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Surprise—The AAUW Finds that More Girls than Boys in College is No Crisis
Crying "crisis" every time some social scientist notices some differences between groups is very popular nowadays. The implication is that equality should be the status quo and that differences must be the result of malign forces. (Admittedly, sometimes there are malign forces, e.g., Jim Crow laws.) Conservatives now indulge in America's favorite passtime of claiming victimhood and so worry about the "boy crisis" in American education. The logic of a "boy crisis" means that special attention must be paid to boys over girls. Naturally this logic threatens the perks and programs of entrenched victim groups.
That being the case, is anyone shocked that the feminists at the American Association of University Women are promoting a "study" that purports to show that the "boy crisis" is a "myth?" Some researchers don't think it's a myth. And the Washinigton Post did not express any concern over how the study sponsored by an organization devoted to the interests of university women might have been skewed by conflicts of interest. At the end of its story on the AAUW report, the Post did note:
AAUW's study does show female students outperforming male students in some measures. Women have earned 57 percent of bachelor's degrees since 1982 and outperformed boys on high school grade-point averages. In 2005, male students had a GPA of 2.86 and girls, 3.09.
I will also mention that a friend of mine at a prominent university told me recently that he and his colleagues could fill all their graduate program slots with qualified women. However, women will refuse enter programs that have too few men, so his program has instituted affirmative action for men in order to attract women.
In any case, I don't believe that there is a "boy crisis" or a "girl crisis." The real victims are boys and girls who are stuck in our deteriorating government-funded educational system.
Whole Post article here.
Disclosure: As an undergraduate I entered the University of Virginia two years after it co-educated. From my point of view, the male/female ratio was far from optimum.
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 5:00PM|#
Prediction: This will be more "proof" that men oppress
women womyn in our society.
|5.20.08 @ 5:03PM|#
I talked to one woman who said that it would be obscene even if women make 99¢ to the dollar of men, which is just fucking silly.
Stephen the Goldberger|5.20.08 @ 5:04PM|#
Our educational system's failure to develop mathematical, scientific thinking in young people is the actual crisis. And the end result is a disproportionate number of women achieving success than men in the academic ranks (as those traits are more easily developed in men than women).
Episiarch|5.20.08 @ 5:05PM|#
However, women will refuse enter programs that have too few
men, so his program has instituted affirmative action for men in
order to attract women.
This just proves guys are stupider because if engineering geeks
were as smart as they claim, they would do the same thing to force
recruitment of chicks into their sausage-fest field.
I did not take computer science/engineering in college so I, of
course, am not stupid.
Naga Sadow|5.20.08 @ 5:08PM|#
But Stephen, that would discriminate against minorities who have
a history of underperforming in such areas. BELLCURVE!!!
*wags finger at Stephen*
|5.20.08 @ 5:10PM|#
The logic of a "boy crisis" means that special attention
must be paid to boys over girls.
I think the claim is that our education establishment has lunged
too far in the direction of accomodating womyn's special needs, and
as a result now discriminates against boys.
I'm not sure if this means we now need to lunge in the other
direction, or just stop it and treat everyone the same. Your logic
may vary.
|5.20.08 @ 5:12PM|#
Our educational system's failure to develop mathematical,
scientific thinking in young people is the actual
crisis.
That's probably true, but I don't think women having higher GPAs
than men is a result of that. I'd think a more thorough study would
be required to draw that conclusion.
Women have earned 57 percent of bachelor's degrees since 1982
and outperformed boys on high school grade-point
averages.
That may be due to the phenomenon of married women going back to
college during that time period. Why did they choose 1982, one
wonders.
|5.20.08 @ 5:13PM|#
The real crisis here is that more girls are wasting four years and six figures getting a B.A. while the boys are out learning how to do something useful and getting paid for it. I don't suppose the AAUW would really care to mention that particular counterpoint.
Radical Realist|5.20.08 @ 5:16PM|#
The real failure here is equality. The governmental education
system assumes we can cram in all people of different abilities
under one system, and that'll work. News flash: it doesn't.
Recent research backs this up:
http://www.corrupt.org/news/university_education_is_not_for_everyone
http://www.corrupt.org/news/education_equality_fails_american_students
guy in the back row|5.20.08 @ 5:21PM|#
However, women will refuse enter programs that have too few
men, so his program has instituted affirmative action for men in
order to attract women.
