John Tierney reports in the New York Times (and elsewhere):
The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy have set up programs to look for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants. Investigators have been taking inventories of lab space and interviewing faculty members and students in physics and engineering departments at schools like Columbia, the University of Wisconsin, M.I.T. and the University of Maryland.
So far, these Title IX compliance reviews haven’t had much visible impact on campuses beyond inspiring a few complaints from faculty members. (The journal Science quoted Amber Miller, a physicist at Columbia, as calling her interview “a complete waste of time.â€Â) But some critics fear that the process could lead to a quota system that could seriously hurt scientific research and do more harm than good for women.
The members of Congress and women’s groups who have pushed for science to be “Title Nined†say there is evidence that women face discrimination in certain sciences, but the quality of that evidence is disputed. Critics say there is far better research showing that on average, women’s interest in some fields isn’t the same as men’s.
The “response” at Feministe will not shock pw regulars:
Step 1:Fail to do actual research, and just rely on fake-ass stenographic “balance†by credulously repeating the claims of spokespeople for the different “sides†of the “controversyâ€Â. Completely ignore the fact that one “side†is comprised of people who recognize and accept reality and the other “side†is comprised of wackaloon asshole apologists for male privilege.
Tierney cites and quotes two psychologists at Vanderbilt University, David Lubinski and Camilla Persson Benbow, who have been tracking more than 5,000 mathematically gifted students for 35 years. He also cites of a new study of the large gender gap in the computer industry by Joshua Rosenbloom and Ronald Ash of the University of Kansas. And clinical psychologist Susan Pinker’s new book on gender differences, for which Pinker interviewed women who abandoned successful careers in science and engineering to work in fields like architecture, law and education.  Other research by people like Prof. Jacquelynne Eccles and and Mina Vida of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender reached similar results.
The Feministe blogger makes no effort to refute any of their work of course, engaging instead in a stream of ad hominem attacks. Not even ideological ad hominem attacks, mind you. For example, the response to Lubinksi and Benbow:
Step 3: Are you fucking kidding me!?
I jumped over “Step 2,” which is the blogger’s complaint about the representation of faculty in various fields. That women who get science degrees might be getting lucrative jobs in the private sector does not occur to the blogger. However, to the extent that there might be sex discrimination in hgher education faculties, I would love to see the reaction in academia to the suggestion that policies like tenure have a disproportionate imapct on women and must be eliminated. That would be highly amusing.
Having baselessly dismissed all of these professionals as “wackiloons,” you can imagine that the blogger does not substantively respond to the argument made by Christina Hoff Sommers that science education in the US will suffer if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.
The issue of the gender gap in some fields of science is complex. In addition to the factors discussed in Tierney’s piece, socialization may be a factor, including the influence of fathers.  International research suggests that the math gender gap shrinks in countries that rank higher on some other measures of gender equality. However:
Sapienza and colleagues found that boys, regardless of the country and social environment in which they live, typically do better in math than in reading. Similarly, girls are usually better in reading than in math, regardless of the degree of gender equality in their society.
Moreover, the nations scoring high on gender equality indicies in this research are Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland — and there is no indication that the researchers examined whether genetic commonalities or other cultural factors in those countries (aside from per capita GDP) contributed to the results.
Ultimately, to the degree that socialization affects girls’ attitudes toward different fields of science and choice of study, one would hope that there could be a discussion of whether trying to address the issue in higher education through Title IX would be a backend kludge at best, and harmful to science education — and science itself — in the long run. (fwiw, Thoreau gives a much more nuanced take on the issues raised by Tieney’s pice at Unqualified Offerings.) Feminist ideologues who want to remake society might want to figure out that society starts long before you reach the local faculty Senate. Or perhaps they are acting like the drunk who drops her keys in a darkened parking lot, but searches only at the street corner because that’s where the light makes the search easy.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Plus, using the blogger-in-question’s three step whatthefuck process allows for a righteous fury, yet maintaining brevity. Because without going over and looking, I’m guessing Karl’s post is much more wordy than hers even without the blockquotes.
Not to mention, to counter scientific study and field research, she might have to look through statistical data – and what if she’s not good at math? Or is but just doesn’t enjoy it?
Chauvinists…
Well, of course Feministe ignores the professionals with expertise in the field. Everybody knows that girls are no good at that science-y stuff!
There’s no barrier to smart women having careers in science. We should let more Asians immigrate I think and just take care of the problem bam! before these screechy white girls get their panties in a twist. How should we take care of the problem? Like this… bam!
Damn. Beaten to the punch.
Having visited that site before when a similar story came around, I can tell you that most of their visitors are “victims.” I’m not entirely sure of exactly what, but they do cite all the standard symptoms of a minority, which in most cases they are.
The types of complaints that I have seen are those that this particular piece blows off in one phrase .. these women were as content with their careers as their male counterparts. Most of their visitors are not content, with many seemingly hypersensitive to the “unconscious biasâ€Â.
If this were the case with “male counterparts,” their management would tell them to pursue a different career path (marketing instead of engineering for instance), but most of their visitors see this as a explicit manifestation of the “unconscious biasâ€Â, which I would interpret to mean that they have invested too much of their time and money in this career, and come hell or higher water, they are going to make it work no matter how much they make their fellow workers and their own lives miserable.
“Well, of course Feministe ignores the professionals with expertise in the field. Everybody knows that girls are no good at that science-y stuff!”
“…before these screechy white girls get their panties in a twist.”
The blogger in question is guest-blogging at Feministe this week, and he’s a dude.
Boys are so bad at reading.
Well, sure. Why study all the hard stuff like calculus, applied physics, microelectronic engineering or organic chemistry when you can study clit lit or feminist theory or queer studies and *snort* still get a degree? Then bitch about it?
…”the drunk who drops HER keys in a darkened parking lot, but searches only at the street corner because that’s where the light makes the search easy.”
“HER keys.” You’re a friggin sexist Karl.
I suppose then some MAN (who’s better in math & science) comes along, walks off the parking lot counting his steps, determines pi, triangulates based on her current position, sets a likely search grid, finds her keys, and proceeds to drive her drunk ass home and bang her.
Sexist!
Well, I left a comment at Feminste pointing out that it’s a dude who made that rather inchoate post, Jill. And, nice sexist comment there at the end.
Note that Jill does not identify what in the post identifies the blogger as a dude. And has no substantive response to the embarassing post from the dude she apparently invited to further lower their blog cred.
There is a real “Pandoras Box” here for those who want to bring Title IX to bear. As mentioned in the piece, women now constitute about half of medical students, 60 percent of biology majors and 70 percent of psychology Ph.D.’s.. If there is to be equal outcomes, some women are going to feel the pain as men replace them in these fields that women now dominate.
Lamont,
Specifically went fom the plural to “her” at the end of the post so as to be gender-inclusive. I’m all about gender equality for drunks.
“And, nice sexist comment there at the end.”
That was sarcasm, genius. Wow, boys really can’t read!
(Get it?)
#11: Neo,
Ding! Not to mention that society may eventually suffer from the exclusion of women from those fields by gender “goals.”
Karl, I’m a guy and I noticed that PhysioProf wrote the post, clicked on PhysioProf’s id, which brought up the previous articles written by PhysioProf, and read his introductory piece in which he identifies his gender and raises issues about guys who call themselves “feminists”.
Total time taken, about a minute thirty.
That’s really a lot sexist of Jill to maintain that boys can’t be screechy white girls.
He gets an A for effort for real. Attacking him as being an inauthentic screechy white girl is just going to discourage his development I think.
I was being ironic, Jill. – smileyface thingy –
Nice rack.
#13: Jill,
Pretty sure “And, nice sexist comment there at the end†was returning snark with snark. You feminists are just soooo humorless.
/snark
#17: Stickerist,
Really? Pics?
/objectifying sexist sarc
Just noticed in the quote box:
We’re trying to keep a lid on it.
Well, sure. Why study all the hard stuff like calculus, applied physics, microelectronic engineering or organic chemistry when you can study clit lit or feminist theory or queer studies and *snort* still get a degree?
Where were you when I was 18? I could have spent all those Thursdays drinking with the girls instead of debugging circuit boards!
I expect this level of discrimination to be solved shortly after African-Americans get over the idea that being smart makes you “white” and girls stop worrying that being smart makes boys like them less.
We can all (maybe most of us) remember the Barbie that said “I hate math“
Karl- my scenario was dubious anyway. I didn’t include the probability of the “check oil” light in the drunk chick’s Honda Civic being on for the last 1,500 miles or so, thus causing the engine to seize after one block and resulting in mechanical cock block.
