Comment on Transitioning in STEM

• sudneo@lemm.ee ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Tbh, in Italy there is no much “before university” in terms of “being excellent”. The admission test was extremely easy, with a very high number of admitted students and on topics that are common to all high schools (we have a completely different school system in Italy). In fact, the vast majority of people in my class never studied those topics in high school. Also university costs were low (from 0 to ~2k/year depending on family income).

  But I think that a mix of stereotypes (I.e. gender stereotypes), peer pressure (do you want to go study in a class 90% men) and other social issues definitely discourage all but the most motivated women to join, which is a shame.

  The same exact thing applies to many other faculties of course. Psychology and “educational sciences” (literal translation) are basically just women (at least in Italy), which is exactly the same phenomenon.

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  • insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Before university = the whole life lived as a girl before university is even in it. The whole time being held to a different standard, encouraged one way, discouraged another way, etc etc. Any interest or persuasion being dismantled and/or dismissed for decades before uni.

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    • sudneo@lemm.ee ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      But what you are saying doesn’t match much the data (at least in Italy). In Italy females consistently get higher grades than miles, in all levels of school, and they do that from other women teachers (including STEM subjects).

      How this matches “being held to a different standard”, for example?

      They are the vast majority of schools in humanities (languages, classical studies, etc.) and all “licei” (=high schools created with the purpose of forming the ruling class back in 1920s) and they are the minority only in technical schools (which are generally lower quality schools more oriented toward professions than university) and in the scientific high school.

      This also doesn’t seem to suggest any encouragement or discouragement in one direction or another, BUT it does match perfectly the culturally rigid gender stereotypes about women being more creative and fitting roles of care.

      Also worth noting that women attend university in a higher % (56%) compared to men (also a result of gender stereotypes IMHO) and with higher grades on average. They are also the majority of PhD students (59%).

      So my question I guess would be: why medicine and psychology are mostly and overwhelmingly women faculties, while engineering etc. are the opposite?

      any interest or persuasion being dismantled and/or dismissed for decades before uni.

      I wouldn’t say “any”, but I would absolutely say that interests in fields that are traditionally male-dominated are discouraged for women and viceversa (I have written in another comment, the imbalance in educational science is even higher than the one in engineering).

      So I do see gender roles, I do see cultural influences about what is " for men" and “for women”, I don’t see the different standard women are held up to.

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      • ace_of_based@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        im sorry, i want to answer you but you need to rewrite that whole mess, it’s intolerably difficult to read (unless you’re really just tellin a woman “this unrelated data doesn’t match your life experience”).

        that would be comically stupid and sexist, and proving OP right!

        I must be missing something. Maybe you’re doing a bit of satire? Embracing the stereotype of “italians=super-sexist”?

        naw. I gotta be reading it wrong.

        please rewrite this in italian so i can see the nuance lost in the translation

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    ROME (AP) — Violence and discrimination against women in Italy is a “prevailing and urgent concern,” a European expert on human rights said Thursday in a scathing report that comes amid a national outcry over a gruesome murder of a young woman allegedly by her ex-boyfriend.

    Dunja Mijatovic, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, faulted Italy across multiple areas, lamenting that Italian courts and police sometimes revictimize the victims of gender-based violence and that women have increasingly less access to abortion services. She also noted Italy’s last-place in the EU ranking for gender equality in the workplace.

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    • sudneo@lemm.ee ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Absolutely…but how does that relate to the previous topic?

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      • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Earlier you said:

        Most of them were top of the class, which to me always suggested that while many men signed up and then “see how it goes”, only women who knew exactly what they wanted signed up.

        Can you draw connections between what I linked/emphasized and this statement?

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