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I covered much more than a mere tautology. Friendly warning: Ignore my reasons and live to regret it strongly in most contact with females. Politically corre

I covered much more than a mere tautology. Friendly warning: Ignore my reasons and live to regret it strongly in most contact with females. Politically correct? Heck no. Crucial? Sadly, yes. Organic chemistry is often a prerequisite for a career in biology or medicine. Women do fine in some parts of medicine, especially OB/GYN, pediatrics, family practice, and dermatology. There is also a wide range of 'biology and medical technology' careers where organic chemistry is from important up to a prerequisite; likely we should also include pharmacy. And some women might want to try for a career in research biochemistry. Also chemistry in college can be a good path to a career as a science teacher in high school. Similarly for mathematics: At a teacher training college, it is common for the girls to major in math on the way to being a high school math teacher. But don't look for girls in math departments in the better research universities or in the math oriented careers (say, DoD work or as a Wall Street 'quant'). Women are attracted to biomedical careers due to the role of human to human contact; generally women seek careers with such contact. Although I omitted it, one of the strongest emotions of women, and one of their most common directions in hoping to get security from praise and approval from others, e.g., their community, is to have a career that "helps people", and biomedical careers seem to qualify. Computer science as a college major has had ups and downs due to (1) the NASDAQ tech stock bubble of 1999 and its bursting in 2000, (2) the stories of software jobs going to India, (3) the role of the NSF in writing into academic research grants that graduate students must be supported and, then, the common practice of getting such graduate students from India and Taiwan and, thus, convincing many US citizens, especially girls, that they will not 'fit in' in computer science, and (4) a bubble and its shrinking for 'feminism'. One of the problems with a woman being a computer science major is that so far it has not been a common K-12 certified teaching subject. With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". That "A woman's place is in the home" and otherwise as either a nurse or school teacher has moderated. So, right, the patterns are not actually 'static'. But that women can do as well as men in any field where their 'rational' abilities seem to permit is a big, HUGE mistake as I tried to make clear: Rationality is NOT enough and, instead, an appropriate emotional 'environment' is crucial. Also we have to consider: At each generation, there will be (A) some women who do well as mommies and (B) others who are weak, sick, or dead limbs on the tree. It promises to remain that technical fields will be much better for (B) than (A). I omitted a huge point: At present the Western European gene pool is likely in the most rapid change in the last 40,000 years because genes of women who are not just DETERMINED to be mommies are being pruned out. So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES. There is another point hidden in the fog: As in E. Fromm, Western Civilization got the norm from the French Revolution that any difference was a threat of tyranny. So, in particular the norm was that men and women should be as 'equal' in all respects as possible. Combine that norm with some simplistic, naive 'rational' model that anyone can readily do anything their rationality permits, and can arrive at the long running story, back to 'the women's movement' and farther, that any difference in careers of men and women is evidence of something ugly or unfair. Then, in particular, as in this thread, we look for what is 'wrong' that so few women major in computer science. Uh, sorry, but that the fraction is small need not be evidence of anything wrong. Fromm's summary remark was, "Men and women deserve equal respect as person but are not the same.".