This seems pretty sexist. Are womyn only concerned with the number
of males in their programs?
|5.20.08 @ 5:21PM|#
Surprise--The AAUW Finds that More Girls than Boys in
College is No Crisis
I thought the crisis was that college girls were having trouble
finding sex partners, since college guys were all milking the
lizard watching net.pr0n instead.
Other Matt|5.20.08 @ 5:21PM|#
That may be due to the phenomenon of married women going
back to college during that time period. Why did they choose 1982,
one wonders.
Because that's when it fits their conclusions.
Dammit, now there will be all kinds of breaks for Myn, and I'll be
too old to take advantage of them.
|5.20.08 @ 5:24PM|#
See, I would have a post that looked at the study, looked at the AAUW's claims, and considered them on their merits to be more interesting than one about how the AAUW are hypocrites, everything's fine, except there are still public schools, and mumble muble something about a study.
|5.20.08 @ 5:31PM|#
why is reason so skeptical about this because AAUW funded it but had no problem devoting like a week to the Heritage Foundation's global warming conference?
|5.20.08 @ 5:33PM|#
Also Ronald Bailey's anonymous friend at a prominent university should be a guest blogger.
|5.20.08 @ 5:39PM|#
Our educational system's failure to develop mathematical, scientific thinking in young people is the actual crisis.
Is it our educational system? Or our very ADHD-riddled media and society at large?
|5.20.08 @ 5:46PM|#
Q: why is reason so skeptical about this because AAUW funded
it but had no problem devoting like a week to the Heritage
Foundation's global warming conference?
A: Because the AAUW has a history of producing fraudulent
"studies." When challenged to release their raw data and
methodology, they stonewall. It has nothing to do with left v.
right.
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 5:51PM|#
This seems pretty sexist. Are womyn only concerned with the
number of males in their programs?
My ex-wife swore that getting more men into Nursing was the key to
getting Nursing salaries increased.
|5.20.08 @ 6:03PM|#
"Q: why is reason so skeptical about this because AAUW funded it
but had no problem devoting like a week to the Heritage
Foundation's global warming conference?
A: Because the AAUW has a history of producing fraudulent
"studies." When challenged to release their raw data and
methodology, they stonewall. It has nothing to do with left v.
right."
And no skewed study from the non-partisan Heritage Foundation
;)
The AAUW are tools, plain and simple. That said, I having a
daughter myself, I have no problem with the government engaging in
some reasonable "social engineering" to make sure that largely
discredited but often perniciously held stereotypes about women
don't keep them from excelling in the more financially rewarding
fields. By the way, did I mention that many of these stereotypes
often had some government backing? The effects of them don't go
away over night y'know...
|5.20.08 @ 6:04PM|#
And here we have another
winner in the Discrimination Sweepstakes!
I tell ya, this week has been a bonanza for The Oppressed! Better
than a Vegas vacation!
|5.20.08 @ 6:05PM|#
My ex-wife swore that getting more men into Nursing was the
key to getting Nursing salaries increased.
Why, because men will demand higher salaries? What will they do,
not take nursing jobs until salaries go up....wait...isn't that
what they're doing now?
Zeno|5.20.08 @ 6:17PM|#
What's interesting is the extent to which some professions are
being "eaten alive" by women, others are barely touched. For
example, chemistry-derived jobs are far below 50% female, and chem
majors in college are too. This means women won't obtain 'parity'
in these professions for decades.
On the other hand, 85% of veterinary students are female. This is
an insane imbalance. I'd really like to know what causes it, since
when there are fewer women it's discrimination but when there's
more women it's "jobs men won't do"...
|5.20.08 @ 6:17PM|#
The government used to have legal bars directed women from many
professional fields (like lawyers) and state run schools, though
they took the tax money of men and women alike, would deny women
slots in certain areas. Add this to a slew of laws that made it
harder for a woman to financially excel or work in a demanding
profession (for example the strange property laws that gave men
control over women's property, or treated widows and widowers
differently in inheritance, etc). So, facing these barriers, few
women tried to do certain jobs. And after years and years of this
it had effects on the culture. Young girls did not see any women
lawyering or doctoring, they saw them teaching school and nursing.
And so they assumed their goals should fall in line. So did
everyone around them. And countless little comments and actions of
their family, friends, schoolmates, teachers, guidance counselors
etc. helped push them in the "right" directions...
