View Full Version : Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president
Bullshit from people in power who once again dismissing socialization and discrimination...
Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday January 18, 2005
Guardian
The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier for female academics.
Lawrence Summers, a career economist who served as treasury secretary under President Clinton, has a reputation for outspokenness. His tenure at Harvard has been marked by clashes with African-American staff and leftwing intellectuals, and complaints about a fall in the hiring of women.
He made his remarks at a private conference on the position of women and minorities in science and engineering, hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In a lengthy address delivered without notes, Dr Summers offered three explanations for the shortage of women in senior posts in science and engineering, starting with their reluctance to work long hours because of childcare responsibilities.
He went on to argue that boys outperform girls on high school science and maths scores because of genetic difference. "Research in behavioural genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialisation weren't due to socialisation after all," he told the Boston Globe yesterday.
As an example, Dr Summers told the conference about giving his daughter two trucks. She treated them like dolls, and named them mummy and daddy trucks, he said.
Dr Summers also played down the impact of sex bias in appointments to academic institutions.
He said: "The real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."
At least half of his audience comprised women, several said they found the remarks offensive and one walked out.
"It was really shocking to hear the president of Harvard make statements like that," said Denice Denton, who is about to become president of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Others said Dr Summers's comments were depressingly familiar. "I have heard men make comments like this my entire life and quite honestly if I had listened to them I would never have done anything," said Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma.
A Harvard spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday, or to release the transcript of Dr Summers's remarks. Richard Freeman, who invited the Harvard president to speak at the conference, said Dr Summers's comments were intended to provoke debate, and some women over-reacted.
"Some people took offence because they were very sensitive," said Dr Freeman, an economist at Harvard and the London School of Economics. "It does not seem to me insane to think that men and women have biological differences."
During Dr Summers's presidency, the number of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36% to 13%. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women.
SunWuKong
01-18-2005, 02:23 PM
there have been studies made about how men are better at mental spacial tasks, like picturing a shape in your mind and then rotating it this and that way, and how women are better at remembering things. the evolutionary evidence is that men were the hunters, so being able to picture something from different angles and such was important, whereas women were the gatherers, so being able to remember where herbs and things were was important.
but i don't know if from that you can conclude that men are better at "math and science" overall.
Banana
01-18-2005, 02:32 PM
The only thing I ever heard about that was that men are better if the concentrate purely on one task whereas women are much better at multitasking.
kimpossible
01-18-2005, 02:36 PM
I think you have to run with what the chem prof from University of Oklahoma said. It's depressingly familiar and tuning it out is probably the best way to deal with it.
We had at least one prof at our school 'fess up to it. According to his version, women couldn't do math because of menstruation.
VV o n g B a
01-18-2005, 02:56 PM
i find it a little ironic that i have a friend who just finished her doctorate in math at harvard. she was valedictorian in her graduating class at my high school (in a school full of engineers' kids). the beatiful mind guy nash actually came up and congratulated her personally when she graduated from undergrad at princeton.
John0101
01-18-2005, 03:05 PM
What does an economist know about gender roles and intellectual ability? NOTHING.
I was watching a psychology show on PBS yesterday night titled social psychology. One of the arguements that the show made was that people behave by conforming to social expectations.
Girls are clearly discriminated against in math and science courses so they are expected to perform worse then boys in those subjects. Because they expect themselves to perform worse they actually do perform worse.
In the famous experiment in Littleton middle school (i think it was that middle school) the teacher divided her class into the Blue eye students and Brown eye students. The brown eye kids were told that they were inferior to blue eye kids and suddenly they found that the brown eye students performed significantly worse academically.
This tells me two things (1) don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something and (2) blame the white man!
YuheiCarreau
01-18-2005, 04:34 PM
I think you have to run with what the chem prof from University of Oklahoma said. It's depressingly familiar and tuning it out is probably the best way to deal with it.
We had at least one prof at our school 'fess up to it. According to his version, women couldn't do math because of menstruation.
That is blantantly untrue... Everyone knows it's the female obsession with clothing and makeup that prevents them from retaining any knowledge in their pretty little heads.
Next: Why Asians are better than Whites at math, but that's OK because White men have bigger dicks. We won't mention Black men in this discussion.
This is gender stereotyping at its worst! Sumners is sexist AND racist. A great role model for educators.
Chester
01-18-2005, 08:22 PM
I always thought it was just because much fewer women are willing to spend most of their waking hours amongst maladjusted, sex-starved geeks.
I always thought it was just because much fewer women are willing to spend most of their waking hours amongst maladjusted, sex-starved geeks.
:frown: i didn't know i was that scary
asvenus
01-19-2005, 05:12 AM
i find this so depressing..it is outrageous to think that in a discipline that claims to devote itself to progress, one of the its key thinkers is stubbornly holding onto archaic and disproved sexist ramblings..grrrr..has he ever considered that women may underperform due to lack of support and encouragement from people who hold views like this..
YuheiCarreau
01-19-2005, 10:34 AM
i find this so depressing..it is outrageous to think that in a discipline that claims to devote itself to progress, one of the its key thinkers is stubbornly holding onto archaic and disproved sexist ramblings..grrrr..has he ever considered that women may underperform due to lack of support and encouragement from people who hold views like this..
It's always interesting to note how people involved in supposedly dispassionate, objective, fact-based areas of study like mathematics and the sciences are often willing to believe things that are completely unsubstantiated. I remember in the paleontology class I took, the professor was telling us that some of the conflicting theories he was describing for us sparked violent, throw-your-coffee-cup-across-the-room debates at paleontology conferences, even when there was no evidence to support any of them. This is really just more of the same - the guy arrived at a conclusion, and then set about proving it, rather than make observations before analyzing the data.
[QUOTE=YuheiCarreau]It's always interesting to note how people involved in supposedly dispassionate, objective, fact-based areas of study like mathematics and the sciences are often willing to believe things that are completely unsubstantiated.QUOTE]
Women need to be supported and encourged in the sciences and mathematics but also the way women approach science is probably different than the way men approach science and that needs to be validated in the fields. For example this year MIT has their first female president and first life sciences president and she probably approaches science differently than her male predecessors.
AliBabaIncorporated
01-20-2005, 07:20 AM
Fun fact: 40% of tenured mathematics professors in Turkey are women. Lemme see if I can find a cite.
lol, and the amount of mathematical research coming out of Turkey is...?
Whether or not men and women in fact have innate biological differences that affect performance in math is something that probably will never be resolved due to politics. Just like the research into racial differences in average intelligence, we'll never know if there is actually anything cause there's so much politics.
That being said, in the real world it's really only individual differences that count. I don't compete against women, I compete with individuals. I'll be the first to admit that I have been beaten by girls before in math competitions, there are very smart girls out there.
That being said, I find some things that nola come out with to be quite disturbing. The notion that the women will approach science differently from men inherently because of their gender is sexist, and furthermore the idea that different approaches should be validated automatically due to the gender of the person conducting the research. That is just non-sense, methodologies should be evaluated independent of the person conducting them, they should be evaluated on their own merits. If a woman comes out with non-sense, then call it non-sense. If a woman comes out with brilliant research, then give her a prize or something. Evaluate the research not as female research, but as scientific research.
truMp
01-21-2005, 01:59 AM
Fun fact: 40% of tenured mathematics professors in Turkey are women. Lemme see if I can find a cite.
