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Guardian: Women outnumber men in 112 of 180 degree subjects; thoughts?

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Reply 40
Original post by Twinpeaks
Whilst I disagree with you in saying that they aren't real degrees (I'm certain you'd disregard psychology as rubbish but psychological research is all around you m8). The stereotypically harder subjects are still male dominated, you are right in that sense.

I've said before, and I'll say it again, men with lower academic ability tend to choose apprenticeships. There are no apprenticeship opportunities for women, so the less academic young women just study a random degree at an unknown uni.


I know that sounds very judgemental, but it's true for a fair amount of cases. I come from a "disadvantaged area" and an awful school, yet most of the girls went to uni, and completed subjects like events management, public services, fashion design etc. You do not need degrees for those. Whereas a lot of the boys have gone off to become skilled/ unskilled tradesmen.


Almost all psychological research can be understood by general experience of the real world and literature, imo you can learn a lot more about people living with them then you can in a lab, that's not to say some empirical studies are not significant though.
Original post by whorace
Almost all psychological research can be understood by general experience of the real world and literature, imo you can learn a lot more about people living with them then you can in a lab, that's not to say some empirical studies are not significant though.


Experience of the real world needs to be tested empirically though, otherwise we'd all have our different interpretations of it. And that's true for social psychology to some extent, but not for research that focuses on other aspects (biological mechanisms, neuroscience, epiginetics, cognitive etc).

Not to say that I haven't read those papers which seem to be confirming the obvious though.
No, men don't "tend to be" as such, it's just that more males congregate on the extreme ends of the scales than women. Men still tend to be typical. I've yet to encounter a genius male, although I have encountered ******ed males (but only because I used to work in a special school).
Reply 43
Original post by Twinpeaks
Experience of the real world needs to be tested empirically though, otherwise we'd all have our different interpretations of it. And that's true for social psychology to some extent, but not for research that focuses on other aspects (biological mechanisms, neuroscience, epiginetics, cognitive etc).

Not to say that I haven't read those papers which seem to be confirming the obvious though.


We seem to have different interpretations anyway, and not to be crude but i'd prefer the empirical testing of real life experiences than highly controlled experiments which rarely exist in psychology. As for the biological mechanisms, I don't doubt the value of these, this is why they are now an established branch of both medicine and biology
Original post by Saoirse:3
It's not surprising, we already knew that women are more likely to go to university on the whole. Which also fits into the fact they do better in school. Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with the uni admissions system here - it's more down to women generally being more interested in going to uni and more motivated to get the grades they need to do so - but the fact UCAS is moving to blind applications soon which means admissions officers won't see an applicants name or gender should answer the question one way or the other.


I wonder whether you'd agree that men being generally more interested in risk, money and prestige is justification for having more men in high-paying roles.
Original post by TurboCretin
I wonder whether you'd agree that men being generally more interested in risk, money and prestige is justification for having more men in high-paying roles.


Yes, it probably is, along with the fact you get more men at either extreme of the IQ scale - although not to the extent we see currently. I'd argue whether an economy which rewards these behaviours so much is truly producive, with the financial crisis being an example of when risk-taking sure as **** didn't help us as a society one bit, but as long as we have capitalism in its current form we are going to have more men in those top roles unless artifical quotas are imposed (which are a bad idea).
Law and medicine are majority female.
Original post by TurboCretin
Law and medicine are majority female.



Please.
Original post by Saoirse:3
Yes, it probably is, along with the fact you get more men at either extreme of the IQ scale - although not to the extent we see currently. I'd argue whether an economy which rewards these behaviours so much is truly producive, with the financial crisis being an example of when risk-taking sure as **** didn't help us as a society one bit, but as long as we have capitalism in its current form we are going to have more men in those top roles unless artifical quotas are imposed (which are a bad idea).


The financial crisis wasn't itself a product of (normal) risk-taking behaviour. It was closer to fraud.
Original post by Rumpelforeskin

Please.


They are - by about a 60/40 ratio.

You can see the data for yourself at the link at the bottom of this article:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/how-many-men-and-women-are-studying-at-my-university
Original post by TurboCretin
The financial crisis wasn't itself a product of (normal) risk-taking behaviour. It was closer to fraud.


In any case, a prime example of the economic system (which as you pointed out does place value on typically male traits in the top roles) going horribly, horribly wrong.
Original post by whorace
We seem to have different interpretations anyway, and not to be crude but i'd prefer the empirical testing of real life experiences than highly controlled experiments which rarely exist in psychology. As for the biological mechanisms, I don't doubt the value of these, this is why they are now an established branch of both medicine and biology


That's not an empirical test though, that's a naturalistic experiment, still very useful but it's harder to establish the same causal mechanisms.

I find it a bit ironic that I'm procrastinating on here debating about psychology when I should in fact be revising for my final year psychology exams starting Monday. :redface: Although sometimes it does feel a bit pointless because no one seems to think it's worth a dime anyway.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Rumpelforeskin

Please.


I don't understand the relevance of the sauce?
Original post by whorace
Almost all psychological research can be understood by general experience of the real world and literature, imo you can learn a lot more about people living with them then you can in a lab, that's not to say some empirical studies are not significant though.


But without empirical research we tend to come if with stuff like "the world is is made of the elements fire, earth water and air".
Reply 54
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
But without empirical research we tend to come if with stuff like "the world is is made of the elements fire, earth water and air".


Which is about as valid as most psychology imo.
Boys like to stay at home and fap all day
Why are women being encouraged in the science field? Shouldn't it up be to the girl picking the major? Some girls would like to nurse and work with children. I asked multiple girls about their majors and the most popular one was nurse. Nurses are important and make money too. Not every girl wants to hop in the science major because it is not everyone's cup of tea and if men are ruling that major then it is what it is. It really shouldn't matter what gender outnumbers that gender.
The real question is : how do we end discrimination in the remaining fields so that girls can dominate them?
Says the feminist.
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