Talk:Women in STEM fields/Archive 1

Archive 1

Article Revisions

I plan to revise this article in order to expand its scope and address some of the issues raised about its style. I also plan to change the title to "Women in STEM (United States)" since I agree with DASonnenfeld that the current title is pretty bulky. Another reason for the title revision is to include information about the challenges and obstacles that women face in STEM careers, but also to acknowledge the progress that has been made by women in STEM fields. I plan to reorganize the article, give a more balanced view of some of the topics that are currently presented as fact here (e.g., biological explanations for women's low representation in STEM fields), and to expand the topics covered. In particular, I would like to add a section on social-psychological explanations for women's underrepresentation in STEM fields. In this section, I will cover topics like discrimination (both overt and implicit), stereotypes and conceptions of the "ideal scientist", stereotype threat, the Pygmalion effect, and the Black Sheep effect. I will also include new sections about women's historical presence in STEM fields and progress that has been made thus far in addressing the gender disparities in STEM fields. In revising this article, I plan to draw heavily on sociological and psychological literature. I welcome any feedback or suggestions. Naomi FK (talk) 21:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if [Women in STEM (United States)]] is the best name, while shorter, STEM is a jargon term unknown to all. I'd suggest WP:RM for a wider discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the name change, apart from the "(United States)" part. I totally understand if you feel like writing only about the situation in the United States - you are a volunteer and write only what you feel like writing - but I think the article should be about the whole world. Lova Falk talk 07:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

HI all. Like Piotrus, I would also have concerns about using an uncommon acronym in the article title. Also, like Lova Falk, I would also be concerned with a US-centric title without significant justification. Most of all, however, I am concerned with the massive amounts of overlap between this article and the Inequality in the workplace article. It seems to me that the latter article speaks in some detail about gender issues amongst the “hard” sciences. Why the separate article at all? Cheers Andrew (talk) 02:29, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all for the feedback. I'll hold off on the name change for the time being. What do you think of "Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math" in order to avoid the issue of using the term "STEM"? Lova_Falk, I completely agree that the article should address the experiences of women in the whole world. The reason I was planning on including "(United States)" was that most of the sources I have found deal with the United States, specifically, and I thought that some people might think that I was overstepping in using the experiences of women in the United States as a proxy for all women in the world. I would love more feedback on how to resolve this issue. Andrew, I took a look at the Inequality in the workplace article. While I do agree that it gives a good overview of the issue and touches upon many of the issues that I wish to address, I do think that a separate article is necessary. For one, many scholars have chosen to study the experiences of women in STEM fields in particular, and the unique challenges that women often experience in these fields. There are also a number of issues and phenomena that are not discussed in the [Inequality in the workplace]] article that I think are very relevant and need to be discussed. Please feel free to offer any more suggestions or feedback that you believe might help improve this article! Naomi FK (talk) 13:35, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Additional Contribution - Article Review Thoughts

I think the current title of the article works well and I agree with leaving it open to women in STEM worldwide. I would recommend getting the numbers and statistics for the number of women in STEM fields worldwide. Overall, this article has good use of statistics and studies in order to relay information about the representation of women in STEM fields and the organization of the article is clear and easy to follow. One of my suggestions would be to maybe add a comparison of the gap in pay between men and women even within the STEM field under the “Men and women’s earning in STEM careers”. As of now the article compares men and women, but it seems like the differences in the pay gap are only due to men and women entering different occupations and experience. The comparison may already be there but I think it should be clearer and emphasized. I would also recommend expanding upon the “Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields”. You list that Annie-Marie Slaughter has suggested some strategies, but then don’t list or discuss the strategies she suggested. I think that delving into these different strategies would strengthen the article by looking at this issue from many different perspectives. I also think that adding more blue links to the article will help with traffic flow and exposure to the article. You can add blue links to words like stereotype threat and discrimination. Mmcolson (talk) 05:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! My hesitation with leaving it open to women in STEM worldwide was that most of the literature I have found focuses on women in STEM fields in developed countries, particularly the United States. I will look to see if I can find information to try to give the article more of a global focus, but I am wary of overgeneralizing from the experiences of women in certain nations to the experiences of women worldwide. I agree that the "Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields" section needs work and will focus on expanding this section for my final entry. Thanks for the suggestions of how to incorporate more statistics, I'll definitely keep them in mind as I move forward. Naomi FK (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Additional Contributions Feedback

I agree that the current title is an improvement. However, I think that more could be done in the article to really demonstrate that the article is dealing with women throughout the world, rather than just in the U.S. For instance, I really appreciate the discussion of the leaky pipeline, but I wonder if there is a parallel set of statistics for women dealing with an educational program more like that of the UK, in which specialization occurs much earlier.

I enjoyed your additional social-psychological factors, but do think that in some areas those could stand to be slightly more clear. The "Stereotypes and heuristics" section is certainly an important one that I think needs to remain, but it would benefit from a stronger discussion of exactly what types of stereotypes exist of people in the STEM fields and how those affect women who choose to work in those areas.

I also don't know if this is relevant to your topic, but I think that a discussion of some prominent and/or pioneering women in STEM fields could be incorporated into the article. Additionally, some of these women are making concrete efforts to increase the representation of women in STEM fields, which I think is currently the weakest section of the article. Things like the Sally Ride Festivals or The Society of Women Engineers come to mind as stakeholder groups that are actively working to increase female representation in STEM fields. Allisonraven (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! As I mentioned above, I'm considering changing the article title to just focusing on women in the United States, since I'm not sure that there's enough material out there for me to really represent the diverse experiences of women in STEM around the world. I'll definitely keep the UK in mind, though, when I'm looking for ways to resolve this issue. I am thinking of adding a subsection to the "Stereotypes and heuristics" section to talk about traditional conceptions of scientists and how these stereotypes might disadvantage women who are looking to enter the field. There is another article titled Women in science that discusses some of the prominent women in STEM fields, though I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind when revising the "Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields" section. Naomi FK (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

AFD?

This is a silly article. How about blacks who unicycle? Generally heterosexual males are underrepresented in gay marriage situations. We need a wiki for that. For social justice.Xkit (talk) 04:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hi all!

I just have a few comments and suggestions that may help strengthen the content of this article.

First of all, I think that this article did a good job of remaining bias-free by listing relevant facts and presenting statistics regarding women working in STEM fields, and listing possible factors that contribute to the absence of females working within these industries. One thing that may seem a bit biased, however, are the strategies that are listed to "improve" or "fix" this issue, which makes the article seem agenda-based rather than specifically factual.

It may also be helpful to include a historical timeline detailing the emergence of women within the science, technology, engineering, and math fields; thus, providing some correlation between the feminist movement and the characteristics of STEM industries. This could effectively be done by including a side-by-side picture of important events that occurred in the areas of feminism and STEM industries that possibly correlate in some way. A timeline picture would not only provide visual reference, but would also correlate with [Wikipedia: Good Article Criteria]

Also, should the title be "Women in STEM Fields" with a capital F?

Finally, some of the data detailing the differences in boy and girl behavior may benefit with some factual or statistical support; thus, decreasing the likelihood that it could be seen as a biased opinion rather than an actual occurrence.

