this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024

398 points (90.1% liked)

Technology

59578 readers

2904 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

398

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

submitted 10 months ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

133 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] WeeSheep@lemmy.world 100 points 10 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.

[–] WHARRGARBL@kbin.social 63 points 10 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.

[–] Ilflish@lemm.ee 28 points 10 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.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (18 replies)

[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@kbin.social 45 points 10 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.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 45 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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

[–] silverhand@reddthat.com 24 points 10 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..

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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...

[–] MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml 16 points 10 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.

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Alto@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago

I believe they were implying in STEM vs non-STEM

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 7 points 10 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.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 28 points 10 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.

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.

[–] silverhand@reddthat.com 9 points 10 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

[–] Urist@lemmy.ml 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.

[–] GiveMemes@jlai.lu 6 points 10 months ago

I'd recommend Acollierastro's YouTube video about the rampant sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in physics and astronomy. While engineering is certainly a big part of the equation, every hard science except biology is dominated by men and that definitely feeds all of these issues

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 10 months ago (4 children)

ITT: disappointment. Cmon Lemmy. You're better than this.

[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago

I’ve posted things on sexism in STEM before, so I can say: no, it is not. I almost didn’t post this precisely because of how bad the comments were to those posts. Hope foolishly sprung eternal.

[–] 0xD@infosec.pub 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is a collection of mostly contrarians who feel superior, it really isn't better than this for the most part.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Girls suck at math (Obligatory XKCD.)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] doylio@lemmy.ca 22 points 10 months ago (15 children)

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

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 10 months ago

If someone thinks that a claim of male on female sexism is an attack on men, that's a them problem. If someone accuses me of sexism, I generally don't go on the defensive immediately. Conscientious people ought to seek out ways they can improve themselves and not even unconsciously discriminate against their colleagues. Empathy is in rather short supply these days though.

load more comments (14 replies)

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 20 points 10 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.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] ComfyMuffin@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

We coulda told you that without a study bruh

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 11 points 10 months ago

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

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

Comments are a shit show 🙂

load more comments