melJan 18, 2023
Sheril Kirshenbaum

“If current trends continue, women & men will be equally represented in the field of biology in 2069. In physics, math & engineering, women should not expect to reach parity for more than a century.“

“The data show that women are systematically denied the chief currencies of scientific credit: publications & citations.”

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674919297&fbclid=IwAR1n_I15VP9IWil1uOoFjUwcxvrm_k9tKfxaAQExVUeaL7kYVGsB4b1zC9w&mibextid=Zxz2cZ #women #science #books

Equity for Women in Science — Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Vincent Larivière

Equity for Women in Science is the first large-scale empirical study of the global gender gap in science. Analyzing millions of scientific papers, the authors show that women are undervalued for their labor in science as measured through publications and citations. The data also reveal how the scientific community can promote equity.

Jan 17, 2023 at 12:21amMetatext
Show threadSheril KirshenbaumJan 17, 2023

To be clear, it’s not about getting women & girls excited about science. We are! It’s about keeping us there.

Scientific institutions weren’t built by women or for us. Cultural norms & social mores often discourage us from staying. Retention numbers from earning a PhD to becoming a full professor are nearly identical now to when I was early career in the 2000s. /2

Show threadbignoseJan 17, 2023

@Sheril

Institutions that loudly claim (mostly to reassure themselves) "But we don't discriminate, *anyone* can apply to join! We just don't get many applicants except privileged white people."

need to explain: Maybe so. Given that, then, why is your institution (unlike so many others) still top-heavy with old white dudes from wealthy backgrounds? What are you doing, or not doing, that perpetuates that?

Show threadDave SampsonJan 17, 2023

@Sheril curious to hear more of what #CitizenScience groups and #HobbyScience clubs like #AmateurRadio can do to attract and retain #WomenInScienceEngineering #WISE

I studied #OutdoorRecreation and #Geography, I am employed in #InformationTechnology. I also joined #AmateurRadio late in life.

My lesson learned is that vocation might contrast or compliment avocation.

I also acknowledge my bias and privilege as a white middle class middle aged male in Canada

How can I help?

Show threadNina WilsonJan 17, 2023
@Samperd @Sheril The main problem is how women are treated in the companies, so hobby type groups don't help.
Women often have to fight to get on professional training courses than their male colleagues are given. Their ideas are often dismissed (I've routed solution through male colleagues just to get them done.) They are refused internal promotions, the post will get advertised when they're on holiday or requirements worded so they just miss them.
Show threadDave SampsonJan 17, 2023

@NinaWilson @Sheril when you mention that hobby groups don't help, what do you mean? Sometimes tone is hard to pick up like sarcasm.

Are they actually making things worse? Maybe they don't have a role to play. Or maybe they COULD help but have not stepped forward.

Since some technical hobbies are filled with a majority of males and they could exhibit simmilar characteristics of coworkers or employers, I wonder if there are opportunities to experiment in this space.

Show threadNina WilsonJan 17, 2023
@Samperd @Sheril Sorry, no, didn't mean they are harmful, just that it isn't getting females interested that is the problem, it is getting men to accept them on an equal basis.
That said, they could provide some help by allowing females to network more if they can be non-sexist. If they have the same toxic attitudes as the work-place, the last thing a woman wants to do is have the same battles in her spare time.
Show threadDave SampsonJan 17, 2023

@NinaWilson @Sheril thanks for the clarification Nina, appreciated.

Valid points too.

Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 17, 2023

@Sheril

For a long time, IT turned a blind eye to sexual harassment.

Male programmers were more likely to laugh if they observed this behavior. HR policies favored perpetrators not targets.

Many IT organizations entrenched the "30% female employment wage discount" in their compensation policy and have resisted all efforts at pay equity.

