justwonderin
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Posts posted by justwonderin
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47 minutes ago, AB121212 said:
Perhaps the woman with the same application as you was not accepted above her abilities, but rather you were rejected from a position you could have otherwise earned for the sense of entitlement, argumentative attitude, and lack of scientific understanding you've shown here.
Nice one!!
By the way, I never said she was "accepted above her abilities," and I think she probably wasn't.
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37 minutes ago, Crucial BBQ said:
So you feel that you got burned, which is the crux of your frustration. That is to say that you are upset that the woman with the lesser application got into the same caliber of program as you while the woman with the same application as you got into the better program. If you examine yourself and not the situation you'll likely find that you are suffering from a case of entitlement; for what-ever reason you feel you deserve a better program. Ask yourself this: instead of comparing yourself to those two women what if they were men instead?
Now, is the situation you present justifiable? I dunno. What I do know is that all three of you are obviously otherwise qualified. You do not know what exactly qualified the woman into the better program. Perhaps she has interest in area of mathematics and/or prospected an area of research that is not only different from yours but also one that just happened to line up with what her program was looking for. Perhaps she better sold herself in her SOP or had stronger LORs. Maybe she was found to be interesting during the interview or maybe the person who brought her on board was a woman, too? And if so, good for them.
Thank you for offering your psychoanalysis?... Most of the points you raise I actually *do* know about -- for instance, we have very similar mathematical interests; it was not just one more school she got into, but a handful on the next tier; there were no interviews; the "person who brought her on board" is a man. You're right that I don't know for sure about SOP and LOR, but the information I have suggests they were likely of quite comparable quality. And most importantly, as I've said now many times, this was just one example of this kind; I have observed a consistent pattern. Moreover, several other people who pay attention to this whom I've discussed this topic with agree that gender discrimination is happening.
And as I've also said several times, even if you choose not to believe that my observations are accurate, that does not prevent you from commenting on the question this post was (supposed to be) about -- is gender discrimination of this kind justified?
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49 minutes ago, Eigen said:
.....
Honestly, you don't seem to really want to have a discussion. You either call other people's arguments absurd, narrow the field of your arguments so they can't possibly be as much of an expert as you are.... And at the same time want other people to provide sources and then argue that that's an "absurdly high standard of evidence".
On an academic forum, for a discussion among academics, proper citations and peer-reviewed research with data is pretty much the expected standard of evidence, not "well I've heard" or "I know people who say..."
I've been clear about the discussion I'm interested in having -- whether or not people think gender discrimination is justified for grad school admissions -- and the one that I think is no longer productive (if it ever was) -- whether or not other people have been aware of gender discrimination in their field, including in entirely different setting to grad admissions.
I have stated that I am not able to provide rigorous evidence of the existence of gender discrimination in math grad admissions; I am sorry that I do not have the capacity to conduct a study on this topic. But I also believe that hard evidence that it is happening is wholly unnecessary to have a discussion about whether or not it *should* be happening.
Also... did you actually not detect any sarcasm when I asked the other guy to cite sources for all of his claims?....
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35 minutes ago, samman1994 said:
You only cited 1 example source (hence n=1) for your assumptions/post. Sure exaggeration, premise is still wrong. Conjecture is conjecture. Unless you have done a study blind (or can find evidence thereof) of 2 applications that are completely similar in every conceivable way except for the gender of the applicant (which by the way, don't know how you can tell just by a name), and the female applicant does get in but the male doesn't, and then can prove that this was from a gender bias. Then and only then, can you make the statement you are making as fact. As for now, it is a conjecture. One that from all the responses, is an incorrect one.
I'd also like to point out, I am not stating my own opinion here. I am stating what others are arguing for to help you understand what they are trying to say. I have explained my own stance in my original post.
Lol at this absurdly high standard of evidence to have a discussion about something. Fine, it is my "conjecture"....
- samman1994 and Eigen
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5 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:
I was going to write a thoughtful long response, as someone who is active in advocating against gender discrimination in my field. I have a lot to say, both from personal experience and based on a large dataset I've collected along with a committee I'm active on showing bias in almost all aspects of a woman academic's life once she graduates from college. (Before you ask for the data, it's confidential and we're in the process of writing up a paper, so if you're *actually* curious, ask me about it in a few months.) I'm in a field where there are more women undergraduates and about as many graduate students as male students. But fewer women get onto shortlists for academic positions; in fact, even once on a short list, they are still less likely to get hired than a man on the same list; fewer women currently serve as faculty members; fewer women get chosen to present papers; fewer women have their papers published; fewer women get invited to contribute to handbook articles; fewer women are invited speakers at conferences; fewer women get their work funded by government agencies. I could go on.
But this poster thinks that being a woman magically opens all doors for a candidate, from sample size N=1, and not even having a full picture of that particular one. To which all I can say is, Wow.
Hey. My sample size is far greater than 1, dunno where you got that from. And "magically opens all doors for a candidate" is an obvious exaggeration -- you know it is. I have said that, from what I have observed, in math, it allows you to get into a handful of grad schools that an identical male applicant would not get into.
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15 minutes ago, samman1994 said:
There are many many factors that influence acceptance to a school. The other persons letters could've been different, their SOP different, maybe they had better networking. Regardless, it is very rare to find someone with even a "similar" application. As stated prior, many say it doesn't exist, while I state it exists but doesn't play a major role. In your particular example, unless you knew exactly that their letters were the same, that their SOP was the same, and every other thing was the same, I don't think you can say your applications were "similar" and that gender was the sole cause of that persons success.
