The superstition of equality

Started by johnnyp, Apr 24, 2006, 11:23 AM

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johnnyp

The superstition of equality
Apr 24, 2006
by Jennifer Roback

All societies must have their myths and superstitions, I suppose. Society enforces belief in the Myth, even though intelligent people know it isn't true. All for the greater social good, naturally. See if you can guess which modern myth I am thinking of.

Larry Summers famously lost his job for denying it. MIT professor Nancy Hopkins practically swooned at the mere mention of a challenge to this Myth. And now, Bush administration officials are contemplating new attempts to enforce the Myth.

The Myth of course, is that men and women have identical aptitudes for math and science, and the gender disparities in these fields reflect discrimination. The modern superstition is that if the government could just have enough enforcement power in enough different areas, we could wipe out the differences in male and female participation in math and hard sciences. The further superstition is that eliminating these disparities would improve the quality of women's lives.

...

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/JennniferRobackMorse/2006/04/24/194743.html
 woman needs a man like a fish needs water

Psyle

Well, people have to fight and believe in equality.

No one REALLY wants to look at the bigger picture and see that we need people with different capabilities. I mean not everryone can be wealthy either. Society needs low class hard workers who spend almost everything they make so that others can be more wealthy. Only way to have more of an equalizing effect might be to genetically analyze everyone from birth and then put them in a situation that reflects their capabilities. But such a thing would also WIPE OUT free will in a sense. Your career would be selected for you from birth.. or at the very least you would be flagged with apptitudes in certain areas and these things would be looked at FIRST regarding getting into college and finding a job.

devia

Well I for one think that math and science abilty is a male trait.

Saying that there we all have male and female traits, some more then others but by logic vastly more men will have this male trait then women.

Whenever a thread like this comes up though the question I ask is; Yes men are by nature better at math and science then women, what are women by nature better at?

My answer would be nurturing and language. Of course like math and science there will always be exceptions to the rule.


What would others answers be to that question?

johnnyp

Quote from: "devia"
Well I for one think that math and science abilty is a male trait.

Saying that there we all have male and female traits, some more then others but by logic vastly more men will have this male trait then women.

Whenever a thread like this comes up though the question I ask is; Yes men are by nature better at math and science then women, what are women by nature better at?

My answer would be nurturing and language. Of course like math and science there will always be exceptions to the rule.


What would others answers be to that question?


I agree - women seem to be more empathetic, language oriented, and interested in personal connections.

Men's connections tend to be goal / achievement oriented.

I think women tend to be more detail oriented.  How many times have you heard "women multitask" better than men.  I think this is because men intensely focus on complex things, while women spread their focus across many details.

The best working relationships that I have had were with women who thrive on the details, while I focused on the roadmap.  We have a very good interpersonal dynamic and complement each other's skill.
 woman needs a man like a fish needs water

devia

I work with a team of three now, myself and two men.

All three of us are able to do everything we need to do to run the store, and we've all worked with less compident people where we had to do certain tasks because our partners were unable to.

We've only been together a month but have already divided tasks based on what we enjoy doing the most. Pretty much I'd say we've naturally divided them along gender lines when we are all together and when working alone none of us have a problem with the way things are done while we are gone.

As we are a new company in our area management has been shifting people around to see who makes the best team. All three of us have already asked to stay together. Personally I've never worked in a group that melded so well together, and we joke about the differences in strenghs. My note left for my co-worker saying "take out the garbage" was matched by one for myself the next day saying "clean the bathroom".

(not that cleaning is the only task we have to do, it was just a fun comment to each other that does define our differences)

No doubt though in any of our minds that working together we bring different strengths to the table and we are much stronger working as a team that respects each others strengths.