This changes everything! :biggrin:
That being said, I find some things that nola come out with to be quite disturbing. The notion that the women will approach science differently from men inherently because of their gender is sexist, and furthermore the idea that different approaches should be validated automatically due to the gender of the person conducting the research. That is just non-sense, methodologies should be evaluated independent of the person conducting them, they should be evaluated on their own merits. If a woman comes out with non-sense, then call it non-sense. If a woman comes out with brilliant research, then give her a prize or something. Evaluate the research not as female research, but as scientific research.You finding that disturbing is hard to believe. Women approach science slightly differently than men do whether that's due to socialization, nurture or whatever. We've all read the studies that say girls collaborate and ask questions more in math and science class and boys just like to answer. All-girl math and science classes are more collaborative and ask more questions than all-boy classes which are more competitive. Women also think outside the box more in their hypotheses. They are more creative in their approaches to science. You'll read this over and over in feminist science literature.
Shogun Empress
01-21-2005, 10:39 AM
Bullshit from people in power who once again dismissing socialization and discrimination...
Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday January 18, 2005
Guardian
The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier for female academics.
Lawrence Summers, a career economist who served as treasury secretary under President Clinton, has a reputation for outspokenness. His tenure at Harvard has been marked by clashes with African-American staff and leftwing intellectuals, and complaints about a fall in the hiring of women.
He made his remarks at a private conference on the position of women and minorities in science and engineering, hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In a lengthy address delivered without notes, Dr Summers offered three explanations for the shortage of women in senior posts in science and engineering, starting with their reluctance to work long hours because of childcare responsibilities.
He went on to argue that boys outperform girls on high school science and maths scores because of genetic difference. "Research in behavioural genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialisation weren't due to socialisation after all," he told the Boston Globe yesterday.
As an example, Dr Summers told the conference about giving his daughter two trucks. She treated them like dolls, and named them mummy and daddy trucks, he said.
Dr Summers also played down the impact of sex bias in appointments to academic institutions.
He said: "The real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."
At least half of his audience comprised women, several said they found the remarks offensive and one walked out.
"It was really shocking to hear the president of Harvard make statements like that," said Denice Denton, who is about to become president of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Others said Dr Summers's comments were depressingly familiar. "I have heard men make comments like this my entire life and quite honestly if I had listened to them I would never have done anything," said Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma.
A Harvard spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday, or to release the transcript of Dr Summers's remarks. Richard Freeman, who invited the Harvard president to speak at the conference, said Dr Summers's comments were intended to provoke debate, and some women over-reacted.
"Some people took offence because they were very sensitive," said Dr Freeman, an economist at Harvard and the London School of Economics. "It does not seem to me insane to think that men and women have biological differences."
During Dr Summers's presidency, the number of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36% to 13%. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women. Just because he said it doesn't mean its true. This shouldn't even be in the news.
lol, and the amount of mathematical research coming out of Turkey is...?
That being said, in the real world it's really only individual differences that count. I don't compete against women, I compete with individuals. I'll be the first to admit that I have been beaten by girls before in math competitions, there are very smart girls out there.
Life is not episodic in nature, but an accumulation of processes and situations. The 'competitive edge' some individuals enjoy is the partly resulting from countless opportunities and privileges. If life long deprivation and disadvantage compromised competitiveness, can we truely say the competition were fair and free? Therefore, individual differences is not so much only the individual traits, but also accounting other forms of stratification.
Also, what exactly is your point about Turkey? Just because they publish less in American and Western Journals make Turkish mathematicians less intelligent? Is publication the only way to gauge the quality of intellect? I got several articles published in reputable American journals this year, does that make me a 'better' scholar and a person?
The publishing game can be full of crap. Publishing articles does not make a better intellectual.
Just because he said it doesn't mean its true. This shouldn't even be in the news.
I think it is news worthy because he is an individual in the position of enormous power in an institution of global prestige and he made such sexist, uneducated and prejudiced statement. He can make decisions that affect many women, as inferred by the tenure record.
Also, what exactly is your point about Turkey? Just because they publish less in American and Western Journals make Turkish mathematicians less intelligent? Is publication the only way to gauge the quality of intellect? I got several articles published in reputable American journals this year, does that make me a 'better' scholar and a person?
Umm, you're a sociologist. The standards of rigor in sociology is somewhat of a joke when compared to that in mathematics or even physics. Refer to the following: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#papers
By your argument that having had some advantages in opportunity in the past make competition unequal, there will never be equal competition amongst individuals since we're born different genetically, under different circumstances, any of which may confer advantage/disadvantage in different situations relative to others. Individual ability at the point of consideration is path independent, like energy in physics. It's irrevelant how you started and what path you took to get to the present, all that matters is what you got at the time of comparison.
As for Nola's comments, I think it's hilarious that anyone can take something by the name of feminist science seriously. How about feminist astronomy, or feminist physics? Certainly we should all realize what important contributions to the world that feminist mathematics have made. Especially those professors from Turkey.
Nola, you'd be surprised at how real classroom dynamics work. I've taken a lot of math/science courses at the undergrad and some at the grad level. Women on average ask questions far less than their numbers would suggest. In my graduate algorithms course last semester, exactly 1 question was asked by a woman the whole semester. As for competition/collaboration, both are important. In fact in most classes there are elements of both. You collaborate in teams to compete with other teams. Of the two though, competition is the more important in my opinion, because as one of my professors said, without competition, no research is produced. That's why it's important to find someone fun to compete with. Competition gives one an external frame of reference against which one can compare oneself. Without it, it's difficult to gauge progress. This is why strong competition is necessary.
Napoleon Chynamite
01-22-2005, 01:21 AM
Umm, you're a sociologist. The standards of rigor in sociology is somewhat of a joke when compared to that in mathematics or even physics. Refer to the following: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#papers
Oh please, pull that stick out of your ass and stop shitting on areas of study that actually require alternative methodologies and approaches apart from the systematic practices of calculating and recording numbers, drawing graphs, and washing test tubes.
kuilong
01-22-2005, 05:37 AM
Well, the percentage of tenured female mathematicians in Eastern Europe is quite high, and so is the amount of mathematical work that came out of Europe in the past century. Off of the top of my head, I can think of the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem and the Lasker-Noether theorem as two important results which were obtained by women (and both very amazing mathematicians).
Umm, you're a sociologist. The standards of rigor in sociology is somewhat of a joke when compared to that in mathematics or even physics. Refer to the following: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#papers
Even Sokal himself noted that "[s]ociology of science, at its best, has done much to clarify these issues. But sloppy sociology, like sloppy science, is useless or even counterproductive." Furthermore, the journal that article was published in was not peer-reviewed (it was founded as an alternative to peer-reviewed journals, which the editors felt stifled creativity or some such rot).
