Cutting your nose off to spite your... net worth?

[Jamesqf]

Yes, there does seem to be a systemic bias against women going into engineering: purely that few girls seem to think of it as a valuable and desirable course of study.

So is that a bias on the part of the engineering/science world, or a bias on the part of the girls who don't want to go into the field?  If the latter, why should society bribe the uninterested to go into the field, simply to achieve PC sex ratios?

Now I do think it'd be a good idea to encourage younger kids, both boys and girls, to be more interested in science, but that's an entirely different matter.

Anyway, you could point to a whole bunch of not quite as obvious relevant interests girls may enjoy at various ages: jigsaw puzzles; playing lego; orienteering; logic puzzles and puzzle-solving computer games; building sandcastles, dams, cubby houses...

Sure, but I got tired of typing :-)  Point remains: I think in general you'll find that, from a very young age, girls tend to be less interested in those things than boys.

(And for an example on the flip side, why is the recreational horse world about 90% women?)

Um, have you been in college-level engineering classes?  Upper level college physics classes?

BS in math & physics (with a lot of grad work in physics, 'cause I enjoyed it), graduate degrees in computer engineering.

My experience with this is that both are very hostile environments towards women.  If a young lady is truly outstanding in these areas, then there's a good chance she will be even more reviled, isolated, ignored, not mentored, discouraged.

Not at all what I've observed.  Though I think "...isolated, ignored, not mentored..." describes what most males in the field experience (it certainly was mine), so why should women expect special treatment?

[Self-employed-swami]

Quote
I wonder if I can find evidence of a systematic/societal bias against women in engineering?

I would very much doubt that you can find any actual bias from say high school/college entrance onwards.  There's probably still a lot of childhood socialization (little girls are supposed to play with dolls, no?), but it's hard to tell whether that's innate or imposed by societal conditioning.

Um, have you been in college-level engineering classes?  Upper level college physics classes?  My experience with this is that both are very hostile environments towards women.  If a young lady is truly outstanding in these areas, then there's a good chance she will be even more reviled, isolated, ignored, not mentored, discouraged.  If you read the literature on college women in these fields, the word that comes up over and over and over is "discouraged."  Yes, I was actively discouraged.  Many times, sometimes bluntly, sometimes obliquely.  Many faculty made it clear that I was not welcome.  And this wasn't very long ago.

I have a geology degree (I went to school with, and shared classes with a lot of engineers), and there were probably 30% women, if not more.  It was the same in geology and geophysics.  In my higher level physics classes, I was never 'discouraged' by anyone; quite the opposite actually. 

[oldtoyota]

In your case where are the institutions built which reflect that racism you've been a target of?

I tend to avoid the institutions that are built on racism, but it's easy to give you an example.  You won't get anywhere in government or a police department these days unless you're black.  Us white folk need not apply anymore.

After I picked up my jaw from the floor I decided to check people who may have gotten somewhere in government. US House and Senate. See this site http://thisnation.com/congress-facts.html

   House   Senate
White   361   96
Black   44   0
Hispanic   25   2
Asion   7   2
American Indian   1   0

Now sure this information is a year old so maybe somehow you're right and the 96 white people were ousted from the Senate.

Do you have any facts to back up your statement? You say it's easy to give an example and then fail to.

It is so well known that certain populations are hired more than others that it's a joke around town. You can get a job with the gvt if you are one of the populations they want to hire (those groups are specified on the online application forms so it's pretty obvious) or if you know someone on the "inside." That is about the only way I've ever seen anyone get a job at the government. To fill out an application and get hired as an unknown is virtually impossible if you do not know someone or fall into a certain population. This is my experience with about 50 friends and acquaintances.

Maybe it is not that way in others parts of the country, yet it is that way in DC.

Also, I don't think the pp is referring to Congress, which is elected. I assumed s/he was talking about jobs you apply for via USAjobs.gov.

[oldtoyota]

You don't think that there's any social value of affirmative action? Do you object to scholarships for underrepresented groups, like women in engineering?

I think you first have to ask why the group is underrepresented.  Is there any systematic bias that excludes the group, or - as with your example - is it just that relatively few women actually want to be engineers?

I'd also like someone to explain why there shouldn't be affirmative action in say the NBA (where less than a quarter of the players are white), or college sports.

Plenty of women have wanted to play baseball. One was ousted because the man in charge thought women were too delicate (even though she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou G). That is just one example of a woman (and this applies to other women) who wanted to do something and were banned from it.

Why not have the NBA with women?

If you're a man, you live with a privilege that woman do not have. Same for white folks.

[Joet]

have you watched the WNBA though? lol brick

[DoubleDown]

It is so well known that certain populations are hired more than others that it's a joke around town. You can get a job with the gvt if you are one of the populations they want to hire (those groups are specified on the online application forms so it's pretty obvious) or if you know someone on the "inside." That is about the only way I've ever seen anyone get a job at the government. To fill out an application and get hired as an unknown is virtually impossible if you do not know someone or fall into a certain population. This is my experience with about 50 friends and acquaintances.

Maybe it is not that way in others parts of the country, yet it is that way in DC.

Also, I don't think the pp is referring to Congress, which is elected. I assumed s/he was talking about jobs you apply for via USAjobs.gov.

I dunno, I'm a white guy, I applied like anyone else without knowing anyone on the inside, and got hired by the federal government to work in DC. At my orientation with about 30 others who were hired like me (no special connections), they looked like a representative sample of U.S. society (different races and backgrounds, half men/women, mostly white but other races too).

[matchewed]

In your case where are the institutions built which reflect that racism you've been a target of?

I tend to avoid the institutions that are built on racism, but it's easy to give you an example.  You won't get anywhere in government or a police department these days unless you're black.  Us white folk need not apply anymore.

After I picked up my jaw from the floor I decided to check people who may have gotten somewhere in government. US House and Senate. See this site http://thisnation.com/congress-facts.html

   House   Senate
White   361   96
Black   44   0
Hispanic   25   2
Asion   7   2
American Indian   1   0

Now sure this information is a year old so maybe somehow you're right and the 96 white people were ousted from the Senate.

Do you have any facts to back up your statement? You say it's easy to give an example and then fail to.

It is so well known that certain populations are hired more than others that it's a joke around town. You can get a job with the gvt if you are one of the populations they want to hire (those groups are specified on the online application forms so it's pretty obvious) or if you know someone on the "inside." That is about the only way I've ever seen anyone get a job at the government. To fill out an application and get hired as an unknown is virtually impossible if you do not know someone or fall into a certain population. This is my experience with about 50 friends and acquaintances.

Maybe it is not that way in others parts of the country, yet it is that way in DC.

Also, I don't think the pp is referring to Congress, which is elected. I assumed s/he was talking about jobs you apply for via USAjobs.gov.

Or you could take a look at what I wrote after that post -

In your case where are the institutions built which reflect that racism you've been a target of?

I tend to avoid the institutions that are built on racism, but it's easy to give you an example.  You won't get anywhere in government or a police department these days unless you're black.  Us white folk need not apply anymore.

Even better. The entire US federal government's demographic profile.

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/demographics/2006/table1-1.pdf

Still 71.6% white from '94 to '06.

As for the groups being specified on the online form being obvious would the listing go something like this?

White/Caucasian
Hispanic
African American
Native American
Asian
Pacific Islander
Other

Because that may cover a very large section of races and in fact be non obvious and just be a silly way for you to say they target minorities for hiring which is blatantly untrue due to my post above.

*edit* Rereading my last line I'm wrong. They may very well be targeting minorities to hire but in what way is that an expression of institutionalized racism towards white people? Which was what my original post was about.

BlueMR2 was stating that there are examples of racism towards white people and cited government as a place where white people can't "get anywhere" due to their whiteness. My post was to illustrate that that is false due to the proportion of white people employed by the government.