I disagree. It isn’t about smartness. There are plenty of intelligent women who may enjoy and be well suited for science, but were discouraged from pursuing it at a young age.
First of all my comment is not about intelligence. It is about the patronizing attitude of people who think they can brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals, as if these smart young women are not more than capable enough to think for themselves.
As for your comment, your sentiment is based on no evidence what so ever, and prolonged efforts to attract more women to male dominated STEM fields results in zero gains.
> ....brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals
It is not a matter of brainwashing. It is a matter of giving young people the tools to overcome the intrinsic bias they encounter.
My experience of computer science labs in the 1990s were testosterone drenched pits of bullying and bragging
It was not just women put off by that. Brilliant women were not, they achieved. It was the average women, and average indigenous, average queer, etcetera who were driven out.
It is not sustainable to keep out people who do not look like, sound like, and smell like the main stream.
"brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals" Pfftttt
If you believe IQ testing, then why women aren't equally-represented in STEM is mysterious, cognitively.
That leaves you with the notion that maybe something innate to the female brain simply makes them less interested.
But a funny analogy I've heard is: why are there way more woman cellists (people who play the cello) than woman guitarists? We know women can play instruments, but is there something in the female brain that makes them more interested in cellos and violins than in guitars?
For that, the cultural explanation, that guitars are more masculine-coded in our culture, is way more compelling. And then I wonder what other trends culture could be enforcing.
>the patronizing attitude of people who think they can brainwash young women into fulfilling their own political goals, as if these smart young women are not more than capable enough to think for themselves.
I think the concept of libertarian free will that you're assuming here is a religious one. It doesn't really exist. Your sense of pride has been wounded on others' behalf by the assertion that forces outside of people's control influence people. But of course they do. We're all products of our environment. Being mad about it and denying it only distances you from the goals you want to accomplish.
>As for your comment, your sentiment is based on no evidence what so ever, and prolonged efforts to attract more women to male dominated STEM fields results in zero gains.
Is there evidence for that?
Here's some claiming a huge increase in women participating in STEM: "Women made gains – from 8% of STEM workers in 1970 to 27% in 2019 – but men still dominated the field."[0]
I believe the guitar player demographics is now roughly at gender parity, at least in the UK/USA, so presumably whatever it was was cultural and the culture changed.
there are also a lot of intelligent men who may enjoy and be well suited for science, but were discouraged from pursuing it at young age.
Up until a few decades ago being a scientist was not imaginable for more than a few thousand people in all the West.
Up until 80 years ago, the west wasn't even a thing.
My dad was a huge fan of science, unfortunately his small town in Italy was invaded by Nazis when he was a kid and he had to survive and then take care of a widowed mother.
In Spain they had a fascist dictatorship till 1975.
The fact that in such a short timespan the presence of women in science is at the level it is today is frankly something that should be considered a huge success, not a failure.
