MIT Names First Female President 540
wintermute1000 writes "According to CNN, MIT has just named its first female president. Along with other recent programs' efforts to get more women involved in the MIT community, is this a step in the right direction for the historically gender-biased institution?"
male/female/black/white (Score:5, Insightful)
When will this kind of regulation go too far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong here - if she is the BEST for the post, she should get it, but looking at things like the gender quotas like we have had in Germany - these are the wrong way (as they block progressing potentially better male candidates, if the female member quota hasn't been reached yet. This also led to a court case brought on by (IIRC) a civil cervant skipped in a promotion because there was another woman who could take the post - that case went all the way to the highest EU court which ruled that these kinds of quota regulations also are a form of gender discrimination and hence are deemed illegal.
And there are similar things happening - in a Swiss University I saw a notice for a competition about women in academic study courses, with a prize of EUR 10.000 for the best diploma thesis to be handed in by a female student that year. That particular competition notice actually had been put up by the "equal opportunities" advisor of the school... Where's the equal opportunity here?
In the UK, there is a female-only car insurance (Diamond), which will only accept female clientele because their insurance claims would in average be lower (hence allowing female drivers to save money, while indirectly increasing the insurance cost of males, by removing drivers with "lower claims" from male/female car insurance companies)...
Where's the equal opportunity here?
gender-biased... (Score:5, Insightful)
i _do_ gratulate her, because i believe she has really earned that position, but:
"...efforts to get more women involved in the MIT community..."
i really hope that this is not the reason she got elected president. you see, i think such positions should be awarded according to ability, _regardless_ of the gender. so "because of" is as wrong as "in spite of".
" a step in the right direction for the historically gender-biased institution?"
not as long as every time a woman is elected this or that, the fact that she is a woman is more stressed in the reports than the fact that she is doing a good job (or what she has achieved).
Which First is more important? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about fifty years overdue (Score:0, Insightful)
If the US were really committed to ending discrimination, the Equal Rights Amendment would have passed by now.
Re:When will this kind of regulation go too far? (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as the insurance thing goes, insurance companies dont owe you shit. If you want better rates, then make all (young) men drive more safely.
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:2, Insightful)
This should prove to our readers (in response to some of the above posts) that there indeed is some serious gender bias out there. How depressing.
-Aaron
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:probably change towards good (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally technology field has been boys club and most women around are usually surnamed
Women at workplace usually balance the atmosphere towards more positive.
In paper industry, some studies have shown that departments lead by female chiefs, run more efficiently and have less disputes among workers.
I don't understand how we can look at gender in the workplace as being a positive thing (as in your example) but not also use it with the negative. For example, you would never hear someone say, "In X industry, some studies have shown that departments lead by female chiefs, run less efficiently and have more disputes among workers".
I guess it simply follows the tried and true rules of political correctness in the US: As long as you're basing your opinions of prejudice against white males, you're not really discriminating.
And yes, that's exactly what the above opinion does. It basically says that women chiefs/department heads/whatever create a better work environment than men -- prejudice.
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the "I hate math" Barbie doll? [msu.edu] A raging debate ensued, and educators and others were forced to face (and deal with?) the issue of the assumption that not only do girls hate math and science, they are biologically programmed to do so. So the rule was girls are not supposed to like math and science, if they do there's something inherently wrong with them and thus we must ridicule and pressure them into becoming a proper female. And as most of us know how peer pressure can be, girls end up being conditioned to stay away from math and science if they ever want to be cool and have a life.
What was worse for me while growing up, was that I loved science and math. "Well, OK, but that's because you're Chinese" was what I always got back. The implication that I couldn't help myself for that or something. So not only did I get the derogatory labels regarding female geeks rubbed in my face, I got the racism as well.
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the solution to discrimination is the elimination of discrimination in every realm. The silly notion that we can somehow right the wrongs by giving those groups discriminated in the past preference over those who were not is just as wrong.
Woman at MIT??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Geez, before you know it they will have the right to vote!
As stated already, I hope they hired her for her qualifications, and not the quota. I have somewhat of a personal view on things...