Carolynslu (talk) 18:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. Only the first letter is capitalized in a title, so the lower case F is correct. Biolprof (talk) 18:55, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I also think that some vague agenda-like well-meaning statements are unnecessary and would personally remove the sentence "If girls are brought up in an environment where they are encouraged to use and develop their spatial skills, this gender gap in spatial sense will likely narrow." It seems to me that it does not add much to the previous referenced sentenced. Alexandre Oberlin (talk) 14:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Biological explanations

This section references a source that says spatial skills are learned and developed but in the title and and start of paragraph talks about "biological explanations". Added contradict tag. Esailija (talk) 12:37, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Title change

Considering this is mostly an article about the STEM fields in USA and no other place in the world i suggest that USA is added in the end of the article. The article contains few sources of STEM fields representation statistics for males and females in more than USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.165.66 (talk) 22:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

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Minor grammar correction

A sentence under section 3.1 reads "They found that faculty strongly preferred to hire an assistant professor who was a women over an identically-qualified competitor who was a man." I think "women" should be changed to "woman."

Lctham01 (talk) 22:54, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 27 October 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Consensus for the move does not appear to have emerged from the discussion (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

---

Women in STEM fields → Gender imbalance in STEM fields – The current title would be better suited to an article about women who contributed to STEM fields. Instead, this article is about the gender disparity of people working in STEM fields. (Note: I have edited this to reflect a better title suggestion. The original suggested title was Gender disparity in STEM) TheDracologist (talk) 20:50, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

• Or Gender imbalance in STEM fields? Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

That would probably be better than my idea, to be honest. TheDracologist (talk) 20:01, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Good point. I think Gender imbalance in STEM fields sounds great. Lctham01 (talk) 15:59, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

• I don't really think it needs to be moved, the issue is that women are underrepresented, it's a more intuitive title as is. "Women in STEM fields" is a well-known phrase (see, e.g. here) The proposed title is more of a neologism and whitewashes the problem. Montanabw^(talk) 06:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose: I can argue this one both ways. Both are good topics, but there is probably no justification for a split. The article as currently structured is a bit both ways, having a section explicitly on the imbalance, but with its other sections also focused on the imbalance. Whichever way it goes, the article should be either expanded or refactored to fit the topic its title describes. I'd prefer to leave it at the more general topic and expand it. Andrewa (talk) 11:11, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Post RM 27 October 2016

I have created a redir at Gender imbalance in STEM fields. Now the article needs to be expanded and maybe refactored a little to focus on its broader topic. Andrewa (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

This article has been a bit frustrating in my search for information about people who've contributed to STEM fields. When I saw it, I thought I'd find an article about women in STEM and their contributions and I've found little to none here. The name gave me false hope and probably gives similar false expectations to others. Here are my suggestions for what I think could remedy this.

1. Create an article about women in STEM and put something in the lead of this article that says something along the lines of "This article is about the possible causes and effects of gender disparity in STEM. For the roles and contributions of individual women in STEM see (Insert title here)".
2. Rework this article to be about women who have contributed to STEM.
3. Rename this article to something like Gender imbalance in STEM.
4. Add information about women who contributed to STEM to the article.
5. Rename, then create an article with this name that's about women's contributions to STEM.
6. Add information about women who contributed to STEM, then split the article into Women in STEM and Gender imbalance in STEM.

I'm personally in favor of either the rename then create a new article or the add content to this article, then split options.

TheDracologist (talk) 20:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

These "Women in..." articles may reveal, ironically, favouritism and bias themselves.

Even as they discuss discrimination against women, they often themselves read like they're written by gender biased ideologues, who at some points seem to, shamefully, pride themselves on items such as men's declining college enrolment and graduation rates relative to women's, which are serious issues in and of themselves and probably deserve their own entries too as long as there's going to be a plethora of "Women in..." articles such as this one. There are also signs of the pay gap based on discrimination myth (and yes it is a myth, sorry if you don't like to hear that, but it has been long disproven) being peddled around here, such as in the following sentence, "Women in STEM fields earn considerably less than men, even after controlling for a wide set of characteristics such as education and age." Well...what are the other characteristics in this supposed "wide set"? Surely if you controlled that enough, you would see factors that better explained why women earn less money such as the total number of hours worked per sex either in a week, month, or year (men work more hours in total than women do, especially in science and technology fields), time taken off to care for young children which also ties into the greater liklihood of women taking part-time work, a position that offers a better work/life balance (and so pays less), or leaving employment altogether if they wish to spend more time with their children. This is one example of the bias I'm referring to in this, and like, articles.

There also seems to be a gynocentric focus on women at this encyclopedia. What about African Americans in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or computing, or whatever) or hispanics, or any other racial or ethnic minority groups for that matter? Are they not considered as important of a topic for an encyclopedia? I'm addressing here a potential favouritism shown towards women as an historically disadvantaged group that I think needs some attention at this encyclopedia. It's as important for an encyclopedia not to show favourtism towards a certain group as it is for an encyclopedia not to be biased. I would appreciate any comments about this.

(It's no one's fault that the vast majority of the editors and writers here are men, but I am wondering if there exists a possible, and completely needless, "guilt trip" on the part of many male editors here as the cause for this favouritism towards articles on women; I only bring this up because surely there has to be some explanation, pyschological or otherwise, as to why there is so much attention given here at Wikipedia to only women in almost every aspect of life and yet so little given to any other groups of people. Just a possible psychological explanation for this obvious discrepancy.) Alialiac (talk) 11:46, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Good point-there should be series of articles about "African Americans in..." and "Latinx in...." and "LGBT in..." Rather than pare down the number of articles or series, there should be more efforts to expand these articles to delve into and discuss why there are disparate rates of participation in various fields for various identity groups.

As for all the other premises and conclusions in your first paragraph, if you want the merits of those discussed, please specifically reference the data and studies that support your statements if you care to engage on the matter on this talk page. Nabihahmaq (talk) 06:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Added Information

I added some information about women of color in STEM fields since under-representation doesn't affect women of different ethnicities the same way. There is definitely room for a lot of expansion in this direction. Jmekoenig (talk) 13:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Adding an International Component

I think it may be interesting to add an international component by adding a few small sections, each that address women in STEM in a specific region in the world. This would broaden the article's perspective and show how the nuances of gender inequality manifests itself in different regions. A reference to get started could be:

Perna, Laura, Lundy-Wagner Valerie, Drezner Noah D., Gasman Marybeth, Yoon Susan, Bose Enakshi, and Gary Shannon. "The Contribution of HBCUS to the Preparation of African American Women for Stem Careers: A Case Study." Research in Higher Education 50, no. 1 (2009): 1-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29782903.

Please refer back to my user page for my info - Venkam (talk) 01:44, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing in regards to adding some more internationally-relevant information to the page. Here are a couple of sources I have found about women in STEM fields in Asia and Latin America, respectively:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO Bangkok Office. A Complex Formula: Girls and Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Asia. Copy-Ed. Rachel McCarthy. Paris: UNESCO; Seoul: Korean Women’s Development Institute, 2015. Web. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002315/231519e.pdf.

Castillo, Rafael, et al. Women in Science and Technology: What Does the Literature Say?. Inter-American Development Bank, 2014. Web. IDB-TN-637. https://publications.iadb.org/bitstream/handle/11319/6047/CTI%20TN%20Women%20in%20Science%20and%20Technology.pdf?sequence=1.

