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from the doesn't-stem-student's-interest dept.
Research into the obvious, but someone has finally done it: Three women researchers have studied the behavior of undergraduates in STEM fields, and concluded that there basically is no problem. From the abstract:
"The results show that high school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and that women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses. Moreover, women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues."
Furthermore current recruitment efforts to attract more women tend to be counterproductive. In an interview, the primary author says:
"Society keeps telling us that STEM fields are masculine fields, that we need to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, but that kind of sends a signal that it's not a field for women, and it kind of works against keeping women in these fields."
One of our female students told me that the women are interviewed endlessly, for one project or another: "tell us about your experience", "are you doing ok", "have you experienced sexism", and on, and on. That alone is enough to make them question their career choice.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday September 08 2017, @01:54AM (2 children)
Well my point was that it *is* news, and in fact it's good news, although you probably wouldn't want to phrase it in exactly the way quoted.
I suspect simply because of our personal pronoun system it would in fact be awkward (though certainly not impossible) to make the announcement without also announcing the sex of the infant in the process - which is fine too. I'm not saying cover it up. But treating it as the central news seems really creepy.
"If half of babies had two arms and the other half had four, we'd have number-of-arms reveal parties for them. "
Would we? Why? In my experience people with newborns have enough to do what with feeding and cleaning and dealing with teething and so forth, there will be plenty of time for parties later.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday September 08 2017, @08:29AM (1 child)
I suspect GP was thinking of post-ultrasound baby showers, rather than the situation after birth.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday September 08 2017, @08:44AM
That's even creepier.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?