Now when these laws were properly lifted (many of them not until
fairly recently [e.g., check out Reed v. Reed, 1971]), the culture
did not just suddenly change. And I realize that for many
libertarians nothing less than preventing girls from applying for
certain college slots and jobs via gunpoint should be recognized as
a barrier, but in the real world these things really have a molding
effect. Since the government spent years helping establish these
stereotypes and attitudes, I'm fine with reasonable (and
nondiscriminatory [two wrongs don't make a right]) government
intervention to make the situation better.
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 6:24PM|#
Scott,
It had something to do with her belief that hospitals pay men more
than women, IIRC it was every bit as irrational as the stuff
SugarFree quotes from that feminist website.
|5.20.08 @ 6:26PM|#
Typical university age is a rowdy age for men. I didn't get my
shit together until my mid-twenties. I wouldn't be surprised if
that is all there is to this. Yeah, and women definitely don't want
to go to a school without men. I recall reading a study a couple of
years back about this. IIRC women by and large preferred schools
with gender parity, and preferred to date men with greater
educational attainment than themselves (whereas the polled men just
preferred to date more attractive women).
"What's interesting is the extent to which some professions are
being "eaten alive" by women …"
I think there is a bit of a social stigma to the core science
fields - math, chemistry, physics. From my personal observations
(I'm a PhD physical chemist, my wife is a physician), the life
sciences seem to be more acceptable to women. Don't know why. I
certainly haven't seen any hostility to women in my field. Quite
the opposite.
Invisible Finger|5.20.08 @ 6:30PM|#
85% of veterinary students are female.
And 95% of butchers are male.
So animal-related occupations in total have gender equity.
|5.20.08 @ 6:35PM|#
We just can't have this. If we let all these women get educated, none of them will want to have kids! And then what will happen to Social Security?
D.A. Ridgely|5.20.08 @ 6:39PM|#
Could you guys hold it down, please? I'm trying to watch a really exciting woman's college basketball game here!
|5.20.08 @ 6:42PM|#
I'm fine with reasonable (and nondiscriminatory [two wrongs
don't make a right]) government intervention to make the situation
better.
MNG - I am failing to see where you did not just undo yourself in
that sentence. So, even though two wrongs don't make a right, it is
OK for the government to de facto, if not de
jure, discriminate against "boys" to make it better for
"girls".
The problem, of course, is that this is collectivist thinking: it's
not the "Boy Team" v. "The Girl Team"; it's individual girls who
were harmed (and nothing can be done for them) and individual boys
who are actively harmed by discriminatory
policies. I know it's in the interest of "fairness", but you're
viewing people through a gender-collectivist lens.
And so they assumed their goals should fall in line. So did
everyone around them. And countless little comments and actions of
their family, friends, schoolmates, teachers, guidance counselors
etc. helped push them in the "right" directions...
Life be hard...we can't fix how ignorant people were in the past.
What we can prevent, however, is perpetuating that ignorance by
swinging the pendulum in the other direction.
Additionally, I'd like to mention that, despite the "little
comments" of my friends, family, everyone around me, I don't
believe in God...can I get statutes instituted for me as an
oppressed member of a religious minority?
thoreau|5.20.08 @ 6:46PM|#
I don't claim any great insight on the reasons why some sciences
have fewer gender disparities than others. The biology/physics
contrast may be as simple as the fact that the health professions
are more integrated, so women considering the possibility of a
career in healthcare also check out biology, and some of them stick
with biology.
But the medicine/physics contrast is downright weird. Yes, we
physicists are a bunch of arrogant men who think that we're all
God, and you have to spend a long time in school studying science
to enter this field. Guess what? The same can be said of medicine.
OTOH, at least in medicine you get paid handsomely to put up with
arrogant, macho colleagues. So maybe it's as simple as the pay
difference: Women thinking of careers that involve a bunch of
arrogant men want to be paid handsomely for putting up with that
shit, so they pick medicine over physics.
But I could be totally wrong here.
The Wine Commonsewer|5.20.08 @ 7:08PM|#
Boys go to Jupiter to get more Stupider.
Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars.
|5.20.08 @ 7:08PM|#
I should also mention that out of the 6 or so doctors in my
wife's group, only one is a man.
thoreau -
I went to the March APS meeting for the first time this year (I'm
working for a physicist). My hotel was a block off Bourbon. It was
absolutely hilarious walking through the French Quarter, seeing all
the physicists (most still wearing their nametags) wide eyed,
surrounded by strippers and drunken college kids on spring break.
Hope you were in there somewhere.
