Re: THR FEMINAZI PROBLEM

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

regnirps@aol.com (Regnirps) wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
>
>>>women are just as capable of being engineers as men.  the problem is
>>>that statistically, they aren't INTERESTED most of the time...
>>
>>In Western society, you are right.  They are CONDITIONED not to be
>>interested in subjects like math.  This is a problem with our society.
>>But this is not true at all in other societies, such as those in asia
>
>Would that it were true, unfortunatley, you are both just guessing. One of the
>problems with this topic is that you have to have a certain amount of
>mathematical sophistication in order to understand it in the first place.

I am not guessing.  The United States of America rates second to lowest
in standardized tests of our school children, especially in math and the
sciences.  These are real studies and whether the student is male or
female, if that student is in asia, chances are he or she will beat out the
typical student in the United States in math and science.  Also, I actually
attended a school where half the math teachers were women.  They were
both asians and taught the highest level classes (yes, four math teachers
in the high school).

>There is no evidence that you can not find a woman as good at or better at
math
>than the best man.

Exactly.  However, chances are much greater that such a woman is going
to be from asia, not the United States.  Remember, here in the United
States, we have in the past DISencouraged girls from liking subjects like
math and science.  In asian cultures, math is not just a tool but an end
in itself.  I have talked to people from these cultures...you have to realize
that if you are not good in math as a child, parents often think there is
something wrong with you.

>However, the likelyhood of a randomly selected woman being
>as mathematically tallented as a randomly selected man is low.

Only in our culture.  Not in asia.

>The distribution goes something like this:
>
>Average male = 1 in 10 female
>1 in 10 male = 1 in 1000 female
>1 in 100 male = 1 in >10,000 female.

Would this study be "The Bell Curve"?  That's a pseudoscientific racist piece
of garbage.  In fact, legitimate studies of even Americans on SAT scores
show a 95% overlap in male and female scores in math and verbal. Supposedly,
in the remaining 5%, females do better in verbal and males do better in math,
but you know what?  This is NOT true for the asian immigrants.  Since they
learned English as a second language, of course their verbal scores are not
as good, but they excel in the math section...true of both males and females.

>The studies have been done in many cultures in many environments. In fact a
>study of studies was published by a woman researcher in San Francisco. It
>didn't get much press because it is anti-good wishes and not PC.

And there have been many counter studies.  However, the ones that do the
studies on "many cultures" always conveniently ignore asian cultures.  Or
how the brightest asian female math student will typically do better than the
brightest white male math student raised in the United States.  This is NOT
genetic...it has nothing to do with race or gender...an asian born to second
generation parents native to the United States will reflect the same pattern
as the white student raised in the United States.

When you give legos and tool kits to boys and dolls to girls, who do you
think will be more visual/spatially inclined?  In asia, parents grill their
children
in math like it is life or death because to do poorly in that subject is to
risk
being seen as somehow less intelligent.

>This in no way denies that women can be great mathematicians, it just suggests
>there might be maybe a 100 to 1 ratio of male to female math professors and
>maybe a 25 or 50 to 1 ratio in engineering, which is about what we have. It
>doesn't mean female engineers are inferior or anything like that.

Again, it is not "nature" but "nurture"...your figures reflect the biases in
the
raising of boys and girls in the United States.

>It does mean that if some kind of gender equalization is strived for,
standards
>will be lowered and excuses will be looked for like "insufficient female role
>models", "male oriented curriculum", etc.

I suggest Apple provide visas to hire more asian women, then.  You see,
because of their culture, they are in fact talented in these areas.  You'll
also get female role models in the process.

When I was in high school, my math teacher was an asian woman. You
can see the difference in teaching style right away.  She engaged ALL her
students, not just the boys...

>Just remember what Gloria Steinem said she finalley realized about the
>difference between boys and girls. You can raise boys in non-violent, no toy
>guns type households and all it means is that two year olds will pick up a
>BArbie Doll, point it at you and go "bang".

That's bullshit.  You can raise peace loving boys just as easily as peace
loving girls.

>But all the cross cultuaral and properly normed testing says the one in a
>hundred male is about as good as the one in ten thousand female.

No, no, no.  There are studies that go either way, but the majority cite
a 95% overlap in all subjects of United States origin.  Most show the
environment as the main cause, not anything innate.

>Possible evolutionary reasons abound but are beside the point.

Wrong.  If you are referring to Don Wilson's "man hunted" comment,
this is all wrong.  For most of prehistory, the human ancestors were
scavengers and of course both men and women scavenged.  I think you
should pose your "math inclination" figures and evolutionary differences
questions to the sci.bio.evolution newsgroup.  Many people who are
actually doing these studies post there...

In any case, this subject no longer belongs in comp.sys.apple2.