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[Jackrabbit]

So is there a reason Alpha students will have supreme difficulty entering the workforce or is Alpha an insult now?

[Siquo]

Thank you for sparing me from humiliating myself by ranting about alpha and beta males and how these stereotypes don't belong in the academic world!

Yeah, sorry. Still, you'd be surprised on alpha-male dominant behaviour in the academic world (even though it should have no place)...

So is there a reason Alpha students will have supreme difficulty entering the workforce or is Alpha an insult now?

Supreme difficulty? No, not really. You've got a piece of paper, that matters more than what it actually says on the paper. Thinking that your education actually trains you for the job is a misunderstanding amongst high-school people (and still a few managers, alas). (Before you bring up medicine as a counter example, remember that that study includes a shitload of on-the-job training)

[Jackrabbit]

I was joking about how literature majors don't do too well in the workforce, but I think I phrased it too badly for it to be a good joke.

[Kay12]

Thank you for sparing me from humiliating myself by ranting about alpha and beta males and how these stereotypes don't belong in the academic world!

Yeah, sorry. Still, you'd be surprised on alpha-male dominant behaviour in the academic world (even though it should have no place)...

No problem

Your Alpha and Beta pretty much matches the (usually) jocular "feud" between "humanist hippies" (Alpha and some Gammas) and "real scientists" (Beta).

[olemars]

@olemars: Well susan pinker discusses all of that in the books she's written, what you wrote fits with her "biological" views as well as it does with societal pressure ideas. The interview I linked before has her discussing some of the stuff from the book.

Of course girls would be more likely to select a course with "environment" in it, or biophysics. It's the girls who decide what course to take, nobody else, and they tend to think more holistically than the males, and take more interest in living things.

Girls are far more cautious too, whereas boys are more risk taking. This explains the "self-doubt" you're talking about. Boys can be confident to the point of being insanely over-confident.

Susan Pinker discusses the concept of "vanilla gender assumption" where the male average is taken as the norm, and the females are expected to match that norm. Perhaps it's the females who are the norm and male over-confidence which is the exception? After all males are about 9 times more likely to kill themselves in an accident than females.

Clarification: I'm not among those who think there should be a 50/50 gender split across the board. These were just some observations I made when I was a student. There were other things too. I was a teaching assistant for first-year students for a while, and many of the girls had some mental blocks to overcome, particularly involving computer tools. They would freak out over assignments in Matlab or Labview, but after helping them get started they would go "...oh, it's that easy? This is actually kind of fun!". They were still afraid of being perceived as geeks though.

Interesting to note that chemistry is a pretty popular choice among girls, and there isn't anything particularly feminine about materials technology or process technology, which is what they all ended up specializing in.

[Siquo]

Math used to get most girls here, and electro the least.

I'm just surprised noone jumped on the "girls are susceptible to pretty names instead of taking things at their value"-statement. I've been pumping myself to defend that one and nobody attacks me on it? I am disappoint. 

[Kay12]

I'm just surprised noone jumped on the "girls are susceptible to pretty names instead of taking things at their value"-statement. I've been pumping myself to defend that one and nobody attacks me on it? I am disappoint. 

I'm actually going to generalize that a bit - most people are suspectible to pretty names instead of taking things at their value to some degree. Whether this varies by gender, I don't know - and if it does, I also have no idea whether the variation is caused by biology or culture.

[Miggy]

Interesting to note that chemistry is a pretty popular choice among girls, and there isn't anything particularly feminine about materials technology or process technology, which is what they all ended up specializing in.

I'll agree to this. Where I'm at, it pretty much goes, ranking from very girly to not girly: Biology - Molecular biology (biochemistry) - chemistry - Mathematics/economics - physics.

IT and Geology are in there somewhere, but not sure exactly where.

Our chemistry team started out with a perfect 50/50 split. Although it's primarily boys who have dropped out, so now it's 1/3 boys, 2/3 girls.

[Kay12]

IT and Geology are in there somewhere, but not sure exactly where.

IT, at least, is not very girly as of now. I guess it's because interest in computers grows through gaming and recreational use, and most games are marketed towards a male audience. Some games are fairly unisex though - the Sims series seems to appeal to men and women fairly equally. Still funny, because the Sims is basically a virtual dollhouse, and dolls are traditionally considered girly. Maybe the fact that it's a computer game balances it out somehow...

On the other hand, while techno-savvy nerd girls may be rare, the average specimen knows her stuff - just like a male nerd would, so I don't think women are inherently worse at computers than men (especially since I know men who are totally, utterly, positively clueless with their machines). Perhaps all the IT industry needs to start attracting more women is a strong heroine to lead the way...

