zlacker

> This can hardly be surprising to the authors. People in lower-level technical jobs don’t have as much power over society at large as those in high-level positions. Thus gender inbalances there don’t have the same supposed impact and perpetuating effect on structural inbalances. Thus they are not considered as harmful in the grand scheme of things.

I'm not trying to misrepresent you but are you making the claim that if we had more female PHDs in STEM, that would lead to more female plumbers and car mechanics?

Or is it more, the changes needed to get women into stem would necessarily get women into other "less prestigious" fields?

>>shard9+(OP)
Neither. I only was critizing what I think is a flawed argument, nothing else. I didn’t make any mental connection to what you bring up. I understand why your impression is that I must have meant something more, as this usually is the case with comments about polarizing topics like this.

That aside (and not meant as criticism against you), it’s super frustrating how when it comes to this specific topic, it’s unbelievably hard to express a thought in a way which is not being misunderstood by others. We all seem to have a mental concept of the debate in mind and then just match everything we read to this existing concept, which leads to all kinds of misrepresentations.

>>shard9+(OP)
I think imartin2k is reading this:

  surprisingly there is no concern about the under-
  representation of women in lower-level technical
  jobs, such as car mechanics or plumbing

And then reading this, two paragraphs below in the same article:

  These differences are socially important because these
  tend to be prestigious occupations, and practically
  important because the different numbers of men and women
  in these fields contribute, in part, to the sex
  difference in earnings.

When I read the article, this incongruity made me feel the surprise was feigned for rhetorical effect. And I was shocked - shocked! - to find crass rhetorical tricks in an article about gender bias in STEM :)

>>imarti+i
I initially read the comment as you positing your chain of thought (instead of theirs) and i was trying to work out the underlying fact being such a chain of logic.

I guess what ill say is that having a mental concept of debate, i personally find useful in getting to the root of ideas.

Of course circling the wagons in your echo chamber by always taking on the debate in your favour isn't good, asking people to further explain thoughts and arguments you don't understand/don't agree with i think is good and people should do more of it.