Why is the female crowd not attracted to STEM fields?

[Harold Squared]

This reminds me of a discussion in another thread (http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/79192-many-women-be competitive or take risks is driven by societal and cultural expectations more than any inherent properties. IMO, this ties back neatly to the quote in my old post:

 

I'd also like to mention that I find it a little amusing that I'm the only female so far in this thread.

 

Then welcome and thanks for your participation. The amazing contributions of the Curies and Meitner in the face of institutionalized sexism argue persuasively, at least to me, that biological factors are not significant compared to those imposed by culture.

[MigL]

This is how it usually works iNow you project your biases onto others !

 

I am not arguing that there is a difference in intelligence or aptitude, as one of my 'personal' heroes is Emmy Noether, perhaps one of the best and most underrated mathematicians of the 20th century.

I am arguing that biological differences contribute to different 'preferences' between the sexes. So that whereas a male may like and prefer engineering, a female may prefer literature. That doesn't mean all females or all males either ( sometimes I generalize as you've pointed out previously ). And of course it doesn't mean there aren't other factors at work, such as discrimination and societal pressures.

 

Note that these different preferences are manifest in many areas, and a lot of them have biological or evolutionary forces as partial cause.

Sexual preference ( majority of men like women and vice versa )

Appearance and grooming ( more men are 'slobs', compared to women )

Diet and food preference ( men tend to eat more red meat )

Types of work-out ( men prefer building muscle, women prefer leanness )

Etc. etc.

 

See where I'm going with this ?

I'm not screaming preconception and ideological gender bias.

Edited January 24, 2015 by MigL

[CharonY]

This is a valid point. However the issue is that biological gender imbalance can lead to unfair treatment of women, especially later in the career. The danger of biological explanation without precise quantification is that it is being used as an excuse for current state of affairs and explaining away other causes and issues.

As referenced in the paper iNow links, gender differences in mathematical aptitude (assuming that at point of testing there was not bias to begin with) would explain about a tenth (precise values elude me, I do not have the printout here) of the observed differences, for example. It is important to note that I believe everyone is in agreement that gender parity in itself is not the goal, but the removal of gender-based obstacles.

 

To bring up the example again, why do women entering academia in various disciplines end up being underrepresented in higher ranks (relative to the number entering the area, which implies interest to begin with).

Is it really only child rearing? IIRC there was at least a study that invalidated that claim (again, it contributes, but to to the observed differences).

Something that is often brought up is that women are not as career-oriented. That appears to be silly, especially when looking at the postdoc force (you have to be quite driven to hang in up to this point). And yet fewer female postdocs get faculty positions.

[iNow]

I mentioned an episode of the Freakonomics podcast before.

That's a good question.

 

More appropriate for this topic IMO is one by a new podcast called Invisibilia released just this week (the story is titled, How to Become Batman). As part of a larger story on echolocation, it talks about how society treats blind people as less capable and how significantly their lives change as a result of them being Molly-coddled and rarely allowed to explore independently. It changes what they believe about themselves and becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, incredibly similar to what happens with females in STEM.

 

http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-become-batman?showDate=2015-01-23

Edited January 25, 2015 by iNow

[Sato]

I think it is for social / nurturing reasons, at least in my locality; this is the context of an upper middle class community. There is a trend of males going to business/management/finance majors and girls pursuing majors in psychology or speech pathology. There are many, though not as many as described in the previous sentence, students who pursue medicine, usually following their parents' paths; this entails usually majoring in chemistry or biology, and there are about as many girls as boys end up following this. There are pockets of poverty in my community as well, and I've noticed a trend of girls coming from these households commonly pursuing careers in cosmetology, art, or nursing (the boys often do not go to college, at least immediately).

 

I have spoken to some girls who show interest in STEM, at least in the secondary scholastic environment, and have asked them why they chose to pursue careers as clinicians rather than scientists; usually the rationale is that it is a more difficult and less stable venture to be a researcher, and they would like to have and support a family, so the primary reason of their up-to-then-and-onward pursuits in STEM is to eventually enter into a regarded medical program and acquire a job as a doctor or start a medical practice. Certainly, I have spoken to many guys who express the reason for their pursuing a similar major, or even CS, more explicitly as the fields' growing and their monetary potential, but what I guess could be called the maternal pull in females appears to be much more pervasive than the monetary focus of males (there are a good more few who follow purely their intellectual interests).

