Mankind would still be living in caves, albeit with really, really fancy curtains;
Women have surpassed men in most areas of education, but men continue to be more numerous in fields like math, physics, and engineering. For more than a decade, feminist groups have been lobbying Congress to address the problem of gender “injustice” in the laboratory. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit. Federal agencies are now poised to begin aggressive gender-equity reviews of math, science, and engineering programs. Groups like the National Organization for Women must be celebrating — but American scientists should brace themselves for the destructive tsunami headed their way.
It’s an epiphany I had some years ago, while pondering the engineering behind the luggage carousel at Minneapolis airport, as I waited for my bags. If women ran the world, we would not have the jet engine. It has nothing to do with intellect. It just isn’t in our nature to want one.
Feminists are also under-represented in the Islamic clergy. Go for it gurls!
You’ve got a point there, Kate. Men tend to be the dreamers. The ones that’ll spend ridiculous amounts of money and thousand of hours in the pursuit of something cool just to say they did it. Women generally don’t seem to have that same drive. It has nothing to do with intelligence… it’s just that guys tend to always be on the look out for the next bigger, badder, better thing.
Of course… that being said you’re also not likely to hear a woman call out from the bathroom saying “Hey honey! Come in here and look at this before I flush it”.
Look at computer games, 90% are shoot ’em up, kill the bad guy games, which appeal to boys, what do girls get? Barbie riding a horse. As a female, I like the shoot ’em up games, and think Barbie is lame.
Can women compete in math and science? Absolutely, but they should NOT be given any special consideration.
My first impression was, great, more bridges falling into the river. Not because it was a woman building the bridge, because some women who like sociology think they SHOULD be engineers. Now that is scary!
Enough already with the male v. female, black v. white, blah, blah, blah, the only interesting questions are: If you want to do math, do you have an aptitude for math? If you want to do science, do you have an aptitude for science? If you want to do engineering, do you have an aptitude for engineering? And the same for every other skilled trade, from basket-weaver to chief executive officer.
It should be purely a matter of merit. And to the degree that there have historically been some a-meritous constraints based on irrelevant collective taxonomizations, well, good, let’s get rid of those. People have natural abilities that are related to the structure of the brains and bodies they find themselves with. Fine, let’s celebrate that. But only an idiot demands to be something they are not capable of being.
Right, that gets the formalities out of the way. Now if I may return to Kate’s critical (in my opinion) point: It just isn’t in our nature to want one. Having made allowances for those who deviate with respect to normative aptitude variance as compared to putative taxonomical collectivization, it remains the case that the normative variance between males and females vastly surpasses any putative normative variance between any so-called races.
And so it is in this latter regard that I invite to you celebrate this classic performance of It’s a Man’s World, by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti, which if you listen carefully, you will note is a celebration of the normative relationships between the genders, not a denial of any individual’s particular merit. The executive summary is: males make things for females and children because males are lost without females and children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyzNISw1Q
Can women compete in math and science? Absolutely, but they should NOT be given any special consideration.
I’ve worked with and for many female engineers over the past 25 years and have absolutely no problem (often they’re better than their male counterparts, IMO). I probably would have a problem working with/for a woman engineer who got into the business to fill a quota or to “prove a point” cause you just KNOW a certain type would gravitate towards such a thing.
look, here’s how I sum it up.
If two women show up a party wearing the same clothes it’s a bloody tragedy.
If two guys show up at a party wearing the same clothes, we just figure we got it right.
There is a lot to be said about that difference.
That is why men can work together to get things done and women need a committee to decide how they will study all the possibilities of how they they can pursue and develop the concepts of how they can form the appropriate sub committees to advise them on what needs to be done get the various work groups within the sub committees to vote for the right women to do the polling to produce a consensus with with which they can report their findings to the others so they can recommend what options are available in the area of ideas.
And that is also why women need fifty pairs of shoes and men need two.
This is obviously sexist.
On the other hand, look at free software. People doing for free what they enjoy attracts overwhelmingly males (I hesitate to say men). There are a few women, but the exceptions prove the rule.
Most conversations regarding equality in the workplace center around changing the work so women would or could do it.
