Thanks for the reply - I came across your site, and ended up reading most of the articles. I was generally impressed, until I came upon that paragraph I noted above. I still plan to follow your generally sage practical insights, usually backed by decent research.
However, that general proposition - male-dominated fields subject to less scientific scrutiny, or female-dominated fields subject to more scrutiny - doesn't seem to hold true in any field of which I am aware. In fact, just the opposite - for example, econometrics has long dominated, a change from earlier economic punditry, so an attempt at more 'scientific' scrutiny; engineering long subject to more, not less scrutiny, in part because more easily measured.
Just seems too easy an explanation, leaning on a story many like to use to explain vast swaths of experience - male 'domination' bad and unfair to women. Life is more complex than that, and given your general use of decent research for most of your commentary, this seemed a bit too glib - a throw-away line.
On prestige, you've got a point, although even that has been changing for quite a while, so your observation seems at best dated, based on earlier impressions. In my field, law, as well as my wife's medical profession, are becoming female-dominated at the schooling and entry levels, and our daughter's field of veterinary medicine has long been female-dominated. I haven't seen any evidence that there has been a drop in prestige for those professions. Medicine, of the human and animal variety, have been subject to more scientific scrutiny than teaching, long before the shift from male domination.
On whether laypeople think they can do as good or better a job at general eduction than a professional - that is true for law & medicine as well - just note the rapid increase of Dr Google or Dr Claude for medicine, or AI for legal research, or for that matter any research at all. Some evidence that with these newer tools, laypeople can actually do as well in some instances. I've seen plenty of AI-hallucinations, so they definitely aren't entirely reliable, but then again, neither are professionals - just compare malpractice and disciplinary proceedings for professionals. As for home-schooling, can be true that it can be superior to what is generally offered - see, e.g., https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15582159.2017.1395638#abstract
"Notice, too, that the demand for harder scientific legitimization is not applied uniformly across fields. We don’t ask economists and engineers to justify their models. We only do this for women-dominated fields that we don’t really take seriously."
Really? I ask economists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc. to justify models, and I read plenty of papers that ask the same, regardless of sex. So, of course, I ask what evidence do you have for your statements? Or is that asking too much?
I think what I’m getting at more is about teaching prestige and the general public’s feeling that they can do the job as well or better. We are overall way more deferential to people who work in other (typically male-dominated) fields and see their expertise as “real.” Much has been written about job status and professional prestige; teaching (though higher than many trades that require less education to enter) consistently ranks lower than these professions.
Thanks for the reply - I came across your site, and ended up reading most of the articles. I was generally impressed, until I came upon that paragraph I noted above. I still plan to follow your generally sage practical insights, usually backed by decent research.
However, that general proposition - male-dominated fields subject to less scientific scrutiny, or female-dominated fields subject to more scrutiny - doesn't seem to hold true in any field of which I am aware. In fact, just the opposite - for example, econometrics has long dominated, a change from earlier economic punditry, so an attempt at more 'scientific' scrutiny; engineering long subject to more, not less scrutiny, in part because more easily measured.
Just seems too easy an explanation, leaning on a story many like to use to explain vast swaths of experience - male 'domination' bad and unfair to women. Life is more complex than that, and given your general use of decent research for most of your commentary, this seemed a bit too glib - a throw-away line.
On prestige, you've got a point, although even that has been changing for quite a while, so your observation seems at best dated, based on earlier impressions. In my field, law, as well as my wife's medical profession, are becoming female-dominated at the schooling and entry levels, and our daughter's field of veterinary medicine has long been female-dominated. I haven't seen any evidence that there has been a drop in prestige for those professions. Medicine, of the human and animal variety, have been subject to more scientific scrutiny than teaching, long before the shift from male domination.
On whether laypeople think they can do as good or better a job at general eduction than a professional - that is true for law & medicine as well - just note the rapid increase of Dr Google or Dr Claude for medicine, or AI for legal research, or for that matter any research at all. Some evidence that with these newer tools, laypeople can actually do as well in some instances. I've seen plenty of AI-hallucinations, so they definitely aren't entirely reliable, but then again, neither are professionals - just compare malpractice and disciplinary proceedings for professionals. As for home-schooling, can be true that it can be superior to what is generally offered - see, e.g., https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15582159.2017.1395638#abstract
"Notice, too, that the demand for harder scientific legitimization is not applied uniformly across fields. We don’t ask economists and engineers to justify their models. We only do this for women-dominated fields that we don’t really take seriously."
Really? I ask economists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc. to justify models, and I read plenty of papers that ask the same, regardless of sex. So, of course, I ask what evidence do you have for your statements? Or is that asking too much?
I think what I’m getting at more is about teaching prestige and the general public’s feeling that they can do the job as well or better. We are overall way more deferential to people who work in other (typically male-dominated) fields and see their expertise as “real.” Much has been written about job status and professional prestige; teaching (though higher than many trades that require less education to enter) consistently ranks lower than these professions.