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The Push For Quotas For Women In Science
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 15, 2008 04:48 PM
from the handicapper-general dept.
from the handicapper-general dept.
mlimber writes "The NYTimes has a story about how Congress has quietly begun to press for an equal number of women in the hard sciences and engineering under Title IX, which is best known for mandating numerical equality for boys' and girls' sports for institutions that accept federal funding. The problem is, the article says, it is not merely that women face discrimination from male colleagues, though that is often true, or that they are discouraged from pursuing these fields. Rather, women with aptitude in these areas often simply have other interests and so pursue their education and careers in other fields like law, education, or biology. Opponents of this plan, including many women in scientific fields, say implementing sex-based quotas will actually be detrimental because it will communicate that the women can't compete on even terms with men and will be 'devastating' to the quality of science 'if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women's level of interest.'"
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How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Law, psychology, education, journalism, etc. are dominated by women. Should we expect to see male quotas there?
Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
THAT'S IT!!! No more white people allowed to become architects until we fix these numbers!
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about racial equality? Is that one just not cool anymore?
What about LGBT equality, I demand an EQUAL number of Lesbians, an equal number of Queers, an equal number of Bi-Sexuals and an EQUAL number of trannys to be a requirement of labs which accept govt. funding!! What about straight people? To hell with them!!
In other news I actually DO have an African-American friend who applied for an African American scholarship who was later turned down because he's not black... Oh, what, you say that African-American is actually a racist term too, but don't tell the bleeding hearts...
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe when we start having a racially-equal number of crackwhores, violent criminals, terrorists, drug dealers, layabouts, and social misfits; then maybe we can start applying it to other things.
I'm not for political correctness (only fairness). If racial profiling, or gender profiling, or sexual profiling, or any other type of profiling generates positive results, then why aren't we doing it?
In other words -- if girls don't want to study science them please, for the love of science, don't try to make them. I sincerely believe that statistically, men are better at science than women. There are enough objectively identifiable differences between the sexes to justify such a statement. (The same could be said for races, too.)
The key thing to remember, though is that, being good at science doesn't have, or doesn't need to have any particular value or "worth" associated with it. I'm not good at sports, and I don't think that makes me less of a person.
(In case you're wondering, I'm a gay man who considers himself a very liberal Socialist on the political spectrum.)
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, I would love to see more XX-chromosome carrying members of our society in my physics classes. But it has to be their choice and not at the expense of more qualified people. And for the record, the two best physics professors I've lacked a penis.
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Funny)
And for the record ... I've lacked a penis.
Do you tell this to everybody? I'm assuming you are not a woman because most women don't feel that they need to inform everyone that they do not have certain organs that the species in general possesses.
Have you considered that perhaps you've just lost it? Feel around for a while and you might find it again. Good luck in your search!
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you'll never see male quotas (a good thing) because that would be favourable to men (a bad thing these days)
In Sweden, there are male quotas as well. As a result, a couple of hundred women that were denied entry to vet school are suing the country's government for discrimnation.
Needless to say, men can not sue.
Feminism is not about gender equality, it's gender war, and they are winning.
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Less opportunities for men.
They'd like to pretend it will be a positive influence and more opportunity for women. But tell that to the men's swimming team, the men's golf team, the men's track team, and the men's wrestling team... and good luck finding them, because those programs were all cut. After all, they had to "create" more opportunities for women.
Here's my suggestion: how about we just actually give them the same opportunities, and if they don't take them... fine. Remove the male/female checkboxes from the applications. There's no need to create restrictions/quotas.
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Funny)
Currently any woman can get(or give) a-head simply by batting an eyelash to the boss while her male peers toil long hours unnoticed.
Mandatory female quotas would be a godsend -- they'd have to compete not only against ugly fat guys, but against themselves! It'd be a most entertaining fight for the hottest, most attention-gettingest queen of them all. The males would win either way as they could heed the Middle East exit strategy that never was(that is, to stand back and let the others kill each other).
Endless, entertaining gossip and ever-shrinking outfits would load a volatile powder keg whose explosion would culminate in a sweaty break-room battle with girl-on-girl action, strategically torn clothing, perhaps some spare jello from the fridge, and only one victor - the men!
