StarDestroyer.Net BBS

One thing occurred to me in physics class today: the problems given to students in physics classes are almost universally either "masculine" or gender-neutral. Of the examples given by my teacher in my class, one involved a monkey, while the rest involved bullets hitting things, or cars. The latter two types of questions are (in general) much easier for male students to relate to than for female students, because boys are much more likely to have been socialised to deal with guns and cars from a young age, while girls are not.

So when seeing that girls are less interested in science than boys, we must ask ourselves the question - is it the science that girls find boring, or is it the questions？

The thing is, most people don't consider "most physics questions in textbooks are about boys stuff" to be sexism, even though it's actually a very good example of institutionalised sexism. Girls are put at a disadvantage from early on in their studies, because the course itself is designed to bore them, and nobody questions the situation, because as far as they are concerned, that's just the way the course is done. Any failure to perform well in the course is blamed on the girls lack of capacity to meet the requirements, and nobody stops to consider that the real requirements (i.e. the learning of the actual Physics) could be met just as well using an equal mixture of questions aimed at both male and female students as it is with the current dominance of male-oriented questions.

But bullets cars and stuff are also very physicsy-things (as well as very boy things) because they move a lot, and physics is all about moving objects. I mean, if you don't talk about vehicles and bullets, it's usually apples falling from a tree or boulders or other moving objects, which are gender neutral.

Are physics questions boyish because they choose vehicles and bullets because of boyishness? Or is it because vehicles and bullets are good examples of moving objects, which just happen to be also boyish things because, I dunno, for some reason boys also happen to like guns and vehicles (which also are good examples of physics/moving objects) while girls don't (?).

For all we know, physics questions just chose vehicles and bullets because they are good examples of physics in action. Bullets and vehicles being boyish topics could be independent of that. I mean, either way, if they were boyish or girlish or neutral, bullets and vehicles are totally good examples of physics and would probably be used in questions/text books.

One could just as easily make physics questions about the torque in a music box, or the tension in a sewing needle, or what the lower limit of the coefficient of friction between a drawer and its tracks is if it can be pulled out a certain length, hell, even a question to determine where the centre of gravity is in a doll, and whether or not it will stand up on its own in a certain configuration.

An example of a physics question aimed at feminine women: Paris Hilton can push a shopping trolley along with a force of 20N. When the trolley is empty, Paris can accelerate the trolley at 5m/s/s, however after loading it up with 10kg of designer clothes and 5kg of Chanel Perfume, she can only accelerate the trolley at 3m/s/s. Calculate the weight of the empty trolley.

Alternatively: Two hysterical fans are pulling at each of Justin Beiber's arms, each with a force of 350N, which does not harm Justin Beiber. Soon after, another fan comes and helps her friend to pull at Justin Beiber's arm, adding another 150N of force to the struggle. This causes Justin Beiber to be ripped in half. Given this information, calculate an upper and lower limit for the maximum tensile strength of Justin Beiber.

These things all involve physics, but textbook writers don't think about them, because they're usually men, and these aren't "men" things. People have just been conditioned to think of science and maths as "male" subjects, so they don't consider that even in traditionally female roles, you get plenty of exposure to physics.

Even changing the questions to more gender-neutral questions would be beneficial in making female students more interested. Any question that involves the word "car", for example, could be replaced with the word "bicycle", which is a far more gender-neutral object, while many examples using "bullets" could be replaced by "balls". This, while not necessarily grabbing the attention of feminine girls, would at least not be reinforcing the idea in their minds that physics is a "boy" thing.

Frankly, the physics questions regarding cars and guns being 'boyish' is a sexist stance itself trying to attack sexism. Women can like cars and guns just as much as a guy. If you really want to address sexism, address the core issue whereas it's falsely assumed certain things are 'boyish' in the first place.

Guns and cars being claimed as 'boyish' (thus discouraging female interest) is as empty an argument as claiming it would discourage a pacifist and environmentalist from learning physics, repectively. If you're going to claim guns and cars are boyish, you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and just claim physics itself is 'boyish'.

If someone is interested in physics, they'll learn it because they're interested in physics, not because of whatever exmples get used, regardless of whether they're guns or Justin Bieber.

Case in point, you yourself as a woman, Lusankya. You're in physics class; do you seriously give a shit about what the example is, or are you more interested in figuring out the physics itself?

Singular Intellect wrote:Frankly, the physics questions regarding cars and guns being 'boyish' is a sexist stance itself trying to attack sexism. Women can like cars and guns just as much as a guy. If you really want to address sexism, address the core issue whereas it's falsely assumed certain things are 'boyish' in the first place.

Guns and cars being claimed as 'boyish' (thus discouraging female interest) is as empty an argument as claiming it would discourage a pacifist and environmentalist from learning physics, repectively. If you're going to claim guns and cars are boyish, you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and just claim physics itself is 'boyish'.

If someone is interested in physics, they'll learn it because they're interested in physics, not because of whatever exmples get used, regardless of whether they're guns or Justin Bieber.

Case in point, you yourself as a woman, Lusankya. You're in physics class; do you seriously give a shit about what the example is, or are you more interested in figuring out the physics itself?

In an ideal world you're right of course. However, we do not yet live in one of those - so until we HAVE managed to change societal gender pressures, why is it wrong to propose making physics more appealing to girls NOW in the way suggested. This does NOT preclude trying to stop gender stereotyping at the same time.

Unless of course you are merely attempting to point-score.

Singular Intellect wrote:If someone is interested in physics, they'll learn it because they're interested in physics, not because of whatever exmples get used, regardless of whether they're guns or Justin Bieber.

I just want to address this point.

At primary and high school level, it's absolutely ridiculous to suggest leaving it to the students to provide their own motivation. Children have no idea what they want to do with their lives, and it's the teacher's job to not only give them the information, but also to care about the subject in question. While the information is conveyed equally well by any kind of example, getting the students to care about the question and relate it to their everyday life requires a variety of questions in order to help students with different personalities and different interests to understand how the subject relates the them, personally.