The Wine Commonsewer|5.20.08 @ 7:13PM|#
My ex-wife swore that getting more men into Nursing was the
key to getting Nursing salaries increased.
WTF? I have many RN clients, 90% of whom are chicks. They make
great money. Three 12 hour shifts a week. Anything over than is
time and a half. Throw in shift differentials and sometimes it ends
up time and 3/4.
Neu Mejican|5.20.08 @ 7:32PM|#
Q: why is reason so skeptical about this because AAUW funded
it but had no problem devoting like a week to the Heritage
Foundation's global warming conference?
A: Because the AAUW has a history of producing fraudulent
"studies." When challenged to release their raw data and
methodology, they stonewall. It has nothing to do with left v.
right.
It ain't biased if it agrees with your preconception, but it is if
it doesn't...or something.
Remember folks, as nice a guy as Ron Bailey is...he is writing for
a publication that has a specific political agenda. His job is to
find ways to promote that agenda through reporting on science. In a
partisan tit for tat, highlighting the other side's bias makes you
seem balanced and neutral.
Note the phrasing:
Naturally this logic threatens the perks and programs of
entrenched victim groups.
This is not the writing of a man looking objectively at the study.
This is the writing of a partisan lobbing shots at his
opponents.
Notice also that Ron forgot to mention what the study actually
found: the main disparities in education are based on family income
and not on gender...(no methods are reported, so it is hard to say
if they are valid).
|5.20.08 @ 7:56PM|#
My experience with women show that most, but not all, are more
caring of others than a similar number of men. Perhaps my friends
and associates are a skewed sample, and I undertsand this is
anecdotal, but it could explain some of the difference in
careers.
Of course, it could also be that for the past few generations women
were pushed into nursing and this trend continues.
So, what game is on tonight?
magdelyn|5.20.08 @ 7:56PM|#
Ah yes, the "boy crisis." The AAUW released another study
attacking the "boy crisis," much like the Educational Sector's
bankrupt report by Sara Mead, which concluded that there is not a
boy crisis, and that the disproportionate performance of girls is
not bad news about boys doing worse, but good news about girls
doing better, and that boys are doing better than ever before. The
Washington Post and other news media has passed along this garbage
with no critical analysis.
Of course, these arguments are ridiculous. To argue that boys are
"doing better than ever before," both the Education Sector and AAUW
base their arguments on absolute numbers. That is to say that more
men go to college now, than say in 1950. The argument is bankrupt,
easily destroyed by arguing the absurd. For instance, say that
today 100,000 people are going to college, 60,000 girls, and 40,000
boys (60/40). All of a sudden, the next day, the college population
doubles to 200,000 people, 150,000 girls, and 50,000 boys. The
argument can be made, "Well, boys are doing better than ever. Now
we have 10,000 more boys going to college." But in reality, whereas
yesterday we had a distrubtion of 60% girls, and 40% boys, today,
we have 75% girls and 25% boys. When exactly does it become a
crisis? When 80% of college classes are are made up of women? 90%?
Ever? With this argument, we can get rid of affirmative action
because blacks are doing better than ever before. Silly.
In 1992, when the AAUW came out with its polemic report that girls
were being screwed in schools, the AAUW supressed evidence that
girls had already surpased boys in almost all subjects and almost
all measures. That trend has condinued. Today, with 57% of colleges
made up of women, the disparity continues to grow.
When women were the ones outnumbered at colleges, we blamed the
schools and passed Title IX. When boys are getting screwed, we
blame the boys and largely ignore the problem. Anybody who has
studied the situation knows that both the Education Sector and the
AAUW's recent reports are attempts to make lemonade out of lemons,
by putting a gloss over that which has become abundantly clear;
boys are getting metaphorically raped by an education system.
What has happened is that women's organizations, in an attempt to
mitigate any call for the fair distrubtion of resources, have
played the race card and said, "Oh, don't worry white middle
America, your sons aren't doing that much worse that white girls,
its only the blacks and Latinos who are woefully behind -- no
problem here." The argument is racist and patently untrue on both
the interpretation of the research and the actual facts. Boys --
ALL BOYS -- regardless of income or race fare worse than girls, a
reversal of fortunes that has specifically been ignored by both the
media and academics, because boys are not as sypathetic as girls.
The race/class argument has not, to my knowledge been used when
arguing comparative disadvantage of girls.