Gerard Velthuis

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men are by nature better at math and science then women


I would not say these are the only advantages of men.
I also believe men are more motivated (which explains why more men tend to focus on narrow occupations, or why almost exclusively men are inventors. It takes a lot of skill, and mostly a lot of time, and it is not even sure if it will be a success. This is why men are almost exclusively inventors, also because men are more risk-oriented and risk-loving than women.
Also, I believe men are more charismatic. Men can also be very good and strong leaders (yes some women too, however I say more men than women can be strong leaders, also because men tend to have more charisma on average).
Also, humour is more a typical male treat, than a female treat. Just look at how many more male stand-up comedians there are and comedy is mostly dominated by men on television in general.
Lastly, men are better at sports. Sports is also dominated by men.
Maybe there are other advantages too, but I don't have the time to think about it right now.
Women also have advantages of course, but I believe this is most of the time in different fields.
t is time men start behaving like men again and stand up for their rights, instead of behaving like conformist push-overs.

johnnyp

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All three of us have already asked to stay together. Personally I've never worked in a group that melded so well together


congrats - that can make work much more enjoyable
 woman needs a man like a fish needs water

devia

I agree with all of those Gerard.

I read a survey once about humor and it being important to both men and women regarding attraction. However women said they want their man to be funny, and the guys said they want a girl who laughs at their jokes.

As a female jokester (I'd guess that's a trait of mine that isn't apparent here)  I'd have to say that it's probaly the #1 reason I'm accepted as one of the guys and have a fairly large group of male freinds. To the degree that in planning a wing night a month or so ago someone asked if we should bring along the spouses, and it was answered by "no.. last thing we want is women at wing night".

P.S No.. I don't look like a guy :p

devia

johnnyp,

My work is amazingly perfect now. It's almost an extention of having a good marriage if that makes sense. Before this placement I was with the only other women in the company, and frankly it was two hens in the hen house.. nothing felt balanced.

Drifter

I wonder if Jennifer Roback will lose her job, and Townhall will end up giving several million dollars to encourage "diversity".

Oh, that only happens if you're a man.

Fidelbogen

Shifting things a fractional hairline off topic here, but I cannot resist a brief observation....

This "multi-tasking" thing -- what is it, really? My understanding is that it simply means having a lot of irons in the fire at once, and keeping a good general surveillance over them all, and taking action appropriately -- where needed and when needed.

That's "multi-tasking".

And yet...."multi-tasking" is somewhat of a misnomer. It basically means switching from one task to another and back again, rapidly. It means....juggling.

BUT...no matter how complicated this gets, you are never truly "multi" tasking. You are always (note this well) performing one task at a time. True, you are switching rapidly, but still...you are always performing one task at a time.

Is there really any such thing as "multi-tasking"?

Well, all right, let's consider an example. Anyone who has ever worked at a high-volume restaurant during a holiday dinner rush will have had occasion to observe the line cooks in action. This is a field overwhelmingly dominated by men (with a few tom-boy type women who know how to subordinate their female psychology.)

Try telling me that keeping track of 15 complicated menu orders on the wheel ain't "multi-tasking".  It most certainly is, that is...if ANYTHING is.

And men perform this work superlatively well. So....another stereotype bites the dust, eh?

devia

Fidelbogen

What do you think women's strengths are?

hansside

multi-tasking is a newer way of saying simultaneous capacity. this is something that is required of pilots, for example.

it is clearly a myth that men are not capable of this. last I checked most fighter pilots were men.

Psyle

Women are funny like that. They're supposed to be more language inclined and feel comfortable with subtle hunts yet they often won't get a man's subtle hunts.

When a guy performs something badly it doesn't always mean we can't do something. It may just mean we don't want to do it. Hence if we appear incompetant we won't be asked to do it much. If we appeared competant in everything we do than women would just take advantage and ask us to do EVERYTHING.

As for multitasking.. I think the only way to do it in humans is to use multiple senses.. aka multiple inputs. A single input will only do one thing at a time so to speak.

Crusoe

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My answer would be nurturing and language


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women seem to be more empathetic, language oriented, and interested in personal connections.



Apples and oranges IMHO. I think empathy and nurturing are emotional traits distributed fairly equally between the sexes whereas language and math are cognitive abilities divided (though not strictly) along gender lines.

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