Show threadCarolyn JollyJan 17, 2023
@Sheril heard that, in general, girls are doing better in math and science in school than boys. Some think that is a problem for boys, while ignoring the belated advances of girls. Who would think girls getting ahead is a bad thing?
Show threadAppagal CrochetJan 18, 2023
@Sheril I just picked up a book by Dr. Becky Smethurst History of Black Holes. WOW! Sadly many women scientists have had their hard work and discoveries robbed from them including recognition by Nobel.
Show threadNicole RustJan 17, 2023
@Sheril
Sigh. We can fix this.
Show threadLew RileyJan 17, 2023
@Sheril One hopeful observation. I've been involved in several national TT searches (physics department) over the past 20 years, and I have seen a massive improvement in the gender balance in applicant pools. IMO, that's a leading indicator. And it looked like a rapid shift, not a gradual increase.
Show threadNina WilsonJan 17, 2023
@lewriley @Sheril When I was engineering I went to huge numbers of interviews where it was clear I was on the shortlist just to make the figures look good. Questions on how will you cope with men swearing, there's heavy stuff to lift your know etc. Nothing asking me about my skills, knowledge or experience.
Once in a job, I had to fight for training courses all the men were sent on and had promotional opportunities advertised whilst I was on holiday.
Applicant numbers won't help.
Show threadLew RileyJan 17, 2023
@NinaWilson @Sheril Absolutely. If organizations don't actually do the work to make women and other minoritized groups feel a sense of belonging, improving supply might get a few people in the door, who will likely leave.
Show threadNina WilsonJan 17, 2023
@lewriley @Sheril Also note that if you have an engineering degree and try to get work in other sectors it can be very difficult as recruiters don't understand why you've left. They think you only want the job as a stop gap and will move back to engineering once an opportunity comes along. Or you don't want the job but are applying do you're not excluded from welfare benefits.
I'm currently unemployed, have been for some time and am finding very difficult to get anything.
Show threadPJT NorthJan 17, 2023
@Sheril That is so broken….
Show threadBarry GoldmanJan 17, 2023
@Sheril 2069! on the other hand... how many years were universities functioning? how many hundreds? and when did they START enrolling women, i presume you are talking at professor level? maybe it's actually remarkable progress! humans change VERY SLOOOOOOWLY.
Show threadNina WilsonJan 17, 2023
@barrygoldman1 @Sheril Most universities were admitting women by the 1920s, even on science courses. But women were often pushed out by refusals to let them progress up the ladder. Do you think it takes generations for women to progress, like we pass on the knowledge somehow?
Show threadBarry GoldmanJan 18, 2023
@NinaWilson @Sheril a few generations? pshawww, nothing! i'm watching H. sapiens hardly budge for 6000 years on most fronts, a few generations is like lightning!
Show threadDavid MartinezJan 17, 2023
@Sheril 2069. Nice.
Show threadCharJan 17, 2023
@Sheril one of the reasons I always push the publisher to use my initials and not my name. Some journals are now cruelly demanding full first names and I view that as misogynistic
Show threadSheril KirshenbaumJan 17, 2023
@carowe I have multiple friends who intentionally chose male sounding names for their daughters.
Show threadTokimali TsunayasinisaJan 17, 2023
@Sheril If current trend continues, men and women will be dead by 2069. 🗿
Show threadAlex JacksonJan 17, 2023
@Sheril Chemistry is there now, right? Wonder why that is.
Show threadMonty StoryJan 17, 2023
@Sheril It won't matter by then surely. Some of the boys will be girls.
Show threadBookfairiecymruJan 17, 2023
@Sheril
Show threadMir MahfuzJan 17, 2023
@Sheril
Show threadMikeJan 17, 2023
@Sheril I’m all for equal opportunity. But the idea that every profession should be 50% male and 50% female ignores the simple fact that women and men are biologically different.
Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Jan 18, 2023
@MWilson @Sheril So the history of programming tells us that women are biologically better at thankless tasks?
Show threadRubenJan 18, 2023
@MWilson @Sheril That comment is irrelevant #simplefact

By your argument perhaps we could justify only brown eyed people can do maths and blue eyes people do physics. It's a biological difference right?

What about amputees maybe they can do biology better than French people?

Do I sound stupid yet? You do.
Show threadMikeJan 18, 2023
@trregeagle @Sheril If you can’t see the fact men are more naturally drawn to certain fields, while women are more naturally drawn to others, then you really have no business calling anyone stupid.
Should 50% of nurses be men? Or, is it only a “problem” when women are below 50%?
Show threadRubenJan 19, 2023
@MWilson @Sheril Nup, you're wrong
Show threadMikeJan 19, 2023
@Sheril @trregeagle Didn’t answer my nursing question. I wonder why…
Show threadRubenJan 19, 2023
@Sheril I hear you @MWilson but I obviously disagree. Why do you argue with strangers on the internet?
Show threadMikeJan 20, 2023
@trregeagle Someone has to tell online strangers when they’re wrong!
Show threadMatthew DavidsonJan 19, 2023
@MWilson @trregeagle @Sheril When I was at school, nearly 100% of boys were "naturally drawn" (by the penis, presumably) to elective subjects like woodwork, metalwork, and electronics, while nearly 100% of girls were similarly irresistibly led by their nether regions to study home economics (a euphemism for cooking and cleaning).