 

Both genders are generally equally capable of working, thinking, and reasoning to the extent required by most STEM disciplines, but it appears that there is a persistent, and possibly innate or very finely socially ingrained, quality among women that conflicts with their view of a STEM career path (that is, not including medicine). In fact, being acquainted with many young students / researchers in such fields, one who I respect among the most for their sheer intellectual ability and work is a girl. Coincidentally, that person, and another, the only girl in my school who's shown interest in purer STEM pursuits, are both androgynous in their demeanors, even in having an oddly deep voice or masculine hair, since I've known them.

 

To conclude, I think that females know they are able in STEM, and are familiar with the potential pursuits, but choose, based on common priorities, to follow other paths. I especially don't think it's fair to blame male scientists or educators for the trend, as many have done or implied so in this thread; at least, to no more extent the teachers, largely women, who in fact drive whole populations of students away from STEM, because teaching was a stable career path. Both sides drive both sides away and have deep issues in their culture.

[CharonY]

I do not think that this would explain the gender gap. For example, biology attracts more women, yet the career is as insecure as in other sciences. In contrast, engineering has somewhat better work prospects, but attracts far less women.

 

Also it was found that female PIs ran labs that had much closer gender parity on the postdoc level (46% female) compared to those with male PIs (36%). Looking at so-called elite institutions (run by Nobel laureates and other prize winners) male postdocs outnumber females 3:1, whereas in female elite researchers the number is 48% or so.

 

See Sheltzer and Smith PNAS 2014 p 10107-10112

[physica]

The real worrying bit to me is if the imbalance is interpreted as a biological difference in terms of academic ability, which is then used to limit someone's career. Especially considering that many female academics delay having children or forego childbearing altogether in fear of losing their career.

I should also add that because of that perspective I may have been conflating issues to some degree, though I do see them connected. I.e. lack of female seniority may discourage or reinforce gender stereotypes in academic disciplines. That in turn may discourage exploring ones interest in that area. And actually in the faculty of nursing, the low number of male candidates is also a concern.

 

Regarding the comment about female academics delaying having children and foregoing that privilege really hints - and to an extent concedes - the point I have been making. That having children and the consequences in life that follow (maternity leave, re-prioritising life, etc.) are what really makes a difference. Take for example my point about the pay gap - the gap literally is between those never married, versus those who marry and choose a different work-life balance. I am not sure this automatically equates to discrimination, but instead a different set of choices resulting in different outcomes. What is wrong with individuals making their own decisions with the natural outcome that overall men and women will come out differently? What is to be done about this? If a man gains more experience and works longer hours should he be held back especially for a woman who chose to have children, has less experience in aggregate, works less overtime, etc. Is it right to treat one gender favourably over another? Whatever happened to equal opportunity?

 

If we're consistent with this we may as well acknowledge that biology plays a role with learning difficulties. Shall we lower the standards and let them become surgeons, engineers etc and should we discriminate against able engineers and surgeons when people with learning difficulties are not equally succeeding?

 

We also have to consider how many women are discouraged by the fact twisting of issues like the gender pay gap by the women victim crusade. It's frustrating as hell that the female victim parade either lie about this or simply ignore it. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

[CharonY]

To the first point, if personal choices make you drop out of academia, I have no issues with that. Likely it adds to the attrition rate, but there are also fixes for it, including child-care and offering their partners children time. Yet the societal norms put the onus on child rearing more to the woman than to the man. Again, no issue if the woman chooses to take the time out, but quite often they feel that they have to step back, whereas their partners don't. This is part of the societal issue, which does not need to exist. Also, but why is it that you also see the imbalance in postdocs, which are competing for faculty positions and have foregone the choice of children?

It has been reported that women consistently evaluated their relationship with their (predominantly male) supervisors worse than their male counterparts (Nettles MT, Millett CM. PhD. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2006). Especially in academic careers, with the high demand for networking, having a good mentor is critical to success.

 

This appears to be a common theme. While men and women obtain postdoc positions at a similar rate (according to NSF data 2004, which I have handy), which is about 72 vs 70% in life sciences and a bit lower for females in other physical sciences (43 vs 48), it is common that women reported less satisfaction with their supervisor as males. One thing that was found in surveys (one was compiled by Davis and I cannot recall the full citation) female postdocs were more often than males asked to write grant proposals (for their mentor). If you are familiar with that it is a huge warning sign for exploitation. Overall, there is overwhelming data that females are not treated equally throughout academic careers, putting them into worse trajectory than their male peers. Incidentally that is also true for minority researchers and doubly true for minority female researchers. And while this not necessarily the only source for the imbalance, it is almost certainly a contributing factor.