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think you've ever actually had a conversation with a real female human.
PROTIP: Real women don't actually behave like girls in porn, anime, or action flicks.
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:How about the reverse quotas? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever notice that men tend to pursue money and jobs that will make them money so that they can attract women?
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It's all geeks idea (Score:5, Funny)
Why do we care anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is there not so strong a push to get more male nurses and primary school teachers? Or even publishing?
Is it because these are seen as female professions and therefore less worthy?
Note the contradiction... (Score:5, Insightful)
So they object because a) It will make it seem that women need a leg up, and b) they'll have to dumb down science to give women a leg up. I don't particularly believe the second, but if it is true, that would mean the first is just an accurate appraisal of reality.
Re:Note the contradiction... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Note the contradiction... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes they did.
Females are put into positions where they cannot do their physical part routinely. However, to bring it up would be the end to your career.
STFU unless you've had to carry a female's rucksack for her. Every military school i've been to that allowed females has shown me what a liability they can be.
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This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to achieve true equality between genders is to treat them the same.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
The scientific process is unbiased towards either gender.
Yes and no. The thing is, there's no objective "scientific process" out there. Science is what scientists, as people, do. And people in general can quite easily be biased, in any number of ways. The hypotheses which one formulates and chooses to test, the explanations one chooses to describe a certain behavior - those did not come out of an objective vacuum.
On the other hand, there's certainly a realm of things out there in the world that are just as amenable to women testing and experimenting with them as to men.
For a brief overview, see Wikipedia's section on the philosophy and sociology of science in the Scientific Method [wikipedia.org] article.
The only way to achieve true equality between genders is to treat them the same.
I'm not so sure about that. Maybe if everyone had treated everyone else the same from day one, that would work. But so much water is already under the bridge. Could you say the same thing about race? Ideally, it would have been nice to simply go from segregation and Jim Crow laws to treating blacks and whites the same (assuming that were possible). But that ignores what had happened to blacks in the past - what kind of education did they receive in the 'separate but equal' schools? How well will they compete in social structures that only served whites for so long? I think those are all important things to consider, and that it's simplistic to simply say "start treating everyone the same."
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How about (Score:5, Insightful)
How about putting those in positions who have earned them, regardless of age, sex or race, instead of mandating a certain ratio. If anything, the mandated ratio will foster more discrimination because of the perceived view that they "didn't earn it".
Except... (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is obvious. (Score:5, Funny)
We must force women to enter careers in hard sciences and engineering.
As a female (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As a female (Score:5, Funny)
And yes I really am a woman. I really am
Outrageous claims are made on /. every day. Given the demographics of this site, you will have do to more the words. To borrow from Shakespeare, me thinks the carbonunit doth protest to much...however, on the off chance I may be wrong, I am a mature minded nerd with actual outside interests besides computers. Now tell us all you have a husband or boyfriend otherwise I'd like to finally claim first post!
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Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government wants to start a program to get more women into science and engineering fields, it should be aimed at young kids.
Okay, but why should it do that? How about presenting kids with a wide range of options for what to do with their lives, and let them decide what's interesting?
I think that's pretty close to what we're doing now, and if that means there aren't many women in engineering, then that's the way it is.
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What's the ratio in congress? (Score:5, Insightful)
50% women; 50% men?
Every asinine idea gets recycled. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quotas are just discrimination by another name. Requiring employers to hire based on any criteria other than an applicant's qualifications is a terrible thing to do to anyone already in that profession, especially the members of whatever group is getting the preferential treatment. Any woman employed in the sciences will suddenly come under suspicion as to wether she can actually do the work, or just got the job because of the quota.
-jcr
One problem with women in chemistry (Score:5, Interesting)
Guys can have a child while doing research, but it is much more difficult for women. Pregnancy can mean that you have to stop doing certain types of research or it may just interfere with your ability to be competitive in your field. Putting off childbearing until after getting a PhD and postdoc will put most women firmly into their thirties when they have children, at which time birth defects and complications become more prevalent.
