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[mainiac]

I'd prefer someone called me a prick than weasel-word around it.

Maybe but I find that when I act like a prick people are very unappreciative of my candor.

[Helgoland]

Yeah, mainiac, you in particular are at your best right after someone whips you into grudgingly agreeing to keep your reader in mind. The conscious effort you make really shows! It's much better than people who are nice all the time, because one can always sense beneath the surface what you really wanted to post, making the plaintext much more visible.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you're a male student on campus at Liverpool Hope, Bath Spa or Cumbria University, you may be feeling a little outnumbered. These are some of the 20 institutions where there are twice as many female fulltime undergraduates as there are male, according to Higher Education Statistics Authority (Hesa) data.

In 2010-11, there were more female (55%) than male fulltime undergraduates (45%) enrolled at university – a trend which shows no sign of shrinking. The latest statistics released by the University and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) revealed a 22,000 drop in the number of male students enrolling at university. This meant that last autumn women were a third more likely to start a degree than their male counterparts, despite the fact that there are actually more young men than women in the UK.
How many males and females are on my campus?
The gender make-up of each university is influenced by the type of subjects on offer. Imperial College London, for example, – a science, engineering, medicine and business institution – is one of two institutions where men count for two thirds of the undergraduate intake. Universities specialising in art and design courses are particularly dominated by females. Generally speaking, the intake at many of the Russell Group universities is more evenly balanced – at Oxford and Cambridge, there are slightly more males than females.

What subjects are males and females studying at university?
The sheer number of female students means that they outnumber boys on the majority of courses, but those most dominated by women include veterinary science and subjects allied to medicine and education. Men outnumber women on computer science and engineering and technology, according the number of students graduating last year.

A glance at statistics for the past five years shows that in some subject areas, gender differences have widened. Most stark is the 52% increase in the number of women studying veterinary science – accompanied by a 4% drop in the number of men taking the subject. The difference in the numbers of men and women studying computer science also widened.

Why is there a gender gap at universities?
It's unclear why certain subjects attract more women than men (or vice versa), says Claire Callender, professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education. "It's largely associated with what happens in schools. One of the key predictors of what someone will study is what they did at A-level. There have been lots of attempts to encourage girls to study Stem subjects."

Fewer programmes have focused on getting more men into higher education. Educationalists say the underrepresentation of male university students is down to attainment patterns in schools: girls outperform boys and are more likely to stay on at sixth form. But the reasons behind this could be cultural, says Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

"It's probably down to cultural reasons. The change was first noticed around the introduction of GCSEs and the move towards more continuous assessment and coursework in schools, though there's no evidence that this is the cause of the gender differences. This is an international phenomenon, it's not restricted to the UK."

O spaghetti

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some Malaysian and UK researchers have suggested that women are performing much better than men in university entrance exams, thus excluding males from university at the entrance point. Even though it has been generally considered that males are better at disciplines like mathematics and physics, evidence indicates that a poor showing of males during secondary schooling accumulates in a poorer academic ability at university.

Other researchers believe that this poor academic showing by boys in general could also have something to do with lower levels of motivation in boys. Boys seem to have more disciplinary problems and require more remedial assistance than girls. It has also been cited that Malay boys generally mature later than their female counterparts.

Statistics indicate that boys have higher school dropout rates than girls in secondary school. It is generally easier for men to make a living in the informal sector without going to university. They also have the option of taking up agriculture, construction, or joining the armed forces. Many get in with their peers and join gangs, and in the worst case scenarios get involved in crime and drugs. Both Malaysia and Thailand have drug epidemics that both governments are trying to fight at this moment.

Boys don't seem to want to take on the commitment of taking on a student loan to study at university, which takes some years to pay back. There is also some evidence that boys in general have lower career aims than girls. This could have some cultural bounding where boys, particularly those from rural areas, are very hesitant to be different and excel from their peers.

On the contrary, girls seem to see this as a good investment in their futures. Women prefer to work in an office, rather than a blue collar environment. This drive may originate from girls sense of responsibility to supporting their parents and families, which drives them throughout their working life.