It is also important to understand that above certain academic attainment (essentially after getting a PhD). individual contributions are not sufficient to build a career, but having access to networks becomes increasingly important.

 

 

 

If we're consistent with this we may as well acknowledge that biology plays a role with learning difficulties. Shall we lower the standards and let them become surgeons, engineers etc and should we discriminate against able engineers and surgeons when people with learning difficulties are not equally succeeding?

This does not follow, unless mean that women are overall less capable? What is missing is that on the faculty level, being positioned well by your supervisor is crucial for success. In elite labs it was found that males tend to place males more often, which is a problem if the field is generally dominated by males.

 

The issue really is that much of a career path in high-competition fields, especially in academia are not solely dependent on your own (technical) abilities, but requires strong interaction with peers and mentors. If women do not receive the same amount of support, it will lead to fewer women on top, which then presents to the youth a seemingly unchangeable biological , which in truth is mainly caused by existing power structures.

 

Forgot about adding a bit to the gender payment. The gap is not staggering, when controlled for similar background and job. However it is worth noting that while the female pay is within 6% of the male payment, I have yet to find a single case where the reverse is true (i.e. females earning more than males). Especially in high-paying areas there is suddenly a gap again.

For example, civil engineers (median salary 60,800) are over 80% male, but both genders get paid roughly equally.

Chief executives on the other hand are similarly dominated by male, but here the difference, corrected for education, skills and experience favors males by 13%.

Edited January 27, 2015 by CharonY

[overtone]

 

 

but notice (for example) that the early educational systems and related social orders in those countries were established by the Roman Catholic Church. Their flags feature the Christian cross.

Wow, that's pretty bad. The injustice!

Whether just or unjust, good or bad, the three countries you named are obviously - right down to having had famously and rigidly patriarchal official State religions for hundreds of years - patriarchies.

Which leads to an obvious point: people who can look right at a patriarchy and not see it are not reliable assessors of gender bias in a hierarchal professional recruitment and education establishment.

As with the stereotype bias so startlingly demonstrated by researchers into the academic testing of racially identified Americans, these structural aspects of American character are very difficult to simply perceive - one must approach them by reason and evidence, avoiding errors in that reasoning and misconceptions of that evidence.

The first step would be to set aside, as completely as one possibly can, any notion of what is "biological" as opposed to "cultural". The fact is that nobody knows right now what the overall effects are (or even the causes) of the physiological differences in the brains of the two human physiological sexes, with respect to STEM careers - or vice versa

Anecdotally, I have had two hardcore, intensely formal and dedicated, supremely and equivalently (in hindsight) competent, universally beloved/hated math teachers in my life. One was male, one female. The male was a college professor, the female taught junior high school - and that seems normal, right? That is not inappropriate, discordant, odd, in need of explanation - in this society.

[swansont]

If we're consistent with this we may as well acknowledge that biology plays a role with learning difficulties. Shall we lower the standards and let them become surgeons, engineers etc and should we discriminate against able engineers and surgeons when people with learning difficulties are not equally succeeding?

 

I keep seeing references to studies that show women perform at least as well as men in STEM studies

 

e.g.

"Male and female graduates’ GPAs overall and in mathematics and science have increased since 1990. Female graduates’ GPAs overall and in mathematics and science were higher than the GPAs of male graduates during each year the HSTS was conducted."

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2007467.asp

 

So perhaps we can drop this particular straw man from the discussion. Ability does not seem to be the issue. Lower standards are not necessary.

[StringJunky]

 

I keep seeing references to studies that show women perform at least as well as men in STEM studies

 

e.g.

"Male and female graduates’ GPAs overall and in mathematics and science have increased since 1990. Female graduates’ GPAs overall and in mathematics and science were higher than the GPAs of male graduates during each year the HSTS was conducted."

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2007467.asp

 

So perhaps we can drop this particular straw man from the discussion. Ability does not seem to be the issue. Lower standards are not necessary.

I think he was just illustrating the iniquity of positive discrimination, rather than making comparisons of intellectual ability specifically.

