Over at the Teachers College Record, Christina Hoff Sommers has a good article arguing against the push to expand Title IX enforcement into academic science. Title IX supporters point to the fact the fact that men outnumber women in the sciences, claim discrimination, and say Title IX is the answer. However, as Sommers points out, there are reasons to believe that factors other than bias are at play in causing this discrepancy, and if that is true, Title IX is not the answer:
The Title IX activists are persuaded that women are being held back because of bias and a "hostile environment." But there are other, more plausible, explanations. Perhaps the relative paucity of women in physics and engineering reflects women's preferences and aspirations. This is a controversial proposition, but the research on gender and vocation is robust and growing. In 2007, the American Psychological Association published a collection of papers by more than twenty scholars entitled, Why Aren't More Women in Science: Top Researchers Debate the Evidence. Several made a strong case for bias; but an equal number made an equally strong case that biologically based sex differences explained the math and science gap. Also in 2007, Joshua L. Rosenbloom of the University of Kansas and colleagues published a meticulous study demonstrating that men and women differ systematically in their interests and that these differences can account for a large share of the gender gap in information technology occupations.
4 Comments
janesmith | October 3, 2008, 12:29am | #
well, whatever it is. we drive men crazy and make them do wonderful things!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcoh5PdpKAU
Answers1 | October 4, 2008, 12:10am | #
Why aren't there more men in K-12 teaching, nursing, social work, and other nurturing professions? Maybe we should have a Title X. For that matter, why shouldn't there be more men in NOW?
Robert | October 5, 2008, 12:39pm | #
I respectfully suggest an alternative to the government's mandate of yet another quota. I think the government's mandate should be nothing less than universal. I mean that the government should impose post modern philosophy upon the sciences. In so doing it would nullify at once, old fashion notions of objective truth, the existence of facts and the intellectually subversive notion that the rigorous exercise of reason is a means to the discovery of truth. In this way the government at one fell swoop could then sweep onto the rubbish heap of history, those graven idols guilty of a belief in such ideas as hypothesis,and experiment as a means to the discovery of truth. The government should as well, expose the heresy of such apostates as Einstein, Max Plank, Madamn Curie, and Stephen Hawkins. Post modernism, of course, is premised on the idea that reason is a myth, that truth cannot be known, and that all ideas are subjective. Therefore, by the imposition of post modern thought upon Science, we need not impose bring quotas of women.We may also achieve an economic and social goal, this because absolutely anyone could , and perhaps should be a scientist. We could take thousands of boring, senseless and out of work ideologues such as sociologists and anthropologists, and pronounce them physicists, mathematicians, and genetic biologists. Or course, sooner or later there must be a price. It is an unavoidable but acceptable loss in a universe of intellectual relativism that Science will eventually forget the concept of the wheel.
Alice | October 10, 2008, 12:01pm | #
A lot of women, myself included, are in science; applied science such as nursing, medicine, dietetics, various applied therapies and pharmacy. I know quite a few women in engineering, agriculture, college level professors in plant science and medical sciences.
They all work very hard and often, despite lots of money in grants, numerous publishing credits and even student praise, find themselves on the "short-end of the stick" when it comes to acknowledgement, promotion or tenure. Yes, Ms. Kasic, there is a lot of sex discrimination in science, more than one even wants to acknowledge at times.
Title IX, all you want. If you think men in science don't discriminate, you had better think again. This constant denial of the problems doesn't lead to solutions, just more frustration on the part of women seeking to pursue their dreams. Hard work, in the realm of any aspect of science, often only makes one tired and discouraged; the ramblings of a less than informed critic doesn't help much to solve the problems.