It has also been suggested where girls are outperforming boys is through their non-cognitive abilities. Girls appear to be more focused, self-disciplined, better organizers of their time, more attentive to their assignments and homework, more collaborative in their studies, and willing to get help if they have problems, than boys. There may even be an inbuilt teacher bias towards girls who tend to be more attentive in class than the boys. These are all important elements in getting good grades, where boys may have suffered. At present there doesn't appear to be on any measurement mechanisms in course quality evaluations at universities on this issue.

Truly truly Malaysiaaaa

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Worries about the declining academic performance of boys, a topic of increasing alarm this past decade, have intensified recently. It seems that boys are being judged both unduly harshly and leniently at school. A new study on gender disparities in elementary-school performance — the first study to examine both objective and subjective performance — found that boys were given lower grades than girls, even in cases (such as math and science) where their test scores were either equal to or higher than the girls’ test scores.

It seems like out-and-out discrimination, except there is an interesting wrinkle: teachers didn’t downgrade boys who had identical test scores to girls if they seemed to share the girls’ positive attitude toward learning. In fact, the opposite seemed to occur: the well-socialized boys received a small grade “bonus” for their good behavior relative to other boys, suggesting that teachers may be overcompensating when they encounter boys whose behavior exceeds expectations. In other words, boys who match girls on both test scores and behavior get better grades than girls do, but boys who don’t are graded more harshly. Which means that the issue of what to do with underperforming boys just got a lot more complicated.

(MORE: Ew, Boys: The Brewing Battle over Same-Sex Education)

We’ve known for a long time that boys, on average, struggle with school more than girls do. Learning disabilities and behavioral problems are more prevalent among boys, and high school and college graduation rates are lower. Boys also receive two-thirds of failing grades and are more likely to find school boring or frustrating.

What’s new is the finding that these gender disparities start so early and appear linked not only to gaps in relatively objective measures like test scores but also to teachers’ assessments of their own students. But since much of the misalignment between test scores and grades (or one might say between reality and perception) is accounted for by differences in social competency, what can we do about it? Some educators have responded by championing single-sex schools and other special supports for struggling boys. The decline of recess and physical education has been harmful to all kids but perhaps more so for rambunctious boys than eager-to-please girls.

Trust me I'm a sociologist

Ironically I reckon because Universities are so oversaturated and their quality so low, more men being pushed out of higher education and into immediately seeking a job puts them ahead of women leaving a Uni with a degree but no experience
Only exception would be the STEM subjects where you have to be qualified via a Uni, where its domd by men on that career path

The Guardian UK 300, the largest ever overview of UK employers and their potential graduate recruits, suggests that while the professional ambitions of male and female graduates are converging, women still appear to have significantly different priorities. "The survey confirms and confounds prejudices simultaneously," says Steve James of TargetJobs, which carried out the research. "Men show a bias towards science and IT-based professions, whereas women are much more into the public sector, which surprised me."
Some 17,000 graduates were asked to name the companies they would most like to work for. Although the big beasts, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte and GlaxoSmithKline, rank high on both wishlists, TeachFirst, the charity that fast-tracks top graduates into the classrooms of underperforming schools, was the second choice of women, whereas it trailed at number 33 for men.
In third place for women was the NHS Graduate Scheme, rated 34th by men. The women questioned also revealed a pronounced social conscience – a fifth of their named employers are charities; good works make up only 5% of male ambitions. The obvious conclusion is that stereotypes are resistant to progress. Despite three years of academic rigour, women are still guided by the nurturing instinct whereas men pursue big bucks.

GMG the bleach for me
I can never understand why making everyone the same has been so high on the list of progressive agendas, like someone switched the definitions of equality with conformity along the line, that everyone must be the same person

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Women who suffer from depression outnumber their male counterparts nearly two to one. They’re twice as likely to have generalized anxiety disorder, a panic disorder, or a specific phobia, too. But scientific research on these conditions and the stress that often exacerbates them has long revolved around men.

Historically, scientists have preferred male-only test animal populations, in part to avoid the complicated hormonal fluctuations and reproductive cycles of female lab animals (and, by association, the human women on the receiving end of medical treatment informed by these tests). Science News reports that, finally, psychologists and neuroscientists are investigating the differences in the way male and female lab-animal brains respond to stress, which could lead to a better understanding of the gender gap in depression and anxiety disorders, and how to treat them.

