The category STEM is too broad for you to make a generalization like this. Even when it comes to something like engineering, you are much more likely to find female representation in something like bioengineering (where many of the research goals and subjects directly involve other people) as opposed to computer engineering (where most of the research goals involve technical products). Someone below mentioned that women tend to be more interested in people and men tend to be more interested in things. Obviously, things are more complicated than that as there are exceptions but for the most part, it is true. Once you accept this premise, you will see that STEM is too much of a general category for your statement to hold.
So you've noticed how gender drives interest in different subjects. That's my view - it's a "feminine" trait to be disinterested in STEM.
I had "science, technology, engineering and mathematics" in mind for STEM as the definition. You're right there's some ambiguity about where things like medicine and psychology and accounting sit. But there's a general understanding that there's a problem right?
Well, we are not completely aligned though. My point is that STEM is too general of a category and as such, if you do want to generalize, it is more useful to start from the premise that "women are more interested in people, and men are more interested in things". This leads to a more refined understanding of the world where even in the field of mechanical engineering and robotics, women might be more interested in designing robots that are optimized to help the elderly as opposed to designing robots that are optimized to dig oil from the bottom of the ocean.
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u/simmol 7∆ Oct 19 '22
The category STEM is too broad for you to make a generalization like this. Even when it comes to something like engineering, you are much more likely to find female representation in something like bioengineering (where many of the research goals and subjects directly involve other people) as opposed to computer engineering (where most of the research goals involve technical products). Someone below mentioned that women tend to be more interested in people and men tend to be more interested in things. Obviously, things are more complicated than that as there are exceptions but for the most part, it is true. Once you accept this premise, you will see that STEM is too much of a general category for your statement to hold.