I wouldn’t call women stupid for this. Consider what men have put up with at their workplaces . It takes a woman to bring some sanity (and safety).
Derek
there’d be more of them
Government workers are offered free sex changes, so it’s not like any of those guys have to lose their jobs.
A potential disaster for us in the making. I worked at a firm that had a policy of hiring the best person for the job. It made good decisions, thrived and prospered. Then it adopted a policy of hiring women and first nations individuals who were good enough for the job, leaving the best qualified individuals (WASMPs in most cases)in the sidelines. Aside from being a breach of the unwritten contract of employment at the firm which caused morale to plumet, it has resulted in the firm being less adaptable to market changes it is facing. It has caused some of the best talent to leave. And the firm is being carried more by the best talent than the good enough talent. There have been many missed opportunities and many opporunities pursued but not delivered.
The fear about mandating equal representation of females in any environment, is that they are not the same as men and they are not a good as men at some things. Just as men are not as good as women at others. We should let the best qualified and apt people work where they want to. To interfere with that will change the current equilibrium (not for the better) and retard our progress.
And it will add significant overhead in the form of bureacracy run by ideologues bent on ensuring equal representation, not bent on ensuring quantity and quality of output. Woe is us.
I submit men do great things to impress women, or get the dough to impress women.
But testosterone sometimes works in perverse ways. Why are the jails full of men primarily? Could it be that some men want money to impress women, but are too stupid and lazy to offer anything in return?
If only these greedy men were smarter, they could legally steal money from productive folks … just by becoming liberal government bureaucrats or product liability lawyers.
Another consideration might be the safety one.
Males tend to take more risks than females (cue for the anthropologists to chime in), which, if controlled, can result in neat stuff happening. ‘Course, there’s also that runaway testosterone enthusiasm thing to deal with.
Most females, by nature (am I in “uh-oh” territory here?) generally tend to be more safety-oriented, which, if uncontrolled, can result in 14 airbags in Volvos, government-mandated equal sex representation in JTF2 and no more running with scissors (even the blunt rounded ones they let me use on days out).
I have worked for female supervisors before and all I can say is this: NEVER AGAIN.
Women in the workplace are consumed with pecking orders and petty feuds and dramas. They will gang up like shoolchildren on people they don’t like. Put a woman in a management role and often her IQ will drop 50 points. Yes, I know there are exceptions – but they are the exception. And yes, men will do this crap too, but not with the fury and malice that women do.
Contrary to the man-hating lesbians with flat chests and bad haircuts, the sexes are not equal. They are different.
I am trying to turn that one around. What would typify the ‘female invention’ the way the jet engine does for men?
vitruvius, a liberal progressive will never let a little thing like aptitude get in the way of social engineering. look at the civil service.
Unfortunately the world will have more Belindas,Hillarys and Rosies with less Margret Thatchers.
These hypothetical studies about “if only women did things differently that men” are but pointless exercises in self esteem boosting.Where is the science?
I agree with Vitruvius…women can do anything a man can do (within the limits of their normal physical traits, obviously) AND vice versa, I must add.
A point to make is that (unnamed) studies have shown that the male and female brains work differently. GENERALLY, men have a better handle on spatial, 3D relationships than women, amongst other characteristics. This is the influence of NATURE.
There is also the influence of NURTURE. Men in this culture have historically been the mechanical tinkerers and manual labourers and little boys will follow them around. Women in this culture have been the homemaker and little girls have followed them around.
A combination of NATURE and cultural NURTURE molds men and women into the lines of work that we see them now.
I have NO problem working with or for women…as long as they are competent. I will say EXACTLY the same thing about men, too…I have no problems working with or for them as long as they are competent.
We CAN (and should) do a little bit more about NURTURE, but I posit that there is little we can do about NATURE.
Speaking of “good enough” and “significant overhead in the form of bureaucracy”, the “diversity” industry is alive and well in our federal public service. Hiring will now be based on a “good enough” criterion and the winning candidates will be chosen in order to reflect the proportion of visible minorities in the general population. So, you, the taxpayer, are no longer entitled to hiring based solely on the merit principle and, furthermore, have the dubious distinction of supporting a diversity industry.
