Your article wonders how gender representation in a given specialist field happens - There are several ways this could happen. Most obviously, these gendered stereotypes could lead to bias on the behalf of practitioners already in the field, which could lead to them offering fewer opportunities to women. Take philosophy, for instance: The US National Science Foundation reports that only 27 percent of PhDs in philosophy and ethics were awarded to women in 2013, though 51.2 of all doctorate recipients in the humanities were women. On the other hand, some STEM fields have a high rate of female doctorates, with 58.8 percent of microbiology PhDs in the same year going to women practitioners already in the field, which could lead to them offering fewer opportunities to women. But stereotypes are also more insidious than that; women could internalise these stereotypes and effectively self-select out of the field, feeling that they probably don't fulfil the requirements.
Giving a few stats and using them to support 'gendered stereotypes' just doesn't cut it. Virtually the next line says that some STEM fields have a high rate of female doctorates, with 58.8 percent of microbiology PhDs in the same year going to women practitioners already in the field. This isn't gendered stereotyping at all, it's just all about getting your foot in the door.
There are no studies cited that refute the IQ distribution I've spoken about - i.e. males dominate the genius and dumb ends and females cluster more around the mean.
"Like women, African Americans are stereotyped as lacking innate intellectual talent," the authors wrote - mean IQ for African-Americans and other racial groups do differ. That's not negative stereotyping, it's fact.
Here's something for consideration: natural selection acted on male and female bodies for many thousands of generations, so that the average man had broad shoulders, narrow waist, male genitalia, facial hair and chest hair. The average woman has breasts, a general lack of facial hair and body hair in general, has female genitalia, and wider hips for childbirth. Why would evolution act on males' and females' bodies but not their brains?
Natural selection has also acted upon people for many generations so that we have different ethnic groups. Peoples' skin, facial features, hair type, eye colour, bodily proportions and even % of fast-twitch muscle fibers are different. Again, it seems absurd to accept all that but then deny natural selection acted upon people's brains.
The brain is just another organ, like skin, eyes, hair and muscle. Behaviour is just another phenotype.
The US National Science Foundation reports that only 27 percent of PhDs in philosophy and ethics were awarded to women in 2013, though 51.2 of all doctorate recipients in the humanities were women - these statistics simply reflect women's choice of career, that's all.
It's not just STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) fields that suffer from low levels of female representation, though they definitely have a problem - this isn't a 'problem'. Again, the numbers simply reflect people's choice of career and life.
There's nothing arbitrarily stopping more women from going into STEM or becoming members of board of directors. The main factor that's effecting women is poor life choices, such as when to have children, etc.
There are no doubt many factors that contribute to low diversity in certain academic fields, from outright discrimination to internalised biases, and all manner of social influences. - now we're almost starting to get somewhere. Men and women do differ on behaviour, on average.
