>the argument against gender bias in computer science has to confront another damning fact, which is that gender disparity in the field isn't global. Unless women in Asia are somehow biologically different than those of the US, her argument needs some way to address the fact that women make up the majority of STEM majors in many of those cultures.
There is research finding that the more advanced a country is in terms of gender equality (by generally accepted metrics), the more pronounced the occupational gender gap actually is in most fields.
One proposed explanation is that women in advanced economies are freer of constraints and higher up in the Maslow pyramid of needs, and can afford to go into jobs they actually like, rather that whatever they feel is their duty/more lucrative/otherwise rewarding. Kind of like yuppies (of either gender) dream of exiting the corporate world to set up an organic food shop. That would certainly explain the very different STEM gender gaps in the US/Sweden vs India/China, for example.
I don't have the reference handy, but if someone can provide it, please do !
It's 1950, in a parallel universe differing from ours in exactly one way: scientists, using methods inferior to ours today but aided by good fortune, have generated essentially the same results about innate psychological preferences Debrah Soh cites in this piece, results we will stipulate as accurate.
We can predict the next 50 years with perfect clarity, having lived through them ourselves.
According to Soh's logic, as gender equality increases dramatically throughout the next 30 years, we should see reinforcement of "preferences" to avoid science fields. And yet the opposite thing occurs.
Why has Soh's hypothesis failed to predict? Why is it more trustworthy today?
This explanation is put forward for example in the Norwegian science documentary series Hjernevask, see episode 1 (The Gender Equality Paradox), available on YouTube. I don't have the time to hunt down the references right now but you should be able to find them through that one.
There is research finding that the more advanced a country is in terms of gender equality (by generally accepted metrics), the more pronounced the occupational gender gap actually is in most fields.
One proposed explanation is that women in advanced economies are freer of constraints and higher up in the Maslow pyramid of needs, and can afford to go into jobs they actually like, rather that whatever they feel is their duty/more lucrative/otherwise rewarding. Kind of like yuppies (of either gender) dream of exiting the corporate world to set up an organic food shop. That would certainly explain the very different STEM gender gaps in the US/Sweden vs India/China, for example.
I don't have the reference handy, but if someone can provide it, please do !