Both the Orwellian language used in their arguments by opponents of
helping boys, and the repeated attempts to disprove the obvious,
betray the notion that girls progress has been not come at the
expense of boys. This is a fight about resources. Thank God for the
women who are mothers of boys.
It is also rather scandelous that Title IX, a gender neutral
statute, has been interpreted by the bureocratic establishment as
not benefiting anyone but girls. The enforcement has been
corrupt.
D.A. Ridgely|5.20.08 @ 8:06PM|#
Just curious, Neu Mejican, but did you by any chance miss where the people who run this site describe it as "a provocative mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews" or the Reason "Hit & Run" part about "Continuous news, views, and abuse by the Reason staff." I mean, have you been laboring under the assumption that Reason purported to be agenda-free wire service or that this particular blog was supposed to be just straight news reporting?
|5.20.08 @ 8:11PM|#
Notice also that Ron forgot to mention what the study
actually found: the main disparities in education are based on
family income and not on gender...
Not really. That's how the executive summary spun the data.
However, the actual data is less cheery. Have a look.
|5.20.08 @ 8:15PM|#
"I am failing to see where you did not just undo yourself in
that sentence. So, even though two wrongs don't make a right, it is
OK for the government to de facto, if not de jure, discriminate
against "boys" to make it better for "girls"."
I'm not calling for affirmative action for girls (as far as slots),
but I think it's OK to spend funds to lessen effects that were in
large part created and sustained by government action in the past.
It's OK for the government to take steps to encourage women to
enter fields traditionally denied them, for example.
"Life be hard...we can't fix how ignorant people were in the past."
We can try to make that ignorance less prevalent during our and
succeeding generations, because that ignorance had a very real
effect on young women's life chances.
Athiesm has rarely been popular, but it's rarely been the subject
of actual legal bars the way being a woman was for most of US
history.
"What we can prevent, however, is perpetuating that ignorance by
swinging the pendulum in the other direction." Wow, that's easy to
say when its our gender that has been favored by conditions for
centuries. Hey gals, sorry about all that, and we know it's created
a culture where its prevalent to be worked on from the day you are
born to accomplish less, but hey, we can't let that pendulum swing
back any, right?
|5.20.08 @ 8:43PM|#
Hey gals, sorry about all that, and we know it's created a
culture where its prevalent to be worked on from the day you are
born to accomplish less, but hey, we can't let that pendulum swing
back any, right?
Again, MNG...that's collectivism. "We" didn't "create" the culture,
someone added to sexist notions, and it is fundamentally
mean-spirited to punish some group of beings with penises because
some other group of beings with penises were assholes when they
were in power.
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 9:29PM|#
TWC,
WTF? I have many RN clients, 90% of whom are chicks. They make
great money. Three 12 hour shifts a week. Anything over than is
time and a half. Throw in shift differentials and sometimes it ends
up time and 3/4.
Back then she did not sound like "great money" was fine, she had
the impression that if more men were it, HUGE money would be the
norm.
I don't remember if they were short staff or turning people away at
the time, might have been closer to the latter. This was in the
mid-1980s through mid-1990s.
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 9:31PM|#
A_R,
Post number one has a prediction and I think you are arguing with
the person fulfilling it.
Scott66|5.20.08 @ 9:51PM|#
MNG,
Please supply some evidence that historically the average woman was
more disadvantaged than the average man.
Brandybuck|5.20.08 @ 10:08PM|#
If there's no crisis on either side of the gender gap, then shouldn't we be discussing getting rid of Title IX and other discriminatory laws? Or is that too paleo of an idea to bring up here?
dhex|5.20.08 @ 10:22PM|#
Please supply some evidence that historically the average woman was
more disadvantaged than the average man.
the nineteenth amendment.
what do i win?!?!?
Guy Montag|5.20.08 @ 10:25PM|#
I would bring up "the glass ceiling" to win the prize, but it is called that because there is not evidence that it exists.
The Wine Commonsewer|5.20.08 @ 10:32PM|#
Please supply some evidence that historically the average
woman was more disadvantaged than the average man.
The problem is that most people can't see further back than their
own generation. Plus there is no context to draw on.
Although the feminist movement takes a lot of credit for liberating
women from whatever it was they were chained to, in reality
capitalism and materialism and plenitude is what broke down the
gender roles that we open minded 21st Century types hold in such
disdain.
Labor saving devices, man. My mother spent Mondays washing clothes
and Tuesdays ironing. Today we do the wash in between commercials
and phone calls.