Don't get me wrong, I am married to a structural engineer (yes, a woman) so I fully believe in equality between all genders/races in all fields, but I have seen many instances where a woman or other minority had an unfair advantage at getting a job or getting accepted into a school.
I'm not trying to start an affirmative action argument, but let me say that from my wife's perspective she has had to ask herself many times "Did I get this job offer because I am a woman, or because I am most qualified?" And in my mind she was the most qualified, but it should not be a question that she has to ask herself. It is unfair to her, as much as it is for anyone not getting the job.
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not saying that we shouldn't remove gender bias where it is truely there, just that we shouldn't automatically assume that there is a gender bias just because the distribution between man and women is not exactly 50/50.
MIT's view (Score:2, Insightful)
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/president-anno
Sexist policies (Score:5, Insightful)
I know lots of women who could be capable engineers, but chose other paths.
I don't think it really matters how many female engineers we have, as long as the end result is designed right neither should you.
I am getting sick of working with second rate 'quota' people. Particularly with the government they will put someone without the ability or experience to do a job but got the "Minority XXXX" points to land the job.
You end up with
#1 The job not being done right.
#2 Convincing anyone with the stereotype they are right because look, that kind of person can't do the job.
#3 A person who can't do the job getting frustrated. They either hate their job, and discourage others, or they quit. Then you end up having even more trouble recruiting group XXX into this position.
Removing barriers is one thing, silly quota/promotion games are wrong.
More ranting, in public school (I was 13 years old) The girls got to go to 'science day' at the local university to encourage them to go into science. Apparently it was very interesting, with lots of cool stuff.
Of course as a boy, I couldn't go. Welcome to the wonderful sexist world we live in where girls who don't care about science get encouragement, and guys who do care get slapped down.
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:5, Insightful)
"sorry, we have too many white people, try again next week"
Honestly, these things are no more relevant than being left-handed.
Disclaimer: We don't work with members of the public who might have prejudices that affect the ability of, say, black disabled gay women to do the job effectively.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:probably change towards good (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, duhh!
In a "boys club" work environment, you can talk about whatever you want - Rude, crude, offensive, and no one cares. This occasionally may lead to a few riled tempers.
Throw some women into the mix, and everything changes. Since we have sexual harassment laws based on the "feelings" of the "victim", rather than the intent of the accused, the friendly banter grinds to a halt. Suddenly, a formerly happy work force becomes silent, bored, and frustrated.
As a side-effect, efficiency increases (less banter means more more time to actually work), arguments decrease (what can you argue about if you can't talk freely about anything?). But morale? Well, no one cares about morale. Only productivity.
And anyone who thinks I mean this as a troll or flamebait has clearly never experienced this transition in person... Like helplessly watching a tsunami speed toward you.
Not to say that I in any way object to working with women - I've worked with quite a few that understood the idea of "humor". I object, however, to the current orientation of the sexual harassment laws. Basically, if someone bothers to accuse you, that in itself counts as "proof" of your "crime". That I consider intolerable.
Non-news (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to read a real article about why she was chosen, head over to web.mit.edu.
Oh, and "historically gender-biased institution"? It's a fucking tech school, what do people expect? I should also point out that the entering freshman class (the one I'm in) is about 55% male and 45% female. Please, let's at least be reasonable when coming up with non-news, mmkay?
Mmkay.
Re:probably change towards good (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it simply follows the tried and true rules of political correctness in the US: As long as you're basing your opinions of prejudice against white males, you're not really discriminating.
Case in point -- the article itself. Few people see anything wrong with MIT promoting one gender over another as long as the gender they are promoting is female.
[PS: I've been called sexist for discussing this viewpoint before. ]
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:3, Insightful)
Funnily enough, the vast majority of people who say things like this (in the US, anyway) are white males from middle- or upper-class families who speak English with one of the standard American accents. What a remarkable coincidence.
Education (Score:5, Insightful)
3: Provide a sound education that encourages wisdom, ethics, and responsibility.
Naturally, if you continue thinking in the same old box, you'll have the same old problems.
Re:The whole world is gender biased. (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, let's turn that around... by that logic, why should the woman have leave (of course, as you said, except for right around the time of birth so she can recover)? The point is to remove the gender bias surrounding leave ("women have the babies, so they should be the ones who get leave to take care of them").
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's more a case that girls aren't encouraged to take an interest in such subjects as much as boys are. I'm lucky in that my parents got me a Commodore computer when I was very young, and I got really into it, but how many perents would do that for a girl? Would they instead be more likely to encourage something that it's more widely believed girls like doing?
Maybe it's a vicious circle. Girls are told they don't like maths or science so don't get a chance to try it properly, so they grow up to not be into it, so people think that women don't like it, so don't try teaching it to girls.
Just try your best to work out what kids are into and encourage it regardless of whether it's something considered appropriate for their gender.
Of course, articles making a big deal out of a woman being into computers (remember the one about that female hacker?) tend to reinforce the notion that this is unique and unusual, reinforcing the stereotype. It doens't help anybody get over such stereotypes, but it helps sell issues of newspapers apparently.
Sorry, I'm rambling now.
Left out option 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
You left out option 3:
Don't trust human nature by itself, make some laws to make discrimination illegal, WITHOUT actually enforcing another type of discrimination.
Look at the college application process. It should be illegal to ask about your gender or race on an application.
Fixing discrimination with discrimination is retarded, but making discrimination ilegal is not.
Re:wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
gender bias? (Score:5, Insightful)
is this a step in the right direction for the historically gender-biased institution?
--trb
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:2, Insightful)
I have never had a problem with giving those who struggle in life a hand. I always thought that colleges should, instead of being racist in its admissions policy, pay some attention to the work the applicant went through to get there. Why? Becuase this rewards personal effort, not skin color or gender.
But, don't ever suggest that being white means everything is handed to you on a silver platter. That type of thinking that is used to support affirmative action couldn't be further from the truth.
Regulation should promote equality, not preference.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The summary said it all (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:3, Insightful)
> such people are the first defence used by the prejudiced to block those with true potential.
Over half the population is female. Do you honestly believe that in the history of that institution, Dr. Hockfield is really
the first and only qualified woman to emerge? If not, then please conjecture as to why her 15 predecessors were all male.
Re:wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding me?!? You honestly think that progress has not been made in the past 40 years of race/sex relations? The grandparent didn't say that all of the problems had been solved (and I would be the first to disagree there), but that progress had been made. I would say that the 24th Amendment (abolishing the poll tax) was progress. I'd say that allowing interracial marriage is progress. I'm ceratainly not saying that all of the problems have been solved, but there certainly has been progress.
Re:When will this kind of regulation go too far? (Score:2, Insightful)
Your gender bias has already presented itself. An equally valid question would have been "has MIT selected this person because they are a MAN" (assuming they were a man). Gender bias in the past has caused situations in which men get positions over women despite the women being more competent.
You have ignored the fact that this women is the first non-engineering background president (she is involved in Life Sciences). I think this is the most important difference. MIT has made a commitment to a biological revolution.
I would look over your own post there, beh, and notice how biased you are against women. Do you assume anytime you have been chosen over others that your maleness wasn't a factor?
Re:The whole world is gender biased. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I think I disagree with your basic argument here... I too agree with the fact that women have the babies (rather hard to dispute ;)). What I don't agree with is the next step you seem to be taking: that the natural result is the mother is the only one (most appropriate, whatever) who can take care of the baby after birth. I'm not convinced that these days, once the baby is actually out of the womb, that a man couldn't do just as fine a job taking care of a newborn than a woman. (Yes, I'm ignoring breast feeding in this instance, but there are pumps and formulas, so I think I'm OK there.)
isn't it sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:probably change towards good (Score:5, Insightful)
The status quo is unacceptable, and idealistic views (such as claiming that promoting women is sexist) aren't doing anything to help.