It's not as though children are born with an innate understanding of the importance of science, you know. Most people who end up studying these things do so because at some stage someone said to them, “hey, science is relevant to this thing you like!" and they then moved on from there. Expecting them to do that without any help at all from course co-ordinators is, quite frankly, being unfair on them.

Furthermore, I have been aware since I was young that I am far above average when it comes to intellectual capacity, and, more importantly, passion for learning. I am quite willing to put a lot more effort into my study than most people, and I find it easier to make progress than most people as well. However, most students are not me. Most students are ordinary. Ordinary students need to have the examples used in class expressed in a way they can relate to, or they will not find the interest to overcome the difficulties they have - and as far as I'm concerned, people should not be penalised just for being ordinary.

As for your point about certain things being "boyish", there is a reason that I chose to phrase it as "boys are more likely to have been socialised to deal with these things from a young age than girls", rather than "boys like these things more than girls do". I took care not to classify any kind of toy as masculine or feminine, except in a cultural context. Since people respond more positively when given stimulus that is related to something they are familiar with, and boys are far more likely to be familiar with the movements of cars than girls due to social reasons (as an example, I never got a remote control car as a little girl, even though I wanted one desperately, because that was a "boy's toy"), it stands to reason that questions about cars advantage the average boy more than they advantage the average girl.

Even if we did live in a world free of gender stereotypes, I see no reason to not include a greater variety of examples for questions than we do now - there is always going to be a segment of the population more interested in Paris Hilton's shopping trolley than they are in some random car, and there's no real reason aside from "tradition" to exclude those people, regardless of whether they are male or female.

It's also interesting to see how there is an immediate backlash against the idea of using "girlier" topics for physics questions, because apparently people who are interested will learn regardless of the topics. Really, if you actually think that way, then you should have no issue with increasing the variety of topics for questions - after all, if the boys are interested, they'll learn the physics regardless of the question topics, right? I mean, if they're in a physics class, they won't give a shit about the what the example is, since they'll be more interested in figuring out the physics itself. Isn't that what you think?

And for the record, I do give a shit about what the example is, even though it doesn't interfere with my working out the physics. I care, because not everyone has interests as broad as mine, and not everyone has the same ability to concentrate through boring work in order to achieve understanding of the underlying concepts that I have, and many otherwise perfectly talented people never had the chance to even find out that they were interested in physics, because it was never presented to them in a way that really struck a chord with them.

See, as I've said before on this board, I'm learning three Asian languages. I love language learning. Another thing I've also said before on this board (though less often) is that I didn't even know that I loved language learning until I was in high school. I had Greek classes all through primary school, but because it was never taught in a way that really enthused me, I never really gave a shit about it. Had I not had my wonderful language teachers in early high school, odds are I would not be where I am now. I know personally how important it is to have someone make the topic actually mean something to me. As it is, I spent thirteen years of my life having no idea that I was even interested in something that is now very central to who I am. Looking back on it, it really sucks.

As to your second question, I have these things I call "jackass senses". They set off alarm bells whenever I see somebody on the verge of diving from misinformed anti-feminism into sexism. Now, the problem is that you're insisting that if I have contempt for one opposing viewpoint to my own, then I must have contempt for them all. I'll turn that right back at you. How much respect do you have for Neo-Nazis, Fascists, genocidal maniacs? Do you hear them out fully and give full quarter to their opinions? I'm not going to say, a priori, whether you are a Nazi or not, but I hope you'll understand the analogy. I get that you have a febrile mind, but it shouldn't hamper you quite that much.

I am not going to go down the story tangent as I feel it's unrelated, all I will say is that you missed my point, which is that I doubt you would support changing the etho's so much if it was not to something you personally agree with.

So is it sexist to merely not subscribe to feminism now? And here I thought modern society valued freedom of thought and speech. Have I said I hate women? Sexism is the belief that one sex is inherently superior or better than the other, that is not what I believe.

I have no problem with allowing neo-nazi's or fascists to air their opinions EVEN IF they are not widely accepted by society. Yet here you are, the moment I say something you do not accept, attempting to label me as one of The Bads and associate me with them.

If you do not believe in freedom of speech for those you despise, then you don't believe in it at all.

It's hardly a false wage gap. The gap is there and has been there, the question is of the causes. But you don't grasp that, since you're wrapped up in manufacturing a conspiracy against half of humanity by some fraction of the other half. I don't know how far your imaginary conspiracy extends. You might reach the depths of Dave Sim, and start ranting about how women are trying to steal your male light. You might believe that instead it's a tight conspiracy of the Lesbian Illuminati, seeking to control the entire world. I don't know, and frankly I don't want to descend into your madness any further.

Have I said there is a conspiracy? So in other words you do not intend to have an actual debate about this, but would rather associate me with a straw man and burn it down. How very enlightened. It's not like thats what mobs do or anything. Can I get you anything? A pitchfork and a torch perhaps?

That is a problem. But, when you look at our society as a whole, what we see is that overall the bias is against women and in favor of men, so something like this is probably a result of a deeper factor rather than "feminists cackle with glee at the thought of men not getting Ph.Ds and cast their sapphic spells to ensure this", such as, perhaps, the declining quality of education in a number of areas. It turns out that most feminists also feel that education needs to be revamped in this country. Damn, Retsina, it's like you're assigning beliefs to people they may not actually hold!

The irony of you accusing me of putting words in your mouth after

since you're wrapped up in manufacturing a conspiracy against half of humanity by some fraction of the other half. I don't know how far your imaginary conspiracy extends.

is pretty hilarious, though I'm sure your cognitive dissonance doesn't stop you from sleeping at night.

I could care less whether the fault lies with feminism or not, what I do care about is that the moment anyone brings up an MALE issues, they are brushed aside callously.

