Jessica Gavora has an article over at the Weekly Standard on a near-miss regarding Title IX (the law that requires equal treatment or somesuch of men and women in higher education) and its application to math and science departments.
We really shouldn't be all that surprised. If they can boot a Harvard U president and tell us that men and women like to compete in sports in exactly the same proportions (the logic underlying Title IX's re-engineering of college athletics), why not censure engineering departments that are 80% male?
And if computer science weren't part of the engineering school in some universities, the engineering numbers would be even more skewed. And if you exclude life sciences from the "hard" sciences, they look just like engineering.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a policy analyst at the National Science Foundation 20 years ago, university diversity mavens were screaming and moaning about this. There was a significant amount of manpower and money thrown at the "problem" but obviously nothing has changed. This is not a situation that is amenable of policy meddling; it reflects individual preferences that are obviously quite unyielding.
Or maybe they've done a little research and know their market.
ReplyDeleteThis has absolutely not a damn thing to do with individual preferences. It has to do with cultural conditioning that we push on kids from an early age.
ReplyDeleteLet's say that this is true (who knows, there may be a large cross-section of men who missed out on the joy of Polly Pockets due to those bigoted toy makers). You're still dealing with a situation where school systems are receiving kids with varying interests.
Is it the school's responsibility to change these interests? At the college level?
T-Man, how did you get interested in computer science? Did society "push" you into it?
ReplyDeleteT, thanks. In my case I thought about the "what to do when I grow up question" late in high school. I think applying for colleges concentrated the mind a bit. I started applying for engineering schools, because I heard engineers made a lot of money. Then I took calculus and did OK but found it incredibly boring. So while I was accepted to engineering schools I also was accepted at liberal arts schools and went that way, starting with a foreign affairs major and later changing to economics. So in my case I sorta drifted around looking for preferences. I ended up in NROTC and the Marines because they were stupid enough to pay me, a guy who had little work experience, money. I was more surprised than anyone that I ended up enjoying it and making it a career. So your overall point is certainly right, it's "hard to tell" why we end up doing what we're doing, it's a complicated interaction. Still, I bristle against de facto quotas for/against any ethnic group or gender in any field. Those who seek to "remedy" society's alleged bias are forcing their own bias (perfect 50/50 gender ratios) on others. Y'know, it could just be that men and women are different.
ReplyDelete