We Need More Women in Lab Coats
Via Steve Sailer, I’ve learned that the National Science Foundation is beginning to find new applications for Title IX, that pernicious law whose ill-effects, I thought, would be limited to college sports and whose main causalities would be male wrestlers.
In post-Larry Summers academia, unequal representation means “institutional racism” means federal intervention. Therefore, we need to do something about not having enough women in the sciences! “The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy have set up programs to look for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants.”
Susan Pinker relates what I’ve heard countless times from women in grad school:
Ms. Pinker, a clinical psychologist and columnist for The Globe and Mail in Canada (and sister of Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist), argues that the campaign for gender parity infantilizes women by assuming they don’t know what they want. She interviewed women who abandoned successful careers in science and engineering to work in fields like architecture, law and education — and not because they had faced discrimination in science.
Instead, they complained of being pushed so hard to be scientists and engineers that they ended up in jobs they didn’t enjoy. “The irony was that talent in a male-typical pursuit limited their choices,” Ms. Pinker says. “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”
Significant as well is the increased self-segregation that’s been occurring in graduate study in the humanities since women entered the academy.
Although I guess I could go do some actual statistical research on the subject, I’m pretty sure that what I relate below is accurate across the country.
Departments like English and History have fairly balanced representation, 50/50, although the self-segregation begins to take effect within specialties—"history of gender and sexuality” and “military history” attracting whom you’d think they’d attract. (There are of course some exceptions, and even some attempts to bridge the divide (“construction of gender bianaries in war” etc.); however, the rule basically holds.)
Philosophy is all dudes. But then, and I say this quite seriously, I’d estimate that Art History departments are 95-100% either female or gay male. A rough count from the Duke Art History department’s webpage reveals that 29 of its 35 fully-funded grad students are women (and I didn’t included the ambiguous names.)
I’m sure that there are plenty of men interested in the history of painting etc.; however, my guess is that once women entered the university, they flocked to Art History and across the country these departments began to take on a bit of a, well, girly quality—the guys were simply driven away.
Let’s not hold our breath waiting for the National Endowment for the Humanities to seek to redress this troubling inequality.
Comments
Philosophy is all dudes.
Not really; in some schools it’s 50-50. Now whether this is the conscious result of the decision-making on the part of the committee, or something else…
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Good… good! Nothing like the pernicious ill-effects of well-intentioned law for dumbing-down even further our “higher education” - all to make room for coddled victims of… gosh!… what is it this millennium? The WASP Patriarchy? That’s as gone as the 280Z. Racism? Well… it’s always been a reliable cover story for across-the-board failure. Sexism? Is there anything more mangy and worn out than the charge of sexism? No… this is nothing if not a fashion-conscious society; even for issues, doddering won’t do.
How about girly-girls driven mad - MAD! - by victim’s guilt! Victims of their own victimhood.
Squeezed by all that despair, maybe they’ll blow up like old bike tires!
We should be so lucky…
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For about 7 years running, females students represent the highest percentage of America’s total undergraduate population; for the past 5 or 6 years this trend holds true for graduate school as well. Most alarmingly, far more females than males actually graduate from college with a degree. We’ve OVERcorrected the gender discrepancy in higher education. The REAL crisis now is what the hell is going on with our guys to where they can’t or won’t attend college, and if they do, why they don’t graduate.
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Might I add that this is felt at the Catholic altar as well, since the introduction of female altar servers?
The young men who once would have been enlisted to serve on the altar now a) don’t have to because of all the young women serving; and b) don’t WANT to because in many (most?) parishes, serving at the altar is what the young women do, not the men.
Needless to say, this situation hinders vocations to the priesthood.
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Philosophy really is just about all dudes. I suspect that preferential hiring accounts for much of the increase in women. During one recent job search at my department the dean said point blank funding of a new faculty position was contingent on hiring at least one female.
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My first comment--was about the grad students accepted into programs. But it would not surprise me that when it comes to hiring new faculty, women candidates are preferred.
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Those dayum liberals making women smart, how dare they help women into the workforce of a capitalist country like ours where it takes two incomes to get by.
Why, these women should be suffering under one income raising five kids.
Kinder, Kirch, Kuche!
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Jet - within my group of friends, 75% of our husbands have left us for a younger woman. This is after we improved him financially, emotionally, socially, of course. We became worn out by the task and began to look old. And, worst of all, we expected them to put their children’s needs ahead of their wants. While I would much rather be home raising my three children myself, I am instead away 10 hours of the waking day earning money which is not enough to cover our expenses because I don’t have a graduate degree in science or engineering or even philosophy.
Having said that, I don’t think the answer to my problem is more women in men’s traditional roles. Quite the contrary, I think the answer is a re-establishment of the real man. A real man doesn’t run out of school and fail to graduate because there are women in his class. A real man is a real man regardless of what the women do.
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Jet - perhaps you might consider enrolling in a remedial reading comprehension class. Nowhere did anyone say women should not be educated. The whole point of the article is that women should not be forced into academic disciplines and careers for which they do not care just to assuage the guilt of some dillweed department chair or government busybody.
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We need more women in aprons!
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A real man doesn’t run out of school and fail to graduate because there are women in his class.
This real man had an opportunity to get his Masters in Social Work Degree paid for by the State that employed him.
This real man went for ONE class. He was the ONLY man in the class and the female Prof had all the students rearrange the classroom chairs so we’d all form one big circle.
