I keep comparing your statement "I think that certain members of that particular group exaggerate things and make up problems that just don't exist." with your repeated statements about women being forced into fields like Engineering and Science and thinking, wow, and I'm the one making up a problem that doesn't exist?
anna_en_route has articulated this quite well already, but I want to respond to your comments which essentially say, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with having only 25% women in a certain field, it's only a problem when parents/society act to ensure that. The thing is, even as society offers scholarships and encouragement for women in engineering - and my university has the biggest engineering school in the country and there definitely is some of that - it simultaneously tells girls (much more subtly) that they're not good at geometry and spatial skills, that they like English and the Arts subjects more, that Engineering is for boys - it's a simple as giving boys Legos and girls dolls, as mundane, as insidious as the example you gave about science experiments. Scholarships and encouragement exist to counteract this, and the energy to do that is not a waste of time and it most certainly does not amount to forcing women into a field.
I am having trouble reconciling your acknowledgement that social pressures ecist to force women out of these fields, with your resistance to admit that that is a problem that needs discussing, a problem that needs exposure.
In re: media portrayals of everything being sucky, and everyone not speaking up when they're uncomfortable. Yes, this is absolutely true. That doesn't make it false in the particular cases I'm speaking about. For example, both men and women are portrayed unrealistically in the media; men are socialised into certain roles, just like women are; men are held to an unreasonable standard of beauty. On the other hand, men's standards of beauty involve being fit and strong; women's standards involve being skinny and pretty. The jobs men are socialised into (doctors and pilots) just happen to be more prestigious and better-paid than the jobs women are socialised into (nurses and air hostesses.) Of course that doesn't mean it's not difficult for men who want to be air hostesses or nurses. But it is harder to get the training to be a doctor or a pilot (still one of the most male-dominated roles) than it is to be a nurse or an air hostess.
And even when men are air hostesses/stewards, they're held to a different standard than their women co-workers, who are required to wear make up and present a certain standard of beauty beyond being clean-shaven and tidy.
Finally the boys and computers argument was an example. Yes, it's fine on a individual basis for you to go to your boyfriend. I go to my boy friends all the time. It's a different thing when every woman is going to boys to ask for help. (The bias towards women being educated in terms of english etc does indeed exist, as you point out, and it is my opinion that high-school education really fails boys in this respect. I am hugely concerned by this. Just because I didn't address it in this post - which is about something else entirely - doesn't mean I'm not aware of it or not interested in it.)
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Date: 2007-10-04 08:17 pm (UTC)I am having trouble reconciling your acknowledgement that social pressures ecist to force women out of these fields, with your resistance to admit that that is a problem that needs discussing, a problem that needs exposure.
In re: media portrayals of everything being sucky, and everyone not speaking up when they're uncomfortable. Yes, this is absolutely true. That doesn't make it false in the particular cases I'm speaking about. For example, both men and women are portrayed unrealistically in the media; men are socialised into certain roles, just like women are; men are held to an unreasonable standard of beauty. On the other hand, men's standards of beauty involve being fit and strong; women's standards involve being skinny and pretty. The jobs men are socialised into (doctors and pilots) just happen to be more prestigious and better-paid than the jobs women are socialised into (nurses and air hostesses.) Of course that doesn't mean it's not difficult for men who want to be air hostesses or nurses. But it is harder to get the training to be a doctor or a pilot (still one of the most male-dominated roles) than it is to be a nurse or an air hostess.
And even when men are air hostesses/stewards, they're held to a different standard than their women co-workers, who are required to wear make up and present a certain standard of beauty beyond being clean-shaven and tidy.
Finally the boys and computers argument was an example. Yes, it's fine on a individual basis for you to go to your boyfriend. I go to my boy friends all the time. It's a different thing when every woman is going to boys to ask for help. (The bias towards women being educated in terms of english etc does indeed exist, as you point out, and it is my opinion that high-school education really fails boys in this respect. I am hugely concerned by this. Just because I didn't address it in this post - which is about something else entirely - doesn't mean I'm not aware of it or not interested in it.)