Harvard President says Women Can't be Top Scientists

[The Last Conformist]

@gothmod & TLC: I dont think its likely that men' brain are different bcause of evolution and hunting, IIRC evoltuion is a much longer process. Its probably more of a hormonal cause.

You totally lost me there, unless you're saying that hormones have not arisen thru evolution (in which case you're a nutjob ).

 

[Keirador]

The studies on female self asteem and its relationship to education were, of course, the whole motivation for title 9.

Suprizingly good, with references: http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/girls.html

a review page: http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/research.shtml

some definitions: http://www.wilderdom.com/self/

I'm not arguing that all variance in self esteem stems from gender, far from it. I'm just showing that there are studies that support a lower self esteem among women (especially during adolescence) and that is thought to affect performance.

Alright, I've no choice but to concede.
I do believe that even if girls do need their egos boosted (which apparently they do), this should not be done by hampering male self-esteem. However, males and females learn differently, so it does seem that in order to cater to girls, boys are (perhaps indirectly) discriminated against. Perhaps the problem could be solved by greater course differentiation, allowing kids to select through what form they would prefer to study history, offering a class that emphasized the role conflicts and a class that emphasized social petterns, or something like that.

 

[Gothmog]

Not a bad idea, though taken to its logical extreme it implies having single-sex schools (as some educators have suggested based on these sorts of studies). If I hadn't had women in my high school I would have gone completely crazy. They were about the only interesting thing in that place.

I learned so much more outside of class than in it, it sounds like you do too. So if you are going to read and internalize a book like Animal Farm on your own time, who really cares what few books you read in school.

In fact I had a preconceived bias against books I read in school (until college), the only one that busted that stereotype was Catcher in the Rye.

If you have to deal with a bit of stuff you consider to be hampering male self-esteem in order to keep females in your school. Isn’t the benefit worth the cost?

And now tell the truth, do you really think your self-esteem has been hampered by the things you described in this post?

As for female accomplishments being lauded over male accomplishments, this is in the curriculum itself. Whenever a record is broken by a man, there is ALWAYS included the first time a woman broke it as well. If a woman is the first to do something, it doesn't mention the first man to do so. In science books, when women make a breakthrough, they hype said breakthrough and make a point of saying "look! its a woman who did this!". When a man makes a discovery, the discovery is duly noted and we move on.
In history, each section of the text-book has a special section devoted to how important women were during this time period, and society would have failed entirely without them. For example, studying America's Gilded Age and the first serious impact of social reformers, the text paints the picture that women and women alone cared at all for their fellow man. The fact that MEN brought the ideas for several of the most prominent social reforms back from other MEN in England is not mentioned.

I'm going to put asside the genetic arguments for now because the data just isn't out there. I do think that relating modern male/female charicteristics to hunters and/or 'alpha male' behavior is 99% crap.

Also I forgot to mention it before, but at least when I was in school the kids who were good in math (and by association science, computers, and chess) were considered the ‘smartest’. Perhaps that has changed too?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Here, I'll use the thread compression utility I downloaded recently.

Processing...........................................

Thread has been compressed! Here are your results:

Men and women are different

 

[Keirador]

Not a bad idea, though taken to its logical extreme it implies having single-sex schools (as some educators have suggested based on these sorts of studies). If I hadn't had women in my high school I would have gone completely crazy. They were about the only interesting thing in that place.

I learned so much more outside of class than in it, it sounds like you do too. So if you are going to read and internalize a book like Animal Farm on your own time, who really cares what few books you read in school.

In fact I had a preconceived bias against books I read in school (until college), the only one that busted that stereotype was Catcher in the Rye.

If you have to deal with a bit of stuff you consider to be hampering male self-esteem in order to keep females in your school. Isn’t the benefit worth the cost?

Very few kids take it upon themselves to learn outside of school. Books they are forced to read in school are what first kindle their interest. Many girls have their interests kindled with books by Willa Cather and Virginia Woolf, but it is almost impossible for a boy to find something really interesting on standard high school reading lists. I genuinely feel that if perhaps just a bit of Erich Maria Remarque or Ernest Hemingway was included as part of the curriculum, boys could find themselves actually interested in literature.
Also, I'm not advocating seperate schools, just a greater diversity of classes offered the ability for students to choose what classes interest them the most. I think this would be a good idea regardless of gender differences, as different people are interested in different things. The conformity enforced by the mass education system stifles individuality in all but the most independant thinkers.

And now tell the truth, do you really think your self-esteem has been hampered by the things you described in this post?

My experience is hardly typical of the average American student. Just because some independant thinkers manage to realize that the education system is not God, and in fact has severe flaws and should not be trusted, does not justify the methods used by the system that succeed with the majority of students.

 

[Keirador]

Also I forgot to mention it before, but at least when I was in school the kids who were good in math (and by association science, computers, and chess) were considered the ‘smartest’. Perhaps that has changed too?

I'm not saying math experts aren't considered smart, just that they are not put on a tier above the kids who excel in debate and read Goethe.

 

[thestonesfan]

On the whole, women seem to lack the ambition that men have. Or rather, their ambition is aimed in less glamorous directions.

It's all natural. In virtually all higher organisms, the male is the bigger, more agressive, and flashier of the sexes. Males have a drive to excel that females lack.

Not that females don't run the planet, which they do. Just in subtle ways.

 

[Gothmog]

Agreed, good idea to diversify offerings, just too expensive given current funding structures.

It's funny that you mention Virginia Woolf. I didn't get exposed to her in high school, but when I finally read 'A Room of Ones Own' I was floored. It's one of the best books I have ever read.

The mass education system ensures a minimum of education for everyone, I think it does an OK job at that. It is terribly underfunded and anyone who is truly interested in education must do more. Personally, my interest in reading was kindled by sci fi and fantasy novels when I was like 7.

Have you ever heard the idea that a PhD is nothing more than a licence to teach yourself?

Edit:

I'm not saying math experts aren't considered smart, just that they are not put on a tier above the kids who excel in debate and read Goethe.

Well, that has changed I guess. Maybe time for a poll?

 

[The Last Conformist]

I genuinely feel that if perhaps just a bit of Erich Maria Remarque or Ernest Hemingway was included as part of the curriculum, boys could find themselves actually interested in literature.

FWIW, at my hich school everyone was forced to read No News on the Western Front, and most boys professed to hate it.

They also made us read Hemingway in English class. It did not seem to have any encouraging effect over what the works of female authors had.

 

[GerrardCapashen]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4202199.stm

More evidence that men and women are not identical. Of course, individuals vary and nobody is saying that all women are inferior (or superior) to men in certain respects, just that different sexes may be more naturally inclined to different methods of reasoning, in very general terms.