DescentBB

LOL. I'm being misquoted left and right these days...!

And a double LOL--you don't have to apologize to me, Foil. I know what you meant. It just seemed too ironic, given the subject of the thread, that you managed to leave me off of your list of mathematically competent DBB members. There are more than just you, me, and Lothar--there are a few engineers and general nerds and geeks floating around here, I think.

Anyway, I doubt Summers was expressing the position that women are underrepresented in the sciences for only biological reasons. That's a self-evidently stupid hypothesis. But even if it was what he said, made in a scientific context, it didn't deserve the reaction it got. Even self-evidently stupid hypotheses deserve scholarly attention and sound rejection if they merit it. This--

MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins '64 said she felt physically ill as a result of listening to Summers' speech at a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) luncheon, and she left the conference room half-way through the president's remarks.

"For him to say that 'aptitude' is the second most important reason that women don't get to the top when he leads an institution that is 50 percent women students--that's profoundly disturbing to me," Hopkins said. "He shouldn't admit women to Harvard if he's going to announce when they come that, hey, we don't feel that you can make it to the top."

--is not scholarly interaction. It's hysteria.

I think what this whole thing shows more than anything is that a lot of people who profess to be open minded are anything but. I know people who are exceedingly liberal and they think this makes them open minded. But try to talk religion or conservative politics with them and they are as close minded as those they profess to be against.

I think people biases show up where they least expect it.

The student body of the engineering school I went to was largely male (about 90%). The percentage of males in the engineering faculty was even higher. The only woman teacher I had taught mathematics. I had always wondered why there were so few women faculty and students.

I went to an engineering school, as well. I know a bit of its history, since my dad went there 30 years before me.

When my dad was a freshman in 1968, there were 4 women on campus. Not 4%, 4 total women, or about 0.1%. A lot of people had the "women don't belong here" attitude. My dad was one of the few guys who treated the women like actual human beings. During this time, the school was also making a policy shift and admitting a lot more women. By the time he was a senior, there were about 200 women on campus, and he was one of the few guys who could get a date.

Fast forward to 1998... campus has stabilized at about 25% women, 75% men. The women who make it there tend to do just as well as the men, but there simply aren't as many who make it in. From what I understand, the proportion of women applicants is just about the same as the proportion admitted.

In 1968, clearly, there were fewer women due to discrimination and environmental factors. In 1998, I think we've moved much closer to the "innate ability and/or interest" limit. I doubt we're there yet -- there probably are still some environmental factors -- but we're not too far off.

Lothar wrote:In 1968, clearly, there were fewer women due to discrimination and environmental factors. In 1998, I think we've moved much closer to the "innate ability and/or interest" limit. I doubt we're there yet -- there probably are still some environmental factors -- but we're not too far off.

I don't know about "not too far off" (people say the same thing about racism when it's still a huge problem), but you make a very good point.

We've come a LONG way from the times when women couldn't go to school, vote, own property, etc. Although there is still a long way to go, the opportunities women are now getting are opening up 'doorways' which have been closed for ages.

(At least that's the case in the United States, where the various movements for women's rights have been strong. The changes have been much, much slower in other parts of the world.)

Foil wrote:I don't know about "not too far off" (people say the same thing about racism when it's still a huge problem)

Really? I sure hope you're talking about discrimination against white people...

I was going to say the same thing about your comment that the feminist movement has "a long way to go." How so? Women have earned the rights which they were so unjustly denied; what more remains? The modern feminist movement (and to a lesser extent, organizations such as the NAACP) seem almost dedicated to reverse discrimination. It's not a trend I look on favorably.

We have no problem with the idea that women's bodies are, on average, less muscular than men's (in certain ways.)

I disagree,
My wife can choke me out with her thighs at times, but, if positions reverse I don't have the strength to do much of anything..

Sorry.

Fusion pimp wrote:

We have no problem with the idea that women's bodies are, on average, less muscular than men's (in certain ways.)

I disagree,
My wife can choke me out with her thighs at times, but, if positions reverse I don't have the strength to do much of anything..

Sorry.

Notice the segment of my quote I've put in bold.

Jeez, Lothar. JOKE ALERT. God.

yes, I'm aware of that.

LOL!
Loth,
you're so dull.

Fusion pimp wrote:I disagree, My wife can choke me out with her thighs at times,

Yeah, but you like it so it doesn't really count

Remember, women are special and unique, just like everyone else.