When my grandmother was four she and the rest of the girls and
women spent the entire day cooking and cleaning up for the men of
the house and farm hands. The men of the house and the farm hands
rose before daybreak and worked until an hour after sunset. Every
day except Sunday when they took the morning off for church (after
chores of course).
You move past all that stuff and you don't need a wife who can cook
and clean any more than you need a draft horse or a lance.
That's what's liberating and it has been as good for the men as the
women.
robc|5.20.08 @ 10:33PM|#
Disclosure: As an undergraduate I entered the University of
Virginia two years after it co-educated. From my point of view, the
male/female ratio was far from optimum.
I entered Ga Tech 30 years or so after it co-educated. I dont want
to hear any Wahoo whining about ratios.
The Wine Commonsewer|5.20.08 @ 10:37PM|#
Back then she did not sound like "great money" was fine, she
had the impression that if more men were it, HUGE money would be
the norm.
I think I dated her. :-)
Scott66|5.20.08 @ 11:09PM|#
dhex,
Your response is typical and is an example of the collectivism that
AR wrote about.
Throughout human history the percent of people who could vote is
well less than 1%. Neither the average man nor the average woman
has had much political power.
Even in the US the record is more mixed than the feminists like to
portray. Both sexes gained full voting rights in the 60s. 1897
would be the year that a white woman would have to been born to not
have had the same voting rights as man born at the same time. Since
that time more men have been disenfranchised if you consider the
tens of thousands who were sent to war, and sometimes killed in
those wars, before they had the right to vote on whether we should
be in at war or not.
Any more examples?
|5.20.08 @ 11:58PM|#
The biology/physics divide isn't hard to fathom. It's all about mathematical ability. At the relatively extreme (compared to the population at large, not mathematicians) levels of mathematical ability required to do upper-level undergrad and graduate work in physics, men dominate that population at an easy 10-1 or more. This appears to be genetic, just as men's superior ability at spatial reasoning is. There appears to be a lot more men at any given extreme of ability (high or low) than women, that is men have more statistical variance in ability even if their average ability is the same as women's. To anybody invested in the idea that men and women are "equal" and interchangable this is pure heresy.
|5.21.08 @ 8:08AM|#
"Throughout human history the percent of people who could vote
is well less than 1%. Neither the average man nor the average woman
has had much political power."
Scott, you're just not thinking straight. Yes, many women and men
were denied rights throughout history. But at all times MORE women
than men were denied these rights. Take your voting example. While
MANY men could not vote in 1897 there were LESS women
(proportionately) who could. Ditto for 1910. Ditto for 1820.
Etc.,
As I mentioned there were legal bars for example to women acting in
certain professions (such as lawyers). There were legal
disadvantages in the areas of property, wills, contracts, etc. You
have never heard of this?
I'm afraid it's you and A-R who are supporting collectivism and I
who is pushing individualism. Government backed collective rules
firmly ensconsed and protected memes into our culture that did and
still do disadvantage girls, and you want to see those
collectivelly generated effects continue, while I want to make it
so these collectively generated effects dissappear and individual
women are not hampered by them.
Chuck|5.21.08 @ 8:13AM|#
Bob--
I've heard that argument a lot. While I can't say that I know too
much about graduate physics curricula, undergraduate physics
curricula require no more math than the undergraduate math major.
Women receive around 45% of all bachelor degrees in mathematics in
the U.S., so I don't think it is a lack of ability.
I think it's the labs. Physics, chemistry, and engineering require
a lot of building and tinkering with equipment, and I think females
(generally speaking) don't enjoy that kind of work. Of course, I
have no data to support that...
dhex|5.21.08 @ 9:13AM|#
Throughout human history the percent of people who could vote is
well less than 1%. Neither the average man nor the average woman
has had much political power.
so specific disenfranchisement is excluded because there was also
general disenfranchisement?
that's fascinating. retarded, but fascinating.
Guy Montag|5.21.08 @ 9:49AM|#
Not seeing it overtly stated, but if anybody is under the impression that there was a federal ban on women voting in the US at any time need only look at women's voting rights in NJ from the time the USA was formed until that State's legeslature removed women's voting rights.
Guy Montag|5.21.08 @ 9:59AM|#
The University I attended, UTK, had been racially and sexually
integrated ages before I got there. Our main "rights" gripe was
about people of-age having alcohol in the dorms.
Not much experience with attending backward institutions, or those
emerging from backwardness.
