{"id":102,"date":"2008-03-09T07:53:54","date_gmt":"2008-03-09T12:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/102"},"modified":"2008-03-09T07:53:54","modified_gmt":"2008-03-09T12:53:54","slug":"prof-higgins-sings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/102","title":{"rendered":"Prof. Higgins Sings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Can\u2019t a Woman Be More Like a Man?<\/a><\/p>\n

An interesting article on the gender-representation issue in the sciences. Many assume it’s all sexism, but whenever somebody checks to see if that’s really the case, two things seem to happen: they come to the conclusion, “Not so much,” and they are often attacked for raising the question. Congress has gotten into the act, with a push for a “Title IX for Science.” I’m all for removing barriers that might prevent women from pursuing a career in a science discipline, or shunt them into some other discipline against their desire, but if you don’t ask the question of how we know it’s sexism, such a path is, well, unscientific. (of course, that’s not surprising, since politics and political-correctness is involved). But the Title IX analogy fails, because science doesn’t have a men’s league and women’s league.<\/p>\n

There is another essential difference between sports and science: in science, men and women play on the same teams. Very few women can compete on equal terms with men in lacrosse, wrestling, or basketball; by contrast, there are many brilliant women in the top ranks of every field of science and technology, and no one doubts their ability to compete on equal terms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think one of the problems in this issue is that some people are taking “men and women are equal” and subtly (or not-so-subtly) taking that to mean “men and women are identical.” And assuming that because the former is true that the latter must be as well.<\/p>\n

via Twisted One 151<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s also a new book, reviewed at the NY TImes, related to this topic. The Sexual Paradox<\/a> by Susan Pinker.<\/p>\n

Pinker parks herself firmly among \u201cdifference\u201d feminists. Women\u2019s brains aren\u2019t inferior, she argues, but they vary considerably from men\u2019s, and this is the primary explanation for the workplace gender divide<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Can\u2019t a Woman Be More Like a Man? An interesting article on the gender-representation issue in the sciences. Many assume it’s all sexism, but whenever somebody checks to see if that’s really the case, two things seem to happen: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,39,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-science","category-physics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}