 

 

If a man gains more experience and works longer hours should he be held back especially for a woman who chose to have children, has less experience in aggregate, works less overtime, etc. Is it right to treat one gender favourably over another? Whatever happened to equal opportunity?

Edited January 27, 2015 by StringJunky

[swansont]

I think he was just illustrating the iniquity of positive discrimination, rather than making comparisons of intellectual ability specifically.

 

 

The part I quoted specifically mentions "learning difficulties" and the role that biology plays. And it's unsourced.

[CharonY]

Also positive discrimination of women is a distraction at best as the data does not show it to be happening. On the other hand, wage differences on the high end scale of jobs is still very real and far from being debunked. In a Canadian survey of post-secondary graduates in Canada has shown that after correcting for productive characteristics (which includes marital status, experiences etc.) would explain at most 15% of the measured gap.

[StringJunky]

Also positive discrimination of women is a distraction at best as the data does not show it to be happening

I don't think there was any suggestion it is happening, just that is what the outcome would be if the inbalance was 'corrected'.

[physica]

 

The part I quoted specifically mentions "learning difficulties" and the role that biology plays. And it's unsourced.

In no way do I affiliate learning difficulties with women or suggest that womens' academic ability is less. Find me a quote where I say this. I am extrapolating the argument. CharonY admitted that biology does play a role in terms of giving birth etc. However, if we are going to intervene and interject positive discrimination because of this and in turn discriminate against people who's biology doesn't hold them back we may as well be consistent and do this in OTHER areas where biology holds people back such as learning disabilities.

 

 

On the other hand, wage differences on the high end scale of jobs is still very real and far from being debunked.

It's amazing that this isn't sourced. Can you please so me the data. The 1950s claims on the gender pay gap turned out to be trash if we actually looked at the data properly. once we excluded factors like marriage it turned out that white non married women were earning 6% more than non married white men in the 1950s!!!!! I never stop being amazed by the double standards when people argue for the women victim crusade. Anyone against them has to source everything but they can chuck stuff like this out constantly and no one bats an eyelid. Also the miscomprehension of other posters increases. It's almost as if there's a conformation bias. Instead of thinking the people arguing against have a different opinion its: the people arguing against must not like women for some reason. Prime example is people accusing me of saying that women have lower academic ability.

Edited January 27, 2015 by physica

[Phi for All]

In no way do I affiliate learning difficulties with women or suggest that womens' academic ability is less. Find me a quote where I say this.

If we're consistent with this we may as well acknowledge that biology plays a role with learning difficulties. Shall we lower the standards and let them [emphasis] become surgeons, engineers etc and should we discriminate against able engineers and surgeons when people with learning difficulties are not equally succeeding?

 

To be fair, I think you were talking about people with learning difficulties in general, but you never qualified who you were talking about, so your use of the pronoun "them" still refers to the women you were talking about in the preceding paragraph. I can appreciate that this wasn't your intention, but that's the way it reads, sorry.

[swansont]

In no way do I affiliate learning difficulties with women or suggest that womens' academic ability is less. Find me a quote where I say this.

 

I provided the quote. You were talking about treating one gender (women) differently and immediately went to learning disorders. If your meaning was different, all I can say is that's not how it reads to me.

I never stop being amazed by the double standards when people argue for the women victim crusade.

 

And phrasing like this tends to color how one is going to interpret an ambiguous statement.

[CharonY]

 

 

It's amazing that this isn't sourced. Can you please so me the data. The 1950s claims on the gender pay gap turned out to be trash if we actually looked at the data properly. once we excluded factors like marriage it turned out that white non married women were earning 6% more than non married white men in the 1950s!!!!! I never stop being amazed by the double standards when people argue for the women victim crusade. Anyone against them has to source everything but they can chuck stuff like this out constantly and no one bats an eyelid. Also the miscomprehension of other posters increases. It's almost as if there's a conformation bias. Instead of thinking the people arguing against have a different opinion its: the people arguing against must not like women for some reason. Prime example is people accusing me of saying that women have lower academic ability.

 

The data is easy to find (including the Canadian Labour Market Activity Survey and Labour Force Survey) and has been analyzed from a number of sources including Baker and Drolet (Canadian Public Policy XXXVI, no. 4, 428-464.), Bourdarbat and Chernoff (Canadian Journal of Economics 46, no. 3, 1037-1065). The explained component based on productivity is taken from Baker and Drolet.