Some professors don't like women in their labs for this very reason. By the time a woman has completed her research, if she has had a child in that time frame, someone else may have already published it.
Science is competitive, and women are often at a disadvantage.
Re:One problem with women in chemistry (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that motherhood alone is a serious barrier to getting a PhD.
The challenges of getting good childcare, and having sufficiently supportive male partners - now we're talking...
Oh - but implementing social programs would cost money - but enforcing quotas is "free"
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So (Score:5, Interesting)
So where do I go to demand that there are equal numbers of male and female babysitters, maids, nurses, and elementary school teachers? And can someone remind me what the ratio of men to women in congress is?
In short: stupid idea. If women don't *want* to be scientists and engineers, fix it in schools by encouraging them to try it and doing your best to encourage the removal of the societal bias against it. Allowing minorities and women who are *less* qualified then white males to get jobs just to fulfill a quota is one thing that *will* reduce the quality of our science and engineering.
If you want to remove bias in hiring scientists and engineers, at require that the person who makes the decision to grant interviews not see any information that could identify a person's sex or race, including the name. Then, if you must, require that the interviewer match the interviewee in sex and race and if the interviewer isn't given the authority to decide who gets hired, again remove any identifying information from the report before it goes to the person who does make the decision.
That's a nice, scientific way to reduce (not eliminate... women and minorities can still be biased against other women and minorities) bias without hurting the final product. I mean, what would you do in the proposed bill if you only got 10 female and 90 male applications to fill 30 spots? Pick women off the street and try to make them do someone else's job?
A PITA for women and a boon to misogyny. (Score:5, Insightful)
These women, having "made it" themselves, often don't feel that sexual discrimination is still a significant issue in their field. However, they still feel pressured to participate lest they be labeled "anti-feminist". I wouldn't be surprised if some women who have had success in the physical sciences have, when possible, fled to a less male-dominated field just to lighten their workloads.
While it's certainly a good thing to ensure that there is a level playing field in male dominated fields, some of these organizations really ought to back off and let women in science and engineering concentrate on their work instead of wasting their time and holding them back with nonsense. Make no mistake, if you saddle a woman with 20+ hours/week of extra duties just because she's a woman, you're no better than the "evil oppressing misogynists" you think you're fighting.
I say we put quotas on Congress, first (Score:5, Insightful)
I say we put quotas on Congress, first; talk about your "boys clubs"...
Why don't they get their own house in order?
-- Terry
It isn't that we're not trying (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been on several search committees at a state university for faculty positions in a chemistry department. We are actively _trying_ to get women faculty, but last time around I don't think we even got one female applicant...certainly not a domestic (USA) female applicant.
In the search prior to that, we had one qualified female applicant. We offered her the position, and she turned it down. We moved to the next most qualified candidate, who was male.
I have no idea how we'd handle a quota. Just pick someone off the street and say to her "okay, you're a chemistry professor. We need to keep our federal funding."?
Wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak for the engineers, but I think a reasonable case could be made that scientific careers are indeed poorly accessible for women. Because they are, generally speaking, not very family friendly: The standard assumption is that young scientists are willing to work long and irregular hours for modest pay and put up with a long series of short-term funding and temporary contracts. Scientific careers are high-effort, high-risk, and even many men feel that this kind of work culture is not very compatible with family life and responsible behaviour towards their children, and abandon academic research for industry jobs.
However, instituting quota for women seems to be very much the wrong answer, and one that is likely to be treated with some contempt by female scientists. However, call me a cynic, I doubt Congress really cares about that. Female scientists are not a large voting block. And the lawyers who dominate the political professions are, in the depths of their soul, probably not convinced that science really matters that much. (Well, certainly not as much as lawyering.) Defining quota seems a typically lawyerly answer to me.
Besides, in the case of the USA, the country doesn't just have a shortage of female scientists but plainly a shortage of scientists, albeit one that is much alleviated by immigration. The real answer is in making scientific careers more attractive. The reason why Congress is not considering this is not difficult to figure out: It would cost money, if only a modest amount, and any results would only be visible after they have left office.
