Title IX Invades Science

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NjEwODUwOGZmY2U4ZGQyN2RiZjRkMGRmMTA4ZjQ0M2Y=

The Gender-Equity Hammer Comes Out
Title IX at the door.

By Christina Hoff Sommers

Women have surpassed men in most areas of education, but men continue to be more numerous in fields like math, physics and engineering. For more than a decade, feminist groups have been lobbying Congress to address the problem of gender “injustice” in the laboratory. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit. Federal agencies are now poised to begin aggressive gender-equity reviews of math, science, and engineering programs. Groups like the National Organization for Women must be celebrating — but American scientists should brace themselves for the destructive tsunami headed their way.

At a recent House hearing on “Women in Academic Science and Engineering” Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington State, asked a room full of activist women how best to bring American scientists into line: “What kind of hammer should we use?” The weapon of choice is the well-known federal anti-discrimination law “Title IX,” which prohibits sex discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title IX has never been rigorously applied to academic science. That is now about to change. In the past few months both the Department of Education and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have begun looking at candidates for Title IX-enforcement positions.

[snip]

Time for the science & engineering departments to bend over and grit their teeth; the gyno-American activists are mad as Hell, and aren't going to stop until they achieve statistical parity with the evil penis-people. Too many men in the Astro-Physics department, and not enough qualified female applicants for positions in the department? No problem -- the school will just reduce the number of male professors until parity is achieved -- by forcing the Astro-Physics Department to shed its male professors until it has the same ratio of male/femal professors as, or say... the English Lit Department, of the Womyn's Studies Department.

To Hell with getting the most competent PEOPLE for the job; no, let's change the "culture" of science, from "getting it right is what matters" to "making Gyno-Professors feel good about themselves." It's not like deriving the correct formula or getting the correct solution to a differential equation is important; what matters most is that the testosterone-fueled subjugation & oppression of womyn be destroyed, even if it turns America's science and engineering departments into an intellectual third world to do it.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

Do you remember what thread that was in? I'm curious to hear details

they did this to the sports programs at my University.
flat out KILLED a large number of teams, in the name of "gender parity"
when these sexists set out to "level" the playing field, they generally aim to LEVEL the field.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

Don't forget to remind him to leave the seat "up" when she's there....

I'd really like to see more coverage of this issue; this could be far more dangerous than the 'ID movement'

I'd really like to see more coverage of this issue; this could be far more dangerous than the 'ID movement'

If it comes to a head, I'm sure you will. Nothing's more dangerous then a professor who's tenure is theatened.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

Don't forget to remind him to leave the seat "up" when she's there....

That'll make her hysterical.

The lunatic Absinthe, a.k.a. Sherry Towers -- I posted a narrative of my run ins with her a couple of months back -- is now bragging she's going to testify before this committee.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

I can assure you the ranking minority member will have all the dirt I can drag up on her.

Do you remember what thread that was in? I'm curious to hear details

Oh, now I remember, I commented on it on my blog. The prions are cutting in, I'm afraid. There were some followup comments from DCers there.

Sorry to waste your time.

http://homepage.mac.com/gerardharbison/ ... c226189760

Enjoy!

...and since I did post this on my blog, let me be the first to say 'told you so'!

But you have to worry whether a future Democratic administration might actually give creatures like this the power to fire critics of feminism for poking fun at loony ideas such as that women leave the sciences and engineering in search of better access to WCs.

Previous thread about this:

http://forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=11748&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

The American Chemical Society had an article in favor of applying Title IX to chemistry departments at colleges and universities in the U.S.

And it seems they want to do it by fundamentally changing the way science and engineering are taught. They want to go to team based learning, like that done successfully (at least to the feminists) in highschools, so girls don't get intimidated by the competitive, absolute grading scales. Also, the very view that women are not as interested careers in the hard sciences or engineering is the evidence used by feminists that demonstrates bias against women in the sciences. Not to mention the lack of potties in the lab buildings.

Previous thread about this:

http://forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=11748&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

The American Chemical Society had an article in favor of applying Title IX to chemistry departments at colleges and universities in the U.S.

And it seems they want to do it by fundamentally changing the way science and engineering are taught. They want to go to team based learning, like that done successfully (at least to the feminists) in highschools, so girls don't get intimidated by the competitive, absolute grading scales. Also, the very view that women are not as interested careers in the hard sciences or engineering is the evidence used by feminists that demonstrates bias against women in the sciences. Not to mention the lack of potties in the lab buildings.

"Team-based learning" = 1 guy doing all the work and 5 slackers getting the credit.

"Team-based learning" = 1 guy doing all the work and 5 slackers getting the credit.

I'm finding "team research" isn't always all that different.

[RWP]

"Team-based learning" = 1 guy doing all the work and 5 slackers getting the credit.

Last night I publicly debated a colleague from Political Science about race and gender preferences.

Report here, although they neglect to note I kicked his rhetorical ass all over the auditorium (at least according to my friends).

http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/med ... 6056.shtml

Anyway, one claim he made is that black men and white women place more value in the accomplishments of the 'team' than in individual achievements, whereas bad old individualist white men (like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I suppose) value only selfish personal achievement. So when we force these new enlightened ways of being down the throats of mean old white males, wimmin and the otherwise oppressed can all be proud to take credit for our achievements.

I really didn't get a chance to tell him this was the most racist, sexist thing I'd ever heard, and if it were true it would be a damn good argument for hiring only white men.

Last edited by RWP on Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Team-based learning" = 1 guy doing all the work and 5 slackers getting the credit.

I'm finding "team research" isn't always all that different.

Yep. As a grad. student, I had one collaboration where we really did both contribute about equally, but most of the time it was 1 worker and 5 slackers.

A list of Einstein's papers. Note the rarity of co-authors.

Last night I publicly debated a colleague from Political Science about race and gender preferences.

Report here, although they neglect to note I kicked his rhetorical ass all over the auditorium (at least according to my friends).

http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/med ... 6056.shtml

Anyway, one claim he made is that black men and white women place more value in the accomplishments of the 'team' than in individual achievements, whereas bad old individualist white man (like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I suppose) value only selfish personal achievement. So when we force these enlightened ways of being down the throats of mean old white males, they can all be proud top take credit for our achievements.

I really didn't get a chance to tell him this was the most racist, sexist thing I'd ever heard, and if it were true it would be a damn good argument for hiring only white men.

Good on you.

But according to Orey: "To think that we live in a color blind society ... it's the way the world should be, it's the way we wish the world was, but it's not the way the world is."

Laughable and predictable. Please let me know if your petition passes.

Anyway, one claim he made is that black men and white women place more value in the accomplishments of the 'team' than in individual achievements, whereas bad old individualist white men (like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I suppose) value only selfish personal achievement.

There is no such thing as a "team achievement', there is only the aggregate of individual achievement. If the team can achieve, why do individuals even need to show up?

Anyway, one claim he made is that black men and white women place more value in the accomplishments of the 'team' than in individual achievements, whereas bad old individualist white men (like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I suppose) value only selfish personal achievement.

There is no such thing as a "team achievement', there is only the aggregate of individual achievement. If the team can achieve, why do individuals even need to show up?

On any effective team there are leaders and/or stars and without them there is no team in the first place.

There is no such thing as a "team achievement', there is only the aggregate of individual achievement. If the team can achieve, why do individuals even need to show up?

The team structure can improve the performance of individual members, of course -- even considering the old saw that 20% do 80% of the work. If lone wolfs could do it all, why do the perfer to hunt in packs?

On any effective team there are leaders and/or stars and without them there is no team in the first place.

Speaking of the 49ers...

"Team-based learning" = 1 guy doing all the work and 5 slackers getting the credit.

Last night I publicly debated a colleague from Political Science about race and gender preferences.

Well, I think there is a societal prejudice against women in science (hear me out).

Science is very, very hard work. Long hours in the lab and behind a computer and reading books. Not much time for housework, kids, and domestic work.

Women tend to have to pick up the slack around the house, and are inclined to be more involved in child-rearing, as a result of (often unfair) societal and familial expectations. When women pick up more responsibilities outside of work, a demanding career will indeed suffer as a result. This is an issue of society. I won't go into whether that's bad or good here; it's just the way things are. The point is, academic departments can't be expected to pick up the slack on society's problems. Academic departments have two, and only two responsibilities: educate college students, and produce original research. Adding any other responsibilities to these very demanding jobs will diminish the quality of both these primary objectives. Physics and Chemistry departments aren't social services programs. It's keep up or get out, publish or perish in these harsh and demanding fields. No amount of affirmative action can make the hard facts of science any easier to master, and hiring on anything other than strict merit will only diminish the productivity of the programs.

I'd love to see more women in the hardest of sciences. (By 'hardest', I don't mean difficulty, I mean the most 'fundamental', i.e. chemistry, physics.) I do not want to see the efforts in science watered down by forcing science to bear the brunt of societal problems that scientists aren't responsible for in the first place. Harsh as it may sound, it's not the job of science departments to make more time in one's personal life for work. There may be cause to change societal norms on this, but holding science departments responsible for these norms is simply laying responsibility in the wrong place.

I'd love to see more women in the hardest of sciences. (By 'hardest', I don't mean difficulty, I mean the most 'fundamental', i.e. chemistry, physics.) I do not want to see the efforts in science watered down by forcing science to bear the brunt of societal problems that scientists aren't responsible for in the first place.