Sorry. I forgot to carry the “1.”
Jill- in math that there’s what we science boys call a “variable” (though there are theories that the oil light thing is a “constant”).
yeah, Karl, I’ve been reading Jill’s stuff for a while. I think Jill is a feminist blogger a guy could take home to meet his parents, and not have to worry about his mom becoming a lesbian.
I agree with this part a lot…
Except I don’t really know what “reality-testing opposition” means. If you test something’s reality, and it’s for real real, then are you still supposed to be oppositiony? And if it’s not for real real, are you supposed to argue against it or ignore it? Either way the New York Times suck balls though.
Maybe that should be *sucks* balls. Jill?
hf,
That would be “reality-testing opposition to the propagandistic tendencies of Government,” which in this case is “look[ing] for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants.”
Actually, you really took his “step 1” out of context, it was after this passage:
“The members of Congress and women’s groups who have pushed for science to be “Title Nined†say there is evidence that women face discrimination in certain sciences, but the quality of that evidence is disputed. Critics say there is far better research showing that on average, women’s interest in some fields isn’t the same as men’s.”
The evidence of discrimination is the whole reason for possibly extending Title IX to the sciences. Failing to critically analyze evidence of discrimination is pretty bad. Also, it is something of a non-sequiter for the author to say that just because men and women have different levels of interest in the field than men, there is no discrimination.
And BTW, before you criticize his description of Christina Hoff Summers, have you read anything she’s written? I have, and whackaloon happens to be pretty accurate.
Oh. Thanks, K. I think we need to be vigilant about the sexual discrimination at the universities. For one thing, we should put liberals in charge at these university places. I think that would go a long way towards instilling confidence.
Let’s face facts .. this is all about the search for “it”
Starting in middle school and continue through high school, the cheerleaders begin to think that the “nerds & geeks” have “it“, while the “nerds & geeks” think the theater/drama crowd have “it“, while the theater/drama crowd think the jocks have “it“, and the jocks are sure the cheerleaders have “it“. Everyone not mentioned are sure they don’t have “it“, and many (the James Dean wannabees) really don’t care.
Hello?
Males are more likely to have Asperger Syndrome, which inclines them toward the hard sciences, Aspies being all about quantities and categorization and hard rules and such. I’m half-Asped myself, and I straddle the line between science and letters by being a tech writer: I translate Engineering-speak into English, given that most engineers hate writing and would rather code or build or whatnot.
Look, if women predominate in the soft sciences, so what? As long as there are no artificial barriers to their studying and progressing in the harder sciences, who gives a flip what they do?
Besides, are women now obliged to take up an interest in science to satisfy someone else’s concept of The Ideal Society? Please explain to me why that is NOT a type of coersion?
Ismone,
I did not take Step 1 out of context, as Step 1 — and the entire rest of the post — completely fails to suggest what the evidence of discrimination is and whether it’s better than the research the critics cite — or the research cited throughout Tierney’s piece 9which comes with a link-filled sidebar, btw). Th blogger has impugned all of the scientists cited as wackiloons — not just Sommers — and can’t back it up.
As for Sommers, I suppose dismissing her as a “wackiloon” is far easier than actually explaining why applying Title IX ot STEM departments will not have the bad results she posits (and so posits based on what occurs with college athletics already under Title IX).
OK, but what’s the evidence?
And is this really the way to solve the problem in a free society? Government force keeping people out of the studies that interest them? Or government force preventing people from advancing in the fields that interest them?
Oh. Christina Hoff Summers. I like her. I have like two Bangles cds, not that that makes me an expert or anything. Well, that’s counting the Less Than Zero soundtrack.
Also, it is something of a non-sequitur for the author to say that just because men and women have different levels of interest in the field than men, there is no discrimination.
How about this, then: the fact that men and women have different levels of interest might account for what appears to be discrimination.
Sometimes it walks like a duck and swims like a duck but it’s actually a loon. Or a coot. Take your pick.
There can be no bad results from progressive policies. If there are bad results, the policies weren’t progressive enough.
Geez, Karl, I thought you’d have learned that by now.
#29: hf,
It’s always tough to tell how much you’re kidding, so I want to make clear (if my prior comment did not) that the blogger is screeching about how the press needs to watchdog the gov’t, but it’s the gov’t doing the Title IX investigation. It’s another example of the incoherence of the blogger.
Or that there is some discrimination, but its effects are completely swamped by the levels of interest shown by the groups involved. Which means that you’d be coercing people out of their preferred fields in order to address a marginal effect.
Or, possibly, that it’s really not the government’s job to be maintaining quotas on who can study what fields.
at the end of the day this kerfuffle can be laid at the feet of the late science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein.
Heinlein was a big fan of women who were good at hard sciences. A lot of his female characters had advanced degrees in hard sciences or mathematics, important jobs, relatively few mores regarding mating behaviors, a supranatural talent or two, big yabbos … et cetera. It’s an impossible standard to have … at least with regard to the relatively few mores.
In the meantime, what did Asimov give society as a model?
Robots … and not teh sexy robots, either.
#34: hf,
Then you really must see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzchBCJeAkM
I think if all the sciency lab equipment wasn’t so offensive it would be different.
Test tubes, swabs, cylinders…they’re all phallic! A bunson burner is just a little penis with a blue flame hat. Can you say “penetrating laser?” And that eye wash station looks like a fetish porn prop and the safety shower is obviously built for two.
Plus whenever I hear “beaker,” I think of nipples (then the Muppet).
This Asperger Syndrome — characterized by abnormalities of social interaction and communication sounds awfully judgemental to me.
Oh. That’s a good point, Karl. I didn’t get that the first time.
Oh. I’m a little behind cause NG had a scary bug in her office I had to take care of.
Shoot. I always forget. No YouTube access at work.
Have we got ourselves a society obsessed with disproving the law of diminishing returns? To the point we can ignore the ordinary otherwise important stuff?
hf,
Then you definitely need #40.
hf,
You can try a way around security:
http://www.truveo.com/Susanna-HoffsFeel-Like-Making-Love/id/2534517741
LYBD,
You missed the fact that
provides the true raison d’etre for women in science. You know that stuff isn’t going to clean itself.
I’m surprised you didn’t notice that.
This Asperger Syndrome  characterized by abnormalities of social interaction and communication sounds awfully judgmental to me.
Damn straight. Nobody better tell ME that I lack tact and diplomacy, especially since I find both to be instruments of obfuscation and deception rather than — what do they call it? — courtesy.
Feh, I say. Feh. I’ll say what I want.
Karl & Rob,
That is my point! The evidence (pro and con) regarding discrimination is NOT in the article. And yes, Karl, you took it out of context–he was talking about evidence of discrimination which is NOT the same as evidence of interest/later career happiness. I’ll check the sidebar, but to just dismissively summarize the evidence regarding discrimination as equivocal looks pretty intellectually dishonest to someone like me with a background in the sciences who has read the research.
I’m not saying there should be some kind of magical quotas in the sciences, I am saying the article was extremely badly written.
I have a different opinion about Title IX and athletics—even though I lived on the left coast, and my school had fewer sports teams for girls then for boys, and my team of choice had more members than the football team (and there was already a guy’s team for that sport) we had to fight tooth and nail to get the sport in. Also, Title IX does not require 50-50 parity, there are alternative ways to satisfy it, including some pretty fuzzy language that doesn’t require parity, just opportunities commensurate with expressed interest. So those schools who are claiming they have to cancel boys or mens sports are being disingenuous.
No one feminist I know wants quotas. But I wouldn’t mind in the least if science departments had their students take annual surveys that would reveal perceived discrimination.
Bother. “Not one feminist.”
And, in fact, encourage perceived discriminations. Because that’s what the monitors would rely on for their employment.
As an attorney I would seriously doubt any claims that state-sponsored universities discriminate against women in these fields. States have rules and regulations in place dealing with gender discrimination and the resulting financial headaches that would cause if proved (loss of federal funding, for instance); states also have agencies that address claims of civil rights violations in state agencies or state supported institutions. And the people such discrimination would affect are by definition intelligent, motivated people who would not sit still for such discrimination or a pattern of discrimination, not matter if the person discriminating has tenure. And the atmosphere of a university is not one that would condone discrimination against women if it became known it was occurring on campus. Even our national culture does not excuse such acts and finds it worthy of censure.
If it became known it was occurring the accused perpetrator would be facing his worst nightmare as the university community would turn on him in the blink of an eye and the mechanism of the state came around to bear. The likliehood would be low – very low in my estimation.
Ismone,
Actually, Tierney cites (and links to) almost all of the research I mention in the post. The blogger ignores it. And of course, I note research that suggests discrimination may well be a factor — which the blogger couldn’t be bothered to find. If Tierney was sloppy, what does that make the blogger?
Besides, it would be masculinist to claim that their feelings didn’t matter.
In light of Mikey’s comment, I should clarify that the research tending to show that gender stereotyping may play a part here, it generally does not arise from within the college or university — it’s more likely to be general gender-role socialization — which is why I suggest that Title IX is like trying to sponge up the spilt milk.
I should also note to Ismone that it is one thing to write — coming from a science background — that not one feminist she knows wants quotas. Lawyers play it a bit differently. Yes, Title IX has three prongs, but Ismone admits the fuzziness which in practice drives “proportionality,” a/k/a quotas in many cases.
–
Let’s all just take a moment and remember that scientists work for sales people.
Well, gainfully employed scientists do.
There’s a fair compromise with the feminists here. We get Bill Nye the Science Guy a really smart female assistant.
I’m thinking Denise Richards.
She’s not allowed to talk though.
And her only on set clothing is a lab coat.
With no buttons.
Deal?
Lamont,
Bill Nye is spending his golden years trying to match Ed Begley, Jr. as the greenest guy in their neighborhood (really). So I might prefer to hear from Denise.
Karl,
I didn’t find the Sapienza study among the sidebar links. None of the studies he cites are studies of discrimination, some of them talk about it, but none contain real numbers.
Dan Collins,
So, you’re describing a general problem with bureaucracy. I don’t see that as a real reason not to collect data. Perceived discrimination isn’t just about ‘feelings’ it is about rationally noting that one is being treated differently. I used the word “perceived” because I do not credit survey-takers with omnipotence.
I’m a lawyer with a science background. :) I think schools axed men’s sports teams to save money, and blamed it on Title IX.
Why on earth, I have to ask myself, would a clutch of engineers (a calculus of engineers? a caliper of engineers?) try to keep females OUT of their field of study? Maybe back in the day there was some difficulty with being shown up by a mere female, but now maybe the morons have figured out that there’s really no other women on the planet who will even LOOK at them, let alone speak to them or grok what they grok.
And even if some men have trouble with having women in their field, there are plenty of men who don’t. Maybe these women need to grow a freaking pair or at least rent some. Or they can go commiserate with the lone guy in K-12 teaching.
#39 Bumperstickerist – Heinlein was a big fan of women who were good at hard sciences. A lot of his female characters had advanced degrees in hard sciences or mathematics, important jobs, relatively few mores regarding mating behaviors, a supranatural talent or two, big yabbos … et cetera. It’s an impossible standard to have … at least with regard to the relatively few mores.
What audience was Heinlein writing for? Adolescent boys you say? Those who were science-geeky and in the throes of puberty? So his heroeines were hot women who were good at science?
Fancy that!
Mikey NTH,
I think you might be a little naive. All kinds of discrimination goes on (against women, against men) that either does not reach the threshold of being actionable, or that involves people who are unwilling to complain.
Ismone,
Nope, the Sapienza study is me doing Feministe’s work for it. And I note the limitations of that study as well. As for the others, they are generally longitudinal studies of large groups of children; if you don’t see the relevance, it’s because you’re trying to fix 18 years of socialization at your college faculty meeting.
I used to have a crush on Bill Nye, then I found out he was one of Al Gore’s biggest fanboys and a shill for AGW. Science Guy indeed.
Hey Bill? Is it science if they won’t release their data and methodologies for scrutiny? What if they claim intellectual rights? Is that still science?
It’s okay to discriminate. As long as you do it against Men. That’s what Feminism is all about. Equality doesn’t Naturally exist, so it must be Legislated. Negative consequences be damned! We have to appease the pampered princesses. “Where have all the Men gone?” We Left the Building a long time ago. Feminists have already ruined society. Have you studied what the Feminists have done to the Family Court System in America? Read up on the Marriage Strike? The War on Boys? Read Taken Into Custody by Baskerville to find out what Feminists are all about. “… that women are inherently equal to men and deserve equal rights and opportunities.” Yeah right. Gender Supremacists is far more accurate. Feminists like to force men to wear cement blocks around their ankles and then boast of their superiority when they beat the Men in a running race. Foolishly, our politically correct society sides with the Feminists. To not do so is “misogynist”. Strange that Misandry can’t be found in any dictionaries. Especially since it permeates every corner of society. Men have lost interest in society and are simply going their own way. Atlas is taking the day off. The Feminists can have everything they want. I’m going sit back and enjoy the show. “Help us fix this!” Nope, sorry empowered GRRLS. You spit in my face for the last time.
66: Oh, I see Ismone is headed down the “I get to claim invisible sexism” road now. Faith-based reality flies better in church than over here.
If you want a battle of the videos
Karl- I’m saddened (though not suprised) by that.
But hey, I’m flexible. While I can’t in good conscience strike the mute clause on Denise, I would vote for a bikini-clad ScarJo as the new test dummy on MythBusters.
Actually, Heinlein was writing for the ages.
and for money.
Karl,
I don’t think that the writer at Feministe had to go out and discuss discrimination research in order to criticize Tierney for not doing so. It’s a fisk, not a research paper. But if you want to talk about the research on actual discrimination, there is research out there (i.e., the paper about how science papers are considered less intelligent if a woman’s name is put on them than a man’s, how women have to publish more in many departments before they are invited to speak at conferences . . . it would be actually interesting to pull out all the research and write a rebuttal, but I have video games to play and no one would pick it up so I think I’ll save my writing energy.)
And wrt your 70, I’m not talking about invisible sexism, I’m talking about sexism that isn’t legally actionable. (I think a lot of bad things that happen aren’t legally actionable. I.e., try being a straight male bringing a sexual harassment claim against another straight male. If the appellate case law is a fair representation of most cases that go to trial, you will likely lose. I do think it is visible/measurable by asking people about how they are treated (both men and women, fancy that!) on surveys. I like data.
Bother. It looks like Truveo pulls off of YouTube. Oh. Rachel does the math here. No Barbie, she.
Ismone – of course discrimination goes on – we are dealing with humans, after all. My point is that this is not a fertile environment for gender discrimination, and one that actively polices for this.
Actively discriminating on the basis of gender in an activist community, and one that likely has a division of human resources that deals with diversity issues would argue against this. I am not saying it couldn’t or does not happen, I am saying that if it does it would provide local parties who are interested in this to have a field day on the perpetrator and have the backing of the community and administration to do so. It is real easy to lose a cushy job in such an environment by doing or saying the wrong thing; there are enough people who would liketo build up their credntials as ‘spokesperson for ________ community’ by tearing someone else down, and the local and state media would eat it up – the narrative is already written, just fill in the blanks and send to the editor.
Possibility? Heck yeah! We are dealing with humans.
Probability? Low, based on the environment for the last forty years not supporting such behavior from some non-celebrity* mathematics professor.
*If it is a celeb all bets are off. For an anecdote, look at the fate of Larry Summers at Harvard.
Straight males bringing sexual harassment claims against straight males. I had to google that. Here’s a primer. A little afternoon consciousness-raising never hurt no one I guess.
Mikey NTH,
I see your point. I just think a lot of discrimination is unconscious, b/c people want to think they are good, and so they don’t consider, when they react poorly to someone or treat them as stupid, that they are doing this disproportionately to women. (I have one boss who was like that–kind of aggressive and condescending to everyone, but particularly to me–it started to get to me until his secretary told me he was always harder on his female employees. Well, and I also compared notes with the others, and realized I was getting more severe reactions for similar transgressions.)
But I don’t think there needs to be any new sort of cause of action or yardstick, so I think were probably on the same page.
#73 Bumperstickerist:
I’ll leave this link (I hope), from which I cribbed my point.
http://www.davidszondy.com/future/robot/robot_babes.htm
Except for the fact that my page, today, involves typos and missing punctuation marks.
…”I.e., try being a straight male bringing a sexual harassment claim against another straight male.”
…Uh…what?
I’m afraid I need a bit more info on that claim (or at least the terms & connectors you used for that friggin’ Westlaw search).
Maybe you’re right Ismone. Though I’d have difficulty believing that, at some point, the 9th Circuit has not set precedent on a straight man’s legal right to be a pussy.
Lamontyoubigdummy,
Ah, sadly, it was in the context of reading about 300 SH cases, so I didn’t separate them out. If you have an email, I might be able to go back to my old research memo and give you the citations. The facts tended to go something like this–manager kicks or hits underling in the nads (or grinds up against underling in a sexually suggestive manner) underling complaints to higher ups, higher ups don’t do anything, manager does it again (and sometimes, again) underling sues. Underling loses on SJ. Or boss is “presumed gay” for the purposes of SJ because that is the only explanation for the groping/ball-busting. (I think there was one case where the underling beat the crap out of the guy who groped him. He was fired. Seems like life isn’t fair.)
Ismone,
As a straight male — and one who grew up with health problems, the proto-nerd, etc. — I will say that I cannot be bothered wringing my hands over the straight-male on straight-male discrimiation that goes on. Probably for the same reason that society does not prioritize it, i.e., the cost-benefit ratio of making such discrimiation actionable is not worth it.
wrt to your other point, I note that you, like the blogger, seem chiefly concerned with sexism within the world of academia, when the Title IX issue is more oriented toward how students end up studying different fields. Obvs, there can be overlap, but my point is that Title IX is not an effective way to deal with the issue of gender socialization occurring well before the students turn up at college. If you like data, try citing some to me on how college faculty dissuade women from going into their engineering departments — or dissuade men from biology.
Alternatively, if you want to complain that a bunch of tenured white males are keeping womyn down within the world of academe — which seems to be the subject of your studies — I’m all up for an investigation of that. It’s just not what the Feds are focused on, and what Tierney is discussing. Changing the subject is not the same as fisking.
But if it is unconscious, Ismone, how do we deal with it when no intent is involved? There has to be intent for a crime, and for torts strict liability is very rare. If it is unconscious, then it is cultural, and as Karl noted in response to my first comment, that starts very early. And I also noted that the general culture of this nation does not condone gender discrimination. After all, these women come from somewhere, and fathers, brothers, friends, boyfriends, and husbands (for example) would not support discrimination against someone that close to them.
In your case there is a discernible pattern, and that would result in bosses above your boss getting real nervous if a complaint was lodged either informally or formally. I do agree that we are pretty much in agreement here.
Stick around – this place is pretty addictive and the regular crowd is pretty funny and likes people who can explain where they are coming from.
#64 – dicentra
You know, men “in the field” have never said one word to me about “women shouldn’t be engineers.”
Women who wouldn’t know a differential equation if it bit them in the ass, OTOH, are incredibly ridiculing and dismissive. It’s not sour grapes over ability or “discrimination” in the past–it’s “you have a vagina, why would you WANT to do THAT?”
Admittedly, I ask myself that question a lot.
also:
Maybe. And maybe a lot of people choose to ignore their shortcomings by donning the cloak of identity politics. Probably some of each, which is why some types of “discrimination” aren’t actionable.
[addendum: I am not refering to Ismone’s specific case here, as I obviously don’t know the facts of that case. I would imagine, however, that the man probably has a different perspective regardless of whether he is actually treating women worse.]
“Alternatively, if you want to complain that a bunch of tenured white males are keeping womyn down within the world of academe  which seems to be the subject of your studies  I’m all up for an investigation of that.”
Having read accounts of women being dissuaded in engineering and other science departments, I think it is a problem that exists, not just in the larger society wrt gender expectations, but also in colleges. Tierney just puts a bad taste in my mouth because he acted like the evidence of discrim. is somehow equivocal, while I think it is clear that there is discrimination, but how far-reaching it is and how much direct discrimination vs. societal gender expectations vs. individual preferences plays a part, I do not know.
I thought one of the sidebar pieces also mentioned Title IX being applied to selection of professors, which is why I was bringing that up.
Regarding straight-male, straight-male discrimination–it does bug me somewhat, and it should be dealt with just as fairly as discrimination against females. My overarching point was that bad stuff happens. But thank you for engaging so honestly with me, it is refreshing and pretty rare in the interwebs.
Mikey NTH,
I think the only way to deal with unconscious discrimination (against any group, women, men, minorities) is to measure differential treatment, unconscious attitudes, and how to affect those attitudes. (For example, when I have a negative or positive reaction to someone, I usually try and ask myself if that reaction would be as negative/positive. I don’t think my boss’s behavior, though annoying, reaches the legal threshold. (If it only accounts for 5% of the overall jerkiness, I notice it, and it is a deterrent to working with people like him, but not enough to make a federal case out of.)
BTW, I think women also take other women less seriously. (As bosses, in academe, etc.) I do not see this as a male problem, but a cultural problem.
Let me guess number of hard science degrees held by feministe bloggers = 0.
Weren’t the classes available for them when they attended college?
Yet, those were the classes & fields that, admittedly, purely speculative on my part, that they ignored or avoided, much like the majority of college students in the US – both male & female.
Yep, another resoundingly unfounded alarm against the mythical patriarchy to further a bullshit cause, based upon nothing more than utter bullshit.
The blogger who wrote the piece is male, and has a hard science degree. If you are looking for feminist bloggers with a hard science background, google is your friend.
#88: Ismone,
Some women probably do take some women less seriously. Sometimes, I would imagine it to be unjustified. Probably not in other cases.
The problem — as with Title IX in this context — is ascertaining the extent of the problem, because Title IX is much more geared to statistical evidence. I would not be shocked to learn that Prof. Jones dissuaded Jane Student away from engineering. But the gross statistical disparity in engineering suggests either a rammpant sexism in colleges that has somehow never been uncovered, or that other factors are more significant. Similarly, I doubt there is some massive push — unconscious or not — to keep men out of biology or medicine. That’s why I think Tierney is not off-base in citing the longitudinal studies regarding the interests of kids pre-college. I think that culure and socialization pre-college is probably more significant. And even the studies I cited on that are open to some questions — fathers influence daughters, but so do mothers, etc.
Ismone,
I guess I’d buy that. I don’t need cites or history, just curious.
However, “if” there was a documented HR trail, other employees interviewed, the company takes no action, underling later breaks boss’ nose, then underling fired, I dunno how the company isn’t up to their ass in liability.
I think you’ve got one foot up on the attorney soap box here. I know the drill. “Not actionable” to an attorney means “I can’t win.” The client didn’t follow through with HR, or doesn’t have copies of complaints, no witnesses, etc. Doesn’t mean what happened wasn’t illegal according to inerpreted law, or that the victim is afraid to sue.
It means this is gonna get tossed in SJ and I’m not touching it. And that’s fair. A law firm is a business. No lawyer is going to take on $40K in contingent overhead on a case they know they can’t win. That goes for plaintiff attorneys in any specialty, not just employment.
Ya’ll aren’t all Erin Brockoviches in red capes. it’s not usually a, “If the law had just said this or that, this case would be actionable” kinda thing.
Step 6: Credulously quote an “expert†from a wackaloon wingnut welfare “think tank†propaganda outlet as if they know diddly jack shit about anything other than how to please their sick-fuck neo-feudal corporate masters. Fearmonger that trying to achieve gender equity is going to RUIN EVERYTHING THAT THE MANLY MEN HAVE ACHIEVED!!!!!11!!1!1!!
Has objective scientist written all of over it.
I guess he forget to mention that the bio-medical field, especially the bio-chemistry field is one of the few hard-science fields that women actually do rather well in.
Having been a bio major at a small liberal arts school, I may be a bit off in this characterization, but here goes:
Studying the sciences, particularly Chemistry and Physics, requires a certain type of personality that is most often found in groups of acnified, stringy young dudes who laugh at “But there aren’t supposed to be wookies on Endor!” and tend to spend their friday nights in the lounge doing problem sets.
That said, Feministe is clearly a laughingstock, but what are the ramifications of gender based affirmative action? More female science majors? More grad school spots reserved for women? Is there set limit on the number of men who can graduate as physics majors? The clear result of any such policy is having under qualified people be buddied through the system. What if 30% of the AA groups gets D’s in differential calculus? Do they wash out, or do we now have an sub par crop of physicists that need to take undergrad courses in grad school, similar to the way under qualified high school kids have to take remedial math/science when they get to college? I suspect the latter, and I see this as another progressive scheme to eff up something America currently does well.
*Spit*
Lamont,
Sorry, my bad, physio prof. is a Med. School teacher, which I guess wouldn’t count as hard sciences.
Karl,
I didn’t want to threadjack, which was why I didn’t get into this earlier, but when my (physicist) dad sent this to me this morning, my strongest reaction was to the part about females preferring careers that involve interpersonal interaction. Elizabeth Loftus (who wrote my college psych. textbook) wrote a lot about how stereotypically female behavior (wrt human interaction) which includes trying to guess/cater to the other person’s emotional state, etc., is actually subordinate behavior. Of course, you mention larger gender influences in society, so you are aware of this.
