What are some possible reasons that women are not equally represented in every field?

Question

If women do not make up 50% or so of the world's professors, doctors, scientists, (or any other occupation), does this automatically point to discrimination? Are there other possible reasons for varying percentages of female workers in each field?

I'll give one to start - chefs are overwhelmingly male - perhaps women prefer jobs which require less hours to excel, since chefs often work 70 hours a week. This could be because they want more time with family.

Is a lack of equal representation "the very definition of discrimination", as one person said in an earlier answer?

Answer 1

"If women do not make up 50% or so of the world's professors, doctors, scientists, (or any other occupation), does this automatically point to discrimination"?

Nope to say otherwise is to confuse correlation and causation.

"Are there other possible reasons for varying percentages of female workers in each field"?

Women might not want to work as hard to get into jobs such as engineering or physics as these require lots of heavy math/philosophical concepts which other social sciences do not.

Women might not want to work such long hours.

Women might not want to put their lives in danger.

Women might not choose to be in certain fields simply because they don't have any interest in them.

Women might place more emphasis on time with friends and family than on time spent trying to accomplish more lofty career goals.

Once they get a Bachelors degree, women might not continue on because they want to get out in the career market right away instead of spending more time on their education.

Women might lack the funds recieve further schooling.

Women might choose less prestigious schools than men do on average.

Women might get pregnant more often before they can finish school never allowing themselves to begin a career.

Women might feel compelled to go to school simply because their parents want them to causing them to do worse in school further leading to them not getting into high-paying careers.

There are probably more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

"Is a lack of equal representation "the very definition of discrimination", as one person said in an earlier answer"?

Uh no. There is a difference between government sanctioned discrimination, i.e. laws that set in place discrimination, versus discrimination that arises from the free movement of people which are neither sanctioned nor enforced by the government.

Answer 2

No it does not! Does the relative scarcity of white rappers point to discrimination, for example?

LACK OF INTEREST is nowadays probably the chief cause of disparities in occupations among different groups more so than any discrimination. I've known several cases of talented women in physics simply STOP CARING about physics all of a sudden and drop out just when things were going great for them careerwise.

To be at the top requires TREMENDOUS sacrifices, not to mention stupendously long working hours, for guys and girls alike. For women that means having to make the painful choice between children and a top ranked career. It's simply more difficult of a choice to make for women and is already difficult enough for the men themselves.

Answer 3

The standards have to be made equal. Who wants to burn in a fire because the firefighter wasn't strong enough to kick down the door? There has to be a set criteria of tasks that every worker must be capable of to be in the field. Thinking about gender is retarded in an emergency, I don't care what the firefighter has in their pants, I just want somebody whos very capable of doing their job (saving peoples lives). If you are a weak person, man or woman, then maybe that job isn't for you. Lets not lower our standards just to include people, if a woman is really dedicated to joining the force she can work out and meet the requirements that all the guys did.

Answer 4

Once we have enough people educated and experienced in their fields then we could point to factors other than discrimination. 40 years ago (yes that recent) we had quotas ( 1 or 2 out of 100) of females gaining admission to graduate schools. That has improved and it is evening out.

In my department there are 5 men and two women, six of us have doctorates, one male does not. Neither of us women would have been hired without a doctorate. However, our department chair is retiring in the next year or two- and I have been picked to chair the department.

Answer 5

Women who try to go into traditionally male fields will face overt discouragement and subtle messages that they are out of their place.They will not have the traditional mentoring/fathering support that young men get from older workers in the field. I have found that men will not assist me because they are afraid that their wives/g.f.s will be jealous and fear a sexual involvement. Other men will help because they think that I will have sex with them and then are angry and punitive when it doesn't work out that way.

Go read the book, Self-Made Man, by a woman who lived as a man for several months. She points out that women do not nurture each other in the way that men do other men. Interesting.

In other words, until there is representation of women in a field, it will be hard to get representation. So the situation changes slowly if at all.

It is interesting to note the number of fields that have been given to women once they became recognized as low-pay and/or boring: typists, teachers, librarians, and so forth.

Answer 6

After factoring in such things as title, industry, qualifications, seniority, productivity, salary expectations, and the like, the gap closes to 90%. The rest of it is left unexplained. Discrimination still exists, however subtly, in a fair amount of workplaces.

Answer 7

one would ask, why can't women spend so many hours a week at work? (answer: she probably has the majority of the responsiblity of household chores and childcare).

one would also ask, why do chefs need to work 70 hours a week? who devised this type of schedule? when men worked as chefs, perhaps they could devote such a large percentage of their time to work since their home was probably being taken care of by a woman. today, however, since most women work we seem to have to fit into the same mold as men - but not enjoy the privilege (altho some do) of having a woman take care of our house.

today's workplace has to change, just as we as individuals have changed. due to personal preferences or economic situations, women work. most economists would agree that women in the workforce are vital to economies.

thus- we have to also realize that we are going to need child care, maybe some flexibility in hours, parental leave, etc...

we are round pegs...we don't fit into square holes. work places need to accomodate everyone if the want to survive.

thus, in the average job, you would expect to see the population of a country reflected in diverse jobs - not whites in lucrative positions, blacks in low-paying ones, males in leadership positions, women in menial jobs, etc.

in other words, if there were no barriers in place, you would see jobs pretty much reflect the make-up of society.

this is what we are striving for. we have a way to go yet.

Answer 8

Your forgetting about the occupations that are predominately female jobs like nursing, cleaning staff and many others.

Overall it balances out, some fields are more predominately male and some female. It's all dependent on the job.

Answer 9

It is still a mans world. Women are making headway. Some fields still don't have a lot of women in them yet. No it is not discrimination, it is a lack of women educated in that field. Take engineering if in every class there are 30 students and only 5 are women you can bet the 5 women will find employment before the men but they will still out number the women as not that many are choosing that field. Do your research on actual classroom numbers and you will see that this is true. As for chefs men are better cooks than a lot of women. I don't know why but they have a better sense of spices and are more willing to think outside of the box. You are right it is a very demanding job.

Answer 10

It's not discrimination. As you say, it's because women have different interests than men. Women are more nurturing, which is why more women work with kids and as nurses. A lot want to become housewives, while very few men do.