>>12969175>However, the gender differences in both mean and variance of grades are smaller in STEM than non-STEM subjects, suggesting that greater variability is insufficient to explain male over-representation in STEM.There is a huge gaping hole in their study. The general hypothesis is general. It's reductionist.
Once we get specific, we need to keep in mind of assumed givens that might not apply to these specific cases.
When a selection process occurs that we focus on specific subsets of the population, a lot of the expected traits of their bigger encapsulating categories are no longer guaranteed and are just assumptions.
This is true here.
There is a selection process to end up in STEM fields. Not everyone will want to or get accepted into.
Females in STEM are not the same as overall females. It's a different subset.
Even in men, people with autistic traits gravitate toward STEM.
>https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24158680/>https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23114569/And females with autism have higher testosterone.
>https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22500012/So, it is rather expected that women in STEM would perform closer to men due to biological mechanisms.
In fact, we see about 3:1 men-female ratio in ASD.
>https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/This is also about the sex-ratio in STEM graduation rate, and really more biased towards women as STEM grads are on average about 30+ percent female.
