We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.
The undergrad boys in STEM I swear have never met a woman aside from their mothers. No, please don’t follow me home. Please don’t buy me food because I was next to you in line. Please don’t follow me into a store so you can buy me anything I’m purchasing. You are not invited into my conversation because you think I’m pretty, even if you just want to interrupt to tell me I’m pretty and you want to take me on a date. You are not allowed to hug me and hold me as long as you want just because you want to and it feels good for you, I didn’t want a hug and I didn’t know you. It isn’t cute for you to take things from me and play keep away because you are stronger and taller, it makes you a bully.
Teachers: please don’t ignore me when I try and participate or ask a question. I’ve gotten Cs with no explanation, no marks aside from the grade itself. When I check other’s work, theirs is written up with mistakes and they have a higher grade. Honestly that was just one teacher in an undergrad, the rest were pretty awesome, or at least not sexist.
My CS classes were 90% male, and every professor was male, too. They all genuinely enjoyed my participation, and it was the only environment where I wasn’t objectified or disrespected. Same with my coworkers (again 90% male) when I went into the FAANG workforce; the men were happy to see women excel in a previously male-only field.
The general public was a different story until recently. Women were thrilled, a disturbing number of men refused to listen to me.
It probably depends on the university. There are definitely dregs of “incel” culture that get in but they can’t socialize and are usually left alone. In the workforce, interviews stop them from getting much further then that.
They probably haven’t. My experience was a lot of these guys were on the spectrum and the only social understanding of women they have is media. I would say the sexism is very malicious from the faculty, but from fellow students a lot of them this is the first time they’ve been allowed away from their helicopter parents and to begin learning social skills, sadly at your detriment.
Fortunately the ones who seemed socially awkward were the ones who did understand no. The majority who gave me scares were likely on the spectrum but none went too far. The ones who went too far and never respected no were definitely not on the spectrum, they were self centered and didn’t pay attention to others.
There are plenty of men who act like boys because they have seen grace for their actions their whole lives. The result is that they cannot learn from their actions because they never learned how. They cannot understand when others don’t let them do whatever they want, and they don’t recognize consequences for their actions because they never had any. This may describe some on the spectrum but it has nothing to do with autism.
I swear have never met a woman aside from their mothers
Are they less likely to behave this way after meeting you or is this sentence the essence of how you would react to their behavior?
(I haven’t done any of the things mentioned and they are inappropriate, but in retrospective think that maybe I should have, since being too polite and shy at the same time is apparently even less attractive, and reduces experience in communication, which is the only way one can learn to communicate.)
Just like there are lots of jerks and incels, there are lots of really nice shy guys that would make the world a better place by opening up a little more. Being brave at making contact is totally acceptable, and probably good for you, if you do it in a respectful manner. Actual nice guys should drown out the jerks that are self proclaimed nice guys by treating women, men and themselves with respect.
Should, yes. They don’t always. And there are still far more than enough guys (and people) who do nothing when they see women (or others) treated very poorly but men/boys. I sort of understand college and high school, everyone is exploring and unsure what’s ok, and observers may be entirely unsure what to do.
It’s pretty common for a bunch of people to see something bad happen and everyone think someone should do something without realizing they are someone who could do something.
The bystander effect is really common. I remember when I got first aid training, they told us that in an emergency, you have to tell a specific person to do something rather than ask “someone call an ambulance”.
I think bystander effect should be regularly discussed in schools so people will be aware of it. Getting people to automatically respond and do something and offer help is a pretty important step to making our society safer and healthier.
So you first said they try to do/offer to do something like walk you home, buy you something, etc. and you said you don’t want that. Now here you say you want them to do something, in particular when they see something bad happening (i think you meant when they see girl treated poorly by a boy/man). That seems kind of confusing.
If someone wants to try making friends, it’s reasonable for them to try and start a conversation. If the person they are pursuing isn’t interested, LEAVE THEM ALONE. CONSENT IS IMPORTANT.
If I’m screaming for help, if I’m being attacked, if I cannot defend myself, even if you see someone not respecting someone else’s consent, help the person who’s consent is not being respected. CONSENT IS IMPORTANT.
Hope this helps.
In real life what “respectful manner” is becomes a matter of whether another person (and their friends) likes you or not. Sometimes retroactive.
I don’t like this attribution of some kind of affinity to justice to “people” or “men” or “women” or whatever. “People” are a rather cruel and fallacious substance most of the time.
Also jerks and incels may be that not entirely through their own fault. There may be wrong upbringing, or some trauma, which others consciously or unconsciously trigger, or whatever else, humans are complex and putting labels in such a way is disgusting.