Lctham01 (talk) 21:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I am an undergraduate student at Rice University, currently considering article for revision for a Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities class. I was thinking the same thing was lacking as the above commenter. I would love to see areas such as the UK or China represented, as others have brought up that this is a very US-centered article. These sources that you have listed look very interesting. I too have found some. I will post a list of citations on my Talk page. Thanks!

Akweaver32 (talk) 01:51, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Any thoughts on how the page should be reorganized to accommodate these sections? I feel like the information that is already up on the page applies pretty much only to women in STEM in the US, so maybe all/some of the existing content should be included under a "Women in STEM fields in the US" header with subsequent headers for women in STEM in Asia, Latin America, etc. Having a smaller section devoted to women in STEM worldwide has been suggested but I worry that since almost all the information already on the Wiki page is applicable to only American women in STEM, having subsections for women in other parts of the world would be misleading by implying that the information and research on STEM gender disparity in the US is also relevant to the STEM gender disparity in other countries, which is not necessarily true. I hope that made some sense, and let me know what you think! By the way, I'm a student at the University of Louisville editing this article for a Women & Gender Studies class.

Update: I also would like to add a section under "Strategies for increasing representation of women" about organizations and government agencies that work to increase female participation in STEM. It could start as something like this: "Organizations such as Girls Who Code, Engineer Girl, and Kode with Klossy (spearheaded by supermodel Karlie Kloss) aim to encourage women and girls to explore male-dominated STEM fields. Many of these organizations offer summer programs and scholarships to girls interested in STEM fields. The U.S. government has funded similar endeavors; the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs created TechGirls and TechWomen, exchange programs which teach Middle Eastern and North African girls and women skills valuable in STEM fields and encourage them to pursue STEM careers."

Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/03/205866.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lctham01 (talk • contribs) 04:37, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Lctham01 (talk) 19:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Here are some sources I would like to use to add information to the page about minority and international women in STEM fields.

"A Complex Formula: Girls and Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in Asia" (PDF). UNESCO. UNESCO and KWDI.

Castillo, Rafael; Grazzi, Matteo; Tacsir, Ezequiel. "Women in Science and Technology: What Does the Literature Say?" (PDF). Inter-American Development Bank. Inter-American Development Bank.

Stoet, Gijsbert; Bailey, Drew; Moore, Alex; Geary, David (April 21, 2016). "Countries with Higher Levels of Gender Equality Show Larger National Sex Differences in Mathematics Anxiety and Relatively Lower Parental Mathematics Valuation for Girls". PLoS ONE. 11 (4): 1-24. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153857.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Malcom, Lindsey; Malcom, Shirley (Summer 2011). "The Double Bind: The Next Generation". Harvard Educational Review. 81 (2): 162-171. doi:10.17763/haer.81.2.a84201x508406327.

Lctham01 (talk) 04:57, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be best to change the section currently titled "Representation of women" to "Representation of women in the US" and then add a subsequent section called "Representation of women worldwide." Ultimately this could include information about many regions and countries around the world but I've compiled and included below some information about several Asian countries to get the ball rolling. I'll probably make these changes to the page soon and move around some information so that it fits within either "Representation in the US" or "Representation of women worldwide." Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated!

Cambodia

As of 2004, 13.9% of students enrolled in science programs in Cambodia were female and 21% of researchers in science, technology, and innovation were female as of 2002. This statistic is significantly lower than that of other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Mongolia, and South Korea. According to a UNESCO report on women in STEM in Asian countries, Cambodia’s education system has a long history of male dominance stemming from its male-only Buddhist reaching practices. Starting in 1924, girls were allowed to enroll in school. Bias against women, not only in education but in other aspects of life as well, exists in the form of traditional views of men as more powerful and dignified than women, especially in the home and in the workplace.

Indonesia

Indonesia’s government has been working toward gender equality, especially through the Ministry of Education and Culture but stereotypes about women’s role in the workplace persists. However, traditional views and societal norms often prevent women from remaining in their career or being able to move up. Notably more women are enrolled in science-based fields such as pharmacy and biology than in mathematics and physics. Within engineering, statistics vary based on the specific engineering discipline; women make up 78% of chemical engineering students but only 5% of mechanical engineering students. As of 2005, out of 35,564 researchers in science, technology, and engineering, 10,874 or 31% were female.

Malaysia

According to UNESCO, 48.19 percent of students enrolled in science programs were female as of 2011. This number has grown significantly in the past three decades, during which the country’s employment of women has increased by 95%. In Malaysia, over 50% of employees in the computer industry, an especially male-dominated field within STEM, are women. However, this may be due to the fact that computer jobs are more often “indoor” and more suited to women according to Malaysian societal norms, as opposed to “outdoor” jobs more fitting for males. Of students enrolled in pharmacy, more than 70% are female while in engineering, only 36% of students are female. Women held 49% of research positions in science, technology and innovation as of 2011.

Mongolia

According to data from 2012 and 2011 respectively, 40.2% of students enrolled in science programs and 49% of researchers in science, technology, and innovation in Mongolia are female. Traditionally, women and men played equal roles within the early nomadic cultures of Mongolia, and some researchers believe that this correlates to the relative equality of women and men in Mongolia’s modern-day workforce. More females than males pursue higher education and women 65% of college graduates in Mongolia. However, women earn about 19-30% less than their male counterparts and are perceived by society to be less suited to engineering than men. Thirty percent or less of employees in computer science, construction architecture, and engineering are female while three in four biology students are female.

Nepal

As of 2011, 26.17% of Nepal’s science students were women and 19% of their engineering students were women. In research, women held 7.8% of positions in 2010. These low percentages corresponds with Nepal’s patriarchal societal values. In Nepal, women that enter STEM fields most often enter forestry or medicine, specifically nursing which is perceived as a predominantly female occupation in most countries.

South Korea

In 2012, data showed that 30.63% of students enrolled in science programs in South Korea were female, a number that has been increasing since the digital revolution. Numbers of male and female students enrolled at most levels of education are comparable as well, though the gender difference is larger in higher education. Confucian beliefs in the lower societal value of women as well as other cultural factors could influence South Korea’s STEM gender gap. In South Korea, as in other countries, the percentage of women in medicine (61.6%) is much higher than the percentage of women in engineering (15.4%) and other more math-based stem fields. In research in science, technology, and innovation, women made up 17% of the workforce as of 2011. In South Korea, most women working in STEM fields are classified as “non-regular” or temporary employees, indicating poor job stability.

Lctham01 (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I think information about China should be added Rosasharnrad (talk) 21:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

INSPIRE act

Since it seems like someone has been adding it to every single article about STEM and women in STEM... I feel it's clearly WP:UNDUE to devote a section or an image to that act here. There have been countless such acts, congressional declarations, etc. about women in stem or similar things by numerous countries across the world; very few of them have any serious long-term impact, and this one in particular has attracted very little coverage. Notice that comparable acts (even much more high-profile ones) aren't covered here at all. Going into it here is clearly giving it undue weight. And since we should probably consolidate discussion over this and Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, where it was also added, since it's essentially similar - it's even more WP:UNDUE there due to the broader subject matter. Again, if you compare it to the level of detail, depth, and attention devoted to other individual executive actions, its inclusion here or on that page is grossly WP:UNDUE. --Aquillion (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll reiterate what I said above, and point out that measures such as this are already covered under the "U.S. government has funded similar endeavors" bit. That part gives TechGirls and TechWomen (comparatively more significant programs) less than a single sentence of focus, which seems approximately appropriate to a single, specific, narrow program in a single country - in comparison, devoting an entire section and paragraph to one (entirely symbolic) act is grossly WP:UNDUE. (Just as a point of comparison, here's the comparable series of initiatives by President Obama - and that just covers the last few years in America; if we started down that road, we'd need every initiatives at every other country in a similar level of granularity at well. Obviously I don't think those belong in the article either; the point is that if we covered every mostly-symbolic gesture at this level of detail, the article would be unreadable, and it's WP:UNDUE to single out just one.) --Aquillion (talk) 06:39, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Your suggestion seems to be rather uncontroversial. Go ahead and remove the content. TheDracologist (talk) 21:01, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Article title?

