The feminization of college majors

<p>Why can it be true that men are just less inclined to like/be able to do things like nursing or art history or whatever, but it's some huge issue that girls are less inclined/less able at things like science and math?</p>

<p>If it is the case that men are stereotyped as being bad at art history and nursing (which is doubtful to begin with), then such a stereotype is just as foolish as assuming that girls are less inclined for things like math and science; both stereotypes draw an unsubstantiated conclusion from insufficient evidence. Namely, that it just seems women do not have a knack for analytic reasoning. </p>

<p>The holes in this reasoning become apparent when you consider other cultures. In the Asian culture, for instance, girls actually perfrom BETTER than males on standardized math tests (NYT). And if you look to other nations, such as Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, women dominated the professional fields such as engineering and medicine. Evidence such as this stands in stark constrast to the petty American notion that women are doomed to be sweet little eye candy. You start to see that, well, maybe it was just the way these American girls have been raised after all. </p>

<p>The point is: you can present evidence that males find math and science easier till the cows come home. But it will never vindicate any argument about innate capabilities, as there is no necessary link between the two.</p>

<p>I don't know where you got the fact about women outperforming men in math in asian cultures? I can find GRE scores for asian men and women and it is shown guys outperform women on both sections. </p>

<p>When it comes to simple/fast calculations some studies show women dominate. But when it comes to higher level abstract math, men clearly dominate.</p>

<p>It was in an article in the NYT about a year ago, right after Summers made his controversial statement and the country was awakened on the issue. They were taken from tests in East Asian countries, not from US tests such as the GRE. Flip through the archives.</p>

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When it comes to simple/fast calculations some studies show women dominate. But when it comes to higher level abstract math, men clearly dominate.

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<p>And at least I made an attempt to name the source instead of pulling some statistic out of mid-air.</p>

<p>(By the way, I find it really hilarious that many boys like to argue their intellectual superiority by simply alluding to empirical evidence, which, in reality, does not necessarily support such a conclusion. Perhaps if males actually were intellectually superior, they might take notice the appeal to consequence fallacy rampant in their arguments.)</p>

<p>You feminists will believe anything you WANT to hear. You ignore empirical evidence because it goes against your arguments. You want to believe all the social spew that other feminists dish out. Anything to prove your superior to men. I didn't say men are superior in everything. I was saying how men and women have distinct characteristics. Some things women are better and some men are. Men can admit when women are better than us(multi-tasking). But you women(feminazis) will fight untill death before you admit a man can be better in something. Why is it so inconceivable that more men dominate high level math and that is based largely on nature not nurture? </p>

<p>I don't want to waste my time arguing with a femanazi. Nothing will change your minds because you choose to ignore all evidence presented.</p>

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I don't want to waste my time arguing with a femanazi. Nothing will change your minds because you choose to ignore all evidence presented.

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<p>Your arguments are doing such great disservice to us males, since they are fallacious. Nothing in janel's post indicated that he/she was a "feminazi"; she presented evidence that contradicted a conclusion you attempted to draw, and you responded with not only an insult as to his/her character, but you also based your refusal to continue a rational discussion based on that insult. </p>

<p>Your "arguments" are the antithesis of the position you are endorsing; that is a contradiction so egregious that not even Tarski can save you.</p>

<p>Okay...okay...settle down, Karl Popper.</p>

<p>VTjas81 did shoot from the hip, but he did so because janel was being snippy. He wasn't wrong and neither was she. </p>

<p>I'm not exactly trying to defend VTjas81, but I just know if this were the other way around and a woman went off on a guy, no one would have anything to say. But since a guy, he's need to be iced down post haste. It's a double standard.</p>

<p>No. Unjustified personal attacks are unacceptable regardless of gender.</p>

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around and a woman went off on a guy, no one would have anything to say.

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<p>No, if janel had made the same sort of response, I would have called her out on it too, friend, foe, female, or male.</p>

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No. Unjustified personal attacks are unacceptable regardless of gender.

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<p>Indeed.</p>

<p>Okay, so, I must've missed your post telling janel that "I find it really hilarious that many boys want to argue..." will get a response like "you feminists will believe what you want to believe."</p>

<p>And I don't recall a personal attack as much as summation of the goings on.</p>

<p>Referring to a person as a "feminazi" could be referred to as a personal attack.</p>

<p>I am done here.</p>

<p>see this is were force would work great.</p>

<p>"The holes in this reasoning become apparent when you consider other cultures. In the Asian culture, for instance, girls actually perfrom BETTER than males on standardized math tests (NYT). And if you look to other nations, such as Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, women dominated the professional fields such as engineering and medicine. Evidence such as this stands in stark constrast to the petty American notion that women are doomed to be sweet little eye candy. You start to see that, well, maybe it was just the way these American girls have been raised after all."</p>