But, when you look at our society as a whole, what we see is that overall the bias is against women and in favor of men

Add that might even be true, but it does not make concerns by men worth any less simply because they are not a politically oppressed class. Your crowdism is frankly, sickening.

How about that men have no incentive to go to university? Recent studies have shown that being jobless and not successful doesn't even impact a man's access to sex, and it's known that society's in which females have more autonomy and freedom are much friendlier to males.

Society has been built on the redirecting of peoples passions into working and in reward, receiving them. If men are getting sex without working, why should they? Because they have a DUTY to? Well maybe, but why should they care?

Before you accuse me of being a jobless bum because I brought that up, no, I work, however I also know that I could get laid more if I had more free time. However I have other goals. You hope most men would have higher goals to aspire to, but it appears not. A pity.

Retsina, that was a little thing called an insult. I'm sorry you're so sensitive about your appearance that the very term "ugly mug" used as an off-hand pejorative electronically to refer to you causes you to teeter on the edge of a mental breakdown, such that you cannot even remember how to put links in your posts. I realize that I may be being reckless in continuing to insult you, but I have a degree in Internet Psychology, focusing on e-clinical assaultive therapy, so I foresee no problems.

Again, completely irrelevant. Are ad-hominems a favourite of yours?

But I'm not sorry now, since I read your second paragraph. I'm going to translate this into plain English: Retsina, here, is saying that liking science is genetically controlled and a sex-linked trait that is male-biased. Bingo! Bingo! That outburst of evopsych biotruths just gave me a nice bingo! Too bad you don't have any extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim.

Again, you misunderstand or wilfully distort, what I am saying is that your ideology is based on the premise that men and women are the same. And I disagree. Furthermore, we just had a huge thread on transexuals where someone was smacked down -rightly- for saying that people who get sex changes could be socialised out of it.

So which is it? Are we the same or not? You can't have it both ways or whichever way depending on the subject at hand. Either men and women are the same and are simply socialised into gender roles, and thus, transsexualism is socialised (here's a hint, thats wrong). Or they are not, and some of our behaviour is determined by the structures of our brain.

Here's the reasoning: there are few famous female scientists. Those that are famous are still often downplayed compared with others. The overall stereotype of a scientist is an older, white man who fits the "mad scientist" stereotype. So there are few role models for little girls that are science-related. Those that are are often in the life sciences- which are more egalitarian than the "hard" sciences. Toys like chemistry sets, LEGO blocks, and gadgets in general are seen as boy toys. Current scientific areas are generally male-dominated and may or may not have an "old boy's club" feel that discourage women undergraduates from continuing into grad school. That's ignoring the overall pressures against women which contribute. These are just factors I can identify off the top of my head. Now explain why these are all irrelevant, and it's actually the genes that make women shop wear makeup cry like science less.

I knew you would come to this, the very idea that genes may affect behaviour in the slightest ways offends you doesn't it?

In your very own post you said that yes, there was no hiring discrimination found in those fields, company's by law cannot pay the women less so it's not that, that to me says that there is equality of opportunity, is that not good enough?

It has been 30 years since the 70's and the big successes of feminism, and yet the situation in those fields remains the same, if providing role models doesn't work will you agree that maybe the majority of women don't want to work in those fields with geeks and nerds, or will you sigh, find a new thing to blame it on and go running to daddy government?

Furthermore, how exactly do you intend to feminize the culture of science and engineering? Nerds are not known for their social graces, especially around women. Should we put the threat of losing their jobs on them if they say anything that offends the women they are working with? Yes, more oppressive and easily abused laws and working conditions for all! Spread the love!

Who cares that the number of men that are teachers is declining? I do. But unlike your paranoid ass, I recognize that this isn't a grand feminist conspiracy to destroy the male identity or whatever your brain has concocted as reasoning, and I think that the whole "all men are pedophiles" is a combination of traditional gender roles with kidnapping panic. See, in traditional gender roles, men are the sexual aggressors, and so now that we've got to be afraid of the hordes of pedos in vans trying to kidnap our kids, why, they're all male, because women are never sexually aggressive. It turns out that feminism recognizes that stereotypical gender roles hurt men in a variety of ways, and are trying to liberate men from that too, but the position of women affords them less power to mitigate said effects, and so feminists generally focus on women first.

Yes, more freedom is good for both men and women, but when it comes time to pay for the date he's a cheap loser if he doesn't. Not All Women Are Like That, but for the majority, her money is hers and his money is hers, and he better do half the housework regardless of how many hours he works or he's a lazy prick who sits in front of the TV all day.

Maybe I like being the sexual aggressor? And I have found my relationships last longer if I am the dominant partner, oops a man being dominant, I must not respect women. Is blatant self interest not a valid motivation anymore, maybe I should say instead that I am trying to liberate everyone with a smile and a wink so that the bullshit goes down easier.

Further, should not men be educated in how traditional roles are hurting them without the combativeness of typical feminism? Or are you using the traditional belief that women have the moral high ground to say they should make the change.

Equality of opportunity is a lovely trio of words. A nice soundbite. I've got my own. Society should be as fractal as we can make it. You should be able to take any university and it should have similar proportions to the country as a whole. Any career. Right now, American and Australian and Austrian and Belgian and British and Canadian and so many other countries have scientific establishments, CEOs, political establishments, all of which are not really good representations (though some are much better than others) because they aren't all that proportional. Women make up half the population of the world, but at best (in the Scandinavian countries) about 36% of the parliaments. That's not really a good picture of the country, now is it? And that's why I think that settling for some hoary soundbite reappropriated to defend institutionalized discrimination is the hallmark of jackassery.

