The supposed underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and math is a myth, at least if you’re looking at the most recently available Department of Education figures.
Economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan-Flint crunched the numbers and found that women actually earned a majority of bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields that were not engineering or computer science – “biology, mathematics, and physical sciences (e.g., chemistry, physics, etc.)”
They are an even bigger majority if you include “health professions” as a STEM field with all other traditional STEM fields represented, including engineering and computer science.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Are Women "Underrepresented" In STEM Degrees?
It depends on whether you look at overall numbers or in specific fields:
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3 comments:
In Scandinavia, women have become less likely to choose STEM careers as gender equality has increased. Now, of course not all women are weaker at STEM fields than in the humanities - I have an engineer sister who far outshines most men in the field. But, for the most part, women are better than men in the humanities and vice versa. It is the truth. And, personally, I see nothing wrong with that. We need both types of people. It used to be that male dominated fields and traits were considered “better”, now female dominated fields and traits are considered better. Why can’t we just agree that men and women are of equal value, yet different?
Because that would take away some people's club with which to clobber the rest of us.
The smarter a women in STEM subjects, the smarter she is in all subjects, unlike men who specialize. Therefore, women are more likely to look at subjects she is best at, which is not necessarily STEM subjects.
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