Together with individual studies and surveys it paints the picture that on average female accomplishments are for some reasons undervalued relative to their male counterparts. Note that this is not a surprising finding per se, as similar patterns have also been observed in minority researchers.

 

It should be noted that the pay gap overall in Canada is closing due to the increase of female post-secondary graduates. It is noteworthy to add that in Canada female graduates are actually now dominating the group of natural sciences and technology (though I do not have detailed data yet).

 

As I have stated earlier, the gap is mostly present in high-income leadership roles in which women are underrepresented. In lower income (typically way below 100k) the gap is near non-existent. Partially, I presume due to unionized or other fixed wages.

 

Forgot to add, 1950 sounds like an anomaly to me. All newer data indicate inequality when adjusted for marital status and just now closing for lower income wages. It is also a bit odd date to pick considering the labour market was in a massive post-war change at that point.

Edited January 27, 2015 by CharonY

[overtone]

The 1950s claims on the gender pay gap turned out to be trash if we actually looked at the data properly. once we excluded factors like marriage it turned out that white non married women were earning 6% more than non married white men in the 1950s!!!!!

I'm not following the point. Are we supposed to presume that the various aspects of gender discrimination do not bias such subcategories - that unmarried women are the same subgroup of women that unmarried men are of men?

 

Is that marriage correction, for example, itself independently corrected for gender? Taller and smarter and more aggressive people get paid more - do taller and smarter and more aggressive women get married the same?

 

Or more obviously: do lower paid men get married the same as lower paid people in general?

 

Along that line, the assumption that biology is the problem or the " cause" in conflicts between biological circumstance and career imperatives seems questionable at best. If we set things up so that the ordinary and expected demands of child care, for example, damage educational and promotional opportunities for women but not men, why is that presumed to be "caused" by the biology?

 

Illustration: it is possible to set up the job of truck driving so that a much smaller proportion of women than men can do it well. Everything from the height of the load volume and dimensions of the cab features to the mechanical leverage of the brakes and steering and loading machinery can be arranged in such a way that most women are excluded along with a smaller proportion of men. The result will be a more highly paid job held by a subpopulation of big and strong men - and scheduled, paid, promoted, clothed, treated in various ways, as fits them specifically. An entire employee subculture and infrastructure would be created to fit, not the job itself in abstract, but the subpopulation of people you have restricted your hiring pool to include.

 

And that would be foolish. You would be paying more for a lower average level of driving ability in its manifold aspects. You would be paying more for higher rates of accident and breakdown and injury, worse customer service, higher levels of employee theft and disloyalty, even things like worse gas mileage, and all the other side effects of restricting your hiring pool thus. The sex discrimination statistics that job would generate would point to a problem with the job setup, not the biology that job setup discriminates against.

Edited January 27, 2015 by overtone

[swansont]

 

The data is easy to find (including the Canadian Labour Market Activity Survey and Labour Force Survey) and has been analyzed from a number of sources including Baker and Drolet (Canadian Public Policy XXXVI, no. 4, 428-464.), Bourdarbat and Chernoff (Canadian Journal of Economics 46, no. 3, 1037-1065). The explained component based on productivity is taken from Baker and Drolet.

Together with individual studies and surveys it paints the picture that on average female accomplishments are for some reasons undervalued relative to their male counterparts. Note that this is not a surprising finding per se, as similar patterns have also been observed in minority researchers.

 

 

 

More data: in a survey of college graduates broken down by major, men have higher starting salaries 63% of them and women have higher starting salaries in the rest

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/02/23/gender-change-and-starting-salaries-of-college-graduates/

 

One of the many problems with the analysis in the video is that it never makes apples-to-apples comparisons (pay for the same or substantially similar jobs), which is one of the things the narrator was complaining about. There's a whole lot of potential detail in e.g. "never married" that is not corrected for.

 

One thing he mentions is Lilly Ledbetter, and one should note that this was an actual case of gender discrimination for doing the same job and having the same amount of experience. I was unable to find statistics on lawsuits, but my searches invariably turned up women suing for equal wages, not men. That's at least suggestive of an imbalance.

[iNow]

An interesting piece published last night by Newsweek touching on many of these same issues. Context of the story is Silicon Valley, but the themes and issues are hardly isolated there. It's a longer form read, but I've pulled out some snippets below.