define "race" (Score:5, Insightful)
There's another option here, and I'm waiting to see someone use it. The very concept of "race" is unscientific: not only are there no medical tests which can determine to which race someone belongs (since what we call different races are not hard-and-fast genetic differences, but rather vague clusters of certain traits to which we give names like "black" or "Asian"), but, at least in America, there are no strict legal definitions for race. The only proof an institution has that a given individual is a member of a certain race is that person's word. So the answer is to list your race as whatever you think the institution's acceptance policy is biased toward. If they accuse you of falsifying your race in order to thwart affirmative action, simply ask them to prove that you are not, in fact, of the race you claim to be. This is, of course, impossible. Maybe if there were enough court cases about this it would finally pave the way to ending the legal fiction of race.
Biological sex, of course, is another issue, since there are scientific and legal definitions thereof. However, with intersexed and transgendered individuals making it more interesting, one's gender identity and biological sex may not always coincide neatly.
What was the first line on her resume? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just another example of MIT's long slow decline. Soon, it will be as much of a social disaster area as UC Berkeley.
Re:male/female/black/white (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, women often relate better to women when in psychiatric treatment, or when it's a police officer aiding a victim.
Personally, I prefer female chiropractors - mostly because they're smaller and less likely to be able to accidentally break my back
In other jobs, gender may not be the quality that matters to the job, but may influence qualities that matter to the job. Again, probably not this one.
For example, men are generally larger and thus stronger ("generally"!) and thus would probably be what most people - men and women - would prefer when being saved, half unconscious, from a burning building. On the other hand, women are generally better in interpersonal communication, and would often excel in HR, mediation (that's a big $$$ field nowadays!), and the like.
I'm not really fond of even the idea of "[h]ir[ing] the best man or woman for the job." How about just "hiring the best person for the job." If they have skills that are useful for the job being applied to, they're eligible.
While I don't support the idea of having a different bar to measure against for women and men trying to become police officers, I see no reason why we can't have different bars for different positions in the police force. Those becoming beat officers would have a different bar than those becoming hostage negotiators. And that may find that genders are not equally represented in all sections, but you'll probably get more qualified applicants than what they do now.
Just my 2 cents.
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is "Make it illegal to have a 'race' field on college applicaitons" equivilant to "require X% of admissions to be Y", or "being Z earns you W more points towards admissions"?
The point is you can't discriminate based on race if you are unaware of someones race. It is not practical for any process containing an interview, but for a paper process (like most college addmisions) it is bullet proof.
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's difficult to understand if you aren't part of an historically marginalized group, but all the individual looks, remarks, gestures and the like accumulate into a steady wave of exclusionary sentiment, and that wave can wear nearly anyone down over time. When every guy you meet in your profession stares at your chest, calls you "hon," or acts in a subtly dismissive manner at any intelligent thing you say, you begin to consider switching professions.
Re:Left out option 3 (Score:1, Insightful)
Fuck affirmative action.
Having those friends are fine... but "them" having special privilege is not. Now look what affirmative action has done, further segregate groups of people.
Chicken & egg (Score:4, Insightful)
It's chicken and egg. You don't get many women taking geek roles in society because those roles are male dominated. Let's take a simplified hypothetical scenario:
Think of the teenage girl on a campus open-day. She likes coding but has never been encouraged at it. She looks in at university computer lab and sees 50 sweating/overweight/horrendously thin pale boys, all with mildly-pornographic desktops and wearing Tux t-shirts (a stereotype that I've seen borne out often enough to not be a stereotype). She tries talking to one of the students. Gets told that the EnglishLit building is next door. She tries talking to another group of students. Wow, she gets sniggered at by emotionally immature male geeks.
So, due to this experience the girl doesn't want to join this particular highly exclusive and, believe me, misogynistic male dominated profession. The profession takes this as proof that women are unsuited for their work, reinforcing the misogyny that prevents women joining in the first place.
Yeah, so I'm simplifying. But women get told their entire lives - by their mothers, their teachers, their fathers, society - that geek roles are not for women. If you take such a role then you obviously do so because you are a failure as a woman. Do you really expect women to want to join something that theyve been told to loathe?