I stood up, shoved my chair towards the middle of the room and said, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
And then, like a real man, I went out and got drunk.
Real heterosexual white male conservative Christians know most Colleges and Universities can’t abide heterosexual white male conservative Christians and real heterosexual white male conservative Christians can’t abide most Colleges and Universities even though it was heterosexual white male Christians who first corrupted the College and Universities in the first place.
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P. Stewart:
Maybe your friends’ errant husbands tired of incessant whining!
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“This is after we improved him financially, emotionally, socially, of course. We became worn out by the task and began to look old.”
Tragic.... But don’t demonize men here. Sure, there are lots of selfish jerks out there. (And quite possibly P. Stewart’s ex-husband was one.) But I wouldn’t peg that at 75% of men. So if this is a real, widespread phenomenon, then it suggests a real problem. If women are in fact busying themselves doing 500 things so that they let their appearances go to Hell, and the men are leaving, what does that say? That these women have misunderstood male needs.... Maybe these men would RATHER have their wives do only 457 things, and do whatever is necessary NOT to age prematurely. To use hyperbole, I know that I personally would rather have my house falling down around my ears, my kids eating TV dinners, and ZERO assistance from my wife “improving myself” “financially, emotionally” and “socially,” --and have a wife who was reasonably fit and took care of herself… than have all these other things and be married to someone who no longer attracted me. Now, as a Catholic I wouldn’t leave her, but that scenario sounds pretty hellish. Men who DON’T have religious or moral reasons sufficient to keep them in such situations… leave. So my advice to women is not to let themselves fall into such situations. Jealously guard your physical well-being, and remember that your attractiveness is as important to your husband as his earning capacity and emotional support are to you. Maybe I’m a shallow jerk, but to me a wife letting her body go to hell (assuming she has some control--we’re not talking cancer here) is the marital equivalent of a husband wangling some way to collect disability checks, and never working again. As my girlfriend said about such a scenario: “Not sexy.”
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John Zmirak - you are so funny! I’m willing to wager you that you are NOT going to be happy having the “house falling down around your ears and the kids eating t.v. dinners” just so your wife can put that time into making herself pretty. My guess is that’s why you’re still single.
I am not spartacus - clearly, you’re not. Did you run away from social work school because you couldn’t abide sitting in a circle, or did you tough it out and graduate?
San Fernando Curt - you’re right. The whining became intolerable. That’s the one good thing about his departure - it’s much quieter here without him asking why I’m not plastering the cracks in the wall, or complaining that I’m making too much noise rototilling the garden for him to hear his tv show clearly. Now he can enjoy the sounds of the “gimme,getme,buyme,takeme” girl he’s with now.
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You Go, Sister!
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I am not spartacus - clearly, you’re not. Did you run away from social work school because you couldn’t abide sitting in a circle, or did you tough it out and graduate?
Sister Stewart. Like Sir Robin in Monty Python’s,” Holy Grail,” I bravely ran away.
Prior to that,I was able to tough it out to get my Bach. Degree but I had to endure endless diatribes by silly and sissy Profs (usually men) damning dead white male European Christians. (It made me wish I was dead).
If women are in fact busying themselves doing 500 things so that they let their appearances go to Hell, and the men are leaving, what does that say?
Mr. Z. It says those men are as shallow as piss on a platter. (Sorry. Old Vermont saying).
Back in the day, The Bride wore her strawberry blonde hair long. Dressed in white jeans and a pink turtle neck she was so sexy that I’d have driven 200 miles just to watch her walk up and down a stair case.
Now, after more’n 35 years of marriage and children she does not look as fetching as she did back in the day. Neither do I.
But when we cut down the lights, her lips are as soft as ever and her heart is bigger than ever and her soul is brighter than ever and I would be dumber than ever to look at her with other than the eyes of love.
She is not only the love of my life. She is my best friend. She is the Mother of my children. And she is one of the best Christians I have ever met.
When I see her, I see a woman more beautiful than Brigitte Bardot was back in the day.
This weekend I watched the British Open and I was happy as hell that Padraig Harrington won. It would have been tragic if the bastard Greg Norman and his idiot new wife, Chrissy, got to muckle onto the Claret Jug.
It was sickening to listen to Judy Rankin interview “Chrissy,” and to congratulate her on her “love affair.”
Both she and Greg ruined the lives of their spouses, no doubt embarrassed their adult age children and made total fools of their own selves with this “honeymoon.”
God. It is so sickening watching these adulterers being swooned all over.
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@I-am-not-Spartacus,
You forgot to mention all the grandchildren. Didn’t Chris Everett have kids with Jimmie Connors back in the 70’s? You are right it is sickening.
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I am not Spartacus - I have a new, and much better, opinion of you. If you don’t mind, I may use your old Vermont expression myself from time to time.
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Sister, P. Your audience will appreciate its use :)
BTW, when The Bride begins to tear herself down by remarking her breasts are no longer what they used to be (saggy etc) I point out they are actually more beautiful than back in the day due to the truth that all breasts sag when used as they were created to be used and, as such, they are actually the handiwork of God (whose works all are beautiful) and a reminder of how beautiful they were when my children were nourished through them and anything created by God and used as they were intended to be used remains always objects of beauty.
And I didn’t even have to raise the topic of one’s vows :)
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