And it's not like the physical sciences are much more immune from this stuff. Witness the Schön scandal (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/hendrikschon.shtml).
missmeow
01-22-2005, 10:06 AM
From what I read/researched in school:
Men are better than women at spatial tasks, which can translate to being better in math and science. HOWEVER, the advantage is very slight and there is significant overlap between the performance of the two sexes to negate any "real world" advantage that men have over women.
As for Nola's comments, I think it's hilarious that anyone can take something by the name of feminist science seriously. How about feminist astronomy, or feminist physics? Certainly we should all realize what important contributions to the world that feminist mathematics have made. Especially those professors from Turkey.
Nola, you'd be surprised at how real classroom dynamics work. I've taken a lot of math/science courses at the undergrad and some at the grad level. Women on average ask questions far less than their numbers would suggest. In my graduate algorithms course last semester, exactly 1 question was asked by a woman the whole semester. As for competition/collaboration, both are important. In fact in most classes there are elements of both. You collaborate in teams to compete with other teams. Of the two though, competition is the more important in my opinion, because as one of my professors said, without competition, no research is produced. That's why it's important to find someone fun to compete with. Competition gives one an external frame of reference against which one can compare oneself. Without it, it's difficult to gauge progress. This is why strong competition is necessary.There is no such thing as feminist science. There are writings on feminism and science.
This is exactly what I said. All-girl classes allow girls to ask questions and collaborate. In coed classes girls do not ask questions or participate or collaborate because assholes are constantly competing and shutting down the girls. College and grad school classes get worse for women as there are fewer women in the class and fewer women who teach the classes. At the grad school level, women will hardly be speaking at all. The idea of competition as opposed to collaboration producing more and better research is an outdated one, one that will be surpassed by more collaborative research.
kimpossible
01-22-2005, 10:30 AM
Considering the stereotype about Asians and math, I wonder what Summers position would be on Asian women in math and science.
Considering the stereotype about Asians and math, I wonder what Summers position would be on Asian women in math and science.
wow, he'd be totally mind fucked...he might break down
There is no such thing as feminist science. There are writings on feminism and science.
This is exactly what I said. All-girl classes allow girls to ask questions and collaborate. In coed classes girls do not ask questions or participate or collaborate because assholes are constantly competing and shutting down the girls. College and grad school classes get worse for women as there are fewer women in the class and fewer women who teach the classes. At the grad school level, women will hardly be speaking at all. The idea of competition as opposed to collaboration producing more and better research is an outdated one, one that will be surpassed by more collaborative research.
I think you have an extremely naive view of the nature of research. There is a great deal of collaboration in research. In fact, the whole scientific world is collaborating on advancing human knowledge. That's why people publish their results. However, competition is also necessary, and competition will never be outdated. I never said that one has to be emphasized to the exclusion of the other, both are important. You have a very one sided view.
Also, the notion that somehow the feminist views on science/society is more avant garde and therefore more correct, that is just non-sense. Much of what gets put under the label feminism is a load of crap. One's reminded of Soviet genetics under Lysenko when hearing about your views on science. If the scientific establishment were to implement your recommendations no research would be produced. We'd all be singing about how wonderful it is to have women among our ranks producing gendered balanced mathematics, and churning out non-sense. Using the same sort of argument you are so fond of using, since you're not an academic, how can you understand what academia is like? What makes you think you know how academia should be run?
BTW, there's no doubt that Eastern Europe produced a great deal of mathematics. One of my algorithms professor is a woman from Hungary, she's quite brilliant. I do not have a problem with having a high percentage of women faculty, I just have a problem with the suggestion that this somehow is automatically better than having little women faculty. The fact is that the most productive centers of research in mathematical sciences remain male dominated, there is absolutely no indication that having more women improves research. I have no problems with having more women, I just have a problem with the politics of it. Especially the platforms of people like Nola who have no experience in the mathematical sciences and presume to know what's best for the math community.
kimpossible
01-22-2005, 10:32 PM
hey jz, i'm saying this mainly as a moderator because i could give a shit about your stance -- not meant as an insult but i want you to understand this isn't a debate about the topic -- you're needlessly coming off arrogant and personally insulting people. i don't know whether you think you're the hottest shit to hit this place but you really should lay off the personal and go more for the argument.
honestly, i don't think you mean it, you don't seem like your posting with malicious intent but if you keep being flip with people and downgrading them on a personal level, i.e. their knowledge and experience is shit, blah blah blah, i'm going to start considering that a personal attack.
i don't screw with negative karma or too many verbal warnings, if i feel something's out of line i tell the person directly and if that doesn't work i go straight to warnings which can lead to a ban.
i think you have a lot to offer and i'd like to see you stay around but you've got to be a little more structured when you disagree so you don't rely on attacking the person so much.
i hope expressing this to you directly was the most effective way.
I think you have an extremely naive view of the nature of research. There is a great deal of collaboration in research. In fact, the whole scientific world is collaborating on advancing human knowledge. That's why people publish their results. However, competition is also necessary, and competition will never be outdated. I never said that one has to be emphasized to the exclusion of the other, both are important. You have a very one sided view.
Also, the notion that somehow the feminist views on science/society is more avant garde and therefore more correct, that is just non-sense. Much of what gets put under the label feminism is a load of crap. One's reminded of Soviet genetics under Lysenko when hearing about your views on science. If the scientific establishment were to implement your recommendations no research would be produced. We'd all be singing about how wonderful it is to have women among our ranks producing gendered balanced mathematics, and churning out non-sense. Using the same sort of argument you are so fond of using, since you're not an academic, how can you understand what academia is like? What makes you think you know how academia should be run?
BTW, there's no doubt that Eastern Europe produced a great deal of mathematics. One of my algorithms professor is a woman from Hungary, she's quite brilliant. I do not have a problem with having a high percentage of women faculty, I just have a problem with the suggestion that this somehow is automatically better than having little women faculty. The fact is that the most productive centers of research in mathematical sciences remain male dominated, there is absolutely no indication that having more women improves research. I have no problems with having more women, I just have a problem with the politics of it. Especially the platforms of people like Nola who have no experience in the mathematical sciences and presume to know what's best for the math community.It's a joke for you to post what physicists or mathemeticians think about sociological research. Sociologists probably have a few jokes about mathematicians. You said competition is more important than collaboration. If there were an equal number of women faculty and graduate students research would definately improve because as it stands right now women are shut out of the higher levels of math and science. There would not only be that many more contributions but perhaps different approaches as I indicated before. For example the new president of MIT is a woman and a life sciences expert. MIT has never had a female or life science expert president. Research there will change for the better because there needs to be diversity of approaches.
YuheiCarreau
01-23-2005, 12:02 PM
Also, the notion that somehow the feminist views on science/society is more avant garde and therefore more correct, that is just non-sense. Much of what gets put under the label feminism is a load of crap. One's reminded of Soviet genetics under Lysenko when hearing about your views on science. If the scientific establishment were to implement your recommendations no research would be produced. We'd all be singing about how wonderful it is to have women among our ranks producing gendered balanced mathematics, and churning out non-sense. Using the same sort of argument you are so fond of using, since you're not an academic, how can you understand what academia is like? What makes you think you know how academia should be run?