I'd also say that the issue is not sensitive, but rather the way you worded it was plain wrong. What do people think about discrimination in STEM? The first statement should be is there gender discrimination in STEM, not what people think about it. Why does nobody discuss this? Well if it doesn't exist, not much to discuss then. It seems like an important issue. If it did have a major impact on applications and did exist, then yes it would be an important issue. The problem is 1) From general consensus this does not apply in most fields of STEM so 2) no point in discussing it and 3) Not an important issue because it doesn't exist. Thus, people rightfully so asked you to explain yourself and provide evidence. Also, I don't think anyone is strongly opposed on a moral level, but rather on a factual level (they disagree not because they think it's right to discriminate based off gender, but because they think that gender discrimination in grad applications does not exist)
"it exists but doesn't play a major role"? "It is very rare to find someone with even a 'similar' application"? "the issue is not sensitive"? "nobody is strongly opposed on a moral level"?
Can you please provide evidence for these assertions you have made? I cannot begin to react to anything you said without having verifiable proof of the premises first.
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8 minutes ago, Eigen said:
I think also perhaps you should have posted a much more specific thread about math, rather than "sciences" in general, since you don't really seem to want to talk about the other fields and are focused on math being so very different.
"Math being so very different" was very much not the focus of my post.... I'm just not assuming it is the same as all other STEM fields in every respect.
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It seems like I should add more context to my original post. In my experience, there is a substantial amount of sexism against women in math, and without the artificial barriers that have unfairly stood in their way, there would be a lot more women in the field (especially at the top of the field) than there are today. I think that this is true not just in STEM academic fields, but in tech and finance too. I think many people today believe that this is an injustice and wish to break down those barriers and work towards equity in the future. Towards this goal, I believe that many/most math grad programs are actively trying to recruit female students and absolutely would take a female applicant over a very similar male one, and often a somewhat more qualified male one. (Perhaps I shouldn't have originally stated this impression with so much confidence; it seems like a clear pattern in my experience, but you may have a different opinion if you wish. I will suggest though that if you are not familiar with *math*, you should be careful about assuming that it is the same as your field.)
For instance, when I was applying to math grad schools a year ago, there were two women in my undergrad department, whose mathematical backgrounds I was very familiar with, applying too. One of them was extremely similar to me on paper -- we joked about how we had basically the same application. The other one was still quite good, but was significantly less qualified on paper. Not by a ton, but it was consistent across different metrics -- in my judgment, there's virtually no argument that does not involve gender for why she would be as strong a candidate as me. As you've probably guessed, the first woman was quite a bit more successful than me at getting into grad schools, while the second one ended up at a school of a very similar caliber to mine.
I think this admissions strategy has been borne out of very good intentions (eradicating longstanding barriers against women). I think it's complicated though and I have mixed feelings about doing it. (And for sure, my own experience has partially shaped my views on this issue.) I can see the argument that it is a legitimate tool to combat structural inequities. On the other hand, I wonder if it's not both unfair to the male candidates and even the female ones. I wonder if admitting less qualified women, on average, than men to a program, could be setting women up to be less successful -- again, on average -- than their male peers in the program. If so, then that's not going to help women's confidence levels, which are unfairly low already because of historic and ongoing unconscious discrimination. Nor would this situation help undo people's cognitive biases about women not being as good at math as men.
I guess it was naive to me to think that I could just ask my question straight-up since this is (understandably) quite a sensitive subject. I imagine some people are still strongly opposed to what I've been saying, but at least you now have more context for your disagreement.
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34 minutes ago, Comparativist said:
And I would just like to add, the underrepresentation (in the number of accepted/admitted/attending) of certain subsets of students does not necessarily equate to gender bias or discrimination. It's a fallacy to suggest that we should see the exact same (or very similar) demographic distribution of graduate students as the general population for all academic programs or disciplines.
Yes, exactly. This is why TakeruK's "clear empirical evidence to the contrary" is nonsense. I clearly specified that I was talking about a male applicant versus a female applicant *with an otherwise identical application*.
As a result, no, of course I cannot provide clear evidence that grad programs are doing this as that would require access to specific applications. As I said before, anyone who is familiar with math grad admissions (i.e. is on an admissions committee or, as an applicant, has closely monitored applications of numerous other people that they know well) would not deny that this is happening! I was really just wondering if people think it is justified.
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To clarify, I am talking about discrimination for admissions -- and maybe this doesn't happen in all STEM fields, but it certainly does in math. Take a male candidate's application, change nothing but the gender, and they would have a whole new tier of schools accessible to them.
Again, I don't think anyone who is familiar with this would contend that math grad schools don't have this (fully intentional) bias. My question is more whether or not it is justified.
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What do people think of the (often obvious) gender discrimination that STEM graduate programs routinely do? Why does nobody ever discuss this? It seems like a pretty important -- and debatable -- structural issue.
Gender Discrimination
in The Lobby
Posted
Thank you for speaking on the topic I actually asked about. I appreciate hearing your thoughts! (I do kind of regret that you seem to think I had suggested it was "surprising or egregious" that a program would intentionally choose a woman over an identical man, as I never implied either one.)