Now, let's twist the scenario around. Now, how many men can honestly say that they are able to cry at a movie? Who can cuddle up to their best male friend on the sofa? Who actually talk about their emotions? Come on, raise your hands. Oh dear, I don't see many. Now are you telling me that men are biologically incapable of performing those acts? Like fuck you are. You wouldn't be so stupid. Men don't do those things BECAUSE SOCIETY TELLS THEM NOT TO. You're soft, you're a sissy, you're gay, youre not a man if you do any of these things. D'ya see what Im getting at here guys?
Sorry for ranting or if I sound like I'm trying to preach. It just really frustrates me that I see so many geek women turn away from geek roles (or who keep them as a dirty little secret) just because society says no. I don't know if discrimination against men in job applications is the answer, but you cant just leave it to "let managers pick the best person for the job". There IS inherent sexism in the geek world. If you can't see the forest then its because of all the trees.
Re:How Affirmative Action works with us (Score:2, Insightful)
If a male and a female score equally well and are both considered acceptable, then the female will be offered the position.
Um, that's the very definition of discrimination. Why should the woman/man/white/black/yellow/green/blue person automatically be preferred? Ultimately, the choice should lie with the hiring manager, not policy.
Re:How Affirmative Action works with us (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it's discriminatory - the fact that it's a legal, politically-correct sort of discrimination doesn't change the fact that you're discriminating against one gender or the other. If their scores are equal, you're basically saying that there is no difference as far as merit is concerned, and so you select your candidate based on their gender. It doesn't matter which one you choose based on gender, it's the fact that gender becomes the deciding criterion that makes it discriminatory - it would be equally discriminatory to choose only men when faced with candidates of equal qualifications. If you want an equal, non-discriminatory way of choosing among similarly qualified applicants, try flipping a coin next time.
Then again, what do I know? I think the whole equal-opportunity thing is bullshit anyway...
Re:enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
The same we enforce all the other laws that relate to how a company operates. Duh.
If you ignore it, it's the functional equivalent of #1 in the grandparent.
Obviously you won't ignore it.
If you enforce it, it's the functional equivalent of #2 in the grandparent.
No more that using the police to catch murders is still "relying on human nature".
In other words, no solution at all.
Actually, it's a quite reasonable solution, you're just coming up with issues that are non-issues, and only by making ridiculous assumptions like:
"Okay, so we pass this law, but what if we don't enforce it?"
Re:Or they just don't like existing discrimination (Score:2, Insightful)
As with every other kind of profession, you get nice companies and crappy companies. The trick is not to choose a crappy one.
When I was looking for work recently, I had an amusing interview experience. It was amusing rather than disheartening because by that point it was obvious that there were so many other things wrong with this company that I definitely did not want to work there.
I was being interviewed by one of the managerial types; a guy in his thirties. From the first words of PC gibberish that came out of his mouth, I could tell that we weren't going to be friends. After a very boring half an hour, the conversation got to this point (paraphrased):
Guy: So, tell me, how do you feel about working in such a male-dominated field? [IT]
Me: I don't really care. It's not an issue for me.
Guy: [confused pause] Um, yeah, because there's really a lot of testosterone in this field... uh... but maybe you like that...
Me: [boggles]
Guy: Uh, yeah, apparently women make better software engineers than men...
Me: [pointed lack of interest]
So basically, according to this guy, if you're a woman going into a technological field, either you are a self-conscious feminist who will harp on for an hour about the challenges of working in a male-dominated environment, or you are some kind of ho who thrives on male attention. Niiiice.
I always find it entertaining when political correctness backfires, and serves only to highlight the speaker's prejudices - and make it obvious that he (or she) can only relate to people on the basis of broad stereotypical categories.
I should have asked the guy what he thought about women working in IT, since he obviously found it such a fascinating topic.
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it MIT that's gender biased.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Definitely not a proper female.
More like the perfect female.