BTW, there's no doubt that Eastern Europe produced a great deal of mathematics. One of my algorithms professor is a woman from Hungary, she's quite brilliant. I do not have a problem with having a high percentage of women faculty, I just have a problem with the suggestion that this somehow is automatically better than having little women faculty. The fact is that the most productive centers of research in mathematical sciences remain male dominated, there is absolutely no indication that having more women improves research. I have no problems with having more women, I just have a problem with the politics of it. Especially the platforms of people like Nola who have no experience in the mathematical sciences and presume to know what's best for the math community.
I think you're being unnecessarily antagonistic. If the academic centers of the world are already staffed with as many capable male scientists / mathematicians / etc. as they can be, wouldn't they benefit from having more women on staff, too? You're acting as if all the people with mathematical knowledge have already been recognized - and they just happen to be mostly men. You also seem to be saying that the quality of word being done in academic institutions would be diluted if 'unqualified' women were allowed in just to balance out the male-female ratio.
Isn't it more likely the case that there are simply far more unrecognized women with mathematical talent than there are men? In a society (societies, really) that often treats women as second-class for no reason other than their gender, doesn't it seem possible that sexism is a factor in the hiring of faculty? If more women mathematicians were added to the faculty, it seems to me that the population of 'qualified' mathematical academians would increase, not become diluted, by their inclusion.
Also - nola may not be a mathematician, but she is a woman... And if she says she's seeing examples of sexism directed at women, maybe you should pay attention?
hey jz, i'm saying this mainly as a moderator because i could give a shit about your stance -- not meant as an insult but i want you to understand this isn't a debate about the topic -- you're needlessly coming off arrogant and personally insulting people. i don't know whether you think you're the hottest shit to hit this place but you really should lay off the personal and go more for the argument.
honestly, i don't think you mean it, you don't seem like your posting with malicious intent but if you keep being flip with people and downgrading them on a personal level, i.e. their knowledge and experience is shit, blah blah blah, i'm going to start considering that a personal attack.
i don't screw with negative karma or too many verbal warnings, if i feel something's out of line i tell the person directly and if that doesn't work i go straight to warnings which can lead to a ban.
i think you have a lot to offer and i'd like to see you stay around but you've got to be a little more structured when you disagree so you don't rely on attacking the person so much.
i hope expressing this to you directly was the most effective way.
Point taken
Isn't it more likely the case that there are simply far more unrecognized women with mathematical talent than there are men? In a society (societies, really) that often treats women as second-class for no reason other than their gender, doesn't it seem possible that sexism is a factor in the hiring of faculty? If more women mathematicians were added to the faculty, it seems to me that the population of 'qualified' mathematical academians would increase, not become diluted, by their inclusion.
Also - nola may not be a mathematician, but she is a woman... And if she says she's seeing examples of sexism directed at women, maybe you should pay attention?
No doubt there are sexism directed at women, and that's unfortunate. A large part of the disagreement I have with people like Nola is whether or not talent/ability should be evaluated independent of path. That is, should factors such as family socio-economic circumstance and other life factors that may have influenced the development of ability be factored into account to compare ability. I disagree with path dependent evaluation on 2 grounds.
One is that it's impractical. In real life most of such path dependent evaluations use a few easily quantifiable proxies for the whole range of opportunities/lack thereof that a person might have had. This leads to a seriously skewed evaluation that may have nothing to do with actually ability and simply reflect a person's background. In other words, rather than admitting smart people, you just end up admitting poor people, or women, or whatever people you decide have path-dependent compensating factors.
My other objection is relevance. Since the goal of most admissions procedures is to select candidates with the greatest likelihood of doing well after admission, the emphasis is on predicted future performance. In some grad school admissions offices they have a special folder called "boy geniuses". It's a special category of rejects who go on and on about how smart they were when they were a kid. There's a reason why grad schools don't care about what they did as a kid, and focus on their recent performance. They're not admitting the person 10 years ago, they're admitting the person today.
A great deal of argument goes into how supposedly disadvantaged people will perform in ideal circumstances. I think that's completely besides the point. I don't think anyone here's lives have been perfect. No one grew up under completely ideal circumstances, and no one lives under completely ideal circumstances. Arguing that some people should be admitted because they'd perform well if only given ideal circumstances is like a product manufacturer arguing that a product that works if only given ideal operating environments should be allowed on the market. People will encounter adversity, if they can't overcome these minor obstacles then perhaps they're not the right material after all. Imagine if a kid applying to grad school claims that he's disadvantaged because he's lazy since his parents never instilled a work ethic in him. I'm sure given ideal circumstances he could be turned around into a hard working researcher assuming his intelligence is adequate, but do grad schools have the time or patience to deal with rejects like those? In the real world, no.
As for real world experience, I have never personally witness sexism or racism at my university. In fact I have a great respect for my professors, they treat the students equally and the academic environment is very conducive to learning and research. The system is great as is and there's no need to fix what isn't broken. That's why I take issue with Nola's assertions that more women will automatically lead to better research and that somehow the current academic environment is inherently hostile to women.
YuheiCarreau
01-23-2005, 03:36 PM
A great deal of argument goes into how supposedly disadvantaged people will perform in ideal circumstances. I think that's completely besides the point. I don't think anyone here's lives have been perfect. No one grew up under completely ideal circumstances, and no one lives under completely ideal circumstances. Arguing that some people should be admitted because they'd perform well if only given ideal circumstances is like a product manufacturer arguing that a product that works if only given ideal operating environments should be allowed on the market. People will encounter adversity, if they can't overcome these minor obstacles then perhaps they're not the right material after all. Imagine if a kid applying to grad school claims that he's disadvantaged because he's lazy since his parents never instilled a work ethic in him. I'm sure given ideal circumstances he could be turned around into a hard working researcher assuming his intelligence is adequate, but do grad schools have the time or patience to deal with rejects like those? In the real world, no.
I've heard this point before, and while there is some validity to it, I'd have to say it's a fairly shallow examination of the issue. The fact of the matter is, unlike a poorly performing widget, a female mathematician's obstacles have their roots not in internal defects, but outside sources. She has likely been passed over in class, not expected to do well by her professors (which is different from having the bar set lower), and generally not given as much praise and encouragement as a male mathematician. This situation cannot change without the input of women in the mathematical community - men are neither as motivated to fight sexist teaching, nor are they as likely to spot these problems early on. The difference between a woman mathematician who's never been given due credit and a lazy rich kid is enormous, and I don't think it's a fair comparison to make.
As for real world experience, I have never personally witness sexism or racism at my university. In fact I have a great respect for my professors, they treat the students equally and the academic environment is very conducive to learning and research. The system is great as is and there's no need to fix what isn't broken. That's why I take issue with Nola's assertions that more women will automatically lead to better research and that somehow the current academic environment is inherently hostile to women.
But the system isn't great, not if you're a woman. And until someone proves that menstruating causes a person to stop paying attention in math class, you have to wonder why the most populous gender is still so outnumbered among university faculty, high-level executives, and just about any other job with good pay. Aren't there more female college students than male? Where do they go after graduation, to fulfill their duty to the human race and procreate?
