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from the this-will-not-be-controversial-oh-no-sir dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
"Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post has 'A message to the nation's women: Stop trying to be straight-A students.'
In her analysis of others' findings, she writes of a discouragement gradient that pushes women out of harder college degrees, including economics and other STEM degrees. Men do not seem to have a similar discouragement gradient, so they stay in harder degree programs and ultimately earn more. Data suggests that women might also value high grades more than men do and sort themselves into fields where grading curves are more lenient.
'Maybe women just don't want to get things wrong,' Goldin hypothesized. 'They don't want to walk around being a B-minus student in something. They want to find something they can be an A student in. They want something where the professor will pat them on the back and say "You're doing so well!"'
'Guys,' she added, 'don't seem to give two damns.'
Why are women in college moving away from harder degrees?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:51PM
I don't think GP was talking about grading on a curve, although you might have a point about humanities not curving correctly. otoh, I avoid those classes like the plague because I can't rightly comprehend why having long hair is like being raped. I've never been raped or oppressed by my long hair, but I suppose it's different for cis women.
That aside, I think what GP was getting at was that cis women abhor fields with objectively correct and incorrect answers. The idea that somebody else might come along and tell a cis woman that she's wrong and produce a reason that can't be argued is intimidating to her, especially if the person providing the correct answer/method/showing her where her process went wrong doesn't have a lot of sex appeal.
Mod me down (and after this happened to me I eventually did decide to become sexist--what else to do and why not?) but showing a cis woman where she's objectively wrong can get you called sexist to your face for no other reason than you weren't assigned the same gender at birth as say Ada Lovelace.
Now, over in humanities, there are really no right or wrong answers. It all comes down to how persuasive one can be and how open one is to toeing the prevalent biases and dogmas. I suppose, having realized that, I shouldn't be afraid of humanities, since I probably could these days write one heck of an argument about why it's absolutely correct that having long hair represents oppression by the patriarchy. The trouble is that it would be all bullshit, frankly. That's the point, though. Over in humanities, as long as you're a good bullshitter, you get a good grade. I've met very few cis women whose first refuge in a disagreement wasn't bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:34PM
Sad to say I agree with you... a viewpoint I arrived at from being subjected to a number of such arguments from the feminazi camp. And to think I used to be all for women's lib and such.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FuckBeta on Thursday March 13 2014, @07:49AM
These women don't have objective standards. Think about this for a minute.
Right or wrong to them comes from whether their social group approves or disapproves. Now what sort of morality do you have with no objective measures of right and wrong?
And this is exactly why they are intimidated by hard sciences.
"especially if the person providing the correct answer/method/showing her where her process went wrong doesn't have a lot of sex appeal."
Too true.
Quit Slashdot...because Fuck Beta!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @09:33AM
Which women? The ones in the study? Velex's hypothetical "cis women [who] abhor fields with objectively correct and incorrect answers"? All women?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @09:27AM
Nor can I. Who is saying that?
Interesting hypothesis. My hypothesis is that men are on average even worse than women at dealing with situations where they are proved wrong.