Incel is an abbreviation of involuntary celibate. It is 100 % a self proclaimed title from the word “involuntary”. I am merely categorizing those that label themselves as such to be often having a distorted view on sex and women. None of this was a philosophical debate on the existence of evil and my point was clearly defined: Timid, kind people should be a little bolder. Everyone should be mindful of other people’s boundaries.
Incel is an abbreviation of involuntary celibate. It is 100 % a self proclaimed title
Only when it’s used to refer to yourself, and when you use it to refer to others, it’s not self-proclaimed.
I am merely categorizing those that label themselves as such to be often having a distorted view on sex and women.
Ah, so you mean literal members of that subculture. When you say “incels and jerks” it may really seem like it was used in a wider meaning. OK, I have no more questions on incels.
Timid, kind people should be a little bolder. Everyone should be mindful of other people’s boundaries.
And my point was that boundaries are never that clearly defined. Socialized people work with them on instinct, others can’t do that.
In general we usually don’t see what we consider a given, and so our advice to people lacking it is useless.
If you are wondering what’s the emotional reason of me participating in this thread (despite everything, I’ve not been an incel literally, and everyone has been a jerk), it’s the contempt for unhappy people. That it was expressed for only some of them and not all doesn’t change the essence.
Socialized people work with them on instinct, others can’t do that.
This is a valid point. Some on the autism spectrum, for example, have difficulties due to lack of this instinct.
And my point was that boundaries are never that clearly defined.
This is also true, but not so much a problem. Everyone is bound to overstep at some point. However, that is most likely going to yield a negative response from the other person, and it is actually somewhat their responsibility to express this plainly. Where jerks and unaware people diverge in action is how they respond to being made aware. Say sorry and not push further and you are in the clear.
I will admit there is a little bit of a problem with a supreme narrative based on personal experience if applied indiscriminately in every context. However, as long as it is confined to one’s own body, it is perfectly fine since everyone should have their bodily autonomy respected and thus their experience is the supreme narrative in this instance always.
There are training one can do if one lacks social intuitition and basic rules like do not touch at spots other than briefly on shoulders etc. without consent. I have lots of sympathy for all those who struggle socially, but do not see laxing on demanding respect for others as being helpful in any way. I would also speak up if someone ridiculed a nice person for being just awkward, but that is not the issue discussed here.
Yeah, I didn’t mean anything like touching others without consent. I don’t think we disagree in anything significant.
I always hope people learn from their experience. I have no idea if they learned anything after interacting with me or assumed I’m some crazy female.
I meant that this quote is extremely humiliating, especially to people for whom it’s true. It’s hard to learn from cruelty, even if it’s unintended.
From your perspective, what was cruel? I’m interested in how different people interpret the same scenarios. What would be a more constructive way to address the situation?
I assumed quite a few things. If I guessed correctly, then:
Telling somebody that they are not good enough to talk to because of not knowing how to do that is cruel because it gives them no escape, since they can’t change their past, and can’t catch on since you won’t talk to them.
A constructive way to address the situation would be telling them something more rude and direct, but also less humiliating, like “I didn’t ask you to do that”, “I wasn’t talking to you” or just telling them to fsck off. Just imagining what you’d say if it were a girl behaving this way and reacting accordingly.
That quote doesn’t simply lose gender roles in conversation, it uses them to say that the other side is inferior in that regard.
Telling somebody that they are not good enough to talk to because of not knowing how to do that is cruel because it gives them no escape
Not really… First, I don’t think they ever said that those people “weren’t good enough” to talk to. Those are your words.
But also, there is a very obvious “escape” when you’re ignorant or uneducated about something. It’s called learning.
Not to mention that gay STEM students are more likely to face homophobia. It was rampant at my uni. We could not keep any sort of gay-related posters up without them getting ripped off and trampled within hours. Which in retrospect is wild because there were so many of us, and more who came out years later. lol
Uh… aren’t gay people the only segment likely to face homophobia? Like, you can’t be homophobic to a straight person…
Can’t you? What about not having “girly” hobbies because that “makes you gay”? Or having to dress a certain way? I feel like straight people aren’t excluded from homophobia…
100%, when I was in middle school and highschool I was regularly called gay for not liking football, or not knowing random car facts, or not liking spicy food, and other stuff like that. It was much better in university, but it was in a different region so I can’t compare directly.
Interestingly, one of these bullies came out as gay 10 years later, which I find sad that someone had so much internalised self hatred that he had to project it outwards to feel better about himself.