An important point for those who didn't RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)
A big piece of the article was pointing out that women in science don't particularly want this, organizations teaching science don't want this, and men in science don't want this. The institutions involved are filling out the paperwork but definitely aren't interested in suddenly making 50% of all science graduates women.
And the article also made the appropriate comparison with the field of psychology, which is now something like 70% female (similar disparities exist in education, particularly primary education).
still waiting for Men's Studies classes (Score:5, Insightful)
If universities are forced to ensure that the gender of athletes is proportional to the rates of enrollment, regardless of actual interest, then I don't see why they shouldn't have Men's Studies programs to mirror Women's Studies, regardless of actual interest.
This is because feminism was never actually about equality, but improving the social status of women. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself - I don't see why the NAACP should take it upon itself to stick up for Latinos, for example. Whereas the goal of feminism is gender equality, but is really only about improving things for women.
Take the suffragist movement, for example. It was started [wikipedia.org] at a convention in 1848, finally succeeding on a national scale with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Know what else happened in that time? The Civil War and World War I. Note that suffragists didn't demand the right to be drafted with the right to vote. Ditto that for WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Hmm.
Today, breast cancer research receives far [nytimes.com] more money than prostate cancer research, even though prostate cancer kills about as many men as breast cancer kills women. Many states have an Office of Women's Health, but only New Hampshire has an Office of Men's Health - and it had to start without any funding.
Men are far and away the #1 victim of assaults and murders and make up at least 40% [california...awblog.com] of domestic violence victims, yet Congress passes a Violence Against Women Act.
But back to school - yes, the vast majority of PhD's are men - but men also round out the bottom of the scale with the most mental disabilities. And if these people were really concerned about equity, they'd be doing something about the 60/40 female/male disparity in overall enrollment.
Which isn't to say that women haven't gotten a raw deal, the point is that men have too. Feminism needs to go away, and be replaced with straight up egalitarianism.
Cold Hard Facts (Score:5, Interesting)
My findings are that why yes, we hired much much much fewer women than men. Is it because we were sexist? No. Is it because they were all underqualified, or even less qualified? No.
The cold-hard fact was that only about 10% of the applicants were women. Interestingly enough, (or maybe not), most of these were not native U.S. citizens, but mostly Chinese or Indian women who had come to study in the U.S.
While I am being a "racist" - I might throw in that we never, in our existance as a company, have ever hired a black person.
Was it because they were underqualified, etc. etc. etc.? Again, no.
In my entire career, I have only ever interviewed a single black applicant for an engineering position. (BTW - We actually made this person a good offer, which they accepted, but their existing employer countered it and we lost them.)
My point is that there are less "women and minorities" hired into these positions becasue there are far far far less candidates - not because of any discrimination.
Does discrimination exist in the world? Sure, it does - but to be honest, in the competitive nature of the companies I've been at - and the difficulty in hiring good candidates - I don't think anyone would care if the candidate was a green transsexual with three eyes - if they were a solid candidate - they'd be hired on those grounds.
I've also worked for "Women Owned" companies. This is something that the feds have set up - If your company is at least 51% "woman owned or run" (or minority owned and run) - then you get preferential treatment in dealing with the Feds, and contractors that do business with the Feds. (Like they have to do business with a certain quota of these companies). In my experience, these all have been a smoke-and-mirrors game - Whitey giving his ol' lady a business card that says "CEO" on it, to try and drum up some more business, etc. etc. etc.
Certain people are drawn to certain professions - and that's an individual decision, and there probably is some biological basis in the Men vs. Women thing. Like people have pointed out, should we mandate quotas that H.R. people and Flight Attendents be a certain percent male too?
Now as the "Minorities" go - let's cut to the chase. By "Miniories", we're only talking about certian "Minorities". We're talking about blacks, hispanics, eskimos, Native Americans - and I'm sure some others - but we are NOT talking about Indians, Chinese, or Australians for that matter.