And here is the root of disagreement, I think people (men AND women) should succeed and fail on their own merits with as little barriers placed in their path as possible. You think that every group of people should be a tiny version of the society it is based in. Crowdism. I do not accept the wisdom of the crowd, most of the proles are fucking dumb shits. Regardless, since not everyone can be at the top, the only way to achieve what you want is to drag others down in the name of ideological purity. Your solutions are social engineering on a massive scale 'for the good of the people' since they don't know any better. Though you will probably attack me for calling most people idiots without a hint of irony.

Bringing up David Reimer, meanwhile, is what we called a cheap shot back when I was younger. I am given to understand by the way in which you brought it up that it's called a "devastating argument" now. But I guess that nothing has changed, and John Money is still considered to have had the last word in studies of gender, and that the real reason why Reimer's reassignment failed was because he didn't have the doll and don't-like-science genes. Really, fuck you for trying to encode gender roles in our genes.

Like I said above, you can't have it both ways cupcake. Take your gender feminism and shove it up your ass you fucking shrike. If you think I will shut up simply because I offend you then you are sadly mistaken.

Lusankya wrote:One thing occurred to me in physics class today: the problems given to students in physics classes are almost universally either "masculine" or gender-neutral. Of the examples given by my teacher in my class, one involved a monkey, while the rest involved bullets hitting things, or cars. The latter two types of questions are (in general) much easier for male students to relate to than for female students, because boys are much more likely to have been socialised to deal with guns and cars from a young age, while girls are not.

So when seeing that girls are less interested in science than boys, we must ask ourselves the question - is it the science that girls find boring, or is it the questions？

The thing is, most people don't consider "most physics questions in textbooks are about boys stuff" to be sexism, even though it's actually a very good example of institutionalised sexism. Girls are put at a disadvantage from early on in their studies, because the course itself is designed to bore them, and nobody questions the situation, because as far as they are concerned, that's just the way the course is done. Any failure to perform well in the course is blamed on the girls lack of capacity to meet the requirements, and nobody stops to consider that the real requirements (i.e. the learning of the actual Physics) could be met just as well using an equal mixture of questions aimed at both male and female students as it is with the current dominance of male-oriented questions.

Never stopped the girls in my physics class from doing well. The way a problem was worded was just fancy dressing, hell my teacher was a woman and she came up with questions about wrecking balls and shit. If someone did poorly in the class it was because they didn't fully understand the concept. I constantly teetered between, I get it and I don't get it and it had nothing to do with whether the probably was about Bieber or a wrecking ball. You read the problem, makes notes of the force, mass, friction, and just plug everything into an equation. I mean fuck, on my last stats test my teacher made a crack about Charlie Sheen's twitter followers, that didn't exactly prevent me from recognizing the population sample or anything. Its not sexist, even remotely.

So is it sexist to merely not subscribe to feminism now?

Yes- feminism is the belief women deserve equality to men.

And here I thought modern society valued freedom of thought and speech...Yet here you are, the moment I say something you do not accept, attempting to label me as one of The Bads and associate me with them.

If you do not believe in freedom of speech for those you despise, then you don't believe in it at all.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to be immune to criticism.

How about that men have no incentive to go to university? Recent studies have shown that being jobless and not successful doesn't even impact a man's access to sex, and it's known that society's in which females have more autonomy and freedom are much friendlier to males.

Society has been built on the redirecting of peoples passions into working and in reward, receiving them. If men are getting sex without working, why should they? Because they have a DUTY to? Well maybe, but why should they care?

Before you accuse me of being a jobless bum because I brought that up, no, I work, however I also know that I could get laid more if I had more free time. However I have other goals. You hope most men would have higher goals to aspire to, but it appears not. A pity.

Are you seriously claiming that men only work in order to get laid? Are you really that stupid? Do you think the poor had less sex than the middle class in the past?

Men also value
prestige
respect
power
wealth
family
children
knowledge
drugs
sports
strength

Or they are not, and some of our behaviour is determined by the structures of our brain.

Or men and women are different and the social roles they take up are culturally determined (well, except for manual labor).

It has been 30 years since the 70's and the big successes of feminism, and yet the situation in those fields remains the same, if providing role models doesn't work will you agree that maybe the majority of women don't want to work in those fields with geeks and nerds, or will you sigh, find a new thing to blame it on and go running to daddy government?

Blacks don't have full equality with whites in the US when it comes to pay and education. Maybe it takes a bit more time to have things regularize. Or maybe there are other factors besides company hiring policies that result in the current situation.

Oh, Retsina, honey, call me a shrike. Call me a vapid cunt, call me a lesbo bitch, call me a whore, a silly slut, a termagant. Come into my chamber, smirking, about how you're going to dominate this uppity bitch with her gender feminism (I'm guessing you prefer choice feminism, dohoho). Come closer, closer, only for me to flip up my skirt and cry "I'm a MAN, baby!!" Recoil in terror, and smack your head on the door in your gay/trans/penis panic. I'll laugh until I puke.

But Retsina, you're one of the Bad Guys, as you so eloquently put it. Using slurs is a hallmark of that. If this were a western, you'd have on a black hat, if this were a modern Japanese flick, you'd have the yakuza tattoos. But this is the internet, so you have an assortment of personality defects instead.

The problem is that you insist that there is only pure social construction of gender (which is untenable) and genetic encoding of all gender roles currently in vogue in Western societies. That's also incredibly, incredibly stupid if you sit down and think about why the most common toys in Native American societies were dolls of some sort or another. Obviously, Native Americans work like this anime I saw once where everybody was female until a magic spring allowed them to choose at puberty! That's why they don't have any toy trucks in, say, the ruins of Cahokia. Every kid was a chica!

Or, we could avoid insanity, and simply say "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" when jackasses like yourself suggest that gender roles are hardcoded. Then all your half-witted whining (really, could you at least have put the minimum of intellectual effort in to include "dualism" in your rants) about how I'm not a true believe in biotruths just vanishes in the wind.