I don’t know what middle/high schools are like today since I don’t know anyone in that age range, but I bet it’s much better now with today’s internet culture being much more queer positive.
Or much worse thanks to the redpill movement and andrew tate.
Damn, I forgot that pile of garbage existed.
I believe they were implying in STEM vs non-STEM
I’ve seen people being homophobic to straight but feminine men.
Anyway, OP meant that homophobia, just like sexism, seems to be more present in STEM.
STEM students…
I was called gay long before I ever had a gay thought in my head (on account of being prepubescent).
When I was being brutalized by bullies, gay was a generic derisive, associating things with homosexuality, the way cuck (now a generic derisive) associates with cuckold fetishists.
“why aren’t heterosexuals subject to homophobia!?!?”
(ti’s a joke)
I’m not even involved in a STEM job any longer but I still see tons of STEM employed men spewing manosphere bullshit all the time. I’m also starting to see more and more well educated, articulate women parroting it. These women also tend to be overwhelmingly conservative in their political positions, too. Especially well educated white women.
“Town square debates”, which anything like this is, tend to be driven by emotions and instincts. Those men may be better to their friends and acquaintances. Those women may too be parroting it simply because that position signals their belonging to some group.
My point is that being well-educated is less important here than it would seem, because it’s not about being correct.
In my experience the technology related fields are greater perpetrators than the base sciences. Though there is still an image problem for things like math (the not tech, engingeering or finance version) and a problem with people outside the field having sxcist expectations about those in it, I genuinely think the environment itself to be very inclusive.
As a woman engineer, yeah we’re probably disproportionately responsible. I’m sure science and math have more sexism than say art, but biology has to treat women better than engineering I assume.
I’m a guy so I realize I don’t see or understand everything from women’s perspective, but I’m genuinely surprised by this. I’ve worked for decades at companies with mostly engineers and mostly men, and my experience is that engineers have on average much more progressive views than, say, my neighbors. My current company recently switched from a male to a female CEO and I haven’t even heard anyone mention her gender, much less express any negative views in connection to her gender. My previous employer also had a female CEO and it just wasn’t a thing on people’s mind. At my current employer we have anonymous surveys to find problems in the workplace, and there were exactly zero people who reported observing any sexist actions.
I’ve heard sexist remarks twice in 20 years, and both times I was so flabbergasted that I didn’t know what to do or say before the conversation had already moved on. So if I’m bad at speaking up when it happens, it’s only because I didn’t get enough practice.
Where I come from, the engineering fields are dominated by men but medical fields have a female majority. I wonder what’s the difference with medicine
Medicine is more aligned with the cultural idea of “what a woman should be/do”. Taking care of others, showing compassion and so on is regarded as more “feminine qualities” than “masculine”. Note this is not something I agree with, but I think it probably is part of the picture.
I’d recommend Acollierastro’s YouTube video about the rampant sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in physics and astronomy. While engineering is certainly a big part of the equation, every hard science except biology is dominated by men and that definitely feeds all of these issues
Anecdotally, the biological engineering department at my university has a much higher fraction of women than the rest of the college of engineering, while mechanical/aerospace has the lowest, so it varies even within engineering.
Girls suck at math (Obligatory XKCD.)
r/transgendercirclejerk incoming
ITT: disappointment. Cmon Lemmy. You’re better than this.
Lemmy is a collection of mostly contrarians who feel superior, it really isn’t better than this for the most part.
For a hot minute it was 100% marxists up in this bitch.
I’ve posted things on sexism in STEM before, so I can say: no, it is not. I almost didn’t post this precisely because of how bad the comments were to those posts. Hope foolishly sprung eternal.
You weren’t kidding…
I’m more shocked that the vote counts are humane
One truth about the modern media landscape: stories that pit groups against each other play well
If someone thinks that a claim of male on female sexism is an attack on men, that’s a them problem. If someone accuses me of sexism, I generally don’t go on the defensive immediately. Conscientious people ought to seek out ways they can improve themselves and not even unconsciously discriminate against their colleagues. Empathy is in rather short supply these days though.
The division was there already, some just didn’t notice it. If you think we’d do better united, maybe consider challenging the sexists and other bigots creating the division.
It reminds me of MLK Jr denouncing the “negative peace which is the absence of tension” as an obstacle to true equality, as opposed to the “positive peace which is the presence of justice”.
quoting MLK
Wow smh far right extremist /s
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Name 5 societies in all of history, that are as diverse as the western world today and have the levels of opportunity for minorities
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We can be less bigoted than the past while also having a long way to go still. You could even count as a sign of this improvement that these issues are taken seriously and discussed rather than ignored as “just the way things are”.