Umm, you're a sociologist. The standards of rigor in sociology is somewhat of a joke when compared to that in mathematics or even physics. Refer to the following: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#papers
By your argument that having had some advantages in opportunity in the past make competition unequal, there will never be equal competition amongst individuals since we're born different genetically, under different circumstances, any of which may confer advantage/disadvantage in different situations relative to others. Individual ability at the point of consideration is path independent, like energy in physics. It's irrevelant how you started and what path you took to get to the present, all that matters is what you got at the time of comparison.
So some sociologists do bad work, does it immediate justify dismissing all sociological investigations? Just like some mathematicians and physicists are crack pots, so do we simply label all mathematics and physics as crap? Remember, mistakes have been made in all fields, including the "more rigorous" disciplines.
Please read Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History, Norton 1994.
Like I mentioned, unless you have a solid comprehension of the field, please behave like a mature, civilized and educated individual. From your arguments I can see you have no understanding and training in sociology.You do not know our work at all.
Please do not behave like you walk above everyone else. Einstein showed great humility in his professional, personal and political life, and I think you might want to learn from that.
In addition, just because you do not 'witness' racism and sexism from your vantage point, it does not mean racism and sexism does not exist in academia. Seeing no evil does not mean there is no evil.
Like I mentioned before again and again, not that any of us (at least myself) is trying to argue for utopia, the point is to at least recognize the problems we have in the existing system. The point is that people in positions of power are making decisions out of racism and sexism. Those decisions are embedded in subsequent social institutional and socialization processes (as in the case of girls discouraged in math and science classes). So the competition is simply one point in the entire process that further reinforces the discrimination latent in the institutional processes.
No doubt there are sexism directed at women, and that's unfortunate. A large part of the disagreement I have with people like Nola is whether or not talent/ability should be evaluated independent of path. That is, should factors such as family socio-economic circumstance and other life factors that may have influenced the development of ability be factored into account to compare ability. I disagree with path dependent evaluation on 2 grounds.
One is that it's impractical. In real life most of such path dependent evaluations use a few easily quantifiable proxies for the whole range of opportunities/lack thereof that a person might have had. This leads to a seriously skewed evaluation that may have nothing to do with actually ability and simply reflect a person's background. In other words, rather than admitting smart people, you just end up admitting poor people, or women, or whatever people you decide have path-dependent compensating factors.
My other objection is relevance. Since the goal of most admissions procedures is to select candidates with the greatest likelihood of doing well after admission, the emphasis is on predicted future performance. In some grad school admissions offices they have a special folder called "boy geniuses". It's a special category of rejects who go on and on about how smart they were when they were a kid. There's a reason why grad schools don't care about what they did as a kid, and focus on their recent performance. They're not admitting the person 10 years ago, they're admitting the person today.
A great deal of argument goes into how supposedly disadvantaged people will perform in ideal circumstances. I think that's completely besides the point. I don't think anyone here's lives have been perfect. No one grew up under completely ideal circumstances, and no one lives under completely ideal circumstances. Arguing that some people should be admitted because they'd perform well if only given ideal circumstances is like a product manufacturer arguing that a product that works if only given ideal operating environments should be allowed on the market. People will encounter adversity, if they can't overcome these minor obstacles then perhaps they're not the right material after all. Imagine if a kid applying to grad school claims that he's disadvantaged because he's lazy since his parents never instilled a work ethic in him. I'm sure given ideal circumstances he could be turned around into a hard working researcher assuming his intelligence is adequate, but do grad schools have the time or patience to deal with rejects like those? In the real world, no.
As for real world experience, I have never personally witness sexism or racism at my university. In fact I have a great respect for my professors, they treat the students equally and the academic environment is very conducive to learning and research. The system is great as is and there's no need to fix what isn't broken. That's why I take issue with Nola's assertions that more women will automatically lead to better research and that somehow the current academic environment is inherently hostile to women.You misunderstood my point about there being an equal number of female researchers. Having equal representation is the eventual goal not something that should happen overnight through quotas. It will unfortunately take many years before we have an equal number of female and male tenured math and science professors and researchers. The quality would not be sacrificed but would be greatly improved.
Hello. The likelihood that someone who was disadvantaged due to sexism or racism makes them more likely to succeed because of the obstacles they had to overcome due to racism or sexism and since your school is so ideal and free of racism and sexism that would give them more reason to thrive.
Why don't you ask kitty if she experienced racism and sexism at your school? Her perspective may differ from yours.
Here is an article I just read about the influx women improving the practice of medicine:
Increase in women doctors changing the face of medicine
Physicians are more patient friendly, but salaries are dropping and the MD shortage is getting worse
By Ronald Kotulak
Chicago Tribune science reporter
Published January 12, 2005
With women becoming doctors in ever-increasing numbers, medicine is generally becoming more patient friendly, treatment is improving and malpractice suits may become less common, experts say.
But, they add, the feminization of medicine is helping to lower physician salaries, encourage part-time doctoring and exacerbate a looming shortage of physicians.
The change in the medical field has been swift and dramatic. Since 1975 the percentage of female doctors has nearly tripled, from 9 percent to 25 percent. And the wave is far from cresting: 38 percent of doctors under age 44 are women, and half the students in U.S. medical schools are women, a change that is expected to intensify.
Already, women have taken over some specialties, such as pediatrics, and they are swarming into internal medicine, primary care, psychiatry, dermatology, and obstetrics and gynecology.
The changes are setting in motion dramatic new trends that already are affecting both patient care and the profession of doctoring.
One result is a patient-doctor relationship that is more empathetic, compassionate and nurturing. Many women go into medicine because they feel rewarded helping people, said Jorge Girotti, associate dean for admissions at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical School, where 54 percent of the 300 entering students are female.
"If you bring that attitude in, you're more likely to see the overall patient as a whole rather than just a disease," he said. "Knowing what may be going on with a particular patient may require a broader interest rather than just the one symptom they tell you about."
But the sweeping changes also are affecting how doctors spend their time. Female physicians are more likely to work in teams, provide care for the poor, take institutional jobs with shorter hours and take lower-paying positions, all of which lower salaries overall, according to experts. They also are pioneering a trend toward part-time work and rebelling against the extremely long hours often associated with the profession.
A recent survey of graduating pediatric residents found 58 percent of the females--and 15 percent of the males--said they had a strong interest in part-time work. Now, just 15 percent of pediatricians work part time.
"Both men and women are coming into medicine with an interest in being able to combine career and family, and they are not willing to sacrifice completely toward their profession," said Dr. Wendy Levinson, chief of medicine at the University of Toronto.
Many women like to work for hospitals and other major medical facilities where part-time work is an option and group malpractice insurance is provided, said Debra Roter of Johns Hopkins University. They also are more likely to favor national health insurance.
"Female physicians, just like female workers in many other professions, tend to go in and out of the workforce during childbearing years when they're raising their children," she said. "Working for some rationalized medical insurance plan would allow them to have more reasonable work hours."
Dr. Rebecca Turk, a pediatrician at Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, started off working full time, but as the first of her four children came she decreased her office hours. Now she works three days a week and one Saturday a month.
"I really love being a doctor and I also love being a mother and having time with my children. It's nice to be able to do both," said Turk.