 

 

 

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/06/what-silicon-valley-thinks-women-302821.html

In a community like Silicon Valley, where six- and seven-figure investments are routinely tossed at ideas that sometimes succeed but more often flash-bang and fizzle out like meteors, they were getting only paltry sumsabout $400,000 shy of the $525,000 they were hoping for in pre-seed, early investment money. There is, though, one thing these two founders are missing, and it is almost the sine qua non of the fabled Silicon Valley startup. They dont have penises.

<snip>

The two women spent their 20s deep inside the valleys bro communitya culture that has been described as savagely misogynistic. In inverse ratio to the forward-looking technology the community produces, it is stunningly backward when it comes to gender relations. Google Silicon Valley and frat boy culture and youll find dozens of pages of articles and links to mainstream news articles, blogs, screeds, letters, videos and tweets about threats of violence, sexist jokes and casual misogyny, plus reports of gender-based hiring and firing, major-league sexual harassment lawsuits and a financing system that rewards young men and shortchanges women.

<snip>

It wouldnt be an exaggeration to say that a front line, if not the trench of the global gender war, is in Silicon Valley. In that sense, Silicon Valley culture echoes the Wolf of Wall Street culture in the 80s and 90s. But while Wall Street today seems tamerthanks to lawsuits and diversity consultants in every cornerin Silicon Valley the misogyny continues unabated. A combination of that very traditional Wall Street wolf-ism among Northern Californias venture capital boys club and the socially stunted boy-men that the money men like to finance has created a particularly toxic atmosphere for women in Silicon Valley.

 

This matters for tens of thousands of reasons, but on the broadest level, since digital technology is our eras Industrial Revolution, fortunes being made now and business models and corporate cultures forming today will be with us for a century to comeand women are for the most part sidelined.

<snip>

No amount of confidence changes the fact that the valleys big venture capitalists are almost entirely male. The top five dont have any female senior partners, and VC partners are 96 percent male. Twenty years ago, the partners were 97 percent male. <...> VCs are not funding women. According to a study by Babson College, only 2.7 percent of the 6,517 companies that received venture funding from 2011 to 2013 had women CEOs. Meanwhile, the Kauffman report found that female-run startups produce a 31 percent higher return on investment than startups run by men.

<snip>

Early in her career, Roizen was working on a company-defining dealinvolving, potentially, millions of dollarswith a major PC manufacturer. The PC manufacturers senior vice president who had been instrumental in crafting the deal suggested he and I sign over dinner in San Francisco to celebrate, Roizen has written. When I arrived at the restaurant, I found it a bit awkward to be seated at a table for four yet to be in two seats right next to each other, but it was a French restaurant and that seemed to be the style, so down I sat. Wine was brought and toasts were made to our great future together. About halfway through the dinner, he told me he had also brought me a present, but it was under the table, and would I please give him my hand so he could give it to me. I gave him my hand, and he placed it in his unzipped pants.

 

Yes, she said. This really happened.

<snip>

Women who complain about sexist video games get death threats from legions of boyfans conditioned by formative years on the Xbox controller to believe its their right to rescueor maybe assaultwasp-waisted half-naked damsels in distress. And the anonymity of the Internet has proved relatively more menacing to women. None of these ill effects are deliberate, but they are built into designs and products created almost solely by one gender.

Much more in the article here: http://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/06/what-silicon-valley-thinks-women-302821.html

[physica]

I'll look into this after my assignments are in as I am under a lot of pressure at the moment but I'll address one thing as I've seen this before.... it's twisted information again and onlookers instantly assuming the woman is the victim.

 

<snip>
Women who complain about sexist video games get death threats from legions of boyfans conditioned by formative years on the Xbox controller to believe its their right to rescueor maybe assaultwasp-waisted half-naked damsels in distress. And the anonymity of the Internet has proved relatively more menacing to women. None of these ill effects are deliberate, but they are built into designs and products created almost solely by one gender.

The sexist video game criticism has been twisted. Analysis is very shoddy and people from both sides have made threats of violence. Below is a video showing an award winning gaming critic was outright lying. She then disabled her comments on youtube as the criticism was valid and then hid behind the victim card. As there is always fringes threats of violence have been made to her and to her critics.

 

 

Below is a video of a female game reviewer questioning the methods of this famous gaming critic who was being interviewed on the Colbolt report on TV. This female reviewer got messages from women attacking her for criticising the feminist critic.