I did not see any shortages of women in the sciences, and the gender distribution always had rough parity throughout the chemistry program I was in. Engineering, however, was another matter altogether. I have a really hard time blaming the academic environment though. If the educational opportunity is the same, I am not sure that there is anything you can "fix" if they later choose to do something else.

I also don't see a major societal issue per se, though maybe that is because I live in a liberal area. To the extent women do not pursue a hardcore science career, it is because they choose that. We all choose what we are going to be obsessive about, and there are some rather stark differences between genders there. Domestically, for example, it seems awfully common these days for men to do the cooking, not because society demands it but because men are frequently more obsessive about it (and whatever gender role stigma may have existed a long time ago has long since evaporated).


I spent most of my time at the university with the same group of people, which started out with an even gender balance in an invite-only advanced chemistry sequence for undergrads. An interesting observation is that while the filter course for the chemistry program cut the number of people almost in half (to ~20), the gender balance was preserved. Everyone that made it past the filter completed the entire chemistry sequence.

The thing to note is that most of the people in this sequence were actually chemical engineering majors, and before you start the main chemical engineering sequence you have to basically earn an undergrad degree in chemistry (literally -- all but one of the chemistry classes required for a chemistry degree). We all took the brutal chemical engineering filter course at the same time, after already spending a couple years together in a chemistry sequence that was tougher than what most chemistry undergrads take. All but one of the women and a minority fraction of the men did not make it past the filter, which as I stated was brutal. The women were far from stupid, as they had proven to be very competent at chemistry over the couple years I worked with them, but the very different kind of problem space of chemical system engineering proved to be extremely difficult for them to the point of intractability (and no small number of men as well).

When I look back on it, the filter class was not theoretically or conceptually difficult per se, what killed most people was that it required manipulating and keeping track of extremely complex graphs (in the abstract rather than pictorial sense) and models in your head. Which was not something we had to do in chemistry. (I've often wondered if this explains the oft-noticed correlation that good chemical engineers tend to have uncanny software design skills.) We all studied together, having been essentially living in a chemistry lab together for a couple years, and one of the interesting things that I observed was that when system complexity in our studies hit a certain level, some otherwise bright people stopped being able to do useful analysis of the system by rote even though the mechanics were the same as simpler systems. They knew what they needed to do if you looked at any part of the problem in isolation, but they core dumped if the number of simultaneous parts required exceeded a certain threshold. With very few exceptions, the women in our group fell out at earlier than the men for the most part. I am not sure how it is possible to "fix" this kind of problem beyond reducing the analysis complexity to a level where more people can actually get their heads around it, which would keep more men in the program as well.

The very close similarity between this peculiar type of systems analysis and that done in software design has led me to believe that the exact same phenomenon is at work there too. Most males suck at this particular type of abstract mental gymnastics as well, but if you look at the set of people who are good at it you will find ten males for every female.

Which raises another question: even if we lowered the analysis complexity required to get a degree in some fashion, wouldn't we be guaranteeing those people who slipped in under the new lower standards mediocre career performance? It is not like the new and interesting things you can be working on (in any field) are easy -- you need to have as much native talent as possible to ensure success.

I'd love to see more women in the hardest of sciences. (By 'hardest', I don't mean difficulty, I mean the most 'fundamental', i.e. chemistry, physics.) I do not want to see the efforts in science watered down by forcing science to bear the brunt of societal problems that scientists aren't responsible for in the first place.

I did not see any shortages of women in the sciences, and the gender distribution always had rough parity throughout the chemistry program I was in. Engineering, however, was another matter altogether. I have a really hard time blaming the academic environment though. If the educational opportunity is the same, I am not sure that there is anything you can "fix" if they later choose to do something else.

I also don't see a major societal issue per se, though maybe that is because I live in a liberal area. To the extent women do not pursue a hardcore science career, it is because they choose that. We all choose what we are going to be obsessive about, and there are some rather stark differences between genders there. Domestically, for example, it seems awfully common these days for men to do the cooking, not because society demands it but because men are frequently more obsessive about it (and whatever gender role stigma may have existed a long time ago has long since evaporated).


I spent most of my time at the university with the same group of people, which started out with an even gender balance in an invite-only advanced chemistry sequence for undergrads. An interesting observation is that while the filter course for the chemistry program cut the number of people almost in half (to ~20), the gender balance was preserved. Everyone that made it past the filter completed the entire chemistry sequence.

The thing to note is that most of the people in this sequence were actually chemical engineering majors, and before you start the main chemical engineering sequence you have to basically earn an undergrad degree in chemistry (literally -- all but one of the chemistry classes required for a chemistry degree). We all took the brutal chemical engineering filter course at the same time, after already spending a couple years together in a chemistry sequence that was tougher than what most chemistry undergrads take. All but one of the women and a minority fraction of the men did not make it past the filter, which as I stated was brutal. The women were far from stupid, as they had proven to be very competent at chemistry over the couple years I worked with them, but the very different kind of problem space of chemical system engineering proved to be extremely difficult for them to the point of intractability (and no small number of men as well).