Many of the female pediatricians she knows are doing the same. "As I talk to them we just find a nice balance in our lives," Turk said. "Many of the experiences I've had as a mother, spending time with my children, enables me to be helpful to the families I care for because I can relate to what they're going through."
It used to be that the longer hours a doctor worked, the better doctor he or she was, said Dr. Amy Halverson, a colorectal surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, who was usually so engrossed in her work that she often spent 14-hour days at the hospital.
Since she got married a year ago, Halvorsen has cut at least two hours off her workday and she doesn't go in on weekends.
"I've committed to playing golf with my husband once a weekend so that we have that quality time together," she said. "But the pre-married Amy Halverson would often work on the weekend."
But the trend of physicians spending less time at work and more time with their families is contributing to a looming doctor shortage, experts warn.
Doctors' desires for a better life clash with people's growing expectation of around-the-clock access to health care. That is exacerbating a shortage in some specialties--radiology, anesthesiology, orthopedic surgery, cardiology and dermatology--and it's creeping up in others, said Dr. Richard A. Cooper, director of the Medical College of Wisconsin's Health Policy Institute.
The problem is that the U.S. has not built more medical schools despite an increasing demand for more services from a growing population, he explained. Meanwhile, as physicians in practice work fewer hours, they are not producing as much care as the same number did 10 years ago.
"The real global shortage of physicians, where people will really be upset, is probably at least five years away," Cooper said.
According to experts, the influx of women into medicine has two main causes: the larger movement of women into the professional workforce and the shrinking pool of male college students. A generation ago male students were in the majority on college campuses; now they make up just 40 percent of enrollment, giving women a numerical advantage for medical school openings.
Meanwhile, doctors' income has declined because of restrictions put in place by health maintenance organizations and cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid payments. As a result many male college students are pursuing more financially rewarding careers, such as in business.
"Medicine is not as lucrative anymore," Roter said. "When professions are like that, they tend to open up to women."
As that happens, observers say, women are bringing greater communication skills and empathy to doctoring, possibly resulting in better outcomes and fewer malpractice suits.
"Our research says that women doctors spend more time with their patients in communication, and they tend to be more likely to engage in discussions of the emotional aspects and psychosocial elements associated with people's health behaviors and the consequences of that for health," Roter said.
Data show that demonstrating an ability to listen, to be empathetic and show concern cut down on spurious malpractice claims that eat up time and are painful to families and the medical profession, said Dr. Gerald Hickson, director of Vanderbilt University's Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy.
"Families tell us repeatedly that the factors that promote malpractice suits are their perceptions that we don't listen to them, that we don't care about them as human beings, and that we don't provide access to them when the patient or their family believe they need access," Hickson said.
Dr. Monica E. Peek, an internist at Rush University Medical Center, said it's important to get patients involved in making the decisions that affect their care.
"The first thing I always say is, `OK, what's on your mind?'" she said. "`What do you have to tell me since I've seen you last?' If people think you have their best interest at heart, if they know that they can trust you, they can tell you whatever, even if it means, `No, I actually didn't take that medication.'"
With the help of new medical school courses, students are being taught to adapt this knack for listening to and communicating better with patients.
"Male doctors are doing more of that and they're trained to do it," Roter said. "Medicine is changing in a lot of ways, including having men be better communicators than they were in the past."
Dr. Raymond Curry, executive associate dean for education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said medical education is undergoing its biggest changes since the Flexner report in 1910, which took the curriculum out of the hands of quacks and put it on a sound scientific footing,
"There are very dramatic differences in the whole orientation of medicine and medical education," Curry said. "I think you would find a fair amount of sentiment among medical educators that having so many women in the student body, and increasingly as faculty, has helped to humanize medicine."
The changes in attitude require that doctors shed the authoritarian "god complex" that has been a defining characteristic of medicine in the past.
"Part of that has been a bad aspect of previous training," said Hickson. "We take some of those good human beings who walk into medical school training and by example we teach them to be what we call the `medical narcissist.'"
The student who entered medical school two decades ago was still thinking that medicine was going to continue in the same golden era where doctors were independent, worked on their own and got paid for whatever they billed, said Girotti of UIC.
"I'm amazed at today's students, at how conscious they are of what it is they're facing," he said. "They're not coming in with any illusions that things are going to be like they were 20 or 30 years ago. They realize the fundamental role that a doctor has in helping individual people."
For those of you who are still interested in the topic, listen to the Diane Rhem show on NPR today. It is also available on the internet at npr.org. Just do a search on Diane Rhem.
I almost crashed my car this morning listening to the show. I got pretty pissed.
Same idiotic and ignorant attempts to rebuke the signfiicance of Summer's statements and what they represent (not unlike some of the comments we have seen here): 1) Men and women are different, 2)Social Science is not "emprical' and not "good science", even though these critics have no understanding of the methodologies and principles in social sciences. Therefore biological differences justify the disparity.
The rebuttals from the penal was adequate but still weak in my opinion. I would have been a bit more aggressive (given I am a man... gender joke right here).
Listen to the show and see if you will start barking obscenities like yours truely...
Here are the parts about the difference between female and male scientists and how women have improved medicine:
With women becoming doctors in ever-increasing numbers, medicine is generally becoming more patient friendly, treatment is improving and malpractice suits may become less common, experts say.
The changes are setting in motion dramatic new trends that already are affecting both patient care and the profession of doctoring.
One result is a patient-doctor relationship that is more empathetic, compassionate and nurturing. Many women go into medicine because they feel rewarded helping people.
"If you bring that attitude in, you're more likely to see the overall patient as a whole rather than just a disease," he said. "Knowing what may be going on with a particular patient may require a broader interest rather than just the one symptom they tell you about."
But the sweeping changes also are affecting how doctors spend their time. Female physicians are more likely to work in teams, provide care for the poor, take institutional jobs with shorter hours and take lower-paying positions, all of which lower salaries overall, according to experts.
As that happens, observers say, women are bringing greater communication skills and empathy to doctoring, possibly resulting in better outcomes and fewer malpractice suits.
"Our research says that women doctors spend more time with their patients in communication, and they tend to be more likely to engage in discussions of the emotional aspects and psychosocial elements associated with people's health behaviors and the consequences of that for health," Roter said.
Data show that demonstrating an ability to listen, to be empathetic and show concern cut down on spurious malpractice claims that eat up time and are painful to families and the medical profession.
"Families tell us repeatedly that the factors that promote malpractice suits are their perceptions that we don't listen to them, that we don't care about them as human beings, and that we don't provide access to them when the patient or their family believe they need access," Hickson said.
Dr. Monica E. Peek, an internist at Rush University Medical Center, said it's important to get patients involved in making the decisions that affect their care.
"The first thing I always say is, `OK, what's on your mind?'" she said. "`What do you have to tell me since I've seen you last?' If people think you have their best interest at heart, if they know that they can trust you, they can tell you whatever, even if it means, `No, I actually didn't take that medication.'"
With the help of new medical school courses, students are being taught to adapt this knack for listening to and communicating better with patients.
"Male doctors are doing more of that and they're trained to do it," Roter said. "Medicine is changing in a lot of ways, including having men be better communicators than they were in the past."
