What is misogyny? What is misandry?

Post Reply New Topic

I hate to say it but Americans like "easy" majors. Psychology is a popular major for people who don't know what they want to do, but know that they don't want to do a lot of hard work.

So your lack of women in STEM may due to epidemic laziness among American women perhaps? Seeking for the easiest path?... and not due to these patriarchy conspiracy theories about discouragement?

If it's not the case then are you telling me that Saudi women are more encouraged throughout their school years than western women? Gimme a break, they were only allowed to drive a couple of weeks ago!

These theories are surely false, it's time for you to revise for the real reasons and dig deeper away from the same old narrative, without repeating the same old excuses.

Neither of those are bad things to say. The first one isn't misogynist and the second one isn't misandrist.

Economics, Face. Those female students (whose numbers are almost certainly exaggerated) create an externality as a result of obtaining free education.

The relatively small percentage of American college students in STEM, as compared to countries such as China, Taiwan, Japan, India, and Iran and middle eastern countries is due to epidemic laziness among Americans. Most of my males classmates were not Americans either, and most of those who were were first generation Americans who's parents were from India, the middle east, Iran, Taiwan or China. [/quote]



I don't know why Saudi women may be more inclined to study STEM fields, but I will ask next time I encounter one. I know many Indian women choose STEM, because in India, the two most reputable professions are medicine and engineering, so little Indian girls, when asked what they want to be, will often say "A doctor or an engineer," and while Indian was recently said to be the word place in the world to be female (questionable but I guess it's bad enough), and certainly has male chauvinism and misogyny, the realm of the male and the realm of the female is partitioned differently than it is in the west. For example, India has had a female PM, while the US has never had a female president, and this may be due to such a position being viewed as more of a male realm in the US and a gender neutral position in India. Cultural influences in the U.S. may indirectly steer girls and women away from certain STEM fields and more towards health and biological sciences. To give an example of how this works, when my neice was in pre-school, I asked her if she liked Star Wars, to which she replied "No. Star Wars is for boys." I asked her why she thought Star Wars was for boy and she replied that she thought that because all of the boys in her class like Star Wars. And because she perceived Star Wars to be a boy thing, and Star Wars pertained to space, she also didn't like things that pertained to space. Children are highly susceptible to perceiving gender norms and in the U.S. there is a lot of gender polarization of children's things. Toys aimed at girls are nearly universally pink and don't actually do much of anything, and toys aimed at boys tend to be colors such as blue, grey, yellow, red and green, and tend to to have parts that can move, or buttons that can be pressed.

Here is an article on "Toy Segregation" in the U.S.

Target Ends Toy Segregation

However, I do believe that if all things were equal, males would still tend towards the physical sciences and engineering more than females.

Forgive me if I'm oversimplifying but couldn't girls just buy those toys?

If they'd just been brainwashed into not buying the cool toys with moving parts than you're right, it's a serious problem.

They could but the gendering of toys and the tendency of young children to be fairly strict gender conformists reduces the likelihood that they will. The female preference for pink in western society is a completely socially instilled one (without color gendering, most children naturally prefer red, and most adults naturally prefer blue) but God forbid I buy my niece a blue bicycle helmet. She will have a massive meltdown because "blue is for boys, and that's a boys helmet!", and no amount of explaining to her what a social construct is will remedy this, because it flies in the face of the social convention that she (rightfully) perceives and that is her truth.

The same type of thing can be observed worldwide in other aspects of life. For example, a man who refuses to perform a certain task because it's "women's work". My brother was once in need of a pair of sandals and he refused to wear mine because he thought they were girls sandals, but they were actually boys sandals, but he refused to accept that.

I was never so influenced myself. When I was young, toys and children's items weren't nearly as gendered, but regardless, I had a strong preference for what would today be considered more male oriented toys.

Your Toy Segregation theory is simply false to explain your lack of women in STEM because this toy segregation is almost universal; cars for boys and barbies for girls.... it's the case in Eastern and Asian countries too.

In my country I observe the following:

-Most mechanical and comm enginners are males
-About half if not more of civil engineers are female.
-Most architects and interior designers are female.
-About 1/3 of computer engineers are female.
-About half of CS students are female but rare the females who end up working as coders.
-Most IT and network specialists are male
-Most coders in most programming languages are male.
-For some reasons tho, most Cobol coders in banks are females. Interestingly, Kobol was invented by an american lady.
-Half of business analysts are female
-Most system analysts are male
-Most physics and math specialists are male.
-But about half of my math teachers were women
- About half of statisticians are female
-Most pharmacists are female
-Most lab specialists are female
-Most geneticists are female
-About half of diagnostian doctors and dentists are female.
-Most surgeons are male tho
-Most medical assistants are females
-Half of accountants are females (some see it as STEM, it's debatable)

I did not say toy segregation explains lack of women in STEM. I said "Cultural influences in the U.S. may indirectly steer girls and women away from certain STEM fields and more towards health and biological sciences." and I used toy gendering as one example of how children can be indirectly influenced in certain directions.