The reason I suggest that you believe in a conspiracy is because all your posts derive from some sort of underlying conception that feminism will destroy everything if left unchecked, which I exaggerated to keep you nice and mad. That's how the best insults work- they take something that's true or that the target fears is true, and then exaggerate it to enrage the target and make him or her do or say something stupid. You're graduating with honors in that department- going to semi-slurs already!

See, equality of opportunity would suggest that people would take advantage of that- but there's no point in arguing with you seriously, since you have a solid worldview around women (and apparently I am one, yet I'm currently several years into studying physics- oh, right I bet I'm the world's butchest lesbian in this fantasy world too, or else lying) hating anything that they're not equitably represented in, and taking hiring discrimination to be the only problem. So all I really can do is try to insult you into a meltdown, in the hopes that my feeble words can achieve one part per billion of Shiva's destruction that invites new creation, and educate the other people in the thread that are less informed.

But there is also the matter that you're pretty fucking horrible. You hold all other men in contempt, casting them as less motivated than a chimpanzee by default, you look down on women that don't "know their place" and conform to your views, you insist that nerds are inherently socially awkward (tell me, are all nerds, obviously apart from your manly self, autistic, or merely awful people) and that this cannot be altered except by your fever dreams of fascism. You descend into Randian insanity about blatant selfishness as a purer motive than anything feminists have, and then you babble about tone. You express yourself as hating the common people, the laborers, the proles you deride. Well, fuck you and your bourgeois exploitative ass. If you can reach further than others, with your claw-like appendages, it is because you are standing on the backs of proles. In your case, you're also pissing on them, but no matter. You, of course, assume that since I want to change things that I must think that people are stupid. Well, you're wrong. I think that people are unaware, but that the average person is quite, quite intelligent. You, being you, cannot comprehend that, but I will say it for the benefit of others.

Retsina, you complain about people daring to respond to you, because free speech means that nobody should ever challenge you on your beliefs. I have not told you to shut up, or leave the thread. I will not, because I do believe that you have a right to make an ass of yourself in public. But frankly Retsina, if there is such a thing as evil in the world, you would be evil just for your bullshit about "self-interest" and your social Darwinism alone. But the difference between good and evil is that good is forgiving, and seeks to mend. I'm not all that good, so I'll just keep insulting you and trying to drive you ever closer to a hilarious, slur-ridden meltdown. But I like to think that I'm good enough to try and make the world a better place, and at least I can sleep peacefully knowing that I'm better than you.

Go 2 Hell wrote:Never stopped the girls in my physics class from doing well. The way a problem was worded was just fancy dressing, hell my teacher was a woman and she came up with questions about wrecking balls and shit. If someone did poorly in the class it was because they didn't fully understand the concept. I constantly teetered between, I get it and I don't get it and it had nothing to do with whether the probably was about Bieber or a wrecking ball. You read the problem, makes notes of the force, mass, friction, and just plug everything into an equation. I mean fuck, on my last stats test my teacher made a crack about Charlie Sheen's twitter followers, that didn't exactly prevent me from recognizing the population sample or anything. Its not sexist, even remotely.

Does it not occur to you that the population of your physics department is self-selecting to be made up of the section of the population that is not turned off by the style of questions? When I say "many women are not engaged by physics, because the questions are not related to topics that girls are socialised to engage with", I am not talking about the minority of women who engage with the physics regardless of the way it is taught - I am talking about all those women who perfectly intelligent and capable, but aren't taking physics classes.

It is quite morally lazy to say "I don't have a problem with the way things are done, and neither do my friends, therefore there is no problem with the way things are done".

Out of curiosity, did you find your teacher's crack about Charlie Sheen's Twitter followers amusing? Did it highlight how you could use your statistics to better understand the world around you? Or did the Charlie Sheen crack make you zone out and fall asleep, because you find Charlie Sheen cracks to be about as enthralling as I find Shep's infodumps about military stats? Do you think the class would have been just as interesting for you had the teacher instead made cracks about Zhou Jie-lun instead?

And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with. You guys are all whining an awful lot about something that "doesn't matter". Personally, I think that the reason you're so steadfast against change is because it does matter, and changing the mix from 60% gender-neutral questions/40% "masculine" questions to 60%g-n/20% "masculine"/20% "feminine" would see you lose a comparative edge.

Samuel wrote:Blacks don't have full equality with whites in the US when it comes to pay and education. Maybe it takes a bit more time to have things regularize. Or maybe there are other factors besides company hiring policies that result in the current situation.

I was actually planning on talking about this last night, except I was feeling sick and didn't. Studying engineering would certainly be a lot easier if I didn't have to put up with people asking me if engineering was really a proper profession for a woman. It would also be a lot more pleasant if guys didn't suddenly stop flirting with me immediately after discovering my major, in a fashion that I doubt ever happens to female history students. And one thing I've noticed about being a woman in predominantly male environments is that when I'm in such a situation, unwanted sexual advances become something you just have to get used to, rather than merely an occasional occurrence.

But of course, some people in this thread will say that if a significant portion of the female population doesn't think it's worth putting up with all of that, then it's because they're not smart enough, not interested enough, or not passionate enough about engineering. Right?

One thing is certain- you can't fix this easily because you have to change the entire culture people are raised in including stories and toys and parental attitudes, not just the educational climate. By the age of 9, if a girl is asked about a welder, she'll say 'he', and if asked if women can be welders or mathematicians or scientists, she'll say "no". I've seen it happen and I've seen studies about it.

And people wonder why women don't frequently become politicians or engineers or mathematicians. Could it be because their culture has been steering them since before they were even in school to regard those as unacceptable choices?

Oh, yes. I certainly agree that it's a cultural problem, rather than just a merely educational one. I was mainly talking about education because it's far easier to regulate education than it is to regulate cultural attitudes.

One of the problems that some people in this thread have, I think, is that when you're a white male, you rarely run into the problem of being taught that some things are just "not appropriate" for white males to do, which makes you underestimate exactly how powerful a disincentive that can be.