Dr. Raymond Curry, executive associate dean for education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said medical education is undergoing its biggest changes since the Flexner report in 1910, which took the curriculum out of the hands of quacks and put it on a sound scientific footing,
"There are very dramatic differences in the whole orientation of medicine and medical education," Curry said. "I think you would find a fair amount of sentiment among medical educators that having so many women in the student body, and increasingly as faculty, has helped to humanize medicine."
The changes in attitude require that doctors shed the authoritarian "god complex" that has been a defining characteristic of medicine in the past.
"Part of that has been a bad aspect of previous training," said Hickson. "We take some of those good human beings who walk into medical school training and by example we teach them to be what we call the `medical narcissist.'"
The student who entered medical school two decades ago was still thinking that medicine was going to continue in the same golden era where doctors were independent, worked on their own and got paid for whatever they billed, said Girotti of UIC.
"I'm amazed at today's students, at how conscious they are of what it is they're facing," he said. "They're not coming in with any illusions that things are going to be like they were 20 or 30 years ago. They realize the fundamental role that a doctor has in helping individual people."
Women look at the bigger picture or the whole person and this is more effective than the earlier approach.
kitty
01-27-2005, 02:04 PM
For jz's benefit, I will neither say that Cornell is strongly sexist, nor that Cornell is extremely equal.
Here's a discussion on women in engineering and math for jz, I'm sure he will enjoy -- while it suggests that the gender gap is growing less in these fields and sexism is less blatant, it suggests that the all-male environment still leads to some less overt instances of sexism and obstacles that women must face because of their gender:
WOMEN IN MOSTLY MALE FIELDS
In 1895, Cornell awarded the first Doctor of Science degree earned by an American woman. In this century, women have steadily become more involved in traditionally male fields at Cornell and have struggled to find a respected place for themselves in this institution. Despite Ezra Cornell's wish "to have girls educated in the university, as well as boys, so that they may have the same opportunity to become wise and useful to society that boys have," (from Women at Cornell: The Myth of Equal Education, by Charlotte Conable) the gender disparity in traditionally male fields, such as engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences, remains heavily imbalanced in favor of men.
I believe that the vast majority of men in the College of Engineering (students and faculty) want to treat women equally. Still, engineering has traditionally been a field dominated by men and some of its old habits die hard. It is probably very easy for men who have been around in the field for a while to mistreat women. I think that most of the bias is unintentional and stems from carelessness but there must be a few men who do it consrsously.
-- Engineering (male) '97
Many women students in these fields said that they do not often experience blatant sexism in the classroom from either instructors or their male counterparts. Nevertheless, some do feel intimidated by the overwhelming majority of men in their classes. As one civil engineering major remarked, "You're surrounded by men. It's like a sea of men with a few women buoys scattered here and there." Yet, another woman replied, "you don't really think about it. It's just a fact that it's mostly men." These statements accurately reflect the composition of the College of Engineering, where women make up only 27% of the upper-class population.
I don't like to ask men in classes questions because I don't want them to think I'm stupid. On the other hand, I know they'll give me the answer because I'm female.
-- Computer Science '96
Likewise, the mathematics department in the College of Arts and Sciences claims that the current number of declared majors is only 33% female. The degree of disparity actually demonstrates a marked increase in women's involvement in mathematics. In fact, being represented to the extent of one-third is a tremendous advantage when compared to the 14% of women majoring in computer science. A woman computer science major responded to these statistics by saying, "We're scared out of it. Men just are better trained to work with computers."
Although women in male-dominated fields struggle against more obstacles than do their male counterparts and other women, many women on the faculty and students in these fields notice an evolution towards a more woman-friendly environment. The hope of change in the composition of the faculty and student population in these areas can produce a snowball effect, enabling women to reach further heights in science and mathematics.
Being in Engineering, there are few women, so sometimes there is more pressure than desired.
-- Engineering '95
Freshman year I entered Cornell as a Chemical Engineer. I enjoyed the challenge of being one of the few women in a male dominated field and I knew that I could do it just as well if not better than all of them. I took calculus, chemistry, and physics. I also took two writing seminars that dealt with women and gender issues.
Those classes spoke to me in a way that science didn't and I thrived on discovering rather than deriving. When I sat down to pick my classes for sophomore year, I realized that I had no desire or interest in continuing with engineering but I felt as if I couldn't give up on it. I had always felt that for and education to be real, it had to include some sort of science and number crunching.
If I transferred out of engineering, I would be giving up on myself and admitting that I could not handle it. But what I also realized was that I could do it and had done it very well for a year. I knew that the potential was there, but my heart wasn't. I could not rationalize devoting the rest of my life to something which I did not enjoy. So, I decided to transfer and become a Women's Studies major.
I still think that completing an engineering major would have been a personal triumph for me and I could hold myself up as a role model for other women and as an example to all those people who think women can't succeed in the male professions. I should also add that I have great respect and admiration for women who do complete an engineering degree, because I know what they are struggling against and what they are struggling for. What I have learned is that the struggle for women's recognition and rights must take place in many different ways and in many different forums. Women's Studies has given me a broader forum to understand the motivations that placed me in the Engineering College in the first place and the desire to create a world where the gendered motivations I experienced would no longer exist.
--Arts & Sciences '96
http://www.rso.cornell.edu/cwh/academiclife.html
However, to counter that rather happy-go-lucky look at women in those fields, here is a break down of female professors at Cornell:
Women Faculty By College 1993-1994
COLLEGE/SCHOOL TOTAL PERCENT WOMEN
Agriculture & Life Sciences 411 13.4%
Architecture, Art & Planning 57 21.1
Arts & Sciences 501 20.4
Centers/Programs 11 36.4
Engineering 218 6.4
Hotel Administration 38 21.1
Human Ecology 97 49.5
Industrial & Labor Relations 51 21.6
Johnson Grad.Sch.Mgmt. 38 13.2
Law 31 25.8
Veterinary Medicine 128 14.8
Total 1581 18.1%
out of date, but i'm sure the numbers will not have increased that substantially, given how slowly professors are replenished with tenure system. Women do make up roughly 50% of the student body -- why are they being taught largely by men?
Incidentally, I won't address on-campus racism at Cornell because this IS the women's forum. However, I will mention that before jz's time, I think, an Asian American undergraduate was sexually assaulted on campus by two white males who groped her inappropriately and called her racial epithets.
yoMAMA
01-27-2005, 11:39 PM
women now are dominating almost every category of schools [from college to grad/professional schools.....i think now women are the majority].
time to establish affirmative action for men ;)
Women Faculty By College 1993-1994
COLLEGE/SCHOOL TOTAL PERCENT WOMEN
Agriculture & Life Sciences 411 13.4%
Architecture, Art & Planning 57 21.1
Arts & Sciences 501 20.4
Centers/Programs 11 36.4
Engineering 218 6.4
Hotel Administration 38 21.1
Human Ecology 97 49.5
Industrial & Labor Relations 51 21.6
Johnson Grad.Sch.Mgmt. 38 13.2
Law 31 25.8
Veterinary Medicine 128 14.8
Total 1581 18.1%This week's Newsweek article about Sumner's comments says the lack of female professors in science and math and lack of women at the highest levels of leadership are the biggest problem for female math and science PhD students. The very low number of female faculty at Cornell shows that women have a long way to go. There are many female college and grad students but not enough mentors who encourage women to continue in science and math past college.
kitty
01-28-2005, 02:52 PM
women now are dominating almost every category of schools [from college to grad/professional schools.....i think now women are the majority].
time to establish affirmative action for men ;)
really? can i see the stats on that?
kasia
01-28-2005, 07:30 PM
i know this is slightly off topic, but the topic of the article really irks me..."why women are poor at..."
is that even proper English?
