What do men want?

[DanaC]

This has been fun but I'm stepping out of this discussion. I am spending way too much time thinking about this, and not nearly enough time thinking about my thesis :P

[Undertoad]

But this isn't just about the impact on girls. Think about what we tell our boys.

We tell them that they should be sitting quietly at a desk for eight hours at a time. When they find they can't easily do that, we tell them they are defective and give them drugs to help them accomplish it. Then, at the end of their secondary education, they go to college at a lower rate than the girls.

This is where we are now. I dunno if it's similar in Yorkshire.

It's weird this insistence on equality of outcome. From my experience it has been a mixed bag.

I graduated three decades ago with a comp sci degree, and over 1/3rds of comp sci majors were women. At that time, in education, there was deep concern that women weren't entering STEM fields. So girls were urged to enter those fields. Today 30 years later, 1/4 of comp sci majors are women.

Right. It went down. In an era when more women go to college, fewer of them go for comp sci. In an era when the M/F ratio in MED school is about 52/48, the ratio in comp sci dropped. In a huge way.

I believe this is a true M/F brain difference; I think it goes across cultures. It's not that girls can't do programming as well as boys. It's that they have preferences, and like many other preferences, they are established before birth. Before society even has a chance to get to them.

If there are brain differences, the worst thing we could do to boys and girls is tell them there are not. The best thing we could do is show that these differences exist and then to educate them about prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping, so that any judging that happens works on an individual basis.

The WORST thing we could do is shoehorn people into professions they don't actually enjoy because we have decided that equality is the only thing that matters.

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." - Aristotle

[DanaC]

Y'know, I could write an essay in response to that. The comp science bit especially. But I really, really don;t have time. I'd like to. But I have to be a bit strict with myself.

So I'll just say this:

I'm not saying there aren't differences. But here's the thing: are those differences because one has a boy brain and the other has a girl brain; or is that one has a type A brain and the other has a type C brain, and girls are more likely than boys to have a type C brain, and boys are more likely than girls to have a type A brain?

Because both those paths might lead to a broadly similar outcome, but they have very different implications.

[Sundae]

Female colleagues of mine, from far further up their various career-ladders have told me that one of their biggest considerations when it came to choosing said path was taking future children into consideration. I mean they were thinking about it even before they went to Uni.

This includes pharmacists and lawyers, and both of these professions need to keep learning and training and staying up to date on recent developments for as long as they are working. Male colleagues in general still have a good chance of being looked after at home. Laundry done for them, meals cooked, house cleaned and still able to go to work when the children are ill. With no need to work part-time they are able to progress further and faster. Amen bring home the bacon, but who shovels the pigshit?

Not me. I get to work part-time even without children. Yay.
Hmmmm. Okay, I'm not a good advert.

Anyway I'm not saying that planning for children is specifically girl-thinking. Not at all. The majority of straight people work on the assumption that they will procreate. I'm just saying that the choice of career involves gender in many ways which do not involve brain development at all.

[Undertoad]

Talking about the probability of a type C brain seems like we are on a similar boat.

I feel like I should add that in comp sci, I have worked for female bosses and I have hired female employees; after the preference is found, we are all equals.

The real terrible inequality in comp sci is AGE. (The worst inequalities in the world are the ones happening to US)

[lumberjim]

Get in the coffin gramps

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Sundae

Anyway I'm not saying that planning for children is specifically girl-thinking. Not at all. The majority of straight people work on the assumption that they will procreate. I'm just saying that the choice of career involves gender in many ways which do not involve brain development at all.

This is THE reason I rejected being a pre-med major when considering my college options. I knew I wanted children, and I wanted them before I finished my residency at age 30.

[DanaC]

Seems largely to hold true for the 18th/19th century British army.

Given the dynamic of lots of trained, armed men hanging about for long periods of inactivity in camps, there seems surprisingly little serious violence between soldiers of similar rank and service. Obviously, there's a level of day to day violence that doesn't make it into the justice records - dealt with summarily by officers, or self-policed through company structures. But they don't appear to have been any more violent amongst themselves than a comparable civilian population of the day.

Non-comms, though. They're a different story. So far I am getting the distinct impression that NCOs were disproportionately victims of violence.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Non-comms, though. They're a different story. So far I am getting the distinct impression that NCOs were disproportionately victims of violence.

Private: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Captain: [shakes Private] Shut up!
Private: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
Captain: Bloody Private!
Private: Ooh, what a giveaway!

[regular.joe]

Dana, I thought you were kidding. Are you really writing a paper on interpersonal violence between soldiers?

Your comments on brain wiring has me thinking. Men and women are different starting at the genetic level. Genetically, hormonally, different. Do you mean that our brain processing is essentially the same? I suppose we all look similar when we process 2+2. The method of neurons processing information does not take into account the delicate play of brain chemistry, hormones, and genetic markers.

Sent from an undisclosed location.

[footfootfoot]

Joe, I think that is a chapter in her PhD thesis. Somewhere Dana goes into detail about the whole thing, but I believe it has to do with the British Army in the 1800s.

Probably, I'll just wait for the movie...

[regular.joe]

That is very interesting. I suppose I should stop baiting her in this forum and let her have a little peace to write her thesis.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by regular.joe

That is very interesting. I suppose I should stop baiting her in this forum and let her have a little peace to write her thesis.

I see what you did there

[regular.joe]

Ah come now Three Foot, you have to admit it is the perfect word for the occasion, works on any level. It's a hard feat for us low context Mericans to pull off.

[footfootfoot]

Hard feet? Hardly. I thought it was just your regular genius and I haggised.