Lusankya wrote:

Go 2 Hell wrote:Never stopped the girls in my physics class from doing well. The way a problem was worded was just fancy dressing, hell my teacher was a woman and she came up with questions about wrecking balls and shit. If someone did poorly in the class it was because they didn't fully understand the concept. I constantly teetered between, I get it and I don't get it and it had nothing to do with whether the probably was about Bieber or a wrecking ball. You read the problem, makes notes of the force, mass, friction, and just plug everything into an equation. I mean fuck, on my last stats test my teacher made a crack about Charlie Sheen's twitter followers, that didn't exactly prevent me from recognizing the population sample or anything. Its not sexist, even remotely.

Does it not occur to you that the population of your physics department is self-selecting to be made up of the section of the population that is not turned off by the style of questions? When I say "many women are not engaged by physics, because the questions are not related to topics that girls are socialised to engage with", I am not talking about the minority of women who engage with the physics regardless of the way it is taught - I am talking about all those women who perfectly intelligent and capable, but aren't taking physics classes.

It is quite morally lazy to say "I don't have a problem with the way things are done, and neither do my friends, therefore there is no problem with the way things are done".

Out of curiosity, did you find your teacher's crack about Charlie Sheen's Twitter followers amusing? Did it highlight how you could use your statistics to better understand the world around you? Or did the Charlie Sheen crack make you zone out and fall asleep, because you find Charlie Sheen cracks to be about as enthralling as I find Shep's infodumps about military stats? Do you think the class would have been just as interesting for you had the teacher instead made cracks about Zhou Jie-lun instead?

And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with. You guys are all whining an awful lot about something that "doesn't matter". Personally, I think that the reason you're so steadfast against change is because it does matter, and changing the mix from 60% gender-neutral questions/40% "masculine" questions to 60%g-n/20% "masculine"/20% "feminine" would see you lose a comparative edge.

Yeah ... those people weren't my friends, and no, I'm not saying if they didn't get turned off by this, then no one gets turned off by this. Physics question are made around areas to which they would apply to, impact of a car accident. We're taught to pick out the numbers out of the word problem and then we plug them into the equation. This is how math has been taught since kindergarten. Hell, I only took physics because I didn't want to take anatomy, most people just take certain classes because its a required credit, if they end up liking it (the teacher tells you, how this can apply to career choices) they stick with it. Problem about shooting rockets are more relevant than a problem about Justin Bieber's hair blowing in the wind (an example that's borderline offensive). I mean most of the time, no one really gave a shit what the word problem was, though one guy practically got a boner because a problem was about a railgun (the one time, anyone ever noted the subject of a word problem), and that simply creeped me out.

For the record, I chuckled at the Sheen joke, and went on with the test. I pulled the numbers I needed from the problem, and plugged them into the equation.

Lusankya wrote:One of the problems that some people in this thread have, I think, is that when you're a white male, you rarely run into the problem of being taught that some things are just "not appropriate" for white males to do, which makes you underestimate exactly how powerful a disincentive that can be.

Jesus Christ, will you lay off the generalizing?

And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with. You guys are all whining an awful lot about something that "doesn't matter". Personally, I think that the reason you're so steadfast against change is because it does matter, and changing the mix from 60% gender-neutral questions/40% "masculine" questions to 60%g-n/20% "masculine"/20% "feminine" would see you lose a comparative edge.

Your problem is that you're assuming that these problems make it harder for women to engage. Which I think is bullshit because it sure as hell doesn't make it easier for males. I'm a guy, there for I like guns, explosions, wrecking balls, and rockets. I could not give a flying fuck what the problems were about, just give me the numbers and I'll do the rest.

Lusankya wrote:And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with. You guys are all whining an awful lot about something that "doesn't matter". Personally, I think that the reason you're so steadfast against change is because it does matter, and changing the mix from 60% gender-neutral questions/40% "masculine" questions to 60%g-n/20% "masculine"/20% "feminine" would see you lose a comparative edge.

Again, you're claiming a sexist problem exists solely on the basis of using a sexist mentality yourself. You assert 'guns and cars are boyish'. On what grounds? I personally know women who love both or either and would be pissed off at any suggestion they are 'boyish' interests. And rightfully so; anyone can have a strong interest in either or both.

Guns and cars are gender neutral unless you appeal to a sexist attitude.

Someone wants to use Bieber, Hilton, Sheen or Rambo in a physics examples? All the more power to them. Seriously, who cares? Use Barney the dinosaur for all I care, I'm sure that'd get a laugh from students.

But if you insist guns and cars are boyish, then I shall insist on calling physics itself boyish, justified by whatever grounds you make your claim on. Either 'boyish' physics uses 'boyish' examples, or physics simply uses examples. I see no logic in trying to appease a sexist male or female approach to physics anymore than trying to appease any other interest group that creates a non existent problem via the very problem they claim to be against.

Singular Intellect wrote:Again, you're claiming a sexist problem exists solely on the basis of using a sexist mentality yourself. You assert 'guns and cars are boyish'. On what grounds?

On the grounds that guns and cars are marketed towards boys, boys are far more likely to receive cars and guns as presents than girls are. Perhaps you could go to McDonalds someday and see the difference between the toys in the Boys' Happy Meal and the Girls' Happy Meal - and tell me which one is more likely to have cars, and which is more likely to have ponies. I have said repeatedly in this thread that the problem is in large part one of socialisation - i.e. the sexist attitudes of society. Believe it or not, this is not actually being sexist. There is nothing that intrinsically makes a blue car more boyish than a pink horse, however one toy is far more likely to be given to a boy than a girl, and the other is far more likely to be given to a girl than a boy, and this gives children the impression that one is "for boys" while the other is "for girls".

Maybe you also think it's sexist when I tell you that your average woman is better at getting blood stains out of her underwear than the average man, because she gets a lot more practice over the course of the years. Shit, aren't I a sexist pig for saying that people are better at things they have more exposure too.