Yeah, good English, Guardian. The English can't write English.
I think Sumner's wording when he spoke at a women's conference were that women lacked the innate abilities in math and science. The Newsweek article says he used to be head of the Department of Treasury and that he is an economist. He's made insensitive remarks about African Americans and South Koreans too but that is apparently part of his provocative debating style.
The problem is not the number of female college students and grad students it is the number of role models that keep these students past college level. Seeing a female math or science professor shows female students there is job security in their fields if they continue onto grad school in their fields. Right now women don't see examples of job security and decide to do something else after college instead.
YuheiCarreau
01-28-2005, 08:29 PM
Yeah, good English, Guardian. The English can't write English.
I think Sumner's wording when he spoke at a women's conference were that women lacked the innate abilities in math and science. The Newsweek article says he used to be head of the Department of Treasury and that he is an economist. He's made insensitive remarks about African Americans and South Koreans too but that is apparently part of his provocative debating style.
The problem is not the number of female college students and grad students it is the number of role models that keep these students past college level. Seeing a female math or science professor shows female students there is job security in their fields if they continue onto grad school in their fields. Right now women don't see examples of job security and decide to do something else after college instead.
It's their language. AFAIK, that expression is grammatically correct in Britain. Sort of like how in the US, it's correct to say "X is different from Y" but over there, they say "X is different to Y"...
relus
02-07-2005, 08:23 PM
From looking at the map-reading thread.. I would say its true.. men are generally better at processing information, math and intellectual thoughts.. while women are geared towards feelings/thoughts, language and multitasking :P Have you ever wondered why more women take foreign language studies :P
An update...
Harvard President Confronted Over Remark
Wednesday February 16, 2005 4:31 PM
BOSTON (AP) - Faculty members confronted Harvard president Lawrence Summers at a tense meeting where some questioned whether he could still lead the university after recently suggesting innate differences help explain why more men than women excel in math and science.
Some professors said Tuesday that Summers had a responsibility to ``clear the air'' by releasing a transcript of the remarks he made to a small group of researchers Jan. 14.
Others in the gathering of about 250 faculty members spoke of a climate of fear in the university and a crisis of confidence in his presidency.
``Many of your faculty are dismayed and alienated and demoralized,'' Arthur Kleinman, chairman of the anthropology department, told Summers.
The meeting was closed to the media, except for the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. Kleinman and others read their remarks or provided copies of their statements to other reporters.
Summers again apologized for the remarks and said he'd consider requests to release the transcript. He also expressed concern about the charges that he created a climate of fear and intimidation.
``This has been a searing afternoon for me,'' Summers said at the end of the meeting, the school newspaper reported.
A major theme of the meeting was that Summers' comments on women were a final straw for professors, who say Summers has insulted and ignored them and embarrassed the university with gaffes such as his spat with African-American studies professor Cornel West. West wound up leaving Harvard for Princeton.
Another faculty meeting was set for next Tuesday. History of science professor Everett Mendelsohn said that faculty members plan to discuss such options as holding a vote of no confidence in Summers, asking him to resign, or asking him to change the way he operates.
Some faculty members defended Summers. Ruth Wisse, professor of Yiddish literature, said ``women's groups are bringing shame to the profession in which we are engaged. This is a show trial to beat all show trials.''
Summers, an economist by training, served as secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration and took over the Harvard presidency in 2001. His remarks on women in science and math were made at a private conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
He has said the comments were made ``in the spirit of academic inquiry'' and his goal was to underscore the need for further research.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
kimpossible
02-16-2005, 10:35 AM
From looking at the map-reading thread.. I would say its true.. men are generally better at processing information, math and intellectual thoughts.. while women are geared towards feelings/thoughts, language and multitasking :P Have you ever wondered why more women take foreign language studies :P
This is how you reached the conclusion that it must be true?
There are more differences within gender groups than between genders, thus making any generalizations about "men vs. women" totally trite. There are plenty of women better at math and science than me, for example, and plenty of women I'm better at in "feelings" or other categories. See Gould's Mismeasure of Man for a critique of these arguments, particularly about race, but I think they apply to gender as well.
pikachupacabra
02-16-2005, 11:35 AM
This is how you reached the conclusion that it must be true?
maybe he's saying that because women take foreign language courses they have feelings. whereas I flunked out of spanish, so I must have no feelings, or hate burritos.
I found this on netscape news. If it's the best school in the world, doesn't Sumners set a bad example for the rest of the world?
The World's Top 10 Universities
When it comes to ranking institutions of higher learning worldwide, American universities dominate. That's the word from a new list of the world's most prestigious and famous universities created by The Times of London Higher Education Supplement, reports the AAP news service. Led by Harvard University, fully seven of the top 10 schools are in the United States. Oxford and Cambridge are the only British universities to make the cut in the top 10, although two other schools--the London School of Economics and Imperial College came in at 11th and 14th respectively. Why an international list? "Leading universities increasingly define themselves in terms of international competition," said John O'Leary, editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are based on the opinions of 1,300 academics in 88 countries, as well as the latest measures of research excellence and teaching.
The top 10 universities in the World University Rankings are:
1. Harvard University (United States)
2. University of California, Berkeley (United States)
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States)
4. California Institute of Technology (United States)
5. Oxford University (United Kingdom)
6. Cambridge University (United Kingdom)
7. Stanford University (United States)
8. Yale University (United States)
9. Princeton University (United States)
10. ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
there have been studies made about how men are better at mental spacial tasks, like picturing a shape in your mind and then rotating it this and that way, and how women are better at remembering things. the evolutionary evidence is that men were the hunters, so being able to picture something from different angles and such was important, whereas women were the gatherers, so being able to remember where herbs and things were was important.
but i don't know if from that you can conclude that men are better at "math and science" overall.
I've read that somewhere too. But even if men had certain advantages that can be applied to math and science, it doesn't mean women without these advantages can't outperform men. Hell I'm willing to accept that different sexes have different innate advantages due to evolution. But that's no excuse to prevent women or men from pursuing fields where they may not have those evolutionary advantages because there are so many other factors to consider.
Yes, women can perform equally given the right support and encourgement.
In the immortal words of the Donald, "YOU'RE FIRED!"
kimpossible
03-01-2005, 12:28 PM
Some faculty members defended Summers. Ruth Wisse, professor of Yiddish literature, said ``women's groups are bringing shame to the profession in which we are engaged. This is a show trial to beat all show trials.''
Interesting quote. Wonder if it was taken out of context.
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