Originally Posted by
Oracle
Even with a root in biology, how accurate can some of these notions be considering how long ago they might have been formed? I can understand saying only men should be soldiers back in the day when war consisted of wielding swords and spears and required a large degree of physical strength. But saying only men should be soldiers today, when war has largely been mechanized and the skill set required to wage war is different from before, begs whether our notions about biological differences may need to be changed because of how the roles themselves have shifted.
Nobody is saying that biology demands that only men become soldiers. I'm just saying that because of their biology, men are more likely to be drawn to these roles.
Originally Posted by
Oracle
This also doesn't hold up with more modern roles. For example, I mentioned that a larger percentage of boys want to be astronauts compared to girls. This is a job that has only existed for less than a century, and is largely a field that is devoid of any specific trait that benefits a specific gender over another. Why is it more boys would want to be astronauts compared to girls? You could say it's because boys are more adventurous, but is it really that simple? Girls are just about as curious as boys at a young age, and biological differences between genders are much more muted at younger ages, so it would stand that interest in exploring space should be somewhat represented among girls. It seems more likely that the most lauded astronauts of our time have been male, and the role itself has been typically typecast as a male profession. As such, girls don't take interest in the job because the job isn't presented to them as an option due to lack of representation or perceived opportunity.
That's one theory. I subscribe to the idea that it's an adventurous dangerous job. Girls are not as adventurous as boys, even at younger ages (yes tom-boys exist, speaking generally). I read
the article you got your info from, and I'm really not a fan of what the author of study sees as the endgame here - Seems he wants girls and boys to be wanting to be everything, equally. It reminds me, and I think sort of connects, to people who say that sex is a social construct. Through good intentions, they don't recognise that yeah, there's actual ingrained differences between the sexes. There's always gonna be these differences, so it's naive for them to want equal representation in what people aim to be/job outcomes - There's always going to be areas dominated by men and areas dominated by women. Not saying you don't recognise this, just that the author of the study doesn't.
Originally Posted by
Oracle
It also fails to explain why more girls than boys want to be doctors, yet there are more male doctors than female doctors and there are more female nurses than male nurses.
As commentators of that study have point out, this is a more recent development, so that's why. As you noted, in the past, when the stereotypes held more weight, women were pressured in being nurses instead. Now, with that pressure all but gone, they've started becoming more involved with that field.
In 20 years you'll see a lot more women doctors, perhaps even more than men, if that study of 500 kids holds any predictive weight.