If they’re just measuring the numbers of women vs. men, I think it is a colossal waste of time. But if they are measuring attrition rates or discrimination, yay.
I am pretty tired of Tierney repeatedly denying that there is discrimination in the sciences. So my knee-jerk reaction to him and the people he cites (Megan McArdle? you should read her brainless pieces on rape) is based on that history. (Oh, and let’s not forget Ms. Pinker’s book. A Slate writer discusses it here. http://www.slate.com/id/2194486/entry/2194487/ )
Lamontyoubigdummy,
I’m not sure about the Erin Brockovich thing, and yeah, it was well-documented, it just doesn’t fit neatly into “discrimination b/c of sex.” My point was more that bad things can happen that don’t fit into a neat lawsuit box. I.e., they’re bad, and might dissuade some people (minor low level harassment can ad up and dampen someone’s enthusiasm.) And suing really isn’t a good way to get tenure/get respect.
PMain, I think he’s kind of into the rage thing. I happen to think it is funny.
Ismone,
Yes, if we were really going to get down into it,we could say that Pinker exaggerates. OTOH, we could also cite studies showing the variability among men is larger on both ends of the bell curve for men, which could be a factor as to the higher representation of men in hard science gigs at the top institutions. And if you’re Larry Summers, you get mau maued out of Harvard for suggesting it.
Ismone, I think Karl’s point is that for Feminist(e)s to jump on the piece without bringing anything like evidence to bear really blows their own shit out of the water. For them, the evidence doesn’t matter, because the conclusions are foregone. If they wish to take part in construing the social meaning of the evidence, that’s good for them. But they don’t. They want to deny it exists. Then when someone else cares to analyze and assign meaning to it, they screech because it doesn’t flatter their preconceptions.
There is nothing scientific about this.
I have heard feminists who know nothing of science, nothing of experimental methods, nothing of statistics, hold forth claiming that science is phallogocentric, blahblahblah. There’s one small problem with that: it works. And for all their talk, it doesn’t remake the fundamental rules of the cosmos. They’re pissed. Fuck them.
We’re all trapped in a world that we never made. Stop whining and get on with it, jackasses.
The blogger who wrote the piece is male
The phrase you’re looking for here is “is a man”.
Why do you whackjobs insist on dehumanizing even your fellow travelers?
also:
I would not pretend to have studied Tierney’s corpus of work. My reading of this article did not suggest to me that he was claiming there was no discrimination — rather, I read him as suggesting that the investigation was not turning up much, and that there is research suggesting other factors are more significant. Obvs, I don’t see it as an either/or situation. But absent evidence that it is widespread practice for college profs to dissuade female students from particular fields, I think feminists would be better off prioritizing ways to influence pre-college socialization.
Dan,
My main point was that “Are you fucking kidding me!?” isn’t really an argument or a fisking. It’s a tantrum that tends to make others dismiss the writer.
Wonder what Shelley Batts thinks.
#87 Ismone:
You may be correct. Or the other person may be a jerk.
Personality issues aren’t good fodder for a statute or anything else than complaining over drinks at the local watering hole. If there was a law banning jerks the internet – and the rest of world – would get pretty quiet pretty quickly. Men run into male bosses who are just jerks. I have. There is nothing that can be done other than finding a more congenial environment.
Oh. What did I say?
Re:# 103, Dan Collins
“I want data, lots of data.” Heh.
I want large chested, Denise Richards look alikes in the front row of Analytical Chemistry at 9:30 am monday morning yearning for throbbing data.
So Ismone, other than your male, guest blogger, how many of the other bloggers at feministe have advanced degrees in hard sciences again? I’m guessing the number is still 0. Were you all forced into different fields of study or did you simply choose something you might have found more interesting?
Since the Bio-Medical fields, though mostly med school or bio-chem students, have an almost equal number of male to female students – especially in comparison to any other hard science based fields like physics or mathematics – coupled w/ the lack of study or interest shown by your almost exclusively female fellow bloggers, doesn’t that anecdotally enforce Tierney’s argument? None of you chose those fields, none of you work or study in those fields, etc.
Or is there a hidden underground of repressed theoretical physicists writing within the feminist blogosphere, too shamed by their experience at the hands of the scientific patriarchy?
The hell? Aren’t straight males held to some sort of “no whining” code of conduct that would preclude such a thing?
My mind is boggled.
Studying the sciences, particularly Chemistry and Physics, requires a certain type of personality that is most often found in groups of acnified, stringy young dudes who laugh at “But there aren’t supposed to be wookies on Endor!†and tend to spend their friday nights in the lounge doing problem sets.
Aspies, IOW. Aspies all.
I happen to dig working with engineers of all stripes (mechanical, software, electrical, civil) because Aspies and Aspie-types don’t give a tinker’s dam about office politics, who gets credit for what, or any of that stuff that people do to compensate for being incompetent.
Engineers just want to solve the problem in the most elegant way possible; they just don’t know how to explain what they’re doing to anyone who wasn’t on the team. Which is another term for “job security.”
As I noted in an earlier thread, failure to brief an issue on appeal is tantamount to abandoning it. If I could Lexis from here* I could provide the language the court used, but (IIRC) “You must first prime the pump before the appellate well begins to flow.”
From where I sit the Feministe author did not provide support for conclusions. That does not work very well here.
*I think the case was Mitchum v City of Detroit, about 1959, and is in Michigan Reports. I have a copy of the case in my office because the opinion was well-written on the subject. Again, John Voelker (Robert Travers) was a gifted writer.
Ismone,
Not really into the rage thing, just someone who actually studied physics & knows that the science field would welcome anyone regardless of sex into the field. I’m someone who knows that that field is hurting for qualified students, regardless of sex, & has been for over 20 years.
Your expert guest blogger makes no actual points & sounds like a 5 year old calling names !!!11!! & the lack of study of any hard sciences by you & your fellow female bloggers parallels Tierney’s point exactly. You proclaim that Tierney’s point is invalid, but none of you, including your male can offer any proof against. Your own numbers belay your point… which is my point.
PMain: it’s all about feelings over there, not facts.
“Can I Borrow A Feeling” is Kirk Van Houten’s song.
There are many many issues at work here.
First, does discrimination exist, and if so, what form? Are we talking “Women can’t get hired in the sciences/accepted into science programs” or are we talking “Women, once in, advance more slowly than men do”? Either or both might be happening, and either or both might mean different kinds of factors at work. The extent to which its happening is also important to note.
Secondly, we ought to know the extent to which interest is a factor before we storm the Bastille. This is why the kind of discrimination happening is important. If women are getting in and then being wrongly treated, then interest is not really an issue as we’re dealing with those who are interested. But if we just don’t like the Number of gyno-Americans in the hard (PHALLOCENTRIC!) sciences, then we need good data on how many female physicists we ought to expect.
Thirdly, what solution do you have for this? Supposedly we’re not talking quotas, which might mean that we’re not talking quotas, or it might mean that we’re not talking quotas. If I seem dismissive here, it’s because I’m a little tired of people who say “(insert non-competence-related characteristic here) can’t be something we set a quota for, but it can be a factor in selection.” Which easily becomes a legal fiction to hide a quota regime.
They’re “Hooked On a Feeling”, high on believing, the world is after me.
crap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi2CfuqcUGE
Not sure that anyone touched on this point, and as masculinist as this probably sounds, most of the guys were hoping – PRAYING – that more women would enter the sciences. 20:4 isn’t exactly a ratio that’s gonna get a pimply faced, D&D recluse some action. If women were discriminated against in the sciences, we would have been on the front lines enthusiastically offering up an open seat at our fume hood and graciously offering to share our bunsen burner.
– What this is all about is “higher paying jobs”.
– Women, specifically the denizens of the fem movement “suspect” everyone is (read males) are doing the level best to stack the pay grades against them.
– The higher the training requirements for a given position, in general the higher pay. Since females in general have not been as interested in “science” based careers, the fems feel somehow thats a way to “hide” the higher paying jobs.
– Pure and simple, its about money.
Balls.
Note the framing of Ismone’s arguments. It all comes back to there not being enough women in the particular fields — “enough” being defined as “enough to dominate them”. Any explanation, regardless of form or content, that when examined and allowed for does not result in equal, or more than equal, representation of women in the fields “requires data“. The conclusion is foregone: since there is unequal representation, there is by definition “discrimination” which must be redressed by means that will force equal representation. Any “data” contraindicating such a course will be either dismissed or deprecated as requiring further investigation.
