My friend got fired for saying this... your thoughts?

[SuperNova]

DonFerrari said:

SuperNova said:

I basically agree with everything you said exept for this part. We have not studied gender issues and relations long enough to differentiate with certainty between nature vs. nurture on these Topics.

I would argue that the reason a large amout of female students when presented with computer sience still wouldn't be as interested as boys, is because of their home invironment. Because 'it's something that girls don't like to do' is a reinforced stereotype in many parents heads to this date. The struggle for equality has not been going on long enough to erase centuries of cultural identity and gender stereotypes. I'm not even talking about something that is done with bad intent or even conciously. It's as simple as calling your little girl to help you build a computer, while relating how things work, thus fostering an early interest, vs. refrainig from doing so because you would just bore her. A home invironment that does not trust a girl with technical knowlegde will probably result in a woman with a lack of interest in technology just as much as a boy that did not get to do any domestic work would probably grow into a man less than inclined to go into a nursing profession.

While bringing the subjects to students as early as kindergarden or primary school is a good step, they usually cannot reverse behaviour patterns learned at home, earlier in life.

And on the subject of the gender inequality in nursing professions an intersting tidbid is perhaps that, higher pay correlates directly with the percantage of men found in the professions. In my country secondary school teachers, which are among highest payed in the wider field of nursing and education are about 50/50 men to women. Primary school teachers get lower wages than that and there is a higher percentage of women among them. Kindergarden teachers get payed less than that and have an overwhelmingly female demographic. Similar result can be found in the health/nursing sector.

When asked what would make these professions more attractive to men, the overwhelming anwer was simply, better payment. It wasn't some natural inclanation that kept the men from working in these fields, in fact many would have liked to, but they felt like their work wasn't valued enough. This suggests that historically women are trained to be content with lesser payment. This is in the process of being rectified with higher payments across the board being fought for, but it's a long process.

 

On the topic of your friend, as others have said, if it really is how you say and he was suggested to leave based solely on that statement that would be wrong.

But there are so many factors at play (not in the least that this is a second hand story, from an offended party, that we don't know the other side of) that's it's hard to make a judgement call. As others have suggested he should probably inquire friendly why exactly he is being fired.

Well, about PC you may be right (altough no parent incentivized me to build pc or be an aeronautic engineer).

But in 1st grade I don't remember no teacher saying guys are good at maths and woman good at languague or any other thing. So perhaps it's more biological than cultural.

Another thing, genetically we already know that man have more power and explosion and are more prone to risk action than women that are more resistent to pain and play on safety side.

As much as we try to be Politically Right we also see that black people have stronger muscle than white and are also faster. And seems possible that asiatic or white are more inteligent (we are all talking average and/or best of etnic... of course there are black that are a lot brighter than most white guys... and girls that are stronger than most guys... but the average of an etnic is different than the other and the upper part of one is also above the other as well, even if the upper of the reverse is above the average)...

On incentivize... woman are more incentivized to cook, but even so the best chefs tend to be men as well, strange right?

I absolutely agree, that there probably are natural diffrences and that's fine. I'm not trying to argue those away. I'm just saying that if we use the nature vs. nurture argument we should be absolutely sure what we are talking about because otherwise it becomes a very lazy strawman argument.

About the subjects, I know this is anectdotal, but in my personal expierience the skill level between boys and girls in languages, maths, sciences, art classes, history, etc. was pretty much 50/50.

What I know about the topic in terms of studies is that ever since schools focused on bringing the 'traditionally male' subjects to girls, they not only cought up to the boys level but have actually overtaken them. It is thought that this is indeed related to genetical reasons. Not because boys are less intelligent, but because the way we learn in schools, aka sitting down, in a concentrated quiet environment, often with the teacher in front, explaining, lends itself better to girls, which are as you said ususally more communication focused, less risk taking etc. This suggests that boys would need a slightly diffrent, more active learning environment to properly excel.

I agree that reconizing these diffrences is as important as trying to establish equality. I'm certainly not promoting giving Jobs out based on minority statuses instead of skill. Even if if I do think a varied staff can be beneficial.

I'm just saying, that if we want more x in this job, we have to look at the reasons why these people are not gravitating towards those Jobs. Maybe it is genetics (the easy, but possibly very right answer) maybe it's centuries of leftover cultural baggage (the much harder to solve, but equally possibly right answer).

About that last point, one of those scientifically proven diffrences beween men in woman is that women tend to be more socially oriented, trying to avoid conflict, while men tend to be more competetive. Gastronomy is an incredibly competetive, very hard working field, that consitently siffs out the females to lower payed positions while some of the males go on to stardom. It reminds me in a way of kindergardens where often an entirely female workforce is lead by the sole man in the facility. Men are culturally and genetically more used to asking for what they want, and acting confident that they deserve it, while women are more likely to settle, rather tan risk conflict. This helps the men in these fields reach positions in which their skill is going to be evaluated by neutral outside partys.

In other words, if you never make kitchen chef because you're too much of a team player, no one is going to notice how well you cook. Women have to learn how to be more assertive and ask for better positions. Something they are naturally not inclined to to and that they have been culturally trained not to do on top of that.