 

 

Below is a more balanced view on games

 

 

 

iNow I'm shocked. You are usually a very considerate poster but you have fallen into the trap of: female victims.... sounds about right. You are usually a critical thinker. Have you had women victimhood dinned into your head so much that you don't stop to think that there might be two sides to the story that you're reading? The snip you showed had no stats or research backing it up. You wouldn't accept this if someone was denying global warming. There is a scary double standard, lack of critical thinking and half-baked acceptance when the conclusion is that women are victims.

 

I will look into the rest after my assignments are in but judging by the bias tone this snip was written and the complete lack of coverage of the other side of the story I will not be surprised if there are other sides to the other points the article covers.

Edited January 30, 2015 by physica

[swansont]

 

The sexist video game criticism has been twisted. Analysis is very shoddy and people from both sides have made threats of violence. Below is a video showing an award winning gaming critic was outright lying. She then disabled her comments on youtube as the criticism was valid and then hid behind the victim card. As there is always fringes threats of violence have been made to her and to her critics.

 

 

Below is a video of a female game reviewer questioning the methods of this famous gaming critic who was being interviewed on the Colbolt report on TV. This female reviewer got messages from women attacking her for criticising the feminist critic.

 

 

I don't see how this changes anything. You don't "erase" threats by finding someone on "the other side" making them, and you can't extrapolate from "I discovered one lie" to "I can dismiss all claims as lie". (OK, technically you can — it obviously happens — but not if you have intellectual integrity)

 

Threats of violence are wrong.

 

iNow I'm shocked. You are usually a very considerate poster but you have fallen into the trap of: female victims.... sounds about right. You are usually a critical thinker. Have you had women victimhood dinned into your head so much that you don't stop to think that there might be two sides to the story that you're reading? The snip you showed had no stats or research backing it up. You wouldn't accept this if someone was denying global warming. There is a scary double standard, lack of critical thinking and half-baked acceptance when the conclusion is that women are victims.

 

 

That's not an apt comparison. To know if something happened, all you need is to find out that it happened. You would need statistics if you were trying to assert some statistical result, such as x% of women are threatened.

 

Here's a compilation of tweets that Anita Sarkeesian got during one week http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-harassment-on-twitter

[iNow]

iNow I'm shocked. You are usually a very considerate poster but you have fallen into the trap of: female victims.... sounds about right. You are usually a critical thinker. Have you had women victimhood dinned into your head so much that you don't stop to think that there might be two sides to the story that you're reading?

Kindly please use the handy quote function afforded by this forum's software to share clearly where precisely I claimed there was only one side of the story.

 

The snip you showed had no stats or research backing it up. You wouldn't accept this if someone was denying global warming. There is a scary double standard, lack of critical thinking and half-baked acceptance when the conclusion is that women are victims.

I recommend you share your concerns with the author of the article. I merely shared it here for another take on a prevalent theme. Along similar lines, here are similar examples of this unfortunate theme:

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429996.000-the-fight-back-against-rape-and-death-threats-online.html#.VMrZm92COK0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/the-point-of-online-haras_b_2931720.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/01/twitter-threats-against-women-force-debate-in-britain-about-limits-of-internet-freedrom-of-speech/

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-threats-of-sex-violence-online-women-20140121-story.html#page=1

 

Despite this, your replies consistently come across as: Nope. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just mind your business.

 

I will look into the rest after my assignments are in but judging by the bias tone this snip was written and the complete lack of coverage...

Translation: "I haven't bothered to read this yet, but I did need to be sure I took the time to post my dismissal of it."

Got it.

[overtone]

 

 

Have you had women victimhood dinned into your head so much that you don't stop to think that there might be two sides to the story that you're reading? The snip you showed had no stats or research backing it up. You wouldn't accept this if someone was denying global warming. There is a scary double standard, lack of critical thinking and half-baked acceptance when the conclusion is that women are victims.

You have been posting what appear to be fundamentally mistaken and confused arguments, drawing what appear to be invalid conclusions from mistakenly interpreted data and evidence. Can you clarify exactly how you are reasoning in these posts?

 

A simple example has been laid out for you in the first three sentences of post 94 above. You appear to be concluding that unmarried women being paid more than unmarried men in some fields in the 1950s was evidence against sex discrimination in the workplace in the 1950s. That would be badly mistaken, of course. Could you explain more clearly just what you are actually arguing there?