Right on, Kate. I’m a woman, I am strong, I am capable, but I don’t have the compulsion to do what a lot of men do: like math, science, engineering, setting out, like Abraham (with his Sarah by his side) to discover new worlds and settle new lands, let alone invent and master computer programs.
The reality is, our biology (a gift, IMHO, as opposed to the feminists’ moaning and groaning that it’s a limitation, thus the “need” for abortion) determines a great deal of what we are good at and what comes naturally to us. The truth is, men have stronger muscles and lifting power–which doesn’t make them “better” than women, just more able to lift tree trunks and other heavy detritus that might be in the way. Men, also, tend to focus on the next five, ten, twenty years and then move tenaciously forward towards that goal, whereas women tend (emphasis on “tend”; there are always exceptions) to pay attention to small, but important, details, often domestic, and excel at multi-tasking. (When my husband used to let me sleep in on Saturday mornings when we had two young children, I’d come downstairs hours later to a total disaster area: nothing put away in the kitchen, dirty dishes everywhere, while he was on the living room floor helping the girls build a LEGO castle. When I’d object, “Couldn’t you have at least put the milk away and done a dish or two?” he’d look at me, aghast, and protest, “I’m taking care of the kids,”…one task at a time. Playing’s hard work!)
On the other hand, men don’t carry babies or nurse them–rather indispensible assets when it comes to having kids. Women multi-task, very successfully, all of the time and are far better at “making a home” than most men (emphasis on “most”; there are always exceptions). That’s the way it’s been for millennia.
I’m thoroughly sick and tired of the radical feminists’ attempts in the past 40 or so years to gender bend us all like pretzels as they press their delusional agenda of an illusory and destructive “equality.”
Equality between men and women is a given–women can do most things men can do, and often better–however our priorities are most often very different, and that should be OK. The fembos will use–and have used–the jackboots of the state to insist on eqality of outcome for men and women–a destructive fantasy–and what it has resulted in is a societal disaster, for men, women, and especially children.
Enough said, for now! IMO, when it comes to men and women, Viva la difference!
Well…VIVE la difference!
Yes, we get it. Most women are lazy and lack ambition. I honestly doubt its most, but if this board is representative, then all women are lazy.
I say most, not all, because some of the worlds most powerful leaders have been women. Ambitious women. Women who have been subjected to intimidation tactics by men whose grip on power has been challenged, and women like yourself, who are happier “making a home”. And yes I say that in a derisory way. If you were out working you could pay someone to do your household chores. But its so much easier doing mundane unchallenging work like vaccuuming, than it is to do Math, right.
The irony is that some of you women will insist that you want to spend time with your children, but will bark at the notion that working women should get extended maternity leave. Its kind of like a job envy.
Thankfully, some women have made their presence known. And how. Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Catherine the Great, and of course, Victoria. These are women who were not lazy, who did not lack ambition, and who, without being feminists, would tell you that your “priorities” are a smokeshield for laziness.
For what its worth, the Jet engine was an exigiency of war. And women are not afraid of fighting wars and seeking out the best technologies to win it. Margaret Thatcher comes to mind.
Some friends of mine decided they were going to raise their little boy without any gender bias. So when he was a toddler they gave him a doll to play with. Within a few hours he had ripped the head off the doll and was using it as a hockey ball.
They soon gave up their little experiment and realized that boys and girls really are different.
bert: “…if this board is representative, then all women are lazy.”
EXCUSE ME? What planet do you live on? Or are you just a moron who happens to live on this planet?
Being a full-time mother requires a heck of a lot more than vacuuming, doing the dishes, and wiping kids’ noses and bums. When I CHOSE to stay home with my children, I was Mrs. Volunteer in my community and children’s school–in fact, one of the few, seeing as so many of the other mothers worked outside the home and had no time to volunteer. For those few years, when I was chief domestic engineer and bottle washer, I’ve never worked so hard in my life–for no pay and even less esteem in the eyes of the more “enlightened” members of society, like bert.
In fact, in the past 40 years, as women have been Hell-bent-for-leather to hand their domestic chores over to others, including the raising of their children, they’ve lost considerably in the “power” game. Have you ever heard the old adage, true BTW, that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world?
