this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024

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Women STEM students up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism (www.hepi.ac.uk)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 9 months ago (19 children)

The undergrad boys in STEM I swear have never met a woman aside from their mothers. No, please don't follow me home. Please don't buy me food because I was next to you in line. Please don't follow me into a store so you can buy me anything I'm purchasing. You are not invited into my conversation because you think I'm pretty, even if you just want to interrupt to tell me I'm pretty and you want to take me on a date. You are not allowed to hug me and hold me as long as you want just because you want to and it feels good for you, I didn't want a hug and I didn't know you. It isn't cute for you to take things from me and play keep away because you are stronger and taller, it makes you a bully.

Teachers: please don't ignore me when I try and participate or ask a question. I've gotten Cs with no explanation, no marks aside from the grade itself. When I check other's work, theirs is written up with mistakes and they have a higher grade. Honestly that was just one teacher in an undergrad, the rest were pretty awesome, or at least not sexist.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My CS classes were 90% male, and every professor was male, too. They all genuinely enjoyed my participation, and it was the only environment where I wasn’t objectified or disrespected. Same with my coworkers (again 90% male) when I went into the FAANG workforce; the men were happy to see women excel in a previously male-only field.

The general public was a different story until recently. Women were thrilled, a disturbing number of men refused to listen to me.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It probably depends on the university. There are definitely dregs of "incel" culture that get in but they can't socialize and are usually left alone. In the workforce, interviews stop them from getting much further then that.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'm not even involved in a STEM job any longer but I still see tons of STEM employed men spewing manosphere bullshit all the time. I'm also starting to see more and more well educated, articulate women parroting it. These women also tend to be overwhelmingly conservative in their political positions, too. Especially well educated white women.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Not to mention that gay STEM students are more likely to face homophobia. It was rampant at my uni. We could not keep any sort of gay-related posters up without them getting ripped off and trampled within hours. Which in retrospect is wild because there were so many of us, and more who came out years later. lol

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Uh.. aren't gay people the only segment likely to face homophobia? Like, you can't be homophobic to a straight person..

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Can't you? What about not having "girly" hobbies because that "makes you gay"? Or having to dress a certain way? I feel like straight people aren't excluded from homophobia...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

100%, when I was in middle school and highschool I was regularly called gay for not liking football, or not knowing random car facts, or not liking spicy food, and other stuff like that. It was much better in university, but it was in a different region so I can't compare directly.

Interestingly, one of these bullies came out as gay 10 years later, which I find sad that someone had so much internalised self hatred that he had to project it outwards to feel better about himself.

I don't know what middle/high schools are like today since I don't know anyone in that age range, but I bet it's much better now with today's internet culture being much more queer positive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Or much worse thanks to the redpill movement and andrew tate.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

I believe they were implying in STEM vs non-STEM

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

I've seen people being homophobic to straight but feminine men.

Anyway, OP meant that homophobia, just like sexism, seems to be more present in STEM.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (4 children)

As a woman engineer, yeah we’re probably disproportionately responsible. I’m sure science and math have more sexism than say art, but biology has to treat women better than engineering I assume.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I'm a guy so I realize I don't see or understand everything from women's perspective, but I'm genuinely surprised by this. I've worked for decades at companies with mostly engineers and mostly men, and my experience is that engineers have on average much more progressive views than, say, my neighbors. My current company recently switched from a male to a female CEO and I haven't even heard anyone mention her gender, much less express any negative views in connection to her gender. My previous employer also had a female CEO and it just wasn't a thing on people's mind. At my current employer we have anonymous surveys to find problems in the workplace, and there were exactly zero people who reported observing any sexist actions.

I've heard sexist remarks twice in 20 years, and both times I was so flabbergasted that I didn't know what to do or say before the conversation had already moved on. So if I'm bad at speaking up when it happens, it's only because I didn't get enough practice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Where I come from, the engineering fields are dominated by men but medical fields have a female majority. I wonder what's the difference with medicine

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Medicine is more aligned with the cultural idea of "what a woman should be/do". Taking care of others, showing compassion and so on is regarded as more "feminine qualities" than "masculine". Note this is not something I agree with, but I think it probably is part of the picture.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (20 children)

They're grouping non-binary people as female and pretending like this isn't a problem for presenting a statistical analysis?

Who the fuck gave the go ahead for doing this research?

There should be separate reports on non-binary discrimination and female discrimination not combining the two and labeling them women. (in case you're unaware, males and females can both be non-binary so grouping non binary people from either sex into "women" completely de-legitimizes the research)

Completely unprofessional.

https://www.stemwomen.com/women-in-stem-statistics-progress-and-challenges#:~:text=Women%20in%20STEM%20statistics%20%E2%80%93%20Conclusion&text=Overall%2C%20the%20percentage%20of%20female,with%20women%20making%20up%2026%25.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They do include the effect size of including non-binary students when they write "(nb. Non-binary students account for 0.3% of this total)" etc. so the impact on the actual data is shown, if you're concerned about the statistical analysis. It also does make sense to group them together in this context as they are both minorities in STEM. However the way the article is written makes it clear that including non-binary students was an afterthought; if it was clear in all the data and headings that the data is for both non-binary and female students with the interpretation that they are looking at just "students who aren't men" then it would have been a lot better.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Girls suck at math (Obligatory XKCD.)

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (3 children)

One truth about the modern media landscape: stories that pit groups against each other play well

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (12 children)

The division was there already, some just didn't notice it. If you think we'd do better united, maybe consider challenging the sexists and other bigots creating the division.

It reminds me of MLK Jr denouncing the "negative peace which is the absence of tension" as an obstacle to true equality, as opposed to the "positive peace which is the presence of justice".

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I studied at the Technical University of Denmark and there was so much sexism towards the women there. I was oblivious to it the first year, and then got into a friend group of primarily women. It was mind-blowing hearing their stories, and of the way that university management and leaders shut them down every time they formally brought up the issue. There was (and still is) serious cover-ups of multiple rape cases.

Don't think it's not happening just because you don't hear about it. People in power are actively trying to keep this quiet, and it's working.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

We coulda told you that without a study bruh

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

STEM (both technical university and workforce) has been a cesspit of misogyny from my personal experience.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Comments are a shit show 🙂

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