Go 2 Hell wrote:Yeah ... those people weren't my friends, and no, I'm not saying if they didn't get turned off by this, then no one gets turned off by this. Physics question are made around areas to which they would apply to, impact of a car accident. We're taught to pick out the numbers out of the word problem and then we plug them into the equation. This is how math has been taught since kindergarten.

Yes, and in kindergarten maths, I imagine the examples were things that you, as kindergarteners could relate to - such as buying lollies or apples and whatnot. The teacher was not just teaching you maths - the teacher was telling you how the maths was important to your life, and how it related to things that were interested in. Kindergarteners don't give a shit about maths for the sake of maths, which is why such tactics are necessary. I don't see why you somehow think that people in the early stages of learning science should be any different. At those stages, it's just as important to teach people why something is important as it is to teach the basic concepts.

Hell, I only took physics because I didn't want to take anatomy, most people just take certain classes because its a required credit, if they end up liking it (the teacher tells you, how this can apply to career choices) they stick with it.

Who, when they start learning about science, seriously knows about what they want to do with their career?

Realistically, though, the way a subject is taught has a huge effect on our attitudes towards the problem. Bill Gates likes to say that had he had a decent biology teacher in high school, we probably wouldn't have Microsoft today, because he would have gone on to be a biologist, rather than a computer scientist. What makes people like something isn't some teacher saying "Oh, and this can be used for such and such and such and such a career", but rather people finding that a subject meshes well with their interests and personality - and whether or not they discover this is not due to some magical innate property of the subject in question, but rather, in large part, how it is presented to them.

Problem about shooting rockets are more relevant than a problem about Justin Bieber's hair blowing in the wind (an example that's borderline offensive).

You know, I gave a whole pile of examples earlier in this thread of questions that could both illustrate physical principles and provide a change from the monotony of questions about cars and bullets, but also be quite relevant to the use of physics in industry and daily life.

Increasing the range of questions used in classrooms is actually something that could only help the teaching of physics. Look how close-minded people here are being, assuming that only rockets and cars can be relevant to physics (don't try to pretend that you're not thinking this - if you thought they were relevant, you'd be happy to include them to at least break the monotony), when realistically things like drawers, music boxes, hula hoops and so on are also quite relevant to physics, and deserve to be put in texts.

I mean most of the time, no one really gave a shit what the word problem was, though one guy practically got a boner because a problem was about a railgun (the one time, anyone ever noted the subject of a word problem), and that simply creeped me out.

This is an example of the self-selection principle. The people who care that questions about cars are boring would not be in the class to begin with.

Go 2 Hell wrote:Your problem is that you're assuming that these problems make it harder for women to engage. Which I think is bullshit because it sure as hell doesn't make it easier for males. I'm a guy, there for I like guns, explosions, wrecking balls, and rockets. I could not give a flying fuck what the problems were about, just give me the numbers and I'll do the rest.

Your problem is that you're assuming that "engaging" with a subject is only related to the ability to do the subject. It's also about finding the subject interesting enough to continue doing. It's about caring about the subject enough to put effort into figuring out where those numbers exist in the problem - and these things are all made much easier when you are familiar with the examples used to "bring the problem to life".

Look at it this way: How much exposure have you had to music boxes over your life? You know, the kind where you open it up and you have a little ballerina dancing? As a man, I would assume the answer is "not much" - boys, as a rule, do not get that kind of thing as a present when growing up. If you received a physics question about the difference in rotational velocity between a music box with an unbroken ballerina and a music box with a ballerina that had been broken to be at an angle by someone's careless younger sibling (assuming constant torque), then as someone not-so-familiar with the workings of a music box, you would have to spend extra effort on the question trying to remember exactly how a music box works. You would also quite likely wonder why this mattered to you, since you never have to deal with music boxes in your daily life. Someone who grew up with a music box of their own as a child, and whose friends also all had music boxes of their own (seriously - all of my friends in primary school had music boxes) would be able to visualise the situation in their mind instantly, and would find the problem easier as a result.

That is exactly the situation many people who have not been socialised to think of cars and guns as toys in their daily life (i.e. many girls who grow up socialised in culture where girls play with dolls and boys plays with cars) face when they see examples using cars and guns. If they're not used to the way cars and guns move and work on an intuitive level, then they have to use extra effort in order to visualise the problem, and this does put them at a disadvantage.

Go 2 Hell wrote:

Lusankya wrote: One of the problems that some people in this thread have, I think, is that when you're a white male, you rarely run into the problem of being taught that some things are just "not appropriate" for white males to do, which makes you underestimate exactly how powerful a disincentive that can be.

Jesus Christ, will you lay off the generalizing?

Well, obviously I'm not referring to all men when I say that. Samuel and Bakustra, for example, do understand the issues that I'm talking about.

Singular Intellect wrote:

Lusankya wrote:And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with. You guys are all whining an awful lot about something that "doesn't matter". Personally, I think that the reason you're so steadfast against change is because it does matter, and changing the mix from 60% gender-neutral questions/40% "masculine" questions to 60%g-n/20% "masculine"/20% "feminine" would see you lose a comparative edge.

Again, you're claiming a sexist problem exists solely on the basis of using a sexist mentality yourself. You assert 'guns and cars are boyish'. On what grounds? I personally know women who love both or either and would be pissed off at any suggestion they are 'boyish' interests. And rightfully so; anyone can have a strong interest in either or both.

Guns and cars are gender neutral unless you appeal to a sexist attitude.

Someone wants to use Bieber, Hilton, Sheen or Rambo in a physics examples? All the more power to them. Seriously, who cares? Use Barney the dinosaur for all I care, I'm sure that'd get a laugh from students.

But if you insist guns and cars are boyish, then I shall insist on calling physics itself boyish, justified by whatever grounds you make your claim on. Either 'boyish' physics uses 'boyish' examples, or physics simply uses examples. I see no logic in trying to appease a sexist male or female approach to physics anymore than trying to appease any other interest group that creates a non existent problem via the very problem they claim to be against.