When you hand the reigns of your home over to strangers–who will never, I repeat never, no matter how involved, kind, concerned, or competent they are, have the same heart a mother has for her hearth, home, and kin–you’ve given over a great deal of your “power” and you often discover, years later, that you’ve lost any influence you might have had on your children–heck, you’ve often lost them–and you can’t rewind the tape.
It’s utter hogwash to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that because women’s aptitudes seem to be different from men’s that that makes them lazy–or that those of us who believe that men and women happen to be different also think that women are lazy.
bert’s the lazy one. His logic is seriously bent. Do a little more work on this, bert. You’ve got a lot to learn.
But if they force fit lots of women into Math, Science and Engineering, won’t there be a devastating shortage of students in Women’s Victim Studies, Sociology and Feminist English Lit faculties ??
Might have to close some down 🙂
I’m a woman who works for an engineering company (as an artist! No math for me!) I *hate* what women do in that company. The personnel deparment is all women, of course (first thing they did: change the name to Human Resources). They’re forever trying to feminize really straightforward things like performance evaluations. Now, instead of “you did good, here’s what I want you to do next” it’s a list of goals and growth activities and womany crap like that.
The men try gamely to go along, but they clearly don’t feel it. I’m apologetic all the time.
Anecdotal evidence I know,
but pretty much every woman who has ever sat in one of the cars I have owned along the years ( I’m 48 now ) was perplexed as the reason to have a dial indicating engine speed ( tachometer),
their would usually say more or less,
” Why do you need to know the engine speed?
All you need to know is how fast you are going! ”
I have worked for female supervisors before and all I can say is this: NEVER AGAIN.
My experience has been different. The women, as a group, have been neither better nor worse as managers than the men. I’ve had good managers, terrible managers, and average managers of both sexes, and the percentages aren’t a whole lot different by sex. That, of course, doesn’t mean that the women for whom you worked weren’t worse than the men.
Two other observations:
First, in my experience, men, in general, are quite willing to work for women. A substantial minority of women, however, are reluctant to work for other women.
Second, when I was in graduate school (1973 – 1975), approximately 15% of my class was female. Approximately 0% of the elective classes that I took involving any sort of quantitative work was female.
batb: Bert’s just a jerk trolling the site for reactions. Ignore him.
I wanted to say something else in response to Jim’s statement of “never again” to work for a woman.
Jim, in my experience, it depends on the industry or job. Women in a historically male career SEEM to try harder to justify their position and can then be b****es to work for…women in other historically “open” careers seem to be more comfortable in their roles.
Another anecdotal observation…women seem to have a hard time working for other women. Instinctive territorial competitiveness, perhaps?
I’m betting Bert is either (a) single and never married (or in a co-habiting relationship), (b) currently single after yet another failed relationship (one of many – and can’t figure out what’s wrong with these women), or (c) is married to some wimp who allows him to derride her and call her “lazy” (or allows him to push her into a job she hates, simply because he sees it as prestigious and makes him a whole lot of money).
My money is on “b” – though “a” is a strong possibility.
P.S. Bert, don’t be afraid of the apostrophe; it can be your friend.
The answer is we’re wired by God differently — end of story.
What I’ve been wondering about is why my wife needs to have 15 different (I’ve counted them) solutions, soaps, rinses, razors etc. in the shower stall when I need two: shampoo and soap. And if I run out of shampoo, I’ll make do with our (common) bar of soap. Answer that one and you’ll be my hero!
This little foray into equalizing the sexes will be unsuccessful. It is not that girls and women are being denied access into these fields. It is that girls and women are (generally) not interested in this type of work. In fact, industries actively recruit female employees to attempt to fill their HR diversity goals.
While working in a non trad field, our company formed a women’s group. One of the goals was to increase recruitment and retention of women into trades, technology and engineering etc. One of the problems identified was that girls tend to drop unrequited maths and science at the high school level, closing the door on post secondary education in these fields. Members of our group went to talk at schools to encourage girls to get their high school math and science classes. Even after describing the high wages and opportunities, the general consensus from the girls was that math and sciences are too hard and those types of jobs are too dirty anyway. All the quotas is the world will not change this reality.
