Cosmopolitan Conservative » STEM

Review: Why Women Should Rule the World

Adrienne — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:38:39 +0000

Surprisingly, Dee Dee Myers, the first female White House spokesperson, presents a fair and reasonable explanation of feminism in this book, Why Women Should Rule the World. With the exception of the first chapter, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s conversational and entertaining. She’s not preachy with her views and shares interesting insights into the Clinton White House.

I obviously disagree with her on abortion and economic issues, but Myers mostly includes common-sense solutions to our problems. She acknowledges the we don’t have to reach parity in every. single. job. field. to achieve balance in the working world as the recent Shriver Report recommends. Myers also approaches the issue as a woman who appears to have actually worked in the real world and likes men (unlike many of her peers in this field). I actually agreed with her on some points, such as her chapter on “The Confidence Gap.”

Myers does a good job of demonstrating that a third way is possible in the mommywars. After leaving the White House, she was able to carve out a career of public speaking, punditry and writing. Now that isn’t available to most women, but technology has dramatically altered the way that we view work. I truly believe that much of the hyped mommywars will be insignificant within the next decade. Offices are much more flexible for men and women, and working from home, telecommuting, flex time and alternative schedules will be the norm in the coming years.

She also devotes time to explore ways to stop the gap in science, technology, engineering and math fields. (In a previous job, I worked extensively on this issue, so I follow it closely.) Myers presents interesting facts that I had not seen.

Myers shares that people who think with both spheres of their brain are overwhelmingly likely to go into liberal arts. Since the majority of women think with both sides of the brain, they are more drawn to psychology, history, art, English, etc.

There’s also research that women are drawn to “people-focused” careers because our brains are wired for discussion and empathy. Because science is presented to kids as stark, boring and lonely, women aren’t drawn to it. Meyer’s shares an idea that would feasibly work:

…much of math is now theoretical, and physics doesn’t require as many “people” skills as, say, medicine. Which may mean fewer girls will be interested. Or it may mean we need to find new ways to make disciplines like physics and engineering more appealing to women’s more diverse interests. Maybe if the field’s most visible leaders talked about the practical, “people-oriented” benefits of the physical sciences–like how rural villages in Africa might get clean water and affordable energy–more girls might be interested.

On gender roles:

The hardcore ideologues on the left flank of feminist thinking insist that gender roles are not just artificial, but designed to hold women back. So until their desroyed, women will continue to be victims of a patriarchy, virtual slaves in their own homes. But most women–even many who call themselves feminists–don’t want to be “the same” as men. Nor do they believe that equality demands it. That’s not to say that questions about what equality means or how it might be achieved have been resolved. Far from it. But the vision of a one-size-fits-all world simply denies too many women’s experiences–and their aspiration.

On equality in the workforce:

For starters, I think we have to abandon the idea that even if all the obstacles were eliminated, there would be an equal number of men and women in virtually every profession. We don’t need gender parity among elementary school teachers or bond traders before we can declare victory. We don’t even need it among physicists. That’s not to say that it won’t happen. It could. But isn’t it more likely that even if we eliminate the conflict between having a high-powered job and having a family, unravel the mysteries of innate aptitude and interest, and root out discrimination, there will still be more women in social psychology and more men in engineering? And isn’t that okay? I think it is.

Is this a book that will dramatically alter the landscape of gender politics? No. But is refreshing to remember that there are common sense Democrats out there.

Title IX Discriminates

Adrienne — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:12:30 +0000

The Network of enlightened Women has a post up today about Title IX, the federal policy that equalizes programs for men and women across all levels of education. Their post is in response to a Phyllis Schafly’s Townhall.com column on the subject:

We were shocked to read a November report from the U.S. Army that 75 percent of America’s 17- to 24-year-olds are not eligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, involved in crime or ae physically unfit. According to this report titled “Ready, Willing and Unable to Serve,” 27 percent of young Americans can’t join the military because they are too fat and out of shape, can’t do push-ups or pull-ups, and can’t run.

The Obama administration claims that the solution for this dilemma is to spend lots of money on pre-K schooling, but that doesn’t pass the laugh test. A better remedy would be to terminate “Title-Nining,” the malicious anti-masculine weapon used by feminists to eliminate men’s sports in college and high school

While I have the utmost respect for Schafly, I disagree that Title IX is the reason why only 27% of young men are eligible to join the armed services. As a society, we are fatter and more out of shape than previous generations. That’s a family-level problem and not one that can legislated. Furthermore, collegiate sports typically require elite skills, and the majority of male and female undergraduates lack those abilities.

Title IX is just one more example of the federal government trying to create utopian policies that don’t work in real life. It has support from both sides of the aisle, and Sarah Palin frequently praises it in her book. It’s one of those policies that has a good intention but is difficult to administer. How do you ensure equality in programs for men and women? A straight numbers game ends up hurting one sex over the other.

Currently if 50% of women are enrolled in college, 50% of the sports must be female. It doesn’t matter if there is demand for one sport over another or if men are more interested in sports than women. You can’t have more male teams over female. Surprisingly, this hurts more men at major “powerhouse” universities where one or two sports take a majority of the funding and resources.

As I frequently mention, I attended the University of Tennessee from 2000-2004 and had a friend on the men’s rowing team. One day during my sophomore year, I saw him on the UC Plaza participating in a fundraiser for his team. I was taken aback. Why did a UT athletic team have to fundraise? The UT athletics department is one of the wealthiest in the country with major endorsements from Adidas and Verizon.

It turns out that the men’s rowing team at UT