Wow, what a title! Is a simplified version possible? Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 14:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The title is short and to the point, does not show bias, and short. This is what a title should be.

MechelleCabral (talk) 00:00, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

New Outline for Article

Here are the changes I plan to make to the article outline:

1. History of women in STEM fields (new section added)

1. Role models

1.1 Historical roles

1.2 Biological background (deleting this section: has no references and no substantial information)

2. Recent advances in technology (deleting this section. The relevant information from this section may be incorporated in the new section “Progress in gender equality”) 2. Feminism and STEM 3. Statistics (moved from below to reorganize outline: sub-sections are reorganized)

3.1 Representation of women in STEM fields (moved and renamed from “Women in STEM”)

3.1.1 Percentage distribution of Probable Fields of Study Among First-Time College Freshmen, by sex: Fall 1996 (moved and made into a further sub-section)

3.2 Men and women’s earnings in STEM careers (moved and renamed from “Men and Women Earnings in STEM as a Career”)

4. Explanations for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields (renaming this section from “Some reasons for low enrollment in STEM subjects”)

4.1 Biological explanations (new sub-section added)

4.2 Structural explanations (moved from below and renamed—used to be “Gender, work and family”)

4.2.1 Effects of age (moved from below)

4.2.2 Territorial segregation (moved from below)

4.2.3 Leaky Pipeline (moved from below and renamed)

4.2.4 Gender and work (moved from below)

4.2.5 Work-family balance (moved from below and renamed)

4.3 Social-psychological explanations (new sub-section added)

4.3.1 Stereotypes and heuristics

4.3.1.1 Conceptions of the “ideal scientist”

4.3.2 Discrimination (new sub-section added)

4.3.2.1 Overt discrimination (new sub-section added)

4.3.2.2 Implicit discrimination (new sub-section added)

4.3.3 Stereotype threat (new sub-section added)

4.3.4 Pygmalion effect (new sub-section added)

4.3.5 Black Sheep effect (new sub-section added)

4.3.6 Queen Bee effect (new sub-section added)

5. Minority Women and STEM 6. Statistics (moving this section to reorganize outline)

6.1 Percentage distribution of Probable Fields of Study Among First-Time College Freshmen, by sex: Fall 1996

6.2 Men and Women Earnings in STEM as a Career

6.3 Women in STEM

7. Gender, work and family (moving this section to reorganize outline and re-titling it “structural factors”)

7.1 Effects of age

7.2 Territorial Segregation

7.3 Pipeline

7.4 Gender and Work

7.5 Family

6. Progress in gender equality (new section added. May incorporate some of the information from the “recent advances in technology” section)

7. Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields (renamed from “Future strategy” and edited to include more sources and strategies)

9. See also

10. References Naomi FK (talk) 13:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I enjoyed the outline of the article. Everything was clearly stated and easy to follow. Some short sections could have been combined but that is it. MechelleCabral (talk) 00:03, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Additional Source/Information

In the section Innate vs. learned skill I have found a source that would be a good way to back up the contributors statement on women not believing they have the same innate skill that men do when it comes to STEM subjects, specifically math.Yellowapple51 (talk) 04:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi Yellowapple51. Good add. You may want to clarify that all of the conclusions drawn belong to the author of your source. As currently configured here, the conclusions at the end may appear to be yours. If they are, they would violate Wikipedia's prohibition on original research. (Also you need a comma after "calculus.") Jagrif02 (talk) 19:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the response Jagrif02! I will move the citation to the end of my statement to clarify that it is from the source listed and not original research. I will also add a comma after calculus.Yellowapple51 (talk) 04:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Article Revision for Innate vs. Learned Skill

The section that I want to make my contribution to will be located in the Explanations for Low Representation of Women. Specifically within this section there is a part titled Innate vs. Learned Skill that I will focus on. This is a very small section and has only a small statement about how women are seen as lacking the "innate talent" that it takes to succeed in STEM fields and this leads to the assessment that women are less qualified for these positions in the field. I want to expand on this and address that studies have shown it isn't women's lack of skill that leads to their lack of success in STEM, but confidence in their skill. I will use the source cited in my sandbox on the study of mathematical confidence as a potential culprit to why women are 1.5 times more likely to leave STEM after calculus than men. I then want to discuss women's belief that they are worse than men in math and how this typical stereotype has contributed to women performing at a lower level. When making this point I will use the studies I found on calculus GPA and math identification contributing to the "stereotype threat," as well as my source on how mathematical self-concept can shape women's STEM aspirations. My contribution should add relevant information on the topic of explanations for the low representation of women in STEM and that it is not the lack of women's innate skill in mathematics, but their lack of confidence in this skill. Yellowapple51 (talk) 03:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

overlapping articles

There is also:

• Female education in STEM (a not very good article)
• Women in science (a pretty good article)
• Women in engineering
• Women in computing

and probably others. I'm not entirely sure how to sort these overlapping, but different, articles out. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

sources

Anyone think STUDY: Women leaving STEM due to depression, unhappiness this source and The Relationship Among Stigma Consciousness, Perfectionism, and Mental Health in Engaging and Retaining STEM Women should not be added as external links in the article? Why? --2001:8003:4023:D900:E187:794D:3126:2B87 (talk) 12:56, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Because you haven't provided the slightest evidence that any reliable source -- and CampusReform.org is pretty much the OPPOSITE of a reliable source -- gives a damn? See WP:DUE. --Calton | Talk 13:01, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

The campus reform article is predicated on this study, led by department of Veteran Affairs Researcher Erin Reilly, published in the newest issue of the Journal of Career Development. The height of reliability. --2001:8003:4023:D900:E187:794D:3126:2B87 (talk) 13:13, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

by the way, are MTV and Huffington Post reliable and unbiased? These two sources are in this Wikipedia page. --2001:8003:4023:D900:E187:794D:3126:2B87 (talk) 13:18, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

1) It's not MY job to refute anything: it's YOUR job to offer justification for the addition. 2) Nevertheless, I've done so, a couple of times now. 2a) the first ref is a shitty source 2b) the second ref is a primary source, being laundered through the first shitty source. WP doesn't use primary sources without interpretation, and the breathless rants of political hacks doesn't count. 3) WP:UNDUE says that some ACTUALLY reliable sources have to actually CARE about it for it to be included. If you've got an axe to grind, go find a blacksmith's shop instead.

by the way, are MTV and Huffington Post reliable and unbiased?