So a lot of time and money will be spent by business and bureaucrats to fix a problem that no one is complaining about – except a few feminist agencies.
The first thing many of my male friends do when they acquire something new is either open it up to look at how it is made and how it works or they test it or compare it to the old one it is replacing.
Most men have the need to observe, measure, calculate, monitor, compare etc…because they need to know how things work, and that is why they tend to come up with improvements or new inventions.
Although most women can understand how things work, they do not usually care.
They care about other things that may be as important but very different.
If the average woman is not fascinated by how – for example – the internal combustion engine produces energy and how much is lost due to friction and so on and so forth,
how can the average woman either come up with improvements on the internal combustion engine or new inventions to replace it?
If one does not care about something how can one can become good at it?
It is not in the nature of most women to need to understand how things work.
I realize that was a simple typo, Lynn, but I love the idea of “unrequited math and sciences.” Because that’s just how it feels.
I’m enough of a geek to be sorry I’m not good at math and sciences, but there it is. Make brain hurt so ouch.
EQUALITY – the concept that women who choose to pursue careers as (for example) engineers should be treated no better or worse on the basis of their sex than their male counterparts – is fine idea.
EQUITY – the concept that 50% of engineers “must” be women by some sort of legislative fiat – is a ludicrous idea.
If there is really gender injustice in the lab, why would anyone try to fix the inequity by instituting alternate inequities like quotas?
I guess my question would be,why would women want to compete with men?
The opposing factors in the mental/emotional makeup of the two genders is in my opinion a highly calibrated and delicate mechanism meant to compliment each other.
Women since the beginning of time have held men to account by the very nature of having birthed them and nurtured them from infancy forward to (in my opinion…the grave).
Man comes from the womb, and spends most of his life trying to get back there in some form or other hence the continuation of the renewal of life process.
In this capacity,woman has always held the real power in the scheme of things…no I don’t mean in the sense of wielding that power as a club upon man’s head but as a subtle means of directing and tempering man’s often blind and possibly destructive ambitions.
Simply said the two opposing forces compliment each other and provide a harmonious balance when applied in an intelligent and generous manner.
Why the latter day women’s movement looks upon equality of sexes in the light they do,which is to say wrest control from men is a mystery to me in that they never seem satisfied with what they believe they have gained and proceed to want more at the expence of male identity.
One could expand on this ’till tomorrow and not be able to cover all the points but suffice to say that I’ve seen far to many “sucessful” women who drive a new car,come home to an empty house,have no real family and are competing with a biological clock that is quickly ticking down.
In the end I guess its really all about choosing one’s lifestyle…I just don’t relish being the victim of somebody’s blind zeal.
At the time I studied engineering, there were about 1000 students across the 4 undergraduate years at my university. 50 of those students were female and the female failure/drop-out was significantly higher than the corresponding male rate. My own general industry experience confirms this ratio. If one were to choose a ratio of qualified men over women to engineering related job functions, I would place the ratio somewhere between 40-100:1 rather than, say, a more conservative 10:1 even though the lower ratio still presents a problem to politically-correct thinkers.
Within that 40-100:1 ratio, I find it tends to the lower side for less technical issues (less technical from an engineering perspective) and toward the higher number for the more challenging problems. I will elaborate.
I work as a Java Architect. In object oriented software analysis/design/development, tasks are often assigned to different members of the team. Good design is considered the area where the most senior members of a team are assigned. In my experience, the number tends to a lower ratio for tasks such as coding/development and to the higher ratio for design. I suggest the writing of technical books is something the market place assigns to senior people. As one simply peruses the IT section of any bookstore, the authors are overwhelmingly male. (Is the 100:1 ratio too low for this partiular subject?) This phenomenon extends across the IT book-writing space: networks, OS, database, n-tier systems, languages, etc. The ratio only becomes smaller when one moves into less technical territory – such as when the subject crosses the Web middleware space into the Web-site design space.
I think the PC people regard this as the problem itself. However, if they have their way, things will not change fundamentally. In the IT world, the drive to equate the gender ratio within corporations will simply shift the workload to IT consultants. The ratio will be maintained within the consultant domain. I suspect there is a similar story for other disciplines of engineering.