<p>First of all, standardized math tests are so far from real math it's not even funny. At that level it's more or less just straight memorization, which girls tend to do better on. Compare the gender gap on standardized tests like the ACT/SAT with the gender gap on state/national math competitions.</p>

<p>Who ever said women were doomed to be sweet little eye candy? There are numerous scientific studies illustrating the many physiological and mental differences between men and women. I'm pretty sure it's been shown that on average men have better abstract spatial thinking skills. There was also a recent study done at my university on gender differences with respect to bidding/auction strategy. They pretty much established that women perform significantly worse during high hormonal parts of their period (<a href="http://www.umich.edu/%7Eurecord/0607/Oct09_06/03.shtml)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0607/Oct09_06/03.shtml)&lt;/a>. It's also been shown that when it comes to important decisions, women are more likely to be affected and influenced by their emotions than men are. I'm sure there's a lot more information out there, but honestly it's nothing I really care about.</p>

<p>I used to think the gender gap was just a societal problem, but over time it's become more clear that there has to be a lot more than that going on to explain the evident disparities. Due to political correctness, there's a kind of double-standard on what we can and cannot attribute to inherent gender differences. Pretty much every person accepts that, in general, men are naturally bigger/stronger than women. But you can't really even suggest that there's some kind of fundamental difference in the way men and women think without being labeled a sexist. Even though, evolutionarily speaking, it's at least plausible that both are caused by the same thing. Traditionally, men would be the providers and protectors, which would mean their favorable traits would be strength/size and logical thought (becomes increasingly important as "providing" involves increasingly complex tasks). Women, on the other hand, would be wives/mothers/homemakers, and their more desirable traits would be centered around being nurtuting. Over enough time, this traits would be promoted and eventually lead to the kind of gender differences you see today. I'm not really presenting that idea as much as a sound argument, just more of a representation of how I view the world and other possibilities for gender discrepancies exist that aren't caused by some inherent flaw in the current system.</p>

<p>And also, the whole way you personify the opposing viewpoint by attributing everything to "petty American notions" and making it sound like all men are just trying to assert their dominance over women...that's what makes you come off as a feminazi.</p>

<p>This whole discussion is great. I don't think I've seen people get so worked up over nothing. </p>

<p>I must ask, but what does it matter? We have different brains because the human organism is designed in two separate parts. Men and women are both built differently physically and mentally, so that together, they're an extremely resilient duo. </p>

<p>Here's how I see it. Most men are "stupid". That's why most guys don't go through schooling like women. Men don't get "booksmart" but rather learn to make decisions, lead, take charge. However, among men, the smartest men, are, for the most part, extremely smart. Look at your average honors class in high school. Most of the women there are smart and equal in intelligence with only a few being smarter or dumber. Most of the guys on the other hand, struggle, but there's always a couple who have no issues. </p>

<p>Women for the most part are "booksmart" and generally smarter than men. But most very smart women don't compare to the very smartest men. There are of course exceptions (marie curie). And then again, intelligence is the most subjective term in the world.</p>

<p>Of course, we could also talk about how emotions or lack thereof effect both genders, but there isn't enough space here.</p>

<p>Hmm, actually males and females have the same average intelligence, but males have a larger standard deviation in iq tests. So there are far more male mensans than females, while at the same timme far more mentally deficient males. Hmm, though I might have a bias towards agreeing that there should be incentives for both sides, since I'm an asian male interested in english literature, soooo that'd be helpful to me =P</p>

<p>Mr. Payne (I got your PM, btw), you're the one who started this whole discussion. When I said a lot of conservatives are stupid, I meant that in two ways. First, I was referring to the Bible Belt (the South) where people think Hussein was bin Laden and thus, our killing him was necessary and that Bush is actually doing a good job and we need to support our troops by keeping them in Iraq to keep getting picked off by insurgents...that, to me, is stupid. The people who think Bush is a Christian because he supports a war, any war, that only gives us more dead bodies is stupid. It's not even so much a lie the media tells us at this point; it's just something they believe. And they're stupid for believing it. Stupid.</p>

<p>The other reason is that a lot of this country is rural. States with large metropolitan areas tend to be in the position to accept differing backgrounds and opinions and ideas and views than states where their is little change in the past thirty years. This isn't stupidity as much as it is ignorance, though, to most people it IS stupidity. People, especially minorities, who think "traditional" values in America are ideal. Please. Traditional in this country isn't the 1950s post-WW2 domestic model; you don't have to be a conservative to believe that had it's strong and weak points. Traditional is women and minorities taking a backseat to land-owning white men.</p>

<p>My point had nothing to do with IQ. You're the one who made it about that.</p>

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You ignore empirical evidence because it goes against your arguments.