Since they have nothing to do with your additions, why should I or anyone else give a shit? --Calton | Talk 14:08, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I have already, time and time again, offered valid justification for the two external links - that one I a based on academic study and the other is that source. If you think it's undue, add a couple of external links that you think are due, if you can. --2001:8003:4023:D900:1840:A296:7972:846 (talk) 21:18, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

The fact that something is an "academic study" doesn't mean it should be linked into any related article. The fact that something cites an academic study; even less so. Lenina Libera (talk) 12:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

campusreform.org is an advocacy website and not RS for anything but what it says, attributed to itself. There is no encyclopedic value there, and it is just spam.

The other is a primary source, and we build articles from secondary sources. So thanks on that as well. Jytdog (talk) 00:44, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Responding to the comments at ELN: I agree with removal of the external link and that neither should be used as refs. The study might someday be useful for additional details if any of the research pans out, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen. --Ronz (talk) 02:35, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep. If we would never use a source for reasons of reliability or significance, and it doesn't have some special relationship to the article (such as, an unreliable source that is actually the subject of the article itself), then it shouldn't even be linked to. If there are other external links in the article that you find suspicious (you being the OP, not you, Ronz), we can discuss them. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Women in Physics/Biology pages

I was curious on why there was no Women in Physics/Biology pages/why it is forwarded to Women in Science? There is a page for women in geology, chemistry, and so on. So why is there no page for the women physicists/biologists? Even just a basic list with some information like the other women in ... pages. Especially since the gender gap within this field is so apparent for physics. I think it would be beneficial to have a page that shows a strong representation of the leading women in these fields. I'd be happy to start these pages, just want to make sure this discussion had not already taken place. --Kate Madsekad (talk) 16:38, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Madsekad, I think it's a great idea. Not only could we use those pages, but the entire area would benefit from some organization and appropriate hatnotes and maybe a navbox and/or outline to help readers can navigate from one article to another. For example, we have:

• Women in STEM fields
  • Women in science, Timeline of women in science
    • Women in chemistry
  • Women in computing and Timeline of women in computing (note: Women in Technology is about an album)
  • Women in engineering and History of women in engineering
  • Timeline of women in mathematics and List of women in mathematics
    • List of women in statistics

...and many more. Leviv ich 17:48, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, thanks for the response. I couldn't agree more! I was taking a closer look at the Women in Chemistry page and thought the organization was well thought out. I'm going to start with the Women in Physics page. Hopefully I can get a Nobel Laureates section, a timeline (hopefully similar to the one found on the Women in geology page), and a section on the gender gap found in this field, if enough information is available. If anyone happens to have a good source for the latter I'd greatly appreciate it! Kate Madsekad (talk) 18:47, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Madsekad, thanks for taking it on! Leviv ich 18:58, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Notice: Article Contribution

Hello, my name is Sammas9. I added this section to the talk page because I am contributing to this article. I plan to add more statistics and data about Latin American in Latin America other areas being published in the Central and South American section of Representation of Women Worldwide. I look forward to receiving any feedback from the community. If you want to read what I have so far feel free to take a look at my sandbox. Sammas9 (talk) 14:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

'Gender equality paradox' - a 'well-established phenomenon'?

Hello, I'm thinking this little section needs some changing:

Recent research reveals an interesting phenomenon that has been called the gender-equality paradox: the more gender equal societies are, the less equal they are in the choices men and women make with respect to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and careers. The reasons for this now well-established phenomenon remain a matter of speculation.

References

1. It ought to specify a time period, rather than simply saying 'recent' - it won't be recent ten years from now.

2. Remove the word 'interesting' - does not fit encyclopaedic tone

3. I don't believe this should be called a 'well-established' phenomenon for the following reasons:

• The 2018 study by Geary et al. in that first citation seems to be the only study covering this.

• The words 'well-established' give the impression that this has been studied and understood for some time, when in fact it comes from Geary et al.'s single, rather recent study.

• The researchers of the 2018 study originally used an undisclosed and unvalidated methodology. When they issued a correction using a new method they could not recreate their findings.

• Separate Harvard researchers could not reproduce the 2018 study's findings.

• Various researchers found there were problems in the study's methodology - the accuracy of its data, the method by which it determined 'gender equality', and the method by which it determined female representation in STEM.

I think the study should still be mentioned, but I think it is being given far more weight than it ought to be, and its various problems should be addressed.

If anyone happens to find a study covering this area other than Geary et al. and the Harvard one, I think it would be useful here. I don't mean a news or science news article, or a blog post - every one that I have found has been referencing that same 2018 study.

I'd like if some other people could weigh in here as well and tell me what they think. I'm not a particularly experienced Wikipedian so I'm not very confident when it comes to 'fixing' things and ensuring they meet the website's standards/policies.

Thank you. Watermelon-lemon (talk) 22:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Watermelon-lemon: You make excellent points. Actually, I think there's no need to mention the theory at all, if scholarly sources have referred to it mainly for the purpose of debunking it. Also, in line with WP:GLOBAL one has to wonder whether, even if there was some truth to the theory in a particular country and time period, that would mean that it holds in some general sense. Certainly there are plenty of examples historically where women rushed into fields almost as soon as barriers were removed (e.g., law and medicine in the US). So I'd be in favor of removing the sentences you quote, per WP:UNDUE. NightHeron (talk) 12:13, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron: Alright, I will change this, but I think I'll still reference the 2018 study - I'll just make reference to its various problems. The reason why is this gender equality paradox seems to be a popular idea among many people. Many of my friends and family members have made reference to it. Generally they also mention Jordan Peterson when I ask them for more information. If somebody as well-known as him is supporting the idea, we're going to keep hearing more about it (on a side note, I looked up what he was saying regarding this 'paradox', because if this was such a 'well-established' phenomenon then the article ought to go into more detail and cite some more solid research, and I figured if anyone would be referencing any studies on this it would be him, so I'd be able to find some more studies. But the only reference he made was to that very same 2018 study.)

Anyway, my point is that if I make no reference to the 'paradox' or the 2018 study altogether, someone's going to inevitably come along and think 'Why have they not mentioned the gender equality paradox' or maybe even feel that it's liberal bias not to mention it, and they'll keep putting in references to the 2018 study, and this process will keep repeating if we just remove mention of it. Whereas if I address the study and its problems in the article, and they read that part and still want to add something about the 'paradox', the only study they'll find is that 2018 study, and they'll realise they can't use it.

Does this make sense? Watermelon-lemon (talk) 22:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Great points, thanks for bringing this up! I was surprised to see an entire article on Gender-equality paradox, (mainly backed by the ONE study?!?!?) which is linked from the paragraph you talked about, and we should continue to link to that article...basically the statement/paragraph in this article can be thought of as a summary of that article. Please feel free to make the changes you suggested. Thanks! ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:21, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to all involved for the comments, but I see the discussion has gone stale so I've boldly rewritten the paragraph with something that matches Gender-equality paradox and its sources a lot more, citing a sample of them. — Bilorv (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"Since the Age of Enlightenment" (in lede) needs explanation

I'll admit this isn't really my subject area, but I think the reference to Enlightenment in the lede of this article needs a little explanation to explain its significance. --Bangalamania (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Bangalamania, I inserted "in the 18th century" before Age of Enlightenment so that at least the time period will be clear. Anyone who wants more information can click on the wikilink for the Enlightenment. Is that enough, do you think? NightHeron (talk) 01:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

False Information

This wiki page is dedicated to "Women in STEM" and mentions how STEM is male-dominated. Whoever made those edits seem to not have read the article. It is clear that STEM is women dominated, just look at the numbers. 43.8% of 6403.3 is LOWER than 38% of 8062.5. Unless there is something wrong with the numbers I guess the article shouldn't start with a blatantly false statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiderBehinder (talk • contribs) 20:18, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

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The lead needs to be rewritten

@NightHeron: and others. I think the lead needs to be rewritten - it is currently written like an introduction to an essay. It represents the issue completely one-sided. The lead would be more appropriate for an article called "Low participation in STEM by women in developed economies, seen through an activist lens" or something like that. Yes there is a disparity, but that would only be one aspect of all the interesting contributions by women in STEM fields.