The thing I’ve hated about working for women is that they always want to have birthday parties and going away parties etc instead of ACTUALLY WORKING.
They also talk about food all day: what they did and didn’t eat for breakfast, what they did and didn’t eat for lunch, what they will or won’t eat for dinner.
I believe most women ARE ‘lazy’ if you mean staying at home, being supported by a man or the state, rather than going out to work.
That’s why they try to make work as much like “home” as possible, with its tea parties, gossip and endless chatter.
I only survived my last office job of three years, surrounded by yacking young women, by buying an iPod and filling my ears with the voices of Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager and other _men_ for 8 hours straight.
Glad you enjoyed the error. Alas, typing has never been my strong point and I’m too lazy to proof read. Maybe it is evidence of that lazy woman thing that some poster was babbling about.
Every so often in history and pretty much in every place on the planet, the shit eventually hits the fan. When that happens it goes down like this …
Women go and hide with this kids while the men go out and beat the crap out of each other until there is peace in the valley once again. Then the women come out of hiding and start complaining about he mess the have to clean up.
The point is that indeed, men and women are different and are here to play different roles. To try to merge them is an abomination and it will never work. If it ever does, they the next bunch of tough men who show up in your androgynous community will have no problem what-so-ever!
I agree with JM v.v. equality vrs equity. The social engineers snuck in this equity thing, and we end up with equality of objective when we only have a “right” to equality of opportunity.
There is an inherent bias in equity application. Everyone can agree that men and women are under represented in many fields (physicists, but also librarians and nurses), but the redress is never aimed at the fields where men are under represented. The bias is that, well there is “unfair” discrination where women are the “victims,” but for men it cannot be so.
There are many reasons certain fields do not follow demographic male/female breakdown. Social engineers want to impute some sinister motive, and when they can’t produce evidence, they come up with ludicrous terms like “systemic discrimination.” If something is systemic, it should be easy to detect.
Discrimination can only be fairly dealt with on a case by case basis. To do otherwise is to unfairly discriminate.
Interesting comments.
I would concede that to some extent, aptitudes of men and women vary. Research tends to support this. What has always interested me about gender roles, aptitudes etc. is the historical differences between how these were rewarded. If one agreed that work traditionally taken on by women was just as important to the economy of a society as the work traditionally done by men, there would be no need to engage in a discussion of who is more suited to what work. But because the traditional roles of men and women have created situations of power and economic imbalances in the past, it was natural for women to aspire to roles where the rewards were greater (pay equal to men). It wasn’t just the money. It was the autonomy conferred by economic independence. When women found themselves competing with men for jobs that were considered their bailiwick, all sorts of absurdities occurred. First of all, it was very hard for a woman to get hired. The “boys’ network” operated very well to exclude women whether they were capable or not. Then, once some of the concepts of feminism took hold, some people took things ridiculously far, claiming that all women could do “all” work, regardless of whether they had the physique or the ability for it. I’m not entirely opposed to affirmative action, but I will admit that, for a time, some inferior women were hired over superior men in the attempt to “redress the wrongs” of the past and to even out the playing field. The problem is that the pendulum has swung too far and it might be time to abandon those practices. Women outnumber men in universities. Boys in school do worse than girls. I think men feel disenfranchised and as a result, many boys are refusing to “play”. They see no advantage to pursue an education, or plan for a future with a family because, boys (particularly white males) are now at the bottom of the heap. Every other identifiable group gets first crack at the goodies now. It’s unfortunate and is contributing to many problems in our society. We need men to be as healthy, productive and happy as women have tried to claim for themselves through various political pushes and personal effort. You cannot have a successful society by marginalizing any group. Feminists used to mourn the talent that was wasted when intelligent and talented women were afforded no opportunities other than house slaves. Well now, I think we are wasting and losing out on the energy, brilliance and drive in men.
All this discussion is an attempt to respond to the usual troglodytes who would have women aspire to nothing more than doing the laundry, or who would put down the occupations that are still somehow linked to a “proper” woman’s role. There’s a reason why affirmative action was introduced. Social change does not occur easily. Those in power will never yield power voluntarily. But such practices eventually become obsolete or even counter-productive. There should be a limit.