One study, led by Debra Bangasser of Temple University, found that differing levels of the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone can affect a neuropeptide called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), which controls the nervous system’s reaction to stress. A previous study had established that CRF affects the brains of male and female rodents differently; after a stressful event, females showed more CRF receptors on the surface of their brain cells than males did, which made females more responsive to future inundations of CRF. Some of the stressed-out males’ CRF receptors moved to the inner part of their nerve cells, making them better able to handle future stress.

When Bangasser and her team exposed rats to high doses of CRF, both males and females engaged in “anxiety-related grooming.” The effect was significantly more pronounced in female rats, particularly those with higher levels of estrogen and progesterone. “A heightened stress response may bring an evolutionary advantage,” writes Susan Gaidos. “An enhanced response to stress hormones could help females—most often caregivers for the young—remain alert and ready to take action in a stressful environment.”

Another study found that oxytocin, the much-hyped “hug hormone” that’s been the subject of several recent and ongoing trials for depression treatment, may contribute to more anxiety in female mice than male ones when produced in response to a stressful event. In the study, test mice were housed with an aggressive mouse on and off for three days. Even 10 weeks after their encounters with the aggressive mouse, female mice “froze in fear” when faced with a strange mouse. Male mice recovered after two weeks. After 10 weeks, studies of the mice’s brain tissue revealed both a greater number of oxytocin-producing neurons and heightened oxytocin production in female mice, but not male ones. These results complicate researchers’ understanding of oxytocin, which shows up in higher levels in women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The hormone may be causing stress-induced behavior modifications, not helping to mitigate them, as some suspect.

Behavioural collapse can't happen faster

Some blokes go for some high stress, some high pay, some individualist careers, or some industrious, some low pay, some hard labour and then also some kill someselves in higher numbers because I man I alone I is Island e.t.c.

Yeah, mainiac, you in particular are at your best right after someone whips you into grudgingly agreeing to keep your reader in mind.

That's some Orwellian shit right there

The conscious effort you make really shows!

Fear is the mind killer

It's much better than people who are nice all the time, because one can always sense beneath the surface what you really wanted to post, making the plaintext much more visible.

How is being vaguer clearer, how the someone do you sense someone's intent if they are more obscuring, are we going backwards in time to go forwards in time, how do you make plaintext visible by redacting it?

[mainiac]

Yeah, mainiac, you in particular are at your best right after someone whips you into grudgingly agreeing to keep your reader in mind. The conscious effort you make really shows! It's much better than people who are nice all the time, because one can always sense beneath the surface what you really wanted to post, making the plaintext much more visible.

It's like when you go to a bear baiting the day after he mauled someone.  You have a palpable excitement that normally isn't there.

[RedKing]

LW is like the Dr. Kevorkian of heated threads.

[Loud Whispers]

LW is like the Dr. Kevorkian of heated threads.

You give me too much credit, you guys kill threads and report people with or without me; just look at rip prog thred, 150 posts without LW and it turned into semantic bickering, concern trolling and a hurricane shit-storm. That is the world without LW, the monsterous cushion someone lurking within someonekind's mind. When I arrived like a muffled checki brecki in the distance it was already doomed, shame that because I actually put effort into them posts and they didn't even live long enough to be shatpost on by you someones xD

[RedKing]

I'm not saying you kill threads, I'm saying you come in to threads that are already on life support and put them out of their misery, smothering it in a warm comfortable blanket of ayyy lmao. It's a public service, really.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm not saying you kill threads, I'm saying you come in to threads that are already on life support and put them out of their misery, smothering it in a warm comfortable blanket of ayyy lmao. It's a public service, really.

How absolutely horrifying, what is that, skatamethanasia? Shitpostdeath? I didn't choose this life, I wish LSP were still here to do that for me

[Antioch]

What part of:

Just drop the issue and get back on topic.

Do you not understand.

I am so sick and tired of discussions being derailed for no reason.

I find this topic, and many previous "controversial" ones that have been locked interesting and I refuse to let it get locked because of people bickering over nothing.