Re:hasn't been tried (Score:3, Insightful)
Trouble is that one person's wisdom is another person's stupidity, one person's ethics is another's "inhibitions preventing success", one person's responsibility is another person's "dangerous altruism" (Ann Ryand) etc. In a homogenic, single-religion, single-culture society, these are easy to fix by teaching kids the prevailing values of that society. In a big (and increasing) mess of cultures and viewpoints, its next to impossible without a wrath of some offended zealot clique. So schools cop out by taking the easy "non-confrontational" way out. I cant blame them, they are not set up (and should not be) to wage religious/societal wars on behalf of some group versus all the other groups.
Gender bias, my ass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyhow, I suppose it's true that people and society are still biased against women. Personally, I find gender-based discrimination very difficult to understand. What's ironic about that is that, until it was pointed out to me by a friend, I never realized that the family I grew up with had this kind of slant. It never occurred to me to discriminate based on sex. I mean, I'd heard of it, but I never saw any reason to do it.
There are things that men and women are inherently better at than each other ON AVERAGE. That is, the average man is better at visual/spatial reasoning, and the average woman is better is linguistic/auditory reasoning. But on the other hand, an above-average woman will likely beat the average man at both. Individuals often lie outside of the statistical averages.
This whole concept of pre-judging makes no sense to me. Built-in talent helps, but I've seen time and time again a hard-working average person beat a lazy above-average person. So why can't a woman with determination compete well with men who assume that things should be just handed to them? In fact, she can and often would wipe the floor with them were it not for stupid social-political barriers that say that women, universally, aren't up to the task.
One friend of mine once pointed out that "equal opportunity" does not mean "equal achievement". As I see it, if you're not smart or hard-working enough to achieve something, then tough shit. You shouldn't get special consideration or leniency for being rich, poor, male, female, black, white, gay, or straight.
Here's the "my ass" part: Maybe MIT has been biased. Maybe not. But just maybe there hasn't until now been a woman who was up to the job. Now there is. The fact that she's a woman has nothing to do with her qualifications for the job. Yes, I agree that the obstacles are there. Yes, I agree that she probably had to work much harder than others who would have vied for the position. Should I be sad that I had to work my way through college, rather than get minority scholarships (which, BTW, are fine by me as long as they are from private institutions)?
There is one benefit to me, as a guy, to having this stupid gender bias while it lasts. See, I like intelligent people. If a guy gets into a position of power, it tells me nothing. If a woman gets into a position of power, I can pretty much assume that she's got her shit together and that I can easily have an intelligent conversation with her. This isn't 100% perfect, but it's a strong statistical trend.
Also, I think these women, being intuitive, quickly recognize that I naively lack this gender bias and warm up to me almost instantly. The reason I mention this is because, far too often, I see guys threatened by strong women and find themselves compelled to refer to them as "bitches". Well, I've met a few bitches, but they were just stupid people (both men and women). These strong women, on the other hand, are typically a joy for me to work with.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, here's a list of random names:
Might it perhaps be possible to make a shrewd guess as the the gender, race, and/or religious affiliation of some of those people? Even if you personally are smart enough not to, might you at least concede that people with racist tendencies might be tempted to jump to conclusions?
Do you perhaps think that merely eliminating specific questions about these things might therefore not be an entirely bullet-proof protection against discrimination?
Biased? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this will piss some people off, but I just cannot see how an engineering school can be categorized as a "historically gender-biased institution". Now, before the "liberal" Witch Hunt for me starts, I would like to explain myself...
I would like nothing better than to spend the rest of my life in a relationship with a female engineer. However, I doubt that will ever happen. Why will this not happen? It probably will not happen because most women do not want to be engineers. They are not interested. They are usually interested in other subjects (very unfortunately).
If 0.01% of all the girls I met in college were engineers, well, that would be a liberal overestimate at best. Women were quite interested in many subjects. One primatology class I took had 18 girls and 3 guys. So, it is not science. It is only engineering. When I was in high school, I cannot think of a single girl that was interested in engineering. My high school was one of the largest in the city.
My question is: When women choose not to be engineers, through lack of interest or whatever (which from what I have seen appears to be the case), how can a school be blamed for having more guys than girls? How can the school be labelled "gender-biased"? Is this fair?