Of course they’re talking quotas. They’ve just learned to use euphemisms, the most bland of which is taking the result as a cause. “Sorry, Professor, we can’t fund your department this year. You don’t have enough vaginas.” No quotas here, of course, horrid thought, never do such a thing, it’s merely a matter of fair representation.
::spit::
Regards,
Ric
Karl at 98–actually, men do not have higher levels of variability in math in every country. Sapienza has written on this (I believe) although the article you’ve cited only mentions countries where women outperform men at the high end (Iceland and Indonesia) and doesn’t talk about the other end of the distribution.
Dan at 99–The evidence does matter. But this was an exasperated piece, not, like I said, a research paper. You don’t have to do a detailed post on the evidence of discrimination if your point is merely that the author of the newspaper article didn’t discuss it honestly.
And “I have heard feminists who know nothing of science, nothing of experimental methods, nothing of statistics, hold forth claiming that science is phallogocentric, blahblahblah. There’s one small problem with that: it works. And for all their talk, it doesn’t remake the fundamental rules of the cosmos. They’re pissed. Fuck them.”
Nice straw man. Since I and the doc who wrote the post are familiar with science, experimental methods and statistics, I really fail to see your point.
107 PMale–It isn’t a science blog, but I do not think any of the regular bloggers have hard science degrees. I do not see how that matters, as the issue at hand is discrimination. regarding your 112, my dad, also a physicist, used to agree with you. Until he recently read a paper by a (male) physicist who he greatly respected, talking about all the discrimination he perceived against women in academia. Sometimes it is hard to see the discrimination when you’re not the target. You may have worked with very nice people. All my bio. profs. were great, but most of the women ones had stories about how they were treated in certain research fields.
And wait, I haven’t studied science? Have you read my posts upthread? I have an undergrad. degree in science (in fact, I worked on recombinant DNA in bacteria) and a grad. degree in law. So now you’re just slinging mud.
I like to read rants on the interwebs, particularly when I think the ranted-upon author is being intellectually dishonest. I have explained why I think Tierney is intellectually dishonest. (Seriously, anyone who can put Megan McArdle’s op-eds in their sidebar with a straight face—she writes opinion appalling opinion pieces about date rape).
If you don’t like to read rants, don’t read ’em, or don’t get all bent when you do. If you’re looking for economic feminist analyses that are more technical in nature, try Echidne of the Snakes, not an opinion blog about feminism.
– Its about Power, money, and ego.
Ismone
Sorry I’m late to the thread, I can’t post from work, however this kind of thing:
Elizabeth Loftus (who wrote my college psych. textbook) wrote a lot about how stereotypically female behavior (wrt human interaction) which includes trying to guess/cater to the other person’s emotional state, etc., is actually subordinate behavior.
…is just plain insulting. Being a great medical doctor or RN or psychiatrist doesn’t mean subordinating one’s self to one’s patients.
And it is ironic to deem empathetic and/or nurturing behavior “bad female when so much of radical feminism natters on about how men should try and be more empathetic and nurturing – I mean when they aren’t nattering on about how women should be more like men and leave all that nurturing stuff behind.
Individuals should be free to follow where their interests and talents lead them. To use the cudgel of Title IX on selected subjects in college just because you don’t like the balance of students is … in a word, unjust. Stop disrespecting the legitimate choices of men and women in trying to achieve your perfect “balance” based on the same number of concaves and convexes in each classroom. You demand a collectivist solution – an axe, not a scalpel – that will leave victims in your wake. You don’t like that some person may be coerced out of an area, but you’re not worried about someone coerced into it.
Not every man or woman who is talented in a particular skill wants that skill to be their life’s career. That is there choice, not yours.
there choice = their choice
I see. So one’s expression of exasperation is valid or invalid dependent upon? And one’s determination of honesty is predicated upon?
Are you fucking kidding us?
A cage went in search of a bird.
All your argument amounts to is “Anger hath a privilege.” That may be true at Feministe, but that privilege ends in this forum.
You’ve read widely on the subject. Please bring us your citations.
Sometimes it is hard to see the discrimination when you’re not the target
And it sometimes easier to see discrimnation when it is nothing but perception with only a nodding acquaintence with reality.
Kind of like when someone screams “racist” at a person who uses the science term “blackhole” or the word “niggardly.”
SHIT SHIT SHIT. National Review (hard copy) had an article about women in the sciences, and I was reading it … AND LOST THE magazine. It would dovetail so well into this convo. Because, really, otherwise I have little to say.
You can spit all you want, but I am opposed to quotas. When people are actually discriminated against, we should put a stop to it. Since women as recently as those in my mother’s generation were highly discouraged from taking hard science classes, you cannot expect discrimination to disappear overnight. (My mom was the only female in her bay area science class, and many of the guys tried to harass her into quitting until a couple took her side and told the others to lay off. My mom is only 55, btw.)
The ev. of discrimination I see is: 1) the study showing that paper’s with women’s names are taken less seriously; 2) the study showing that women have to get more grant $ and publish more papers (on average) then men in order to get invited to speak at conferences; 3) research on stereotype threat (which also pertains to white males, when they are unfavorably compared to asian males); 4) see this study on attrition.
The reason I am suspicious of the argument that the number of women in the hard sciences is somehow controlled by women’s interest in those subjects is because those numbers have changed so dramatically over the past 20-30 years. What is so special about the numbers right now that tells us things have somehow still reached an equilibrium point?
Tierney is a hack, and there is no danger in making sure that universities who receive federal money aren’t discriminating. If they try to institute quotas, tell me, and I’ll write my Senator and congresswoman and sign any petition you like.
Carin
I knew I forgot something! I heard about that article and was going to stop and get the deadtree edition.
IIRC it had to do with how feminists are decrying the vocabulary of hard science as too masculinist…
IE atoms “collide” = too violent
Which reminds me of the ninnies who saw conspiracies in the computer networking sector because they used the terms “master/slave” …
ARGH!!!
Oooh, I found it. I may have something to add.
– Most of the studies related to “ability” ignore that “ability”, to a very large degree, all other things being equal. depends extensively on just simple interest.
– But thats too easy for a term paper or a thesis. Political instruments of academic advancement have certain requirements of self anointed importance which rules out all common sense.
– Or ass My mentor said to me; “Your paper is based on far too many complexities, too many ancillary references, sophomoric and boring, and about the only thing about it that I approve of is your conclusions, and the length, which is wordy, and unnecessarily long, with repetition of the single central theme, as if the reviewers are total idiots.
– In other words, its perfect.
Your own defense of the piece on your site can be extended to Tierney. He writes a popular science column, not a peer-reviewed publication. You get up in arms about what you see as his confirmation bias, but you don’t seem particularly concerned about the academic tripe attacking science as a discursive medium stacked against “the feminine.”
Why?
Because you’re concerned about one thing only: power.
but I am opposed to quotas
Good for you. But if you are advocating applying Title IX or any other counting system, you are going to get quotas. Period. At least have the honesty to admit it.
When people are actually discriminated against, we should put a stop to it. Since women as recently as those in my mother’s generation were highly discouraged from taking hard science classes, you cannot expect discrimination to disappear overnight
Who’s this “we”? If you are talking about social pressure, or private institutions bringing pressure, fine. The law? No. Nada. Because we get right back to that bean counting.
(My mom was the only female in her bay area science class, and many of the guys tried to harass her into quitting until a couple took her side and told the others to lay off. My mom is only 55, btw
Well, I’m sorry for her INDIVIDUAL experience. But don’t universalize over it. I’m 54. I was something of a math whiz in high school and had a couple of my [male] math teachers trying to encourage me to major in math. It was fun, but not what I wanted to make a career in.
Carin
COOL!!! Please add!
Cut and paste, Fred Schwarz (a man – HA – as if he could be objective):
He finishes it up with this:
It’s so good, though, I must add:
– Ismone, If I as a science educated male brought a law suit, or started a kerfluffle every time I was discriminated against, or even more to the point, if everybody did, we’d all spend our waking hours in court.
– Discrimination of all forms occurs at all levels of society for all sorts of reasons, some reasons very legitimate, and not at all pejorative.
– In this case, its power, money, and ego. You don’t start rewriting Federal laws because some group thinks it doesn’t jave enough of those rgree things.
I’m almost like nishi tonight!
In particular, they should apply the approaches and methods of gender justice to their work in physics
I.am.aghast.
WTF is “gender justice” and how does it have anything to do with how physics is taught?