I detested woodwork, metalwork, and electronics, partly because they are unbelievably dull subjects, but also because they are an invitation to bullies to bludgeon, cut, burn, or glue parts of one's anatomy whenever the teacher isn't looking. I fancy a lot of girls were likewise less than thrilled with all the cooking and cleaning. Still, all this was perfectly "natural" if you define "nature" as "the status quo".

Now I'm no naturalist, but I gather that this once perfectly natural absolute gender divide between subjects of study no longer holds. For that matter, I know for a fact that fewer than 100% of the boys in my cohort at school remain boys.

The "nature" upon which you depend on for your "simple facts" appears alarmingly malleable. In fact, it seems like the harder you look, the less of it there is to see. Maybe it isn't there at all.

In the absence of any reason that would account for gender disparity within a profession beyond "Well, duh! Girls like girl stuff and boys like boy stuff. Everybody knows that!", I'm sorry to say that it just looks like institutionalised discrimination.
Show threadMikeJan 19, 2023

@Sheril @trregeagle @mjd You’re exaggerating my point. Quite a bit.

There are professions which will naturally draw more men than women, and some will attract more women than men. Who cares?

My problem is when people look at a field with less than 50% women and determine it’s a problem that needs to be fixed. The fact no one does this when men are less than 50% says this isn’t about ending discrimination.

Show threadRubenJan 19, 2023
@MWilson @mjd @Sheril No exaggeration, your response just highlights your points. The gender disparity is only part of the problem. The alignment with wage and conditions disparity is something you are failing to address.

Do you think if the majority of #nurses were men they would be striking for better conditions and pay now?
Show threadMikeJan 20, 2023
@trregeagle In case you haven’t noticed, many male-dominated professions are also underpaid. We’re living in the second Gilded Age.
Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Jan 20, 2023
@MWilson @mjd @trregeagle @Sheril It is simply incorrect that "nobody" considers the lack of men in e.g. nursing and primary school education a problem.

But one reason people look at the lack of women as a problem is that they want women to have equal access to status and compensation.

Professions dominated by men usually has higher status and higher compensation. Giving men the "chance" to lower status and compensation is a harder thing to argue for.
Show threadMikeJan 21, 2023
@trregeagle @mjd @clacke @Sheril My sister is a nurse, makes ~100k/year. Many men earn less than that!
My wife was an accountant and made much more than my sister does. 88% of workers in that field are women.
63% of veterinarians are women.
Never heard of an effort to get more men into any of those highly paid fields.
And the push to get women in college didn’t stop when they passed men:
https://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=72
Fast Facts: Degrees conferred by race/ethnicity and sex (72)

The NCES Fast Facts Tool provides quick answers to many education questions (National Center for Education Statistics). Get answers on Early Childhood Education, Elementary and Secondary Education and Higher Education here.

Show threadRubenJan 21, 2023
@MWilson @clacke @mjd @Sheril If men retrained as #nurses they could earn the same as your sister, probably more. After all there is tons of evidence that male nurses get promoted more quickly than their female counterparts.

Just because lots of women are nurses doesn't mean men have been excluded. It is more likely men (like yourself?) hold patriarchal beliefs that nursing is a woman's job and don't apply.

Question what you have been taught by the men in your life and reconsider your choices. I did and now I am a nurse.

#nurse #Patriarchy
Show threadMikeJan 23, 2023

@trregeagle You’re making some false assumptions.
I never said (and don’t believe) that nursing is a woman’s job. I simply said more women than men are drawn to the profession.

I think it’s a mistake to look at every male-dominated profession as a problem that needs to be fixed. IMO, the best approach is to remove barriers/stigma and let the chips fall where they may.

If the end result is 80% of surgeons are women and 80% of engineers are men, who cares?

Show threadRubenJan 24, 2023
@MWilson Jolly good. I am so glad we sorted that out.
Show threadRubenJan 19, 2023
@mjd @MWilson @Sheril www.gocomics.com/tomthedancing… #nature
Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for January 19, 2023 | GoComics.com

GoComics
Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Jan 20, 2023
@MWilson Maybe you missed mastodon.social/@Sheril/109701… and the many many accounts by other women and men over the years saying the same thing.

@trregeagle @Sheril
♲ mastodon.social/@Sheril/109701…