I have seen lots of places in society where I would freely use the term gender-bias. It just seems absurd applied to an engineering school. No engineering school can attract women who are not interested in engineering.
Re:How Affirmative Action works with us (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that complicated, not discriminatory.... Also note that the scoring was largely subjective
While I admire efforts to recruit and hire underrepresented groups to the extent possible, there is no escaping that subjective scoring is both complicated and discriminatory.
And it continues to this day, to cut both ways, both for and against underrepresented groups.
Re:wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Have you heard the term "white trash"?
Had it occurred to you that there might just be a large number of white people also trapped in poverty? I don't see a stigma against blacks in particular. I see poor people of all races and middle-class people of all races.
You're right that there's a problem, but it's a more general issue of wealth distribution, not racism. As a purely historical accident, a higher proportion of blacks may be poor than whites -- but that's more because it's so hard for anyone of any race to get out of poverty, and blacks were unfairly held down until recently.
Re:hasn't been tried (Score:3, Insightful)
If it were only so easy. Unfortunately that leads to deepening of clique divisions and fracturing of the society along ever increasing gaps between various religious/ethnic sects. Parents pass on all their superstitions, ignorance, paranoia and hatreds of other groups onto their kids in full force, not tempered by attempts at unification of the society by (however incompetent) public school system. Home schooling or private schools along religious/racial/ethnic/economic divisions are a recipe for massive friction, possibly culminating in Nazi-style persecutions, witch hunts and eventually civil warfare down the road.
Re:How Affirmative Action works with us (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's change that rule, then: all candidates are scored; if a man and a woman score the same and are both acceptable, then the man will be offered the position. Would you find that non-discriminatory?
That rule is prejudiced against men, and for women. The fair thing to do in a case where two candidates score equally is to decide randomly.
but an increasing number are abusive (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't end after college either. These same women, who graduated with a decent GPA despite knowing nothing, get hired to do nothing at companies, which don't fire them because they serve a useful purpose for the company's diversity statistics. I know people who admit doing this, and have absolutely no trouble doing so.
This isn't anything particularly unique about women. If you tell a group of people that they can do a half-assed job and still succeed, many people will. Hell, I would.
Re:How Affirmative Action works with us (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:define "race" (Score:3, Insightful)
I have also studied anthropology, and I know several people who are actively working in that field. I can tell you that it's not as cut-and-dried as you make it sound. There is no such thing as a "negro gene," for example. Certain traits might be more common in Africa than in Europe, but there will always be some mixture of traits across even the most isolated population. Skull measurements and the like can give you a rough idea of whether someone would be considered black or white by today's standards, but it's not remotely in the same league as telling, say, a chimpanzee skull from a babboon skull.
For example, the so-called "asiatic trait" of shovel-shaped incisors is found in most east Asians, but also in Native Americans and Scandinavians (though it is less common in the rest of Europe or in Africa.) There are people in the south of India whose skin is as dark as any African's, yet whose facial features resemble those commonly associated with Europeans. The aborigines of Australia were classified as "negroes," yet many have blonde hair.
The concept of race rests on the assumption that there are genetically distinct and isolated populations in the first place, and other than in a few places like the New Guinea Highlands, this has never occured. The Danes invaded Ireland and gave them the now typically Irish red hair. The curly dark hair of many Mediterranean Europeans indicates some African ancestry. The Romans stocked the garrisons guarding the Germanic tribes with African troops, and to this day there are swarthy, dark-haired Germans in those regions. The Mongols interbred repeatedly with Europeans. And the "race" we call "Native Americans" is believed to have originated from at least three separate populations who migrated from Asia. In short, it would be nearly impossible to find any individual anywhere whose ancestry did not include people from most, if not all, of the inhabited continents.
As a matter of fact, it's said that if you compared the genetic average of all Europeans against the genetic average of all Africans, they would resemble each other to a much greater degree than if you compared two randomly chosen Norwegians.
Re:wrong (Score:3, Insightful)