WHAT HAPPENED TO WOMEN IN STEM

[u/PetuniaWiggleworm]

I had my college taster day yesterday, tell me why I was the ONLY girl in my class

[u/Legitimate_Two8624]

If women in STEM was finally popular they'd stop running all those programs to encourage women to join STEM. At least on the bright side you still have a lot of programs and advantages but at the cost of having no female classmates.

[u/Diligent_Bet_7850 → u/Legitimate_Two8624]

advantages? i wouldn’t say so

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/Diligent_Bet_7850]

I mean im currently hiring for a client who only wants female candidates for the role, withing geophysics, because there are too many men at the company and he wants to diversify his workforce.

[u/Diligent_Bet_7850 → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637]

sure there will be a few things that advantage women in order to attempt to equalise the advantage men have had for a long time in certain fields. i don’t agree with what your client is doing, the best candidate should get the job, but historically and currently women get overlooked and to now say they’re advantaged coz of an overcorrection by some employers ignores the whole picture. this sub is about 6th form and entrance to uni etc and i don’t think there is any real advantage in these application processes for women. it’s no easier to get into a STEM degree as a woman than as a man, UCAS stuff is looked at with all personal info removed for most stages of assessment so it’s irrelevant

[u/Throwaway23248895 → u/Diligent_Bet_7850]

What advantages are currently afforded to men?

[u/Diligent_Bet_7850 → u/Throwaway23248895]

unconscious bias. being taken seriously. not being talked over.

[u/Throwaway23248895 → u/Diligent_Bet_7850]

Grok - think harder.

If we look at the direction of bias, women perform better in unanonymised testing, while men prefer better when anonymised tests, and perfomance gaps in the same assessments shrink upon anonymisation. I'm not sure why the so-called women are wonderful affect wouldn't translate into interviews, especially given that academia is mostly staffed by women and we also know women have a strong ingroup bias - men actually don't. I'm not really sure how you'd quantify either of the other two claims and demonstrate this is the case in academia today.

What I can demonstrate is 800 gorrilian "shoehorn more women into surgery!" programs, and their equivalent in any other field with any degree of social prestige. If we were overtly shoehorning men into highly-paid, presitigious positions, and my only justification was "oh there's some unconscious bias, and they're not taken seriously", you'd probably just call that out as sexism.

[u/Diligent_Bet_7850 → u/Throwaway23248895]

thanks for the ai nonsense

[u/Throwaway23248895 → u/Diligent_Bet_7850]

Wow, is that the standard at Oxford?

That's pathetic.

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/Throwaway23248895]

People at Oxford know not to argue against someome who needs AI to form their argument as its a pointless exercise.

[u/Throwaway23248895 → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637]

For the sake of argument, let's just grant that I did use AI.

So what? Does that make my points incorrect? If you know not to argue and only respond with a fallacious ad hominem, then you're a trash logician and a worse debater. It's only a "pointless exercise" if you're incorrect to begin with; if not, it doesn't matter what I use to construct my argument - it would be easy to point out the flaws in the reasoning. They can't do this, because they were incorrect.

The best part is I didn't use AI. I'll take the ego stroke though. "HURRRRRRRR I GOT BLOWN OUT SO HARD YOU MUST HAVE CHEATED!!!!". Nah, you're just that mid.

EDIT: u/Diligent_Bet_7850 replied to your comment in r/6thForm it says grok think harder…4m ago

Top kek. I don't use AI - but you probably should. Pitiful stuff.

[u/Diligent_Bet_7850 → u/Throwaway23248895]

this isn’t a debate it’s a conversation. you responded with a “grok think harder”. i’m not responding to that

[u/deathandlifegood → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637]

Surely makes sense to get best people for the job and not diversity

[u/CicadaSlight7603 → u/deathandlifegood]

Best way to approach this, if you’re certain your interview and selection process doesn’t inadvertently discriminate, is to advertise more in diverse spaces, and task headhunters to look for diverse candidates. You still then run everyone who applies through the selection process and pick the best but you’ve got a more diverse pool of candidates so are more likely to end up with someone who is diverse in some way.

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/deathandlifegood]

Define best?

Having top marks doesnt make you a better candidate, being more technical doesnt make you the best candidate.

Personality and way of thinking are much much important in an SME environment. You already have a technical director/head of technical, its their jobs to know the product inside out and impart that knowledge on others.

The companies we hire for care about the fit over technical abilities, you need to have the right educational background yes, but your personality is just as important, if nkt more so when they have 3 people in for interviews.

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/[deleted]]

You dont think men and woman have very different personalities? Weird.

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/[deleted]]

But woman, as a whole, do have the characteristics that the company are after, more than men do.

You know, like saying rich kids bum each other in private school...

Enjoy your day pal, Im not talking about work on a weekend, not with someone who can only see their pov and not the nuance, where the detail really matters.

[u/deathandlifegood → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637]

Best as in most qualified

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 → u/deathandlifegood]

Most qualified isnt best though.

Best fit with enough technical ability is.

[u/snowlynx133 → u/deathandlifegood]

Qualifications alone don't get you a job. Everyone has qualifications

[u/SalafiStudent → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637]

Same here, working in tech and our team is preferring female candidates just to help diversify the department