Pick One!

So which one is it? Women don’t go into STEM because there aren’t enough female role models, because we don’t like “geek culture” stuff, or because we aren’t smart enough. Pick one, dang it, and stick with it.

What? You didn’t know that Star Trek, Star Wars, and other sci-fi things were sexist and off-putting to women? That’s according to a librarian at MIT, so it must be true. Especially since there is an academic study to support the assertion (“Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science” by Cheryan et al in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2009, Vol. 97, No. 6, 1045–1060)

And then we have one of the colleges at Oxford helpfully giving female students a few more minutes on their exam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/02/01/oxford-university-extends-exam-times-womens-benefit/

And then there’s a dissertation that pretty much argues that women and minorities think differently from males of European descent, and so we need science changed so more women can learn science. [The second link is a not-unbiased synopsis of the article].

That’s the same sort of…stuff… that makes me cringe at eco-feminism and some of its offshoots. The proponents of such argue that women, or Indigenous Peoples, have “unique ways of knowing” that are more holistic, or less coldly rational, or more emotionally sympathetic to the environment and so are in a better position to make policies about land and water use, plant and animal conservation, and so on. Because logic, science, and quantitative analysis are all male, or even worse, European-male. That sort of fuzzy thinking and strained argument makes me want to turn in my second X chromosome.

I’m not certain if these people can even bring themselves to imagine how bad their arguments are. For example, with the Oxford time allowance and the dissertation about science syllabi—what is the difference between what the college did and what the dissertation proposes, and the old argument that women are too ignorant, or too emotional, or too much of our blood is diverted to our wombs and not enough to our minds, and so we shouldn’t worry ourselves with math and science? The librarian from MIT pretty much states that being a Star Trek fan is inherently sexist and anti-woman, anti-minority.

Huh?

Granted, I’m not a Trekkie, Trekker or whatever that fandom prefers to be called. I’m more classic Star Wars, Firefly, and written sci-fi, but I don’t see any problem with Trek fans enjoying Trek. Lt. Uhuru kicked tail in her own way, Princess Leia and Deja Thoris were not exactly shrinking violets with no knowledge of how the galaxy worked, and then there’s Star in Glory Road, among others. Female scientists abound in science fiction, once you start looking: Dr. Susan Calvin in I, Robot (the book), Kitty Ping in Dragons’ Dawn, many women in Heinlein’s novels, you can probably think of a lot of others. And there are scientists who are men who can inspire anyone. I wanted to be a paleontologist – because hunting for dino bones was seriously cool –  when I was a kid, but life happened and my weakness in math was a major stumbling block. Heck, I write sci-fi!

So why are there not “enough” women in STEM fields? Because we have other priorities? Because the computer culture in Silicon Valley is becoming more and more anti-feminine?* Because in aggregate women are better in fields that demand more verbal skills, while in aggregate men tend to be better in math and logic-heavy fields? Because few people in general want to spend eight hours in class, then ten hours in the lab, in grad school or in industry? Because if you plan on having kids, climbing up smoke-stacks to take samples because everything downwind is dying sounds less-than-appealing?

Because well-meaning do-gooders water down science and math for girls, so more girls will get high grades, and then we hit a brick wall in Intro to Electrical Engineering and Calculus 1?

I enjoy synthesizing other people’s research and translating from Engineer or Hydrologist into History. I really did not enjoy running all the calculations needed to get the data and then process it further. That’s just how I am, not because I have two X chromosomes.

As for role models and mentors, given the atmosphere in academia and corporate life today, who would dare mentor a grad student, be they male or female? I would not have a one-on-one meeting unless I could record all of it, video and audio. That’s not exactly a nurturing environment.

So you think there should be more women in science and engineering and computer fields? Great! Encourage girls and women, support them, cheer for them, but don’t tell us that science and technology needs to change because we are different from men. We know that already. Let us find our own strengths and skills, and if we decide that we’d rather go into biology than civil engineering or industrial chemistry, that we’d rather write tech manuals for computer programs and scripts for games than code and de-bug, don’t say we’ve let everyone down or that we don’t know what we really ought to be doing.

/end of rant.

*Anec-data, but you cannot persuade me that having large numbers of guest-workers from cultures where women are second class at best is going to encourage Western women to work in that field. Nor are the guest-workers suddenly going to “see the light” and become modern feminist males simply by setting foot in the US.

Welcome, Instapundit Readers! Thanks for stopping by.