– Three things…. meh
“Good for you. But if you are advocating applying Title IX or any other counting system, you are going to get quotas. Period. At least have the honesty to admit it.”
Read Title IX. Look at the law of how it’s required to be implemented. Quotas are not required by Title IX.
“I’ve been raped!, raped I tell you, by the sexist electrons….”
Oh god, CArin, that is too rich.
– Quota’s are for when you’re so gawkward, and clumsy, neither team wants to pick you.
I took a course with that fraud at Dartmouth. She felt hard done by when she was denied tenure, and ended up at Iowa, where I studiously avoided her, before she went off to peddle her BS elsewhere, presumably from a Chair.
Yes, it was good. I lurvs my NR hard copy.
Jill
I didn’t say quotas were required, I said the result would be quotas. You get a program where the evidence of compliance is counting how many vaginas and how many penises and people will be accepted into the program based on whether or not they have the correct genitalia to satisfy the requirements of the program.
Good lord. One might think you’d never heard of how Affirmative Action works.
Well, Jill, how about it? What about the validity of N. Katherine Hayle’s bizarre argument from idiotic analogy? Do you find that problematic, or serviceable? Who among you will rise up and construct a parallel physics, a Boolean equivalent?
I’ve tired of the BONC thing. I need something new … Where’s Sarah? she’s the queen of monikers.
– Anybody screws around with my Quarks I’m going to pop their face inside out.
ReinCarination
You men just don’t realize how damn repressive hydraulic systems are. That whole fluid continuity thing. DON’T YOU KNOW WE MENSTRUATE? DOES THAT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?
Bastards.
I need a midol.
Darleen,
That is not to say that compassion doesn’t have its place. But a lot of pressure is put on women to predict, respond to, and cater to others’ moods. This, as Loftus pointed out, is the same way that employees treat their bosses, and members of a minority group treat members of the majority group. You might want to read Loftus.
Dan,
He is intellectually dishonest because he papers over the central issue in the article, whether there is actual discrimination, with a statement that is essentially, “well, people disagree.” And provides no citations that measure discrimination, although some of the citations consider whether other factors might have something to do with the dearth of women in science, i.e., lack of interest. And like I said, read McArdle or the Slate critique of Pinker if you want to know ANOTHER reason why I think he is intellectually dishonest.
It is a rant. An Op. piece. Which you or I are free to disagree with.
Regarding your call for sources, considering the little snarky comments you’ve directed my way, I should tell you to do your own homework. But, since I have time and am in an amiable mood, here goes:
1) Women in the SET career field face just as much workplace discrimination as women did 20-30 years ago in all fields, despite the fact that 75% of female students are initially rated highly, compared to 61% of male students (Notice I didn’t include Math. Math is actually an interesting exception. I’ll see if I can find a cite for that.)
2) Discrimination (against faculty, among others) at MIT
3) Women have to be 2.2 times more productive than men to get grants:
4) A paper discussing the study on placing a male name vs. female name on paper re: psych./politics/or education:
5) Stereotype threat:
Now, do your own research if you want to know more.
I see, and will certainly check into the statistical methods employed there, but I’d like to ask you this:
Imagine that women were significantly more likely to attend college than men. What would that signify, to you? Would there be any sort of merit to an argument that secondary educational institutions are failing male students? Would it be worth Congress getting involved in?
Now imagine that I was able to cite studies that went out looking for evidence of such bias and found it. Would I be justified in stating that anyone who disagreed with me was fundamentally dishonest, because they looked for their evidence in other quarters?
Hmmph!
It’s weird the stereotype link was labeled as a threat. The article seems to point out
the stereotype comes from within, not an external sexual/gender threat.
Where the heck are the editing features here? What’s happened to this place? I can’t find them. Am I missing something obvious?
And I mean in regards to the editing.
The Nature article obviously isn’t fair, either. It contains this:
Not redacted where necessary? Should we sue for access, stating that the public’s right to know overrides the security issues?
lunarpuff, you have to use HTML code. Best keep a text editing window open, then cut and paste.
I noticed that Federal agencies have begun this campaign due to pressure from Congress. I’m guessing that this is one more example of Democratic politicians creating new civil causes of action in order to enrich the trial lawyers who fund their party.
The next generation of Bill Lerach’s and Dickie Scruggs will sue science silly until universities and research labs are able to hire enough token female scientists to achieve exact statistical parity between the genders. But of course quotas are not actually required.
Now Karl, don’t you know that the government is supposed to make up for the special burdens of womanhood? Women have babies! Babies. That’s right: babies.
Women need special help in their scientific careers. Er, not.
Because of the opportunity costs, baby.
Dan
If the raw data is not available for review, then the summary is bogus. IMO of course, but the “You’ll never see our data!” line doesn’t pass the smell test.
But a lot of pressure is put on women to predict, respond to, and cater to others’ moods. This, as Loftus pointed out, is the same way that employees treat their bosses, and members of a minority group treat members of the majority group
Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?
Ok, a snark I admit it. But I start to lose patience with this kind of bs. And it is bs. The one thing we try to do as parents in raising our children is to try to get them to balance their natural inclination to self centeredness with being a good social partner (how to make and keep friends, be cooperative members of the family, etc) which includes learning empathy, compassion and how to read others. To dismiss women’s success in biological sciences, medicine, etc as just part of some “subordination” on par with oppression of minorities shows a kind of desperation borne of “omigod, my field of study of fighting teh Patriarchy is becoming irrelevant! I need to find more examples of unconscious sexism!”
Individual discrimination exists. No doubt about it due to the vagaries of human individuals. We are all bundles of culture, individual parenting, schools, innate gender characteristics and personal preferences. But it doesn’t translate into systemic, institutionalized discrimination.
You will never achieve a total equalitarian society unless you want the world of Harrison Bergeron.
BTW
I am a “boss” and like a lot of contemporary bosses, we are no longer dictators but team leaders. We are expected to take point and also take responsibility for our employees – ie we are to be just as empathetic, responsive and compassionate as the poor oppressed employees you sited.
So, is this modern management protocol make bosses victims?
yikes… I am going to be SO ticketed by the grammar police.
You heavy lifters have used up all the good words..
I got nuthin..
Darleen wrote, If the raw data is not available for review, then the summary is bogus. IMO of course, but the “You’ll never see our data!†line doesn’t pass the smell test.
Yup. This happens a lot in ideologically charged academic work. It’s a reliable sign of malfeasance. Remember when Mann wouldn’t release his data on the supposed “hockey stick” that indicated global warming? Turns out he chose a mathematical model that produced the “hockey stick” no matter what data was input to the model. Mann even refused to supply the data to the US Senate, even though his “research” was paid for by the taxpayer. I won’t be surprised if these asshat femi-nazis (I was banned form Little Green Footballs for using that word.) adopt Mann’s approach.
No data. No credibility.
You’d think that’s a basic principle in science, even in social science. Alas, no.
Darleen wrote, You will never achieve a total equalitarian society unless you want the world of Harrison Bergeron.
Egalitarianism is a revolt against nature. If you think about it, the nightmare societies of the great dystopias – 1984, Brave New World, and others – have achieved equality. Equality, in the egalitarian sense, is a profoundly anti-human and unnatural thing. People instinctively recoil, horrified, from depictions of egalitarian societies.
It’s one of the great contradictions of neo-liberalism. The simultaneous desire for equality of circumstance and diversity.
From Isomone’s first link.
I’m only 7 very short paragraphs in and I see a big fat lie. I’ll keep reading, though.
Yeah. Well, assertion, theoretical postulate meant to stimulate consideration. What’s the diff?
The more I read this NYT piece, the more I see a pending Revenge of the Nerds sequel. But there’s nothing changey about shaking the geeks down.
Well, I’ve never had babies and I do have an IT degree. Is that still scientific? I must say my skills are outdated,
so I’m not really sure. The fundamentals are there but I’m out of touch with lots of new, relevant technology.
But it certainly has nothing to do with being female. Lots of my former co-workers are in the same boat
and they all think it’s because they are 50 and over. Males and females both. I’m younger so they think I
have it much easier.
But we are all suddenly without jobs and finding a new one is tougher than it used to be. You need current skills,
niche skills aren’t so much in demand. Unless you have the most excellent niche. Software expertise for newspaper
advertising is not so marketable right now and it sucks to be me.
But it’s not about age or sex.
Ismone,
Not a scientific journal.
Not a peer-reviewed paper (in fact, it’s from a suspect source — Scientific American is neither), and is only marginally related to your assertions anyway.
You didn’t actually read this one, did you?
Of course you didn’t.
Hint: it doesn’t say what you think it does.