If you want to discuss who is ruining what make your own thread for it or discuss it by pm



derailment ends NOW, or I will view anyone who is making further accusatory posts as the sole continuing perpetrator and discuss their conduct with Toady.


You will NOT reply to this post.

[Reelya]

Actually, the sheer difference in the number of women at college compared to men could explain some differences. If it's correct that 2/3 Americans attend college, and it's 60% women there, that is 80% of the female population and 53% of the male population at college in any one college-aged cohort.

Just assuming complete gender-equality of all talents, and a normal distribution of talent within each gender, the "top 50%" of one gender is clearly better, in terms of averages, than the "top 80%" of the other gender. So, comparing the bulk of male college students to female college students might not be as unbiased as we think: you'd expect the smaller cohort to be more selective, and perform better.

Some people make a big deal out of the fact that many degrees done by women aren't very rigorous academically. But when you have 80% of a target population doing degrees, it's physically impossible to have them all doing rocket science. There's just a big bunch of dummies in there to put it bluntly, and a lot of them will have to study easy shit. The equivalent dummies on the male side just aren't going to college in the first place. In other words, women are equally capable as men, but the female college population just represents such a large chunk of the female population that they're hitting rock bottom with ability. How dumb do you think someone at the 20th percentile from the bottom is compared to someone at the 50th percentile?

And then you have the non-college community. Conversely to the college population, that represents the "bottom 50% of men" and the "bottom 20% of women". Now, clearly, the "bottom 20%" of one gender is going to be objectively much more shit than the "bottom 50%" of the other gender, so this could go partways to explaining the deficit between non-college educated men and women's wages. The number of men who don't go to college is 2.5 times as large as the number of women who don't, and includes more people of average ability, who would be doing degrees if they'd been women.

[Antioch]

In general I think the entire field is one where causation is very hard to make up out of correlation.

I wonder what would happen with the results if you were to check them with personality (yes I do think men and women on average have differences in their personalities) to see if men and women with similar personality traits also show an income disparity.

[jaked122]

In general I think the entire field is one where causation is very hard to make up out of correlation.

I wonder what would happen with the results if you were to check them with personality (yes I do think men and women on average have differences in their personalities) to see if men and women with similar personality traits also show an income disparity.

I've been trying to not post anything here(I think), but this is more or less what I believe.


I think that there are causative factors in the selection of certain majors over others that are gender based. I don't think we really understand what those issues are, so trying to treat them is like giving Tylenol to someone with Ebola. It's not going to fix them, it might not even make them feel better, but it sure as hell won't fix it.


If it is because these majors are "dominated"(in a negative way other than being filled proportionally by men), then we need to work with the men to encourage inclusive behavior, if not, then we need to find out what the causes are, and then determine if fixing them is worth it. What in our society causes gender roles, and what else is built on top of them? If we remove the gender roles, we must take care to fix the institutions (here I mean behaviors, social trends, etc) that have some functionality that is based upon the gender roles, otherwise our society might degrade somewhat.


That's not to say that we should not try to make a society which is gender-blind, but that we must take care in dismantling the things that are gender based so that we don't end up with unforeseen consequences.


Not that it may be such that a course of action with limited repercussions exists, but we should try and find it. Strive for it.


So what causes are there for there being less women proportionally going into tech fields? I am able to inform you that there are not equal admissions in Computer Science, which is a bit odd, but I've heard from friends majoring in math that their major has even fewer women? What is it about these fields that makes these fields less attractive to women?


Or is the attractiveness of the field not even the issue?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is that enough equivocation to not offend anyone?

[Gatleos]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is that enough equivocation to not offend anyone?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Depends on if you're equivocating about the last part or not.

Reminds me of my anatomy professor saying to the class, "There will be naked people in this class, if you can't handle that, may I suggest a major like math? You won't be seeing too many naked people there."

Don't think I didn't see that secondary joke buried in there, professor.

But yeah, I agree that causation is both the most important bit of information here, and the hardest to conclusively prove. It might be difficult to tell if any progress is being made at all. What if our society reaches a point in the future where the education system and job market are completely gender-blind? Would anybody be able to tell? What if a field like computer science ends up leveling out at a 70/30 ratio between men and women, and this actually represents the average interests of men and women? That situation might be indistinguishable from one where the 70/30 ratio is due to some kind of discrimination.

