Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Women In STEM's Dog That Didn't Bark

Pew Research has lately published a wide-ranging poll on people's opinions about STEM, which are mostly not worth knowing, save for the questions they ask of people not in those fields.
The survey asked those non-STEM workers why they did not end up pursuing this interest. The most commonly cited reason for not pursuing a STEM career was cost and time barriers (27%), such as high expenses required for education or a lack of access to resources and opportunities. One-in-five (20%) say the reason they did not pursue a STEM career is they found another interest, while 14% say they found STEM classes were too hard or they lost interest.
More interesting was the question about sexism as a cause chasing women out of the field:

One of the bigger issues I have had with most of the "women aren't in STEM careers because of rampant sexism" is that no one has ever bothered to ask people not in such careers why they hadn't considered STEM careers. The overwhelming answer is that hardly anyone cited that as a cause, and so the Sisters of Perpetual Grievance must needs look elsewhere for their sustenance.

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