When I look back on it, the filter class was not theoretically or conceptually difficult per se, what killed most people was that it required manipulating and keeping track of extremely complex graphs (in the abstract rather than pictorial sense) and models in your head. Which was not something we had to do in chemistry. (I've often wondered if this explains the oft-noticed correlation that good chemical engineers tend to have uncanny software design skills.) We all studied together, having been essentially living in a chemistry lab together for a couple years, and one of the interesting things that I observed was that when system complexity in our studies hit a certain level, some otherwise bright people stopped being able to do useful analysis of the system by rote even though the mechanics were the same as simpler systems. They knew what they needed to do if you looked at any part of the problem in isolation, but they core dumped if the number of simultaneous parts required exceeded a certain threshold. With very few exceptions, the women in our group fell out at earlier than the men for the most part. I am not sure how it is possible to "fix" this kind of problem beyond reducing the analysis complexity to a level where more people can actually get their heads around it, which would keep more men in the program as well.

The very close similarity between this peculiar type of systems analysis and that done in software design has led me to believe that the exact same phenomenon is at work there too. Most males suck at this particular type of abstract mental gymnastics as well, but if you look at the set of people who are good at it you will find ten males for every female.

Which raises another question: even if we lowered the analysis complexity required to get a degree in some fashion, wouldn't we be guaranteeing those people who slipped in under the new lower standards mediocre career performance? It is not like the new and interesting things you can be working on (in any field) are easy -- you need to have as much native talent as possible to ensure success.

I agree with your argument 100%. Sadly, the people pushing the Title IX will exploit your very points as proof of subconcious discrimination. If the problems assigned in class cause women to drop out sooner, then it is biased against women. If fewer women choose to enter the program, it is proof of a system, not individuals, that is biased against women.

I've finally contorted my brain to understand the point these feminists are trying to make. But it will be very difficult to challenge them because they are claiming a system, not individuals, who are biased. If you support the current status quo, you support sexism in the sciences. And their arguments back tried and true methods to instigate the systemic changes they want. They've done it with women in the military and with women firefighters, just to name a few examples. They had to lower the standards to get more women through their training programs and they expect the sciences and engineering schools to do the same.

This is how they will approach it. It will be claimed that the problems and questions assigned, as challenging and educational as they may be, are examples of designing coursework that excludes women. They will say that these more "complex" problems use the same skill set as the simpler problems and don't add any new learning since the same skills used previously are still being applied in these bigger problems. You may argue that these problems are what engineers face in the real world, or that they will make better engineers. But they will counter that the easier work still produces engineers and that the current material doesn't teach more information, but only separates the good students from the best and that is not the purpose of any class. The purpose is to provide an education, not segregate abilities. Students, male and female, will naturally support these claims because it will mean less difficult work for them. It's the same basic argument that has calculators in classrooms from elementary school through high school now.

I agree that it will kill stellar performance, produce more mediocre graduates and even let weak students complete the programs. But this will fall on not deaf ears, but ears that view such points as meaningless. They will argue this will diversify the pool of scientisits and engineers and diversity is our strength. You cannot argue with kool aide drinkers like this. They will get their way. Administrators come from their universe, not ours. Their attacks will be against the very points we think are critical and don't expect allies outside of the hard sciences and engineering. They've already gone through the seed-pods.

The one point I will agree on is the intense pressure to accomplish in grad school. I remember the difference between a Masters and a PhD was going home at 6pm versus 10 or 11pm. I remember divorces happening because one grad student spouse spent almost every waking moment in the lab. I've seen the same divorces with assistant professors trying for tenure. And this bothers me considerably. No program should ever demand and expect that level of commitment if it's not an emergency situation.

I agree that it will kill stellar performance, produce more mediocre graduates and even let weak students complete the programs. But this will fall on not deaf ears, but ears that view such points as meaningless. They will argue this will diversify the pool of scientisits and engineers and diversity is our strength. You cannot argue with kool aide drinkers like this. They will get their way. Administrators come from their universe, not ours. Their attacks will be against the very points we think are critical and don't expect allies outside of the hard sciences and engineering. They've already gone through the seed-pods.

The one point I will agree on is the intense pressure to accomplish in grad school. I remember the difference between a Masters and a PhD was going home at 6pm versus 10 or 11pm. I remember divorces happening because one grad student spouse spent almost every waking moment in the lab. I've seen the same divorces with assistant professors trying for tenure. And this bothers me considerably. No program should ever demand and expect that level of commitment if it's not an emergency situation.

Diversity, beyond certain point, is not a strength, but a weakness. And the way to deal with such crap is to attack PC at the root, as a baboonery it is.