[Loud Whispers]

Actually, the sheer difference in the number of women at college compared to men could explain some differences. If it's correct that 2/3 Americans attend college, and it's 60% women there, that is 80% of the female population and 53% of the male population at college in any one college-aged cohort.

Just assuming complete gender-equality of all talents, and a normal distribution of talent within each gender, the "top 50%" of one gender is clearly better, in terms of averages, than the "top 80%" of the other gender. So, comparing the bulk of male college students to female college students might not be as unbiased as we think: you'd expect the smaller cohort to be more selective, and perform better.

Some people make a big deal out of the fact that many degrees done by women aren't very rigorous academically. But when you have 80% of a target population doing degrees, it's physically impossible to have them all doing rocket science. There's just a big bunch of dummies in there to put it bluntly, and a lot of them will have to study easy shit. The equivalent dummies on the male side just aren't going to college in the first place. In other words, women are equally capable as men, but the female college population just represents such a large chunk of the female population that they're hitting rock bottom with ability. How dumb do you think someone at the 20th percentile from the bottom is compared to someone at the 50th percentile?

Gonna borrow the wigglary and say some as capable as some, we wouldn't characterize all men as capable as all men
And looking at variability, there's more variability in men than women, less average men and more on the low or high end. The articles I linked earlier brought this up, where in Malaysia or Britain there's more men in prison, more men in high stations, more men taking employable degrees, more men dropping out e.t.c.

And then you have the non-college community. Conversely to the college population, that represents the "bottom 50% of men" and the "bottom 20% of women". Now, clearly, the "bottom 20%" of one gender is going to be objectively much more shit than the "bottom 50%" of the other gender, so this could go partways to explaining the deficit between non-college educated men and women's wages. The number of men who don't go to college is 2.5 times as large as the number of women who don't, and includes more people of average ability, who would be doing degrees if they'd been women.

Point I'm making with all these talks of wages and shit is that if you don't go for some career path that requires your degree (STEM and a few others, like those damn agronomists) you'd have been better off joining your career at a young age and getting experience in it
I should add as well not all STEM subjects are equal, I found out early in my life if I wanted to do Biology and make a living doing it I'd have better chances doing anything but Biology and hiring impoverished Biology grads to do it for me
Even in humanities there's a hierarchy, you know like how they say if you want to do Journalism don't take a Journalism degree, take English, or if you want to take sociology, don't
What can I do with my degree?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

    Advice worker
    Community development worker
    Further education lecturer
    International aid/development worker
    Social researcher
    Social worker
    Youth worker
    Charity fundraiser
    Housing manager/officer
    Human resources officer
    Probation officer
    Public relations officer

Some of these require no higher education qualifications and just require talent and perseverance (the latter being far more crucial - the talented and lazy are smashed by the untalented and diligent), and some of them can go far (dear gods if you managed to rise up in one of the big charities you make scandalous amounts of money) but most of them are £20k band and may hover to around £34k band, enough to live by and raise maybe two kids, send one off to a good school, but your bank's always going to be hard pressed and you'll have to look for jobs elsewhere eventually or else settle for the same wage versus inflation

The result you'd end up with is more men dropping out of higher education to immediately pursue a trades job, some job like brokerage, or the armed forces, where long term practice and early adoption is a definite prerequisite to rising in the ranks, or more pursuing shit like STEM, where if they're not siphoned off by med people, have wide employment prospects with high salaries and in some cases, also high advancement

Really I don't like including med and nursing because they're odd ones, they never get paid enough for their work considering their line of work literally consumes your life, at least in the UK. 2 years a level, 5 years med school, 2 years foundation, 8 years to a consultant and 20 years a consultant to reach the highest pay grade of £100k annual, if you're that hard working and intelligent and you're doing it for the money you could've done anything else. Also our nurses vary on pay, I know a nurse who prides herself on earning more than her doctor peers because she also became a manager for clinical trials, but for the most part the majority plateau on around £34-50k, so earn more than junior doctors but unless they've spent a long career (especially after cuts) only the top brass will make it to the £100k mark, compare this to say going to work for some north sea gas firm diving in their rigs; you might die, become infertile or develop some other health condition and so on but you can earn £300k a year right off the bat, or joining the armed services from the start and having accommodation/food/healthcare sorted whilst you learn skills that make you employable when you leave (also high paid ones factoring in as well reduced expenses, though again you might die). I suppose less extreme and less risky are engineering degrees, economic degrees and so on where the risk of dying is pretty much tied to how much you eat, as you'll stand a good chance of leaving with a £23k-£50k job with lots of chances of future advancement (where on the high end the money is ridiculous)

Heck, just look at autism. Autism is linked with fantastic skill in fields of science, engineering, music, drawing and painting, albeit at the cost of poor communication skills which fucks you out of managing and business pretty quick. And there's a gender difference in autism ranging from 2:1 to 16:1 against men. They also bring up that girls may be more severely impaired by autism when they have it, but that just might be a result of under-diagnosis so no conclusion there.

Francesca Happé of King's College, London, is one of them. As she observes, obsessional interests and repetitive behaviours would allow someone to practice, albeit inadvertently, whichever skill they were obsessed by. Malcolm Gladwell, in a book called “Outliers” which collated research done on outstanding people, suggested that anyone could become an expert in anything by practising for 10,000 hours. It would not be hard for an autistic individual to clock up that level of practice for the sort of skills, such as mathematical puzzles, that many neurotypicals would rapidly give up on.

Attention to detail, practice makes perfect e.t.c.

And the most obvious, bleedingly obvious thing is hormones, influencing people's behaviours in ways that would influence their future life choices in response to the environment. Experiments where they give women testosterone and see what happens are hilarious and educational and more should be done.

But yeah, I agree that causation is both the most important bit of information here, and the hardest to conclusively prove. It might be difficult to tell if any progress is being made at all. What if our society reaches a point in the future where the education system and job market are completely gender-blind? Would anybody be able to tell? What if a field like computer science ends up leveling out at a 70/30 ratio between men and women, and this actually represents the average interests of men and women? That situation might be indistinguishable from one where the 70/30 ratio is due to some kind of discrimination.

SWEDES

[jaked122]

--snip-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Depends on if you're equivocating about the last part or not.

Reminds me of my anatomy professor saying to the class, "There will be naked people in this class, if you can't handle that, may I suggest a major like math? You won't be seeing too many naked people there."

Don't think I didn't see that secondary joke buried in there, professor.

But yeah, I agree that causation is both the most important bit of information here, and the hardest to conclusively prove. It might be difficult to tell if any progress is being made at all. What if our society reaches a point in the future where the education system and job market are completely gender-blind? Would anybody be able to tell? What if a field like computer science ends up leveling out at a 70/30 ratio between men and women, and this actually represents the average interests of men and women? That situation might be indistinguishable from one where the 70/30 ratio is due to some kind of discrimination.

Precisely, if we forced a certain percentage of women into these majors to "even them out", what would that result in? A horrible mix of frustration at the system that placed them there, maybe a few of them would find they preferred it, but would that justify forcing them?

Ultimately quotas do the same in reverse. That's what I think. If I owned a business and I had not seen any women qualified applying, I would be frustrated at these measures, but if I had the applications of women who are as qualified as the next best man, or better qualified if you prefer, then it would not affect me as a business owner.

I think I may have gone a bit off track, but what I mean to say is that causation is the most important point here. If there are differences between the psychologies of men and women and these differences affect which major they choose or which field they enter, it is in conflict with their very natures to force them where they do not wish to go. Natures are often reinforced by environment, but they are rarely changed by them.

This graphic is about phenotypic plasticity, but if you generalize phenotype to psychology, the we must quantify certain psychological aspects as plastic to various degrees or nonplastic. This may vary by individual, I don't know, but I think it might be applicable here.

Spoiler: phenotype (click to show/hide)

Everyone varies, where do they vary though? Which pieces of their psychology are set in stone, and which change as the wind?

If I'm a bit indelicate in this part, I'm a bit inebriated, so please don't take this as a flaming attack on your beliefs, should they be applicable here.