Living in places like that, yes, I was able to escape Chicagoland
for the progressive Knoxville, TN as a teen.
Neu Mejican|5.21.08 @ 11:08AM|#
I mean, have you been laboring under the assumption that
Reason purported to be agenda-free wire service or that this
particular blog was supposed to be just straight news
reporting?
DAR,
In case you missed the context there, I was reminding Anon that
this was not a straight news source, but an advocacy rag.
Neu Mejican|5.21.08 @ 11:16AM|#
Bob Smith,
There was a nice take down of that argument by Spelke in a debate
with Pinker recently on The Edge debate on the topic.
Tangentially, the math involved in modern biology research is not,
by any means, trivial. When you are modeling complex genetic and
epigenetic factors in a living organism, you are dealing with
systems with more complexity than most physicists ever
consider...no?
|5.21.08 @ 11:22AM|#
From what I understand, real manly men can use slide rules and
do engineering things like maths and calculus and linear
systems.
Girly men do silly emotional things like write poetry and novels
(they're probably gay too).
Also, women and others are silly and unless you're being oppressed
or maybe beaten RIGHT NOW you have no right to complain about
everything.
Did I get that right?
Neu Mejican|5.21.08 @ 11:24AM|#
http://www.You can find the Spelke Pinker debate here.
edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html
|5.21.08 @ 11:37AM|#
Government backed collective rules firmly ensconsed and protected memes into our culture that did and still do disadvantage girls, and you want to see those collectivelly generated effects continue, while I want to make it so these collectively generated effects dissappear and individual women are not hampered by them.
How about you provide some evidence that these effects still
continue?
Neu Mejican|5.21.08 @ 11:38AM|#
Not really. That's how the executive summary spun the data.
However, the actual data is less cheery. Have a look.
Pigwiggle,
I don't really have time to go through the 124 page report this
morning, but a quick browse would support their executive summary.
Differences between genders are trivial compared to differences
based on SES/Ethnicity.
The largest advantage continues to be for upper class white
males...And it is upper income females that are driving the changes
in demographics...did I miss something?
Neu Mejican|5.21.08 @ 11:59AM|#
Math in biology...
I believe Dr. T can speak meaningfully about the math used in
current biology research...
And the Human Genome Project was anything but a trivial
computational problem...
String theory ain't the only abstract math in town (and it's "Not
Even Wrong").
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/
Guy Montag|5.21.08 @ 2:20PM|#
From what I understand, real manly men can use slide rules
and do engineering things like maths and calculus and linear
systems.
I still have a couple of them someplace. Also got to learn how to
plot field artillery with one, but us non-FA types were not allowed
to use the red numbers.
Can also knock dents out of fenders with a hammer and dolley.
Do I win a prize?
If I can pick my prize I want a girlfriend who can weld.
|5.21.08 @ 4:39PM|#
While MANY men could not vote in 1897 there were LESS women
(proportionately) who could. Ditto for 1910. Ditto for
1820.
Actually, the US got universal male suffrage in 1864. Granted,
black men still couldn't vote in the South after Reconstruction,
but that doesn't really help the "some people suffered systematic
oppression and required special laws to overcome that"
argument.
|5.21.08 @ 10:00PM|#
Neu Mejican:
"Differences between genders are trivial compared to
differences based on SES/Ethnicity."
And I'll bet all of the above are trivial compared to differences
in IQ.
Seriously, if you're going to try to make an argument about
relative performance in the education system, you should maybe, at
the very least, make mention of the single, most important factor
contributing to academic success.
Oh, and you should also avoid assuming that everyone is equally
intelligent.
Neu Mejican|5.22.08 @ 1:41AM|#
Russ R.
The single most important factor?
Really?
I don't buy it.
Who was assuming everyone is equally intelligent?
As for which is more important SES or IQ...I think the data would
support SES, but you could prove me wrong.
peter schmidt|5.23.08 @ 11:08AM|#
Back in the 1990s, as a reporter for Education Week, I analyzed the AAUW's research sounding the alarm about a schoolgirls' crisis and obtained internal documents from the organization shedding light on its motives and means. I ended up summarizing my findings in a freelance piece for The Weekly Standard, which I have now posted on my Web site, http://www.colorandmoney.com. Hate to toot my own horn, but I think it is the most thorough and hard-hitting story on the group you will ever find in the popular media, and should be required reading for anyone trying to pass judgment on this group's latest report.
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