Friday, May 02, 2008

Wow, I thought I was tired

Wow, I thought I was tired. I was when I finished reading this: Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

All I have to say at the moment (apart from “I am SO tired of this senseless debate of biological sexes being the answer to every #$#$#$# thing”) is that it would be so nice to just read once – only once – in an article like this that “even if there is a big difference in who enrolls where” and "even if there are biological differences between the sexes” why on earth wouldn’t the “upbringing and sociology pressure (what would be called ‘group behaviour’ and ‘peer pressure’) play a role in these choices that we all make"?

Not to be the one who argues that it is wrong to claim that [more] women in general would be described as ‘nurturing’ than men, but seriously, when was it considered to be a good thing for a man to be nurturing? Isn’t it a fact, that it would be a little like a circle argument to try and really distinguish between why women are like this and why men are like that since no one of us are really free from peer pressure and society laws and traditions?

And, like I think I have said a million times, “as one asks one receives answers”. (I am sure this expression is not like that in English, since I just translated it so but still, “make the hypothesis based on the answer you want it to say”?!?!)

Maybe, just maybe, women and men are more similar than not? Maybe the differences between us are smaller than the differences within each group?!?! (I am so tempted to just say ‘look at all the queer people around you and try and fit them into a stupid “boys do this and girls do that” reasoning.’)

I mean, the article states that one of the reasons so many women are vets are because “veterinary medicine would be a dream job for the scientifically gifted but empathy-driven female. This challenging and exciting field appeals to the feminine pro­pensity to protect and nurture—and the desire to work with living things.” Sure. I guess that is why there aren’t an abundance of female MDs? Because they are not working in an emotional environment? But surely women are prone to be nurses…. (sarcasm anyone?) Geezzz. And yes, I know that the MDs’ specialties where you find most females are pediatrics and geriatrics. The male stuff; surgeons and pathologists. Of course I think that has nothing to do with the machismo attitude found in the surgeons’ quarters or the slight strangeness altogether about pathology?!? (Yes, sarcasm is here and it is going to stay.)

I am going to make a bold statement, and especially since I don’t like writing things as hard statements but still – I have thought about this for a while.

What if the main reason for certain subjects, say math and physics, are so heavily male dominated (or even saying that the top notch 4 in almost any specialty field) is because there is/was an attitude that it is ok for a man to be egocentric and focused on one thing and one thing only, whereas women are more likely to be taught to take care of others and by jolly God not put their [own and personal] needs in first place. Always have a focus on youself as a team player (“What does that implicate for others, dear?”) rather than looking at oneself and ones happiness and wants (“You can do this and don’t care what others think they are just jealous”)?!

Something to do with that power thing that has been a key player in most of the decisions/laws/traditions since for ever in history?! That it is nice to keep it all structured and good and let women stay home and not be educated since then there is a likelihood that [certain] men can feel threatened by them. (Why on earth would it otherwise have been ok for women in the upper classes to read and write as long as they never pretended they did?!?!? Or voiced an opinion. Of course they didn’t want to… Sure…)

Anyone with half a brain will understand the use of men and women in the second to last paragraph.

And I really didn’t want to write this today since I have too much to be worried about anyway. Like I read at PropterDoc “'Lifting a Ton of Feathers".

I am going home now. The feathers will have to wait until tomorrow. I am sure they will feel as heavy then. If they haven’t blown away by the gusty winds that are bound to happen tonight, that is.

6 comments:

Maria Abrahamsson said...

That was some of the worst I've read on the gender matter for a quite some time...I might have to write an entire own blogpost about this. Truly amazing, and not in a good way!

Hope the nasty winds down there don't disturb life too much!

Anonymous said...

I thank you for the link, but think that trying to rebut this idiocy is tilting at windmills. The woman is employed by a neo-conservative think tank with an agenda, and we have other things in which we are more competent than political debate. Our disgust is noted.

How are you coming along with employment leads?

Cirkux said...

Jesus djaevlar, det var en av de vaersta manssakskvinnor jag stoett paa paa mkt laenge...
Jag doek egentligen mest upp haer foer att rekommendera dig en ganska lyckad webradiohistoria som kanske kan komma bra till pass om man inte har en gigantisk musiksamling att tillgaa men aendaa vill ha lite variation. Du kan ju se om http://www.pandora.com/ aer ngt foer dig. Ingen reklam aer ett plus :)

chall said...

Maria> well, I got very sad by your last blogpost too so I think if nothing else, it at least reminds me from time to time that it still is a long way to go...

Alethea> I'll write something about the job hunt in my next blog post. It's going ok - nothing so far but I have some kind of hope.

Cirkux>Pandora kan ju vara intressant men jag är lite skeptisk till musiksiter... feg som jag är. hemifrån kanske det gpår bra dock :) Tack!

Anonymous said...

My God.

The logical inconsistencies in that piece were breath-taking. I seriously could not finish reading it.

Bah. What utter, utter tripe. It's not even wrong.

daedalus2u said...

I think the expression you are looking for is “believing is seeing”. This means that what you expect to see is what you will find.

This has a very different meaning than the very similar expression “seeing is believing”, which means that once you have seen something, then it has been demonstrated to you and you will believe it.

In general there are two types of errors, the type 1 error, the false positive and the type 2 error, the false negative. The “believing is seeing” mindset leads you to type 1 errors where you see something that isn’t there, but it can also lead you to the type 2 error because you miss seeing what is there because you are expecting something else.

These types of errors are extremely common in human interactions and reinforce stereotypes. If one expects someone to behave a certain way, it takes a larger deviation from the expected behavior for the behavior to reach the threshold of detection.