My final point is that if we had a world where true talent was recognized and rewarded, despite gender, or political correctness or social engineering…where it didn’t matter how “connected” you were…where higher education and jobs of every kind–trades, business, professions–were available to everyone with the gumption and the talent to qualify for them, then we wouldn’t need to discuss whether a woman should be an engineer or not. Perhaps the time has come where preferential hiring of any kind should be phased out. But if we’re still saying that someone would be a poorer engineer (or manager) just because she happens to be female, we maybe haven’t come quite far enough yet.
As I recall from my advanced theoretical physics courses we had one female in the class. She was of Asian extraction, if that is relevant.
Once, we started giving the prof a little bit of good natured teasing and he returned the fire.
The result was a 47 page derivation calculation by hand. Some of our ‘homework’ assignments became a pure pursuit of the challenge of solving the equations.
For advanced mind bending it is highly recommended. It does however limit the folk who can appreciate your schtick on the cocktail circuit.
I would agree with the previous posters that women are natural multi-tasking operating systems.
Before Bill Gates and other operating systems the firstand multi-task operating systems were women!!
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP
Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Friend of USA; you’re absolutely right and it starts young. If you aren’t already yourself, any parent can tell you that little boys are far more inclined to rip something apart to see what’s in it, or to simply destroy something for no more than the hellish good fun of it.
My brother and I used to do that by pointing our toy racing cars straight at the wall and letting em fly. Mom was p*ssed to be out buying a new set of cars less than a week after Christmas, dad because of the dents in the drywall, and my sister, who kept immaculate care of her toys, thought we were completely insane. When none of them were around, my brother and I of course would have a real good giggle. That was after all the whole point of the exercise.
“The feminist reformers acknowledge that few science departments are guilty of overt discrimination. They claim, however, that subtle, invisible “unconscious bias” is discouraging talented aspiring women. Therefore, the major focus of the equity movement is to transform the academic culture itself — to make it more attractive to women by rendering science less stressful, less competitive, and less time consuming.”
And how, exactly, is this supposed to promote a vibrant, driven and resourceful R&D department in any facet of science? By diverting the attention of those most dedicated to the pursuit of thier research? Or perhaps by loading those who already “give %100” to picking up the slack of those who like the idea of the title but don’t feel the stress, competitive nature or time involved is justified?
Just asking, is all.
I believe men and women are equivalent but not necessary equal in every field.
Women generally have higher EQ while men higher IQ.
Women have better memory while men better analysis skills.
Men do better at the extreme.. most nobel prizes are men and 95% of jail population are also men.
There is a new book that came out 2 months ago about that: The Sexual Paradox: Extreme Men, Gifted Women and the Real Gender Gap.
http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Paradox-Women-Real-Gender/dp/0743284704
Hmmm … in Canada we have the fairly aggressive WISE (Women In Science and Engineering) program. I wouldn’t say it has made much difference – in physics anyway – in particular because the number of women going in for the subject was rising before it was instituted.
There are a few capable, indeed very capable, women in physics and mathematics. Whether any amount of government action can increase the number is, in my mind, doubtful, because these subjects are torture to those who don’t have well marked ability in them, and enthusiasm for them.
Something like the infantry.
Rita;
Please forgive me if I misinterpret your words, but I get the sense that by your use of “to some extent” and “tends to support this” you’re minimizing some profound differences that scientific research has revealed in the last 20 years or so.
As but one example, men and women use completely different parts of their brains to do math. While we don’t yet understand fully how that plays out in the real world, if you think of the brain as a computer, we’re talking differnces at the level of wiring and base code. It just doesn’t get any more fundamental than that.
Most men have the need to observe, measure, calculate, monitor, compare etc…because they need to know how things work, and that is why they tend to come up with improvements or new inventions.
I switched careers recently after 25 years in engineering, now I’m a “junior” computer (CAD) person working with two younger women more knowledgeable than myself WRT computer modeling.
Guess who’s pointing out things like, “well, if you did it this way, we could save a lot of work” and “just because that’s the way it was when you got here doesn’t mean we can’t improve it”.