rorymarinich 16y ago
Hilbert, I'm sure that you mean well and I mean this with no disrespect to you at all, but you're making statements that're unpleasant and bordering on outright offensive. Statements like: > Women are attracted to biomedical careers due to the role of human to human contact; generally women seek careers with such contact. ignore the fact that our emotional patterns are not tied directly to our genders. Social/antisocial patterns are not strictly female/male patterns. I know plenty of wonderful women who are antisocial and dislike direct contact with lots of people; I know plenty of guys who are sympathetic and warm and caring. It does not do you well to make such generalized statements about complex subjects. Paragraphs like: > With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". are bordering on downvote-worthy. Are you really suggesting that women can't handle male careers? Really? Are we living in the seventies still? Because last time I checked we had a handful of women CEOs proving they could run Fortune 500 companies. I'm pretty sure some of those CEOs are happily married and have families. Sure, the male-to-female ratio is heavily imbalanced, but that's because women are fighting against centuries of irrational bias against their gender. Irrational bias that statements like yours don't help whatsoever. For what it's worth, my mother has been a corporate executive at AT&T since before I was born, and she managed to be an excellent mother to me and my brother. So if you're going to say things like: > that women can do as well as men in any field where their 'rational' abilities seem to permit is a big, HUGE mistake then you are insulting not just an entire gender in general, but my mother in specific, and I'll ask that you meet me at dawn with your pistol loaded. Finally: > So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES. This is really, really, really stupid. Your argument only holds water if you think that "wanting to be a mommy" is a genetic trait, that women are born either wanting kids or not wanting them. While there is a biological impulse towards maternity, the fact is that career aspirations are social traits, inherited more from society than from genetics. Just because a girl is born to a woman who wanted to be a mother — and let's pause for a minute to note how absurd it is that you'd say that; literally every girl is born to a woman who wanted to be a mother — doesn't mean that she won't decide she wants to get a job before eventually settling down, or maybe that she doesn't want to settle down at all. In fact, this is more likely the more permitting society becomes of women in the workplace, because working will seem less and less unfeminine the more it's shown that women can hold their own. There are more women working now than were working a hundred years ago. Did women somehow evolve? Of course not. Society evolved. And society is continuing in the direction of affording women equality. Your attempts to study women like they're simply a byproduct of their genetics ignores what's actually happened in the last century.

rorymarinich 16y ago

Hilbert, I'm sure that you mean well and I mean this with no disrespect to you at all, but you're making statements that're unpleasant and bordering on outright offensive. Statements like: > Women are attracted to biomedical careers due to the role of human to human contact; generally women seek careers with such contact. ignore the fact that our emotional patterns are not tied directly to our genders. Social/antisocial patterns are not strictly female/male patterns. I know plenty of wonderful women who are antisocial and dislike direct contact with lots of people; I know plenty of guys who are sympathetic and warm and caring. It does not do you well to make such generalized statements about complex subjects. Paragraphs like: > With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". are bordering on downvote-worthy. Are you really suggesting that women can't handle male careers? Really? Are we living in the seventies still? Because last time I checked we had a handful of women CEOs proving they could run Fortune 500 companies. I'm pretty sure some of those CEOs are happily married and have families. Sure, the male-to-female ratio is heavily imbalanced, but that's because women are fighting against centuries of irrational bias against their gender. Irrational bias that statements like yours don't help whatsoever. For what it's worth, my mother has been a corporate executive at AT&T since before I was born, and she managed to be an excellent mother to me and my brother. So if you're going to say things like: > that women can do as well as men in any field where their 'rational' abilities seem to permit is a big, HUGE mistake then you are insulting not just an entire gender in general, but my mother in specific, and I'll ask that you meet me at dawn with your pistol loaded. Finally: > So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES. This is really, really, really stupid. Your argument only holds water if you think that "wanting to be a mommy" is a genetic trait, that women are born either wanting kids or not wanting them. While there is a biological impulse towards maternity, the fact is that career aspirations are social traits, inherited more from society than from genetics. Just because a girl is born to a woman who wanted to be a mother — and let's pause for a minute to note how absurd it is that you'd say that; literally every girl is born to a woman who wanted to be a mother — doesn't mean that she won't decide she wants to get a job before eventually settling down, or maybe that she doesn't want to settle down at all. In fact, this is more likely the more permitting society becomes of women in the workplace, because working will seem less and less unfeminine the more it's shown that women can hold their own. There are more women working now than were working a hundred years ago. Did women somehow evolve? Of course not. Society evolved. And society is continuing in the direction of affording women equality. Your attempts to study women like they're simply a byproduct of their genetics ignores what's actually happened in the last century.