But we can’t take it for granted, because progress is not guaranteed and equality can decline. Say, such as the matter of abortion rights in the US and consequently how pregnancies are policed, leading to possible arrests even for natural miscarriages.
If you acknowledge that we aren’t finished fighting bigotry, I don’t really understand what’s your concern here.
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I get that clickbait is a thing, but as a community focused on Technology it seems pertinent to consider what the experience of different people in this area is like.
Should we pretend it doesn’t happen so that the journalists don’t “win”? It is upsetting to know that this happens, but I don’t see how we “lose” by being informed. This isn’t someone trolling on social media, it’s the reality of the world we live in.
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I studied at the Technical University of Denmark and there was so much sexism towards the women there. I was oblivious to it the first year, and then got into a friend group of primarily women. It was mind-blowing hearing their stories, and of the way that university management and leaders shut them down every time they formally brought up the issue. There was (and still is) serious cover-ups of multiple rape cases.
Don’t think it’s not happening just because you don’t hear about it. People in power are actively trying to keep this quiet, and it’s working.
That sucks dude here in the united states i have known professors to keep pretty masters or phd students for near a decade not letting then complete their projects
Do you have some examples so I know what sort of stuff may be going on?
We coulda told you that without a study bruh
STEM (both technical university and workforce) has been a cesspit of misogyny from my personal experience.
Comments are a shit show 🙂
I’m a woman in STEM. I only went to a CC, so maybe there’s a difference there, but I didn’t experience much sexism in my time there.
I have experienced it at work, but usually from the younger, unsocialized men. Is it a problem? Sure, but I’ll take that over my bosses being sexist.
Also, along with the sexism does come some privilege. When I do something wrong, I tend to get taken easier on when it comes to punishment. I also am able to form… different (non-sexial) bonds with the higher ups. These dynamics are much different to any bonds I had with female bosses from my previous field of work, and they’re different than the bonds the higher ups have with my male counterparts. I can say that I don’t worry about being laid off or fired.
However, I’m also fairly certain that I have a sharp awareness of these bonds and how to manipulate them to get what I want.
Not trying to poo-poo any sexism claims, just that there’s also certainly a privilege to be had being a woman minority in a male-dominated field.
That entire post was an ode to Internalized misogyny.
Is it a problem? Sure, but I’ll take that over my bosses being sexist.
Both can be wrong…When someone asks you if you’ve experienced sexism, It isn’t to fill some imaginary, arbitrary quota we’re reaching. No need to omit. No one’s grading your essay here.
Ah yes someone has a different experience?? They must internally hate themselves. 🙄
I’m not omiting anything, just adding that some privilege comes along with the sexism.
You don’t know what internal misogyny is. This is sounding more and more like a pipe dream of an MRA incel trying to strawperson stories that situations women find themselves in are a privilege of power just so you can misogyny about it.
I know what it means, its just used incorrectly a lot, like it is here.
Jesus fuck you sound horrible
Why’s that? People like me fine.
According to you. Get comfy with the block list psycho.
It’s lemmy. Who cares
There can’t be many places in uni where women are outnumbered by men. It seems like that are taking a majority and trying to make out they are not the minority.
They aren’t talking about university as a whole. They aren’t talking about courses where men are massively outnumber by women. It seems they are using the one group of people where women come off worse than men to fit a narrative.
Either use the data from all the the university or not at all. Otherwise it’s data selection and biased.
Also the self reported sexism is very tiring because it in itself is biased. You hear it all the time something like Woman A : I get so much sexism of man A. He always talks over me.
Man b: yea man A is an arsehole. He talks over everyone, I don’t think he can help kt.
Yet you use that data and it looks like sexism because it is self reported. It’s not, I’ve noticed many women struggle in loud environments, that’s not sexism if she is treated the same as everyone else and just struggles with it.
This is the most “not all men” answer I could ever imagine. You literally got angry at the data, not because there’s sexism, but because there are other men who exist in other places who aren’t sexist.
It’s well-documented that women don’t go into STEM. When data explains why women don’t go into STEM, getting pissy because there are men who are in other fields who aren’t sexist completely misses the entire goddamned point.
I think he may have stumbled past a interesting point (his main point was kind of dumb)-
While I would say the STEM crowd is more susceptable to a certain kind of intellectual narcissism that allows shitty behavior, anyone doing this kind of study should hopefully be making an effort to address the idea that if like 1/6 of dudes are extra shitty then are the STEM students uniquely shitty or are they just normal shitty and the classroom breakdown just means that there’s like 50% more shitty dudes and half as many targets for their shittyness.
That said, I’d love to see the stats on law schools as they tend have the “bro-est bros”
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Or, hear me out, it’s just sexism.
Does the data explain why women don’t go into stem, or does it simply state what women in stem self-report?
Don’t go into stem, you can’t read data. And I say that while honestly not caring about your genitals.
No it doesn’t.
I’m getting pissy that it’s always about women and women alone that are underrepresented.
If this data also included data on subjects where women outnumber men to the same rate then it would be interesting as a control. But seeing as they are just looking at data where women are already outnumbered it is manipulating the data to either get nothing or the result you want. It won’t for example show the result you don’t want.
The question is are people just sexist when they outnumber the other sex? We don’t know because it doesn’t get asked. Something needs to be done but what is unknown until you find out.
Girls quite possibly don’t enjoy stem as much as boys. That’s an entire possibility for men outnumbering women. But nevertheless there is a push to put more women into the only departments were they don’t already outnumber men. But there is never any push to put men into areas they are under represented. Like I said one sex might naturally enjoy something at a higher rate and that’s not a problem I don’t think, but with one exception. I think teachers should largely be evenly distributed. Especially in primary school there was 0 male teachers we could talk to or could help us with anything. I was lucky I had male role models that could teach me about being a guy at home and in afterschool clubs. But some kids don’t, they might not get a male role model until they are 13, then it might be too late.
Yep. I was right. You turned a conversation about “women are being harrassed” into how upset you are that we aren’t talking about problems men face. If you want to advocate for the problems men face, actually do that, instead of bitching when we are discussing problems women face.
Sorry I belive in equality and think the data should be for the whole population.
Science doesn’t work when you hope for a certain answer and select the data in a way to maximise that outcome.
Dismissing sexism within a particular group because it is disproportionately prevalent in that group is, frankly, treating that sexism as acceptable.
You can just as easily extend this approach until you either reach a group where it’s evened out, or is the entirety of humanity.
“It’s more prevalent in stem? No, you have to look at university students overall”
“It’s prevalent in university students overall? No, you have to look at all students”
“It’s prevalent in students as a whole? No, you have to look at everyone involved in education”
“It’s prevalent in education in general? No, you have to look at public services as a whole”
“It’s prevalent in public services as a whole? No, you have to look at all non-private entities”
“It’s prevalent across non-private entities? No, you have to look at all forms of work”
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I abhor sexism and racism and what I say next may sound like both of those things but what if women and POC are worse at math than Tall White Guys®?
Should we make it even harder for them to access STEM fields? My workplace is a total sausage fest and I desperately seek the touch of wamman.
You coulda keep this to yourself hope you find some solace in your life
Thanks. I hope you can one day interpret subtext and nuance.
what or whom are you even trying to troll? this is a strawman of 100% of everything
Such experiences included sexist microaggressions and stereotyping; such as questioning women’s academic legitimacy,
That’s the core of a STEM degree. You are constantly challenged about your conclusions. That’s not sexism, that’s how science works.
I think the issue here is that it’s the default kneejerk reaction to not take a woman’s observations or experiments as seriously as a man’s. Sexism can exist in many insidious forms that don’t necessarily need to be conscious decisions made by the perpetrator. Academic rigor is of course important, so it should stay as academic rigor and nothing more.
default kneejerk reaction to not take a woman’s observations or experiments as seriously as a man’s
The default kneejerk reaction in acidemia and high level engineering in general is to do just that. For example: “The fuq, you did not get superconductivity at room temperature.”
That’s not sexism…it’s healthy skepticism, and I think the root of all this. People get questioned in the field, hard…The good scientists and engineers put up with it, because it’s appropriate, and they can defend their data.
I get the point you’re trying to make, but I’ve seen enough healthy skepticism be misconstrued as sexism to be really skeptical of these results.
That’s not what they are talking about, and it’s super fucking obvious.
Other types of sexism include disbelief when a woman explains their experiences and baselessly denying evidence they present to support their claims.
Which proves my point. I question the data, I’m a sexist pig. It’s a hard field when your data is shaky.
It’s sexist if you don’t look further into the claims, instead just relying on your immediate assumptions about them being false.
If you immediately assume women are lying about experiencing sexism, and you don’t look into it further at all, and your reasoning is based solely on them being women as opposed to men, then yeah I’d say that’s pretty sexist. I’m not sure how someone could think otherwise.
I didn’t make any assumptions. By default, the statement made in the paper is not sexist.
By making assumptions, you bring in your bias and sexism. You just made 3 or 4 to justify your position
LMFAO ok bud, nice deflection
