Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes

["Shapiro, Mark" <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU>]

Herb right?  Not a chance.  He has failed to learn the most fundamental
lesson from evolutionary biology.  Namely, that the range of variation
within groups far exceeds the difference in the means between groups.  (Read
Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man".)

When I was a young lad I worked as a professional firefighter for the U.S.
Forest Service to earn money for college.  There was not a single woman
employed in any of the firefighting classifications in the whole federal
government at that time.  The idea that any women could do that job was so
foreign to the establishment that it wasn't even considered.  Now
substantial numbers of women work in those jobs, and people don't give it a
second thought.  That's a cultural change.

The notion that only men are suited to do math or physics is an equally
dated and incorrect idea.

The notion that certain jobs are men's work while others are women's work
has been disproved by the empirical evidence.

That's enough for now.....my irascibility is growing.

Mark
http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Green [mailto:JMGreen@SISNA.COM]
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2000 10:54 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes


Herb, of course is right and I agree, but he stops short of saying that
women and men are different animals - Mars/Venus etc -- I know that PCnes
doesn't allow one to say this out loud and has, I suspect, constrained
Herb, but it is nonetheless at the hub of this thread.  The remaining
question might be whether women's brains are wired differently from men's
and whether the teaching and practice of physics can benefit from those
differences.

They probably can, but recruit????

On the other hand (as I have said before) I would feel far more comfortable
with a woman as captain of a carrier or task force that a man because I
suspect that her wiring is more suited to the task -- but I would assign
two strong men to watch over her on the bridge in case of emergency. (Sorry
Margaret)

But recruit for physics??  I still wonder.

Jim Green

PS OK I said that I would be through with this thread -- I lied.

Herb:
> I stated that there appear to be differences in the ways that men and
> women think. Some of these differences are probably due to the initial
> training of children in most of the cultures of the world. In addition to
> physical differences, think about other  known major differences between
> men and women. I'm sure that you are aware of  the hormones that exist in
> different quantities and erupt at different times. Don't these have
> effects on thinking as well as physical processes?
>
> I'm reminded of  the musical show "My Fair Lady" when Richard Burton is
> tormented by the way that women think and comes out with the song, "Why
> can't a woman act like a man ?"
>
> Herb Gottlieb from New York City
> (Where we cherish differences instead of claiming that they do not exist)


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen