Are Girls better than Boys?

[Thoran]

I agree that the geeky things make a big difference if you're interested in going into a geeky profession and doing geeky profession stuff your whole career... but I don't believe that means that engineers who don't do that geeky stuff are by default less qualified... they're simply qualified for different specialties. Many friends of mine are far less technical than I am, but have better people skills, or more marketing saavy, or more managment skill. Geeky engineers are great, but they tend to stay geeky engineers for their whole lives and are usually pretty happy. Engineers like myself (only 70% geek) want to do stuff like manage or market too... and other non-geeky but smart engineers might jump directly into customer relations or management and never spend any time geeking out at all.

There's room in technical fields for ANYONE who has the intelligence and perseverence to survive 4 or more years in a top school, and my old school and others are seeing a lot more young women choosing these paths.

As to some of your other generalizations, those are the sorts of attitudes that a lot of women have these days about men... I reject them in those cases and I reject them here. I believe men and women are different, but I believe it's far from clear (in non-tangible cases) what components of these differences are genetic and what is societal. I was involved in an earlier thread discussing physical capabilities, I think that subject is rather obvious... as well as having volumes of empirical data, but to say that women are or aren't academically better than boys is going into an area that has no basis... in EITHER direction. It seems to me that whichever gender is the primary focus of education does better... used to be boys, now it's girls. This is why I urge change in our gender blind approach to education, and why I reject humans as androgenous creatures. BUT... to say that male achievement after school equals male intellectual superiority is such a huge leap, and burdened by so many unaccounted for factors that it's a TOTALLY untenable position IMO.

Regarding exams... as I recall the function of exams in Engineering schools was to scare the crapola out of you. You'd better know the theory, you'd better know the application, and you'd better be able to communicate you knowledge clearly and concisely. If you can't, then you'd better look for a new major, because the dropout rate in my engineering class wasn't almost 40% for no reason. If a woman scores a 90 on an exam and I score a 70 it's because she's done the work and understands the theory... seems pretty prepared to me. Doing well in school isn't everything needed to be a good engineer, but it IS what's needed to get you in the door, and it's also a good indicator of your basic drive and capabilities.

The implication of the paragraph starting with "Just letting women into..." is that we should consider denying women access to certain career paths for no reason other than gender stereotypes, I don't imagine I need to even say that I think that's wrong. Some men have difficulty when it comes to parenting, and it's on that basis that our disgusting family court system has thrown ALL men into the "Not qualified to be a parent" category. I want this sort of crap to END, irregardless of who is suffering because of it.

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by GForce: Sometimes these things go unmentioned. IMO we're too much into who's got what and who is who. When it comes right down to it, the universe doesn't give a rats ass. Hey peoples, we're all in this together whether you see it or not. IMO it's not just your ideas. Believe for once that the ideas you think is yours has always been there waiting for someone to just channel it through.

Nice to meet you, kindred spirit [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]Namaste, Priestess ... or Priest. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 09-25-2003, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: GForce ]

[Kaltia]

Originally posted by Avatar: -SNIPPED a load of ranting without factual back up-

You're digging a deeper grave for yourself here, you know this?

[Sigmar]

Originally posted by Avatar: I mean I admit women are better at cleaning and organising stuff. Most mean just aren't! I can NEVER fold my cloths as neatly as a girl does. Probably because I run out of patience after 30 secs. It's been genetically evolved. Centuries of split tasks have tuned our genes. All very well saying: well lets retune them as they should be. But I think we are going about this the wrong way.

......WHAT?!

Despite popular belief you can't inherit abilities (such as good footballing skills or natural knitting abilities) through genes, especially not over a short period of time such as a handful of centuries! Not according to what I have learnt at any rate.

Your argument also lacks convincing factual evidence, not to mention the fact that you contradict yourself on a couple of occasions. Why bring up this argument anyway, are you intentionally trying to "stir the pot"?

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Sigmar: Why bring up this argument anyway, are you intentionally trying to "stir the pot"?

I think he must be just trying to get a rise out of us. I read his last post with various degrees of open mouth, but when I finished I decided that anyone suggesting women have a cleaning gene and we should fix the exams so women aren't lulled into falsely believing they can be successful in science can't be being serious

[Assassin]

=/ I think that the last part is right. I mean, inventions are a whole lot different than studying in a field. Even though you may excel at a certain field in the knowledge which is given to you, doesn't mean that you will exactly be able to contribute/invent something all of a sudden. You have to be willing to take risks, be prepared to make mistakes, and maybe not even turn out a single invention in your lifetime. It's much safer to just work with what's given to you, rather than try anything radical and new.

[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by Sigmar: quote: Originally posted by Avatar: I mean I admit women are better at cleaning and organising stuff. Most mean just aren't! I can NEVER fold my cloths as neatly as a girl does. Probably because I run out of patience after 30 secs. It's been genetically evolved. Centuries of split tasks have tuned our genes. All very well saying: well lets retune them as they should be. But I think we are going about this the wrong way.

......WHAT?!

Despite popular belief you can't inherit abilities (such as good footballing skills or natural knitting abilities) through genes, especially not over a short period of time such as a handful of centuries! Not according to what I have learnt at any rate.

Your argument also lacks convincing factual evidence, not to mention the fact that you contradict yourself on a couple of occasions. Why bring up this argument anyway, are you intentionally trying to "stir the pot"? [/QUOTE]I beleive he's very young. The only experience he's had with women is his mother. That would explain a lot.

[The Hierophant]

Look, Avatar, I've tried to refrain from posting thus far mainly because I'd end up saying something I'd regret later. But I'm just going to have to jump on the bandwagon here and state that everything you're saying, indeed the very line of reasoning your using, is the most pathetic mulch of pseudo-intellectual crap I've read in a long long time.
You advocate a process of scientific reasoning, yet almost all of your premises are based upon fallacious prejudice (such as females 'just being better' at 'housework' than males, or males being able to reach higher 'extremities' of intelligence). Alot of the things you seem to accept as fact simply arn't true.
Now, whether or not you are actually serious about this or whether you are just 'stirring the pot' (ie: TROLLING), you really need to step back, take a few deep breaths, and just think clearly and carefully about the notions that you take for granted.
Both chauvanist and feminist 'one gender is the best' dogma needs to be done away with if true equality (indeed if true 'efficiency') is to be actualised in our society. Explore scientific avenues with as little prejudice as possible my friend. Try to forget that which has gone before when testing a new hypothesis, treat everything as new. Prejudice will lock you into ignorance.

[Spelca]

Originally posted by Kaltia: quote: Originally posted by Avatar: -SNIPPED a load of ranting without factual back up-

You're digging a deeper grave for yourself here, you know this? [/QUOTE]Is it bad if I just laugh at what he wrote? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Avatar: Why? It's not because they are dumb, or because we are sexiest,

No, I'm the sexiest!!!