STEM needs to weed out all the women

Via Anonymous, a number of commenters had fun with Freepers' reaction to a random grad student paper arguing that esoteric syllabi and competitive teaching styles were one of the reasons STEM courses continue to fail to attract women.

This was an amazing find, because it's a triple threat - just a bit of purposeful obtuseness (aided by the National Review article that highlighted the paper) lets Freepers carp on about three areas of dour Freeper conventional wisdom:
that STEM is the only worthwhile field,
that everything theses days is worse - especially school and kids, and
that efforts to include women in things will just make things bad.

rarestia tries to be sad in her righteous condemnation of how low standards are these days:

There’s literally nothing above their intellect. Math too hard? “Make it easier!” Science too hard? “Make it easier!”

I’m waiting for the day that a “researcher” says that the “patriarchy” of calculus deliberately made it difficult and more women should work to make calculus studies “more equal.”

My God! This way of thinking makes my head hurt.

Presbyterian Reporter did not bother to click through to the paper:

National Review did not state the field she was getting her doctoral degree.

Why do I suspect it is in Womyn’s Studies?

reg45 did, but then speculates about how easy graduate school probably is.

More PC “Critical Theory” at work. She’s an education major.

A PhD in education or an EdD is less difficult than an AA in electronics.

samtheman finds yet more evidence for his thesis that bad schools are why no one buys Reaganomics anymore:

Basic understanding of economics has already been eliminated, for both boys and girls. Might as well eliminate the underlying concepts of arithmetic as well.

Arm_Bears wins the prize for the most exaggerated strawman in the thread:

Insisting that 1 + 1 can only equal 2 is somehow racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, etc. when it comes to math education.

However, try using Million Man Math or, better yet, Common Core Math to your advantage when preparing your taxes and watch what happens.

Westbrook loves his technical fields, and now the liberals are gonna add fairness and make it suck!

AAAARRRGGHH!!!

STEM is the last bastion of rational, logical thought in American academia!

Dumbing that down guarantees that we will destroy any future we may have.

I work with female engineers that would take GREAT EXCEPTION to the thought that these courses need to be dumbed down for women to pass them!

It does not seem like he's actually bothered to talk to those female engineers, but at least he seems to realize that women can be good at math.

PGR88 is another Freeper who through personal experience comes really close to understanding the paper's thesis, but through great effort manages to stay oblivious.

My daughter is a physics major at a well-known university.

Out of about 90 kids in the honors course, only 6 are women - and its only freshman year. They only started out with only 9 female students anyway and in fact, a much higher percentage of boys have dropped out.

The girls who remain are doing well, but there simply isn’t the interest in Physics among the female student body.

Da Coyote's comment is notable only because I'm wondering how such a simple-minded bitter man can be married to someone who sounds pretty legit:

That woman is obviously a STEM flunkout.

There are plenty of brilliant women out there. I am married to one (chemistry major, then ops research, then doctorate in comp sci).

It is long past time to put these cheesy lib arts marshmallows in their place...serving double cream coffees in Starbucks.

Oh forgot, that is where they are if they don’t get a professor position at a college with no standards.

Totally not sexist theBuckwheat explains that the problem is that math doesn't allow nagging:

Calculus, upon which much of what is “STEM” is based is not competitive at all. Either you can use it competently or you cannot.

STEM is anti-feminist because you can not yammer, spin, nag or bully your way to success.

“There is no try, only do.” —Yoda

Despite being a complete ass about it, I do think taxcontrol has the nugget of a point, though he fails to follow that reasoning through:

I saw a meme of a cute college girl up at a blackboard doing what looked like Algebra. The young lady had her arms down and her head was pressed against the blackboard.

The caption read (to the effect) - this math stuff is hard, screw it, I’m going to be a stripper.

Now I am not saying that women can’t do math but the meme does point out a difference between the male and female. Females can and sometimes do follow other directions that are less demanding and/or competitive. That is because the “market” allows them that option. Males do not have such options available to them. Being a stay at home dad and raising the kids is still a VERY unique job for men.

bkopto just goes straight biotruths:

I love these stories where the leftists and feminists rage against nature and biology, as if whining against the unfairness of it all has any weight with nature.

Boy are these spoiled children stupid.

Like stanne, Leaning Right, and Aevery_Freeman, A_perfect_lady is yet another Freeper high school teacher. She has observed gender differences in who goes to what school, and decides that parents had nothing to do with it:

I just started teaching at a STEAM high school this year (The A is for Arts) and I'm an English teacher. The school is VERY boy-heavy. Most of my classes have about 28 boys and 6-7 girls. Nearby is a Performing Arts school. Guess where the girls are?

There really is a natural division of the sexes, but those who are cross-overs should be given their chance to compete. However, that can NOT mean making it easier. All it can mean is: you get a seat in the class. Do your best and good luck.

OpusatFR thinks women can compete just fine - so long as they're not softheaded American women:

Whine, whine, whine. Look at me, I’m a victim! WAHHHH.

Sorry, but in my son’s graduating class there were many, many young women, but they were all Indians, Chinese, a few Russians, and assorted Asians among the few American women.

Not one of them thought they needed to be “helped” since all of them were graduates of highly competitive schools in their own countries.

And let us finish off with Grampa Dave's triumphant story about throwing a tantrum and then quitting your job because some women got promoted:

This lowering the bar has been going on for decades.

One of our younger relatives has a real construction project management degree (engineering plus the business management skills) needed to get jobs done on time and on budget.

A couple of decades ago, the heavy duty construction company he worked for magically made female secretaries construction project managers. He refused to work with any of them and his clients quickly did the math on these phonies and refused to deal with them.

I got a phone call from him it went like this after he explained the fraud, “Uncle Dave what should I do!”

My advice was to quickly find another job and let his new company know why he was leaving. He got several job offers. He is still with the company that hired him.

The company he left went broke in about a year. His current company has all the projects they can handle, including many of his former clients with his previous now out of business company.