Hi,
Sorry, I feel really stupid asking this, but I'm trying to figure out how to discuss certain gender inequalities with DD8
"Gender inequalities" mostly result from differing interests and aptitudes of males and females, and imposing quotas to get equal representation is both unfair to males and bad for society, because it means selecting people on a non-merit basis. A recent article discusses the harm of crusades against "gender inequalities":
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2012/07/when_college_women_studyscienc.htmlScience Quotas for Women--A White House Goal
by Charlotte Allen
Minding the Campus
July 9, 2012
When college women study science, they tend to gravitate toward biology--about 58 percent of all bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in biology go to women. In contrast, women earn some 17 percent of bachelor's degrees in engineering and computer science and just over 40 percent of bachelor's degrees in physical sciences and mathematics. The likely reason for this, found in the study The Mathematics of Sex" (2009) by Cornell psychologists Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, is that women tend to be drawn to "organic" fields involving people and living things, whereas men are more interested in the objects and abstractions that are the focus of STEM majors. Aversion to math plays a role too: a University of Bristol study finds that biologists tend not to pay attention to scholarly articles in their field that are packed with mathematical equations.
Yet the Obama administration sticks closely to the hard-line feminist argument that the problem is bias: women are somehow being denied access to STEM courses. On June 20 the White House announced that it would issue guidelines expanding the scope of Title IX to cover science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
When college women study science, they tend to gravitate toward biology--about 58 percent of all bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in biology go to women. In contrast, women earn some 17 percent of bachelor's degrees in engineering and computer science and just over 40 percent of bachelor's degrees in physical sciences and mathematics. The likely reason for this, found in the study The Mathematics of Sex" (2009) by Cornell psychologists Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, is that women tend to be drawn to "organic" fields involving people and living things, whereas men are more interested in the objects and abstractions that are the focus of STEM majors. Aversion to math plays a role too: a University of Bristol study finds that biologists tend not to pay attention to scholarly articles in their field that are packed with mathematical equations.
Yet the Obama administration sticks closely to the hard-line feminist argument that the problem is bias: women are somehow being denied access to STEM courses. On June 20 the White House announced that it would issue guidelines expanding the scope of Title IX to cover science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
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