The evidence that the reason for this disparity is mainly current discrimination is not generally convincing, see for instance gender-equality paradox. The explanations section has ~ 15 subsections, of which "discrimination" is only one, hardly reason enough for an exclusive place in the lead. The last bracketed part about universal appeal is just plain weird and is gainsaid in the next section showing a graph showing 5% of boys wanting to go into ICT. In most developing countries the number of STEM student enrollments is declining or stagnating. Interest in these fields is generally low compared to the potential earnings, but not perhaps compared to their comparative social status.

For what could be done: To clearly state that discriminatory practices were in place for most of the history of science, but that overt discrimination is now rare. To clearly state that interest in STEM subjects among girls falls drastically at the onset of puberty [1]. To clearly state that the suspected reasons for the disparity are many and are suspected to interact, mentioning "pipeline leakage" which is to me a central phenomenon.

For my own part I find it very interesting that one of the most prominent differences in measurable personality traits between the sexes is interest in things vs. interest in people [2]. My addition on this was completely unjustified called a sweeping generalization, but I will let this slide as it is a rather technical subject to get into in the lead. AndersThorseth (talk) 14:50, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Rather than getting into a general debate about gender, let's just look at the sentence you wanted to add to the lead: "Other researchers point to the general tendency that men and boys are generally more interested in things and girls and women are generally more interested in people." This makes the controversial (and dubious) assertion of fact (see MOS:SAID) in wikivoice that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in. The sweeping generalization is not supported by the sources, which studied only women or girls of certain populations at certain times and which used methodology that is itself controversial. There are many readily available facts (some but not all cited in the article) that make it unlikely that testosterone is what causes people to be interested in STEM fields (as your two primary sources claim). For example, the proportion of math PhD's in the US earned by women went from about 5% in the 1950s and 1960s to around 30% starting in the 1980s. Did American women suddenly get a burst of testosterone? Another example: During the US-vs-USSR Cold War, the proportion of women engineers and doctors in the US was low and in the Soviet Union was high. Again, was it that Russian women had more testosterone than American women? Highly doubtful. A possible explanation was that those two professions were relatively high-paying in the US and much, much less lucrative in the USSR. Anti-women discrimination (which, BTW, is not "now rare") is generally not aimed at keeping women out of poorly remunerated professions. NightHeron (talk) 16:13, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Your interpretation of the sentence I added does in fact not hold up to scrutiny. It is clearly stated to be an overall trend and "generally" is used twice, making plenty of room for overlap and outliers, besides it is supported by evidence of testosterone exposure effects during pregnancy. So no, not a sweeping generalization.

As far as your examples go: I am not denying the fact of sex discrimination in academia throughout the history of science all the way up to today, where overt discrimination is now indeed rare. Various forms of covert discrimination is still of cause very much an issue.

To use USSR, one of the worlds most oppressive regimes as an example of anything other than state cohesion is very curious, I don't know why you would try that??

To help you understand the situation, I would suggest that you yourself is operating under the highly dubious assumption that all differences between the sexes are socially constructed and motivated by the wish for power. This is a highly ideological position and not NPOV.

In your reply there are several instances of you leaving out or inserting crucial words around my arguments, setting up straw-man arguments against things I did not in fact write. This makes me question whether your editorial work here is done in good faith.

As you have not addressed my criticism of the lead, I am tempted to just assume you agree with the criticism, but perhaps that would be too much to hope for. I will try to do a lead that does more justice to the article and subject in general, then we can discuss that. AndersThorseth (talk) 17:20, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Of course I saw that you used the word "generally" in making your generalization. I also used the word "generally" when I paraphrased the claim that you wanted to insert in wikivoice into the lead:: that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in.

I might agree with some of what you want to add to the lead (for example, about the history of women's contributions to STEM fields); however, do not assume that if another editor does not reply to something you say, that means they agree with it. I want to avoid a WP:WALLOFTEXT, and I'd really rather not debate you, especially in view of your tone and your disregard for WP:AGF. I'll wait to comment further until I see what you propose to add to the lead. NightHeron (talk) 19:31, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I disagree on your characterization of your rephrasing, but I will assume good faith then and assume that the mischaracterizations of my post was just misunderstandings. AndersThorseth (talk) 19:49, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Here is my take on a new lead for the article

Women in STEM fields describes women’s general participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). From the inception of the fields in the age of enlightenment to the middle of the 20th century the participation level of women was very low and the contributions that were done by women were often overlooked or downplayed. Coinciding with women entering the work force and since then there has been a gradual increase in women participation and recognition in STEM fields. In some fields, such as biotechnology the gender balance approaches 50/50, [3] while in fields such as general engineering the participation of women is still very low. [4] Scholars have described many obstacles, that are specific for women, that has to be overcome to be successful in the STEM fields, such as overt and covert discrimination, stereotyping, lack of role models, and harassment in the male dominated fields. Theses obstacles leading to women leaving the STEM fields, sometimes referred to as the leaky pipeline [5] Other factors negatively affecting the recruitment of women to STEM fields are low average interest in STEM subjects and lower average confidence in own ability, among women, typically arising in adolescence [6].''

Let me know what you think AndersThorseth (talk) 21:37, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the general tone emphasizing the history and the progress that has been made. However, you need to avoid (a) using sources that deal only with the US to support a generalization that, even if it arguably applies to the US, does not apply globally (see WP:GLOBAL); and (b) suggesting simplistic reasons that don't hold up. For example: (1) "coinciding with women entering the work force" is incorrect both because it suggests that large numbers of women entering the workforce causes a big increase in the number entering the sciences and because even the word "coinciding" is wrong in most countries. As I mentioned before, in the US women's participation in most of the sciences was very low through the 1960s, but had increased a lot by the 1980s. But women had entered the paid workforce in large numbers much, much earlier than that. (2) Similarly, "low average interest in STEM subjects" does not apply in many broad areas (in many countries girls through high school perform better than boys in their science and math classes; in many countries, including the US, women are at least as interested as men are in many of the biomedical and environmental sciences). NightHeron (talk) 22:31, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, - (a) yes it is a good idea to widen the perspective more globally. But it gets a bit tricky because in many countries with very in-egalitarian policies women are highly represented in the STEM fields, Iran being an interesting example[7]. (b) (1) I think you are right about the 20 year delay comparing workforce and STEM participation, although I dont have a reference for that delay. Do you have a better phrasing of the timing of these events?

(2) I have a bunch of very sound references stating the statistical difference in interest (not performance) between the sexes and also making the connection to career choice, this [8] is a good place to start.