If Congress really wanted to even-out the playing field - they'd be investing money into inner-city schools - like a mile a way from them in DC - which are literally falling apart - and more like prisons than schools. Turn these into places that foster excitement in learning, science and engineering, and are an oasis inside these inner-city slum areas - and you'll see those kids go off to college and become candidates.
Short of doing that - nothing else will ever work. You can give them a billion dollars in college grant money - but if their schools are gang, crime and filth ridden places where they just get locked-up for a few hours a day - then no quota system on the place of the planet will ever balance that out.
Re:Title 9 (Score:5, Funny)
You realize that it's the lycra they're advertising, not the chicks, right?
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this so terrible to admit? It's obvious to everyone, yet all these PC jerks want to deny it.
Trouble is, you are confusing the end result with the root cause.
What these "PC jerks" believe is that women and men are socially conditioned to have different interests -- in other words, it just ain't natural. The concern is that the social conditioning is detrimental. That stereotypical "women's interests" are less valued and thus less rewarding than stereotypical "men's interests."
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, why is that so hard to admit?
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Insightful)
for a start, no one is proposing women should be kept out of these jobs. what they are in fact proposing is that sexual discrimination against men is ok. if it's a cultural "weakness" in america that causes women to avoid science, then spend money getting them interested in highschool and even earlier. don't deny anyone based on gender, it's wrong no matter what spin you try put on it.
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Informative)
"does Title IX block men from sports so they can fill those same slots with whatever women they can come up with?"
To some degree it does. If a school has a disproportionate number of men's sports then it's not uncommon for them to eliminate those programs to get the numbers in line with IX requirements. The men's swim team was disbanded at my alma mater for this reason.
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Insightful)
That stereotypical "women's interests" are less valued and thus less rewarding than stereotypical "men's interests."
Personally I always thought of it as the other way around. Culture didn't force women to have less valuable interests, but rather it took interests that women already had and devalued them socially. So now you have a bunch of people running around and freaking out trying to force all of society into a "superior" masculine role.
In a male dominated society, of course you'd expect a widespread belief that male interests and are superior and therefore "more rewarding" and "valuable". So as you see, these gender quotas are just symptoms of a very deep rooted form of misogyny that is so pervasive that even women buy into it.
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:men and women have different interests (Score:5, Interesting)
The best article written about this was by Philip Greenspun (MIT Prof) at http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science [greenspun.com]
The best quote from the article was this: "I've taught a fair number of women students in electrical engineering and computer science classes over the years. I can give you a list of the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders and were the most thoughtful about planning out the rest of their lives. Their names are on files in my "medical school recommendations" directory."
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Re:What if they fail? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really though, that is exactly the problem. The people mandating these quotas are assuming that there is an overwhelming number of talented women who are not getting into schools because of a (yet unproven) bias. The reality? Most women just have less interest in certain fields, just like most men have less interest in certain fields. Case-in-point:
My school's electrical engineering program has had a long-running goal: double female enrollment. This recently had to be changed to "increase female enrollment" because my graduating year has zero women (this includes computer engineering, which is considered a semi-separate department). It's not that the female applicants were discriminated against; in fact, there have been no allegations of discrimination of any type in the department, and we have faculty of all races and genders (and one member who had a sex-change operation a few years ago). There just aren't many female applicants. In fact, the policy for meeting that goal was to increase advertising to female high school seniors, including deliberately skewing the ratio of pictures of male engineers to females (which required us to get pictures from other departments).
If there was a quota for female enrollment, we wouldn't even have an EE department. It is one thing to be politically correct, and I certainly wouldn't go around claiming that women are inherently inferior to men (I would have nothing to base such a claim on anyway, since I have no points of comparison). It is quite another to demand that the statistics be changed through legislation.
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Re:I really don't know what you are talking about (Score:5, Interesting)
I have never felt any problems with what you call "gatekeepers". There are plenty of incentives and opportunities for women in sciences, you just have to show your work.
Yes, there is probably a few jerks around, but what you do is tough it up, otherwise you will never make it as a scientist anyway.
And I am sorry, but maybe some women should not be choosing these careers anyway. I believe most of the disparity is because of lack of interest from them, not from any barriers in the system.
So stop whining and get to work, people.
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