoscience, engineering, economics, and computer science — have higher female representation among PhD recipients (see here).
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STEM (both technical university and workforce) has been a cesspit of misogyny from my personal experience.
We coulda told you that without a study bruh
Comments are a shit show 🙂
I abhor sexism and racism and what I say next may sound like both of those things but what if women and POC are worse at math than Tall White Guys®?
Should we make it even harder for them to access STEM fields? My workplace is a total sausage fest and I desperately seek the touch of wamman.
You coulda keep this to yourself hope you find some solace in your life
Thanks. I hope you can one day interpret subtext and nuance.
what or whom are you even trying to troll? this is a strawman of 100% of everything