Nobody's "asserting" cars and guns are boyish, you fuckwit. She's arguing that girls are steered away from guns and cars by the culture they live in, and subsequently tend to be less interested in them. If you want to argue against that, fine, whatever (should be good for comedy, anyhow), but at no point did she ever say, assert, imply, post-hypnotically suggest, or telepathically broadcast that 'guns and cars are boyish'.

The best part about all this is that you've been called on this strawman once already, and you just kept running with it for reasons that I'm sure made sense inside your tiny brain.

Lusankya wrote:And once again, I really am finding it amusing to see how there's such a backlash against my suggestion that the teaching of certain subjects be changed slightly to make it easier for women to engage with.

I know I've never seen privileged people get butthurt when a non-privileged person suggests changing something "unimportant".

I feel that this comic is relevant:

Passive aggressive much? I guess calling someone sexist and associating them with neo-nazi's and fascists before proceeding to tell them 'fuck you' isn't a slur in your world.

Since it's obvious you already had a view of me the moment I first posted and are on some crusade let me simply ask this:

Are the concerns of men not valid because women have problems?

If gender power is not a zero-sum game as is claimed, then who is being harmed by airing men's problems in the open?

What bearing does my being a horrible person have on the fact that more money is spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer, boys are falling behind in schools, men overwhelmingly lost their jobs in the recession and only half the funding went to those industries, work the most dangerous jobs, are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of violence. That 4/5 suicides are men and 80% of homeless are men and they are twice as likely to lose their homes. Why aren't you agitating for more women on oil rigs and in mines? Where is the uproar over the lack of women in construction?

And when someone tries to bring it up, all they get in response is baiting, trolling, and diversion of the issue into how horrible being a woman is, again.

That is my problem, and obviously you could care less, so why should I support or even give a damn about you?

Hmm I guess I better go sharpen my Claws Of Bourgeoisie Oppression, being a bad guy and all, good luck with that quest to equalise reality. What a joke.

Lusankya wrote:I feel that this comic is relevant:

*snip image*

Yes it is. It summarizes your point perfectly:
Our culture makes boys more interested in cars, guns etc. It makes such things uninteresting for girls.
Engineering, physics and such are more interesting for people with an interest inj cars, guns etc.
Therefore, boys will be more interested in engineering, physics and such, because it involves things they are already interested in.

The comic also demonstrates another point: In addition to the above, boys are also raised to be more interested in engineering, physics and such. It is therefore hardly surprising that boys are more interested in engineering.

I fail to see the sexism in Lusys argument, she is simply observing the social pressures related to gender and their effects.
Resinence et al. on the other hand claim that the reason that girls are less interested in engineering, physics and such is somehow inherent in them being girls, rather than the result of lopsided social influences.
I fail to see how that is not sexist.


Oh, by the way, it is interesting how everyone ignored this point by Lusy entirely:

I was actually planning on talking about this last night, except I was feeling sick and didn't. Studying engineering would certainly be a lot easier if I didn't have to put up with people asking me if engineering was really a proper profession for a woman. It would also be a lot more pleasant if guys didn't suddenly stop flirting with me immediately after discovering my major, in a fashion that I doubt ever happens to female history students. And one thing I've noticed about being a woman in predominantly male environments is that when I'm in such a situation, unwanted sexual advances become something you just have to get used to, rather than merely an occasional occurrence.

Exactly the social pressure she is talking about - let's ignore it, shall we?

Resinence wrote:Are the concerns of men not valid because women have problems?

Says the person who, in a thread about the problems of women, ran in and screamed "men have problem too, ignore those of women!!".
Even without the latter part of that, it's pretty much just an attempt to distract from the problems of women. It's like going to an AIDS-charity and yelling "and what about cancer?!", or talking about the problems of blind people and wanting to talk about those if deaf people instead.

Serafina wrote:Says the person who, in a thread about the problems of women, ran in and screamed "men have problem too, ignore those of women!!".
Even without the latter part of that, it's pretty much just an attempt to distract from the problems of women. It's like going to an AIDS-charity and yelling "and what about cancer?!", or talking about the problems of blind people and wanting to talk about those if deaf people instead.

You're right, a Public Service Announcement that is blatantly combative and that shows the humiliation of a male icon deserves no response at all.

Resinence wrote:

Serafina wrote:Says the person who, in a thread about the problems of women, ran in and screamed "men have problem too, ignore those of women!!".
Even without the latter part of that, it's pretty much just an attempt to distract from the problems of women. It's like going to an AIDS-charity and yelling "and what about cancer?!", or talking about the problems of blind people and wanting to talk about those if deaf people instead.

You're right, a Public Service Announcement that is blatantly combative and that shows the humiliation of a male icon deserves no response at all.

So speaking out for womens rights=humiliation, huh?
How and why was this a humiliation?
But it's nice to see that your "male icons" are renowned for their sexism (James Bond, not Daniel Craig).

No, it's humiliation because he is being talked down to by a person in a position of power over him, his employer, over something that he has no control over. Would it not be humiliating if I took one of my employees, and in front of their peers, berated them about what a horrible person they are because they were born a red head?

You honestly think the everyman doesn't look up to james bond? what planet do you live on?

Resinence wrote:No, it's humiliation because he is being talked down to by a person in a position of power over him, his employer, over something that he has no control over. Would it not be humiliating if I took one of my employees, and in front of their peers, berated them about what a horrible person they are because they were born a red head?

And it is NEVER said that all of this is in any way his fault. At most he is berated for not considering the inequality of women - gee, might it be that that hit the nerve?

You honestly think the everyman doesn't look up to james bond? what planet do you live on?

The men i am friends with are perfectly capable of seeing the flaws in James Bond. They might look up to him as a cool action hero, but not in any other capacity.