It is true that some STEM fields seem to be much more attractive to women than others, biotech and electrical engineering being prime examples, but I think I already covered that, but perhaps there needs to be some more elaboration there. AndersThorseth (talk) 08:16, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It would be best if you propose what you want to add to the lead one sentence at a time, so that we can discuss it. Also, other editors are more likely to jump in if the discussion is very specific. On this topic it's important to avoid (1) essentialism, that is, stating that there's something intrinsic about being female (genetics, hormones, etc.) that causes lower participation in STEM fields; (2) making generalizations as if they apply to all women when the sources are speaking only of American (or British, or Western) women in recent years; (3) confusing correlation with causality (such as suggesting that two trends occurring at the same time means that one caused the other). As far as Iran is concerned (and India and parts of Africa, where women are relatively well-represented in university science departments), the treatment of women depends a lot on social and economic class. Many of the issues involving mistreatment of women do not necessarily apply to women who are relatively affluent. Because the situation is complicated, it's best not to try to include too much in the lead. NightHeron (talk) 09:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with almost all of that. Editing a poor lead one sentence at a time seems nonsensical to me as i deem very few of the existing sentences to be useful. Your list of things to avoid sounds like original research to me. We have no business evaluating whether or not reputable sources are essentiallist or confuse causation with correlation, we are to report what the reputable sources says - given due weight [9]. I have no problem indicating that the global outlook is complicated, that can be done without getting too much into detail, I think. AndersThorseth (talk) 10:34, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I suggested that you propose "what you want to add" one sentence at a time. I wasn't talking about editing the existing sentences. Before doing the latter, there needs to be a discussion here of what you think is wrong with them (other than needing to be balanced by additions). If we include pro-essentialist content in the lead, per WP:NPOV we have to include some of the many sources that dispute that POV, and that would be too much for the lead. If we make a statement about causality that's cited to a source that only shows correlation, then the statement is not supported by the source. If the source states causality but only shows correlation, then we should discuss the source's reliability and look for better sources. It's not a violation of WP:NOR to discuss the quality of sources and, if necessary, look for better ones. NightHeron (talk) 10:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I dont want to "add" things to the lead I want to rewrite it. I have already stated what I think is wrong with the entire lead. No, we dont have to do any of those things, what we have to do is summarize the article [10], including the rather lengthy section on possible explanations, which is "essentialist" and "social constructivist" in a mix, and quite clearly a debatable topic. AndersThorseth (talk) 11:21, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The lead currently consists of just 3 sentences, supported by 5 sources. I have no objection to removing the part in parentheses in the last sentence. Other than that, you haven't made a case that there's anything wrong with any of those sentences. You have just said that the treatment is "one-sided", and that can be fixed by adding material. NightHeron (talk) 12:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It is literally on the first line, of this topic ... it is currently written like an introduction to an essay. i.e. should be tagged with something like the ((Research paper)) template.

But I agree with @Avatar317: that we should just summarize the sections and avoid references if possible.

I was quite surprised to learn that the age of enlightenment is not mentioned anywhere in the main article. This perhaps indicating the need for a history section. AndersThorseth (talk) 07:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The method for improving articles by policy is WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, and the lead doesn't need citations WP:LEADCITE; which also means that you shouldn't rewrite the lead all at once using your own cherry-picked sources, you should improve the lead by picking one section of the article to summarize and then add a sentence or paragraph summarizing each section.

And I also support doing small changes rather than large rewrites, because it is easier for others to discuss, follow, and revert smaller parts. This way any discussion on a reversion can more clearly discuss the problem, rather then the difficulty of having to discuss which part of a large edit was the problem part.

I suggest you recommend a sentence/paragraph you want to use to summarize a specific section and we can discuss it. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:16, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I see your points. I think I was also confused by the title of the article, "Women in STEM fields" when a more fitting title for the current main article would be "Low participation of women in STEM fields" or something similar. I think your recommendation to summarize the current sections is good and I think the current lead does a rather poor job at doing that. That is why I proposed a complete rewrite. AndersThorseth (talk) 07:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the title (as the article stands) might be better as "Low participation of women in STEM fields", but if you add a history section as you suggest than we could stay with the current title. ---Avatar317^(talk) 21:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion : A history section

This section would highlight contribution of women in STEM field as role models and work done in the past to attract (or detract women) to the various fields. Also perhaps look at the changes that has happened since the time that women where unheard of in these fields, before STEM was being used as an umbrella term. AndersThorseth (talk) 18:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Good suggestion, that would definitely be something the article could use! ---Avatar317^(talk) 21:10, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Here is my draft for a history section, currently I have only added internal wikilinks but of cause it will need a lot of inline citations before included in the main article. I welcome any additions and comments to the text below

History

It is widely agreed that women´s participation in the fields of science, technology and engineering has been very limited , and also under-reported throughout most of history. This has been the case, with exceptions, until large scale changes begun around the 1970s. Possible reasons and mechanisms behind the limitations are being discussed among scholars such as ingrained gender roles, sexism as well as sex differences in psychology. There has also been an effort amongst historians of science to uncover under-reported contributions of women in the fields.

The term STEM was first used in practice in 2001 concerned primarily with choice of education and career. The individual fields have different historical backgrounds, but women participation although limited has been seen throughout their history.

Science or protoscience and mathematics has been practiced since ancient times. History has examples of women participating in science or science like subjects such as alchemy, medicine, botany, astronomy, algebra and geometry. In the middle ages in Europe and the Middle East, christian monasteries and islamic madrasas were places where women could work on subjects such as mathematics and the study of nature. The word science has been used in Middle English since the 14th century in the sense of "the state of knowing" but came to its modern use during the scientific revolution in the 16th century.

The term engineer, meaning a person operating an engine i.e., a war machine, was introduced in the 14th century. Despite this male dominated military beginning there are examples of women partaking in the engineering disciplines.

The word technology was first put into use in the 19th century, during the industrial revolution. At this point most women where homemakers while most men were employed with production of goods. Despite the fact that the development of early technology such as the steam engine was mainly done by men there are examples of women contributing.

In many instances throughout history women have been barred from higher formal education making it very difficult to enter highly specialized disciplines. Universities in the Christian tradition began as places of education of a professional clergy, allowing no women and this practice was continued for a large part of academic history.

The term “computer”, initially meant “person doing computations” usually a woman, the computations were highly complicated, but could be broken down into smaller sections of highly repetitive computational tasks. Working as a computer required conscientiousness, accuracy and speed. Some women initially working as computers, advanced from doing the simpler calculations to working with higher abstraction levels, specifying tasks and algorithms, and analyzing results.

Women participation rates in the STEM fields started increasing noticeably in the 1970s and 1980s. Some fields, such as biotechnology has now almost 50/50 participation of the sexes while many fields of engineering maintain a very low rate of women participating, in most countries.

References

Let me know what you think. AndersThorseth (talk) 09:48, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Comments on the draft for a History section

Thanks for your work in writing a proposed addition to the lead.

Let's not discuss the whole long text at once, but rather go paragraph by paragraph, starting with "It is widely agreed that women´s participation in the fields of science, technology and engineering has been very limited, and also under-reported throughout history, with very few exceptions until near the end of the 20th century. The reasons and mechanisms behind the limitations are being discussed among scholars as well as an effort to uncover under-reported contributions of women in the fields. Causes being discussed are ingrained gender roles, sexism as well as sex differences in psychology." My comments:

(1) If sources for the first sentence are provided in the main body, as required, then you can drop "it is widely agreed that".