This is an op-ed.
You don’t really get this “peer-reviewed journal” thing, do you?
I have an undergrad. degree in science (in fact, I worked on recombinant DNA in bacteria)
1) Which one?
2) Big deal. Middle-schoolers are “working on recombinant DNA” these days.
Ismone-
I see your point. I just think a lot of discrimination is unconscious, b/c people want to think they are good, and so they don’t consider, when they react poorly to someone or treat them as stupid, that they are doing this disproportionately to women.
I remember my first job- I worked in a “trophy factory” that employed 5 women and two men.
“Bathroom cleaning” had a dedicated calendar where the “task” was divided equally among all employees… meanwhile, “Trash Duty”, unloading semis full of 60 lb boxes of marble blocks or 90 lb stacks of sheet metal, or even helping to load the UPS truck at the end of the day were all considered to be “male” jobs- no female need apply… (herself).
lunarpuff
I also have an IT degree, aquired sometime AFTER have 4 babies.
For some feminists, my actually using my uterus according to design makes me a subordinate female.
lunarpuff wrote, But we are all suddenly without jobs and finding a new one is tougher than it used to be. You need current skills, niche skills aren’t so much in demand. Unless you have the most excellent niche. Software expertise for newspaper advertising is not so marketable right now and it sucks to be me.
It may not be you. It may be your government. The H1b and L1 visa program has caused a giant glut of high tech workers in the US. It’s dobly decimated the US high tech workforce. The programs create a private market in which employers actively avoid hiring US workers. It’s your government using its coercive power to support big business interests. In this case, creating a surplus of tech workers to lower wages.
Before anyone flames me, I am a capitalist and a free-market advocate. I think my government should bargain access to more and more for the citizenry. I don’t think it should give our market up to states that keep their markets closed. And I’m an anti-corporate capitalist on the principle of private property. So basically, everyone gets to hate me: libertarians, conservatives, and liberals. Sigh.
Darleen, my hat is totally off to you! I can’t even imagine.
How do you keep current with your skills? Quite honestly, I got complacent and comfy and I did not do
nearly enough in this area.
Jeff Y, thanks for the support but I really cannot blame the government here.
lunarpuff wrote, Jeff Y, thanks for the support but I really cannot blame the government here.
Good attitude! Still, if you’re still in the field, it seems you should take account of the massive interventions in the market created by government policies. Basically, you have to navigate like you’re a business, and government policy will affect your business. Consider these examples: companies (even big ones like Cisco) hire law firms to exclude US workers and many if not most tech job ads are fake being designed to exclude US workers.
lunarpuff wrote, How do you keep current with your skills? Quite honestly, I got complacent and comfy and I did not do nearly enough in this area.
Ah. Well, it’s market research really. Examine the tech roadmaps for the market-makers in your area. Identify which parts are likely to be heavy outsourcing candidates. Avoid them and focus on the others. Learning a new tech skill is essentially a research problem. If you can get efficient at research, you’ll be fine.
I’ve been pretty successful, earning close to six figures as a consultant even while in graduate school for mathematics. The niche I fill has two faces. One looks to the business, and speaks the language of finance and accounting. The other looks to operations, and speaks the language of mathematics and optimization. Effectively, I function as a translator. Sometimes I translate my ideas into code and sometimes into reports and sometimes both. Such hybrid jobs are very difficult to outsource.
Jeff Y, you have this exuberence that just comes through your posts and it is quite the upper!
I’m just tickled. I love that word but someone said it made me sound 80!
But my tech skills are so proprietary. My business skills are good and I got some great feedback from
a couple of interviews, but they were concerned that I learned everything by the seat of my pants.
Certification in everything is also really big now, but it’s expensive.
But I’m very hopeful and I think this layoff will eventually be a very good thing for me. It’s just
hard to feel useless and rejected in the short term.
Who knew? It’s just another life experience to make me better, but I honestly had no idea being laid off
would feel this way. Heck, sometimes I wished for it, but I thought I would get more than 2 weeks severance!
I know I’ll be fine, I just have to find a new path.
It doesn’t matter if the government goes title 9 or not. Just the present bruhaha is enough to goose the cowardly university administrators to begin mandating quotas. The result will have a massive impact on the present advantage the US enjoys in science and technology. As someone who has worked in the field for 30 years, let me say that in my experience, women in the field, in general, have already been given advantages and boosts that men would never have gotten. Personally, any country that adopts this kind of multiculti self immolation deserves everything that it gets. To go along with Barry O, I’d say the answer is bi-lingualism. High schools had better start teaching Chinese as a second language, and soon.
Interesting point K. The high school by me started offering Manderin classes a couple of years ago.
They are hugely popular but I live in a very Asian neighborhood.
If I had kids, I would insist they learn a second or even third language. It’s not politics,
it’s pragmatic, as are many things in life.
Jill, I hope you succeed in becoming a laywer so you can throw every last one of teh evil menz behind bars where they belong!!111!!!!
PMale–It isn’t a science blog, but I do not think any of the regular bloggers have hard science degrees. I do not see how that matters, as the issue at hand is discrimination. regarding your 112, my dad, also a physicist, used to agree with you. Until he recently read a paper by a (male) physicist who he greatly respected, talking about all the discrimination he perceived against women in academia. Sometimes it is hard to see the discrimination when you’re not the target. You may have worked with very nice people. All my bio. profs. were great, but most of the women ones had stories about how they were treated in certain research fields.
And wait, I haven’t studied science? Have you read my posts upthread? I have an undergrad. degree in science (in fact, I worked on recombinant DNA in bacteria) and a grad. degree in law. So now you’re just slinging mud.
Once again, had you read my point, but judging from the content you provided to support your argument – almost all editorial in nature & none scientifically based or reviewed, reading comprehension isn’t a skill set highly valued by you – you might have seen that your opposition to Tierney’s point was possibly disproved by the degrees sought by you & your fellow female bloggers. My point, no mud being slung BTW, your own group in fact whole-heartedly represents Tierney’s point & not the opposite. Your response, supplying articles that do not make your point at all or have no scientific basis behind them, is quite hollow in turn. Your clinching argument hinges on someone’s perceptions of bias… WOW super scientific that! The fact that the person whose post sparked this discussion is male & that the only science degrees possessed by either him or you are in the field of science that admittedly shows the most equality, not only underscores your points, but shows your complete lack of honesty or knowledge in any other field, other than one widely recognized as not containing the issues you say exist. Once again, though inadvertently, disproving your point.
So instead of making a valid argument, ignoring the blatant fact that A) support for your views is anecdotal at best & B) relies upon 1 individual’s perceptions, you attempt to reduce me by calling me “PMale.†All-the-while ignoring that your own group of educated womyn never pursued any degrees in fields that you claim are inherently biased against you. You in fact choose fields more to your liking or interests (Tierney’s Point).
So the question remains, did you & your fellow female bloggers not pursue degrees in mathematics, physics or engineering because it wasn’t allowed or because you didn’t find the field or study interesting? My guess is that those fields didn’t interest you & the rest of your claptrap is just another excuse to further a socio-economical/political agenda that favors one sex over the other regardless of the actual validity of your cause – none of which you’ve been able to show. In fact you’ve only strengthen your opponent’s argument by merely opening your mouth.
Where do you dimbulbs get the idea that I am in favor of Title IX as a remedy for gender inequity in science? Here’s a little lesson in rhetoric for you, since you seem to be having so much trouble: Asserting that an argument in favor of the proposition X is totally full of shit does not mean that one is against proposition X.
When one has already beshat themselves, prof, it is wise to not beshit yourself again.
PhysioProf,
To be frank, I’m not sure anyone derived any meaning from your posting!!!11!!
Translation: “I’ve been publicly humiliated, so now I’m going to trot out the half-assed sophistry.”
Too bad it’s about as effective as a cat trying to bury a turd on a hardwood floor.
You really don’t want to be lecturing the commentariat here on rhetoric, PhysioProf. Trust me on this one.
Go back to your comfortable echo chamber/womb analogue where dissenting voices just…disappear. Neither you nor any of your fellow travelers can hold your own in a free debate, and you know it.
Why is it that those who enforce Title IX continually fall for false feminist claims. I mean seriously how many people can’t see from the current differing proportions in university in nearly every course that men and women differ on their preference. How many women feel they face sexual discrimination when entering a male-dominated field, very few these days.
This whole thing is just another excuse to indirectly harm boys and men in education by forcing men and women to absurdly conform to the same interests. Notice they’re ONLY attacking male-dominated degrees in the physical sciences and mathematics.