However, none of my classmates from east Asia were female.


Same as in the U.S.


Most civil engineers in the U.S. are male.


In the U.S. most architects are male and most interior designers are females.


"Computer engineering" usually falls under electrical engineering (overwhelmingly male) and computer science in the U.S. Computer science was a historically female dominated field, which became male dominated sometime in the 1970s, and is growing again in popularity with females in the U.S. CS courses typically have more than a handful of women, but the retention rate for women in the industry is low due to sexism and "bro culture".


Same as in the U.S.


See my comment on CS



I do not know that this difference exists in the U.S.


I do not know the gender breakdown of these field in the U.S.


Same as in the U.S.


Most elementary school teachers in the U.S. are female, and the number of male teachers increases with school level. Most math professors at the university level are male.


Women make up slightly more than 50% of pharmacists in the U.S.
Chemistry and health and biological sciences seems to attract the most women as compared to other STEM fields.


Historically labs in the U.S. were female dominated, with many women working under a male lab manager or principal investigator. This changed at some point. Today, lab specialists may be men or women. A lot of these jobs are technician jobs that require less than a two year degree.



I do not know the sex breakdown for geneticists specifically. I believe male doctors and dentists still outnumber female doctors and dentists in the U.S. but not vastly so, and most multi practioner practices will have at least one female doctor/dentist.


Same as in the U.S.



I don't know the sex breakdown of accountants in the U.S.

Here Chronos, these are graduates in sciences from American University Of Beirut, check the gender ratio - is that a common sight where you live? 90% of graduates are lebanese

Start at time 1:01:30

Ask any neuroscientist why girls gravitate towards dolls, and boys towards toy cars. Even chimps show the same behaviour, is that because of culture aswell?

Can someone please show me the evidence for this whole "cultural influence" arguement?

I am from Lebanon and Chronos is from USA - two unrelated cultures historically, and both of us have almost have the same observation on professions' gender breakdowns, check her reply to me.

If our observations are almost the same then how do you explain the lack of female STEM degree holders in your country (excluding immigrant students) ? :-/

Aren't the differences between cultures an argument enough that some influence exists?

I don't know how it looks in the US, never been there. Maybe the toy genderisation is stronger there. What I noticed, having pre-school girl of my own and observing some others:
- Pink is for girls but if a girl picks something blue, yellow or in any other color, it is OK. Boys avoid pink and lilac.
- No problem with girls playing with cars, if little boys show interest in playing with dolls, they are often given teddy bears instead.
- Lots of toddler boys are interested in doll strollers.
- Stuffed animals, bulilding bricks, sandbox toys, sports equipment, "little scientist" sets and most of the toys in general are considered gender neutral. However, boys are more restricted in playing girly things than girls playing with toys for boys.

I wonder how it looks elsewhere.

No it's not, all it proves to me are the biological constants. All western contries show the same tendencies. So there's a difference in culture, but the outcome is pretty much always the same. That there are more women going into STEM in india has nothing to do with cultural expectations, it has to do with economic scarcity. In my country sweden, it's pretty much impossible to be poor, and the pay difference between professions is very small, hence women are more likely to choose jobs with their hearts, which seems to be people oriented jobs. The same holds true in all other wealthy western countries.

I completely disagree that boys are restricted in playing with girly toys. I worked in a kindergarten for 2 years after high school, and it was obvious to me that boys are naturally more interested in trains and cars than dolls. It was actually the opposite of what you're saying, in some ways they were restricted in acting like little boys. The kindergarten teachers would step in an stop them when they pretended to be soldiers or pirates, and played out a war scene. They were essentially punished for being boys, I never saw them get punished for playing with a doll. It makes me absolutely furious that boys can't just be allowed to be boys.

I meant some impact, not all the difference. Yes, there is a multi-cultural discrepancy. Then, the culture can do different things with it and have further impact. How are the gilrs in male-dominated fields treated? How are boys in female-dominated proffessions perceived? This can vary and have effects.


You are talking about Sweden. I'm talking about Poland. It is great we can exchange our expiriences.

There is some of what you say here, too - my brother's son was banned from any kind of fighting plays in his kintergarden. They believe in pacifism or something. His parents, on the other hand, encouraged him "it is ok to play fighting as long as the other fighter agrees and you are careful not to actually harm them". Plastic guns and swords are popular but, indeed, only outside the public education. Most parents don't mind.
My cousin's son shows strong interest in princesses and "girly" stuff and his family acts a bit worried about it. The tendency within the family is to gently drive his attention to more gender-neutral activities (You like princesses? Let's build a palace!) But no one (including me) worries about my older daughter's enthusiasm towards Lego Technic.
My younger daughter said, she often goes to play in the boys' corner (with trains and cars and tools). I asked her about it - some girls go to the boys' corner, some boys go to the girls' corner, the segregation is not strict and everyone seems ok with it.