(2) The end of the first sentence is ambiguous, since it's unclear whether "very few exceptions" refers to "women's participation...has been very limited" or to "under-reported throughout history". In the first case, the "very few exceptions" is not correct. There were certainly a lot of exceptions in the early and middle 20th century, and arguably much earlier in certain parts of the world. In the second case, it's closer to the truth, although major books about women in science (such as the first volume of Margaret Rossiter's work on the history of women in science in the US) came out in the early 1980s.

(3) In the second sentence, "as well as an effort" is ungrammatical (lack of parallelism). The use of the present tense in the second and third sentences (rather than, say, the present perfect tense) creates the impression that these discussions started recently, which is not the case.

(4) In the third sentence the wording suggests that it's a fact that the three things listed after "are" are all causes. The essentialist claim that "sex differences in psychology" are a cause is highly controversial and should not be presented as a fact in wikivoice. NightHeron (talk) 11:15, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

First: Thank you for you comments.

Second: This is not a suggestion for an addition to the lead but a suggestion for a section called "History".

(1) OK no problem, can you provide any references? That would be useful.

(2) I have tried to address your concerns now, but I have to say I dont find attaching words like "correct" to the difference between "with exceptions" "few exceptions" or "very few exceptions" to be very productive. Lets loosen the throttle a bit here. You are very welcome to provide an alternative phrasing to the one I have made now.

(3) I agree, and have made a slight change.

(4) Here I have changed the wording and added the phasing "possible causes". As to your reluctance to include subjects you find "controversial" I think we already covered this quite extensively. I will of cause, as I get to it, add citations that validate that this is indeed being discussed.

You are, as I wrote also invited to to make changes to the text yourself. As goes for others. AndersThorseth (talk) 12:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Comments on revised 1st paragraph:

(1) A general formatting comment: According to policy (see WP:TALK#Editing own comments), you should not edit your original proposed text after it has been commented upon, but rather propose your revised version below my comments. Otherwise it's very hard for anyone else to follow the history of the discussion. So as to avoid a WP:WALLOFTEXT I'd like to once again suggest that you do this one paragraph at a time.

(2) In the first sentence delete "It is widely agreed that" per WP:WEASEL. Also delete "the fields of" which is wordy and doesn't add anything.

(3) Spelling/grammar: begun -> began, 1970ies -> 1970s, are being -> have been (and stylistically better to use active rather than passive: Scholars have discussed), amongst -> among, and delete "in the fields"

(4) What we call technology and engineering did not exist throughout history, and many would say that "science" in the sense we use the term today did not exist before the Scientific Revolution starting in the 16th century.

(5) The first two sentences are unsourced.

(6) Piling up citations (7 of them for one sentence) is not helpful, see WP:TOOMANYREFS. You should keep only your highest-quality references. NightHeron (talk) 09:52, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

(1) Thank you for your suggestion, but I will not do that. The text is not to be considered a comment, but a draft which is something quite different. Anyone can go to the the history of this page and inform themselves about the development of that draft, just like any regular article. But you are very welcome to post you suggestions below your own comments.

(2) As I have written before I will provide references and then probably drop the first part of the first sentence .

(3) If we want to avoid a wall of text I find it quite strange to use several lines to discuss trivial editorial changes. I at least have no need for this, see my rely to (1).

(4) I am not sure what your suggestion is but I have added a sentence on the origin of the word science which is distinct from science as a concept, and the concept predates it the word by a significant amount.

(5) I have added some sources to the first sentence and will look for more.

(6) Noted, I will review the references as I progress on the work with the draft. AndersThorseth (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Please don't summarily reject policy-based suggestions, as you are doing in (1). Editing your own text after it has been commented upon is confusing to other editors, and it makes the editor who commented look foolish because their comment on a sentence makes no sense when the sentence is no longer there. Your proposed text is not a draft in your sandbox, but rather is part of an article's talk-page, and as such should adhere to Wikipedia's talk-page guidelines.

In general, you should not reject other editors' suggestions without a coherent reason. NightHeron (talk) 15:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I have to say that I have edited many articles, but I have never come across so much red tape - so many contradicting demands and unproductive references to policy. If you prefer that the draft is in another location and you think that that will make long conversations about typos look less foolish (improbable), then why dont you just say that. If you want to discuss the article one paragraph at a time, then why don't you set that up and see if anyone else thinks they want to partake in that work (also improbable). I have looked at the talk page and the archive of this article and I don't see anyone doing sentence by sentence editing anywhere, so what is up with that? I have to say that I find this way of working to be highly discouraging and unproductive. AndersThorseth (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

How about you just add the History section to the article, and others can edit it as they see fit, or remove sentences that are not well sourced, then the edit history for that will be IN the article history.

When I had said above that you should suggest text and we can discuss, I meant that for the lead, which is the part of articles I most often see discussion taking place over, since there are more judgement calls about how much to summarize, what to leave out, and how to summarize twenty article paragraphs into one lead sentence, which accurately gives an overview without oversimplifying so much so as to lead the reader to a false understanding.

I'd also be ok with you adding one lead statement at a time, explaining which section you are attempting to summarize, and of course others can change/edit/revert for discussion those as well. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:11, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I like the idea, but I wonder how that aligns with @NightHeron:s idea about discussing only a few lines at a time. For the lead I agree, it should summarize the sections of the article, but I will attempt that after the history section is more under way. AndersThorseth (talk) 11:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm on board with Avatar317's suggestion about how to proceed. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 11:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Alright Thanks - Ill put it up and we will see what happens AndersThorseth (talk) 06:10, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Verizon reference "Page Not Found"

Hello editors, I was browsing this article and noticed that it discusses a Verizon initiative in the Organized efforts subsection and uses a reference to a page that is no longer available. The specific reference is #200 and the sentence is:

• Current campaigns to increase women's participation within STEM fields include the UK's WISE as well as mentoring programs, such as the Million Women Mentors initiative connecting girls and young women with STEM mentors, GlamSci, and Verizon's #InspireHerMind project.

I work for Verizon and have a conflict of interest, so because of this, I will not directly edit the page. Instead, I wanted to notify volunteer editors of this inactive link. In its place, I have dug up a different Verizon webpage that houses the same information. Additionally, I have found a CNBC article that discusses the Verizon initiative. Will editors consider replacing the dead link currently referenced with these sources?

Thanks! VZEric (talk) 13:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done Actualcpscm (talk) 12:05, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! VZEric (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

When did the STEM fields emerge?

I suggest we change "...since origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to " since the origin of these fields, increasing only recently."

It does not have to be this formulation but the notion that for instance the origin of math is in the 18th century borders on the absurd. Almost all math up to high school level was done long before this time.

• The history of science article places the origin of science around 3000 BEC
• The history of math article places the origin of science around 3000 BEC
• The history of engineering article places the origin of engineering around 5000 BEC
• The history of technology starts out 2.5 million years ago, however it might be the one that is closest to the 18th century in practice.

AndersThorseth (talk) 13:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Good point. I'd suggest changing the part "with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to: "with generally low participation among women since the origins of modern science, although in most fields women's participation has increased substantially since the 1970s." The reasoning behind this suggestion is that (1) the word "generally" allows for certain exceptions in certain fields and time periods; (2) we shouldn't specify the century when modern science began, since there's no consensus about this and it depends on exactly how one defines the term "modern science"; and (3) we should include in the lead the fact that women's participation has been increasing in the last half-century. NightHeron (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)