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<p>First off: I never made the argument that women are better or even equal to men in certain types of reasoning, or that the disparities we see are social instead of genetic consequences. I simply implied that this was a possibility, as it was not excluded by any evidence we currently have.</p>

<p>However, even if I were to make such an argument, you see that your evidence of men out-performing women in fields involving abstract reasoning--which I do not deny is most often the case--does NOT "go against" this argument. </p>

<p>Consider the following analogy. When I was young, growing up in New England, there was frequently condensation on the ground in the morning. I was often led to believe that it had rained the night before since this wetness looked indistinguishable from that of rain. But, of course, simply because my hindered understanding thought the cause of this wetness to be rain did not mean it was rain; it was just condensation. There were also times when the gardener had come, watered everything down with the hose, and I thought it had rained.</p>

<p>So, you see that the evidence you present does not support the conclusion that women are naturally less inclined for analytic reasoning, as you have not ruled-out the other possible causes. And considering our hindered understanding of the subject, it would be foolhardy to arbitrarily pick one cause (genetics) simply because it seems like the easiest answer.</p>

<p>
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Even though, evolutionarily speaking, it's at least plausible that both are caused by the same thing. Traditionally, men would be the providers and protectors, which would mean their favorable traits would be strength/size and logical thought (becomes increasingly important as "providing" involves increasingly complex tasks). Women, on the other hand, would be wives/mothers/homemakers, and their more desirable traits would be centered around being nurtuting.

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</p>

<p>A couple things:
1. "Homemaking" did not arise until the Neolithic Revolution (roughly 10,000 years ago), when some semblance of civilization began. And we have undergone infinitesimal biological evolution since that time; we have only culturally evolved. So I do not see homemaking duties as possibly contributing to a biological predisposition for women.
2. Before that, we were hunter-gatherers. It is largely agreed that social structure was quite egalitarian, and that a division of labor commenced in the Neolithic period. In other words, women, as far as we can tell, also played a role in the hunting, gathering, and protecting. The species could not have afforded not to. Take any intro to anthro class and you will learn this. Here's a start:
<a href="http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/highschool/socstud/global2_review/start_of_civilization.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/highschool/socstud/global2_review/start_of_civilization.htm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution&lt;/a>
3. Your stipulation (which you nevertheless seem to deem plausible enough to utilize in rationalizing the world), assumes that providing and protecting, what you figure to be the historical male role, harbors logical thought that the historical female roles do not. Yet you present no evidence of this other than your own intuition.</p>

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They pretty much established that women perform significantly worse during high hormonal parts of their period (<a href="http://www.umich.edu/%7Eurecord/0607/Oct09_06/03.shtml)%5B/url%5D.%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0607/Oct09_06/03.shtml).

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</a></p>

<p>Obviously ANYONE would perform worse when they are suffering from excruciating cramps, bloating, headaches, etc. This says nothing about the other 28/29 days of the month when women are not suffering from their period, and nothing on MENTAL capacities.</p>

<p>high school senior girls applying to college are more qualified than their male counterparts in terms of admissions.
colleges like to keep the sex ratio even at about 50/50
thus, there are more girls applying for 50% pool than guys for the equal 50% pool.
thus, it's easier for a guy to get into college these days.
---- so don't complain!</p>

<h2>women have been at a disadvantage for as long as history has known. we've been deemed inadequate and unworthy and unintelligent for a very, very long time. when we were offered equal rights, we soared like no other minority has ever done before. we've reached a time in history (for the first time ever) in which women are not only equating patriarchal standards, but also surpassing men in numerous ways (namely, academics, etc.). this is all in 80 years (not that we weren't really equal from the 70's and so on). don't tell me that's not fair. in any way. you gave us half a chance, we surpassed your expectations and now you're whining you wish it was easy for yourself (at the cost of disadvantaged, equally qualified female candidates). nuh-uh.</h2>

<p>PS..one thing i will admit men will always be better at: FOOTBALL.</p>

<p>We're not saying genetics is the only factor, we're (at least I'm) saying it's one of the factors. Please quit obfuscating the issue by pretending everything we say is an attempt to assert the fact that males are inherently dominant over women. Picking genetics to be the sole cause of the problem is just as much of a cop-out as picking society to be the sole cause of the problem, which you seem quite intent on doing.</p>

<p>How does the fact that things were roughly equal over 10,000 years ago somehow cancel out any possible effect of inequality over the next 10,000 years? You can breed for desirable traits in well under 10,000 years.</p>

<p>"Obviously ANYONE would perform worse when they are suffering from excruciating cramps, bloating, headaches, etc. This says nothing about the other 28/29 days of the month when women are not suffering from their period, and nothing on MENTAL capacities."</p>

<p>The study didn't show they performed worse, it showed they bid more aggressively, which resulted in them doing worse in the given model. In any case, you're agreeing that something can cause a gender disparity other than The Man keeping you down?</p>