[Siquo]

At physics-engineering we had 80 men to 6 women. And that was not even the worst ratio, electro had some years with only 1 or 2 women on 60-70 students.

I'm actually going to generalize that a bit - most people are suspectible to pretty names instead of taking things at their value to some degree. Whether this varies by gender, I don't know - and if it does, I also have no idea whether the variation is caused by biology or culture.

True, dat I claimed that there is a certain type of person that is archetypical male that is less impressed by names or context. For instance, I dare to claim that the phrase "Doesn't matter how you call it, it still smells like shit" is more associated with a male speaker than a female speaker (try to envision both).

Which, skipping a few steps, brings us to bases of prejudices: Some prejudices are clearly based on nothing but superstition, rumour and falsehood, but there's others that have their bases in actual differences. Ascribing those differences to cultural reasons, as Virex wants to do, is false and harmful to the good cause. Women just don't like engineering as much as men do, on average. Regardless of upbringing or culture. They're just less object-oriented, and more people oriented (on average). This doesn't mean anything, except that you shouldn't be surprised that less of them express an interest in those topics.

And there's more stuff but Reelyanoob already covered most of that. The following comic is not just about looks, it goes for intellectual prowess as well. Men are just more likely to overestimate themselves, and women to underestimate themselves (on average).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Reelyanoob]

Math used to get most girls here, and electro the least.

I'm just surprised noone jumped on the "girls are susceptible to pretty names instead of taking things at their value"-statement. I've been pumping myself to defend that one and nobody attacks me on it? I am disappoint. 

It's nothing to do with the name being "pretty" at all, that has nothing to do with it. It's that "Energy and the environment" implies a relation to the real world. Usually these studies (of gender-variable choices) have found that females are more likely to talk about wanting to do things which are "meaningful", "making a difference" whereas males tend to be more interested in abstract ideas. Holistic vs Abstract. So it's no surprise that putting the name into a real-world context is more appealing to females.

Presumably, the females initially consider that course because the name implies you can make a difference for the actual environment, not because they think the word "environment" is pretty. It's a form of advertising after all.

"fluffy bunny energy physics" would not appeal to women even though this title is even "prettier", because it just sounds pointless.

[kaijyuu]

Ascribing those differences to cultural reasons, as Virex wants to do, is false and harmful to the good cause. Women just don't like engineering as much as men do, on average. Regardless of upbringing or culture.

You'll have a damn hard time proving this, as no one grows up without cultural influence.


Personally I'm VERY adamant in the opinion that the differences between men and women, psychologically, are vastly overblown. Girls like dolls and boys like toy trucks as children not because of any biological difference, but because that's what they see other children playing with. Extend that to things like hobbies or career choices later in life.

[Virex]

Weird, I'm studying chemical engineering and we've got less then 10% women here, which is still better then our IT department because apparently the year I started they didn't get any freshwomen.

Which teacher publically labelled 12 year old female students "real bitches"? I find that unbelievable for a start.

Also, this may be the same group who holds seminars and claim that DNA does not exist? (According to Richard Dawkins)

I linked this interview before and don't really like the title (it was probably attention grabbing) but it discusses some of the research. For a start boys are more disruptive in class and have to be told "shut up" more by teachers. This is part of the research saying boys get more attention from teachers. I'm sure you people can relate to what I mean.

http://www.menweb.org/paglsomm.htm

Hmm, you know, this is one of the few times I'm happy to be proven wrong (assuming of course what they're saying is right, because as "dissidents" they have all the reasons to defame the feminist movement. They got nothing to lose and publicity to gain after all)

[Siquo]

I'm sure it would appeal to them more. I'll put it to the test tonight, with a male and a female, both not into electronics (if they even know what it is), which one they'd choose.

With "prettier" I mostly mean "looks nicer but still covers the subject", not "nonsense". It's about being gullible, not stupid

Girls like dolls and boys like toy trucks as children not because of any biological difference, but because that's what they see other children playing with.

You don't have kids. Pertinently untrue.

[kaijyuu]

Girls like dolls and boys like toy trucks as children not because of any biological difference, but because that's what they see other children playing with.

You don't have kids. Pertinently untrue.

You're right I don't have kids. Now stop trying to discredit me and instead attack my assertion.


I'm also calling bullshit on that previous comic. Self esteem issues are the last thing that are split by gender (though I'll concede they tend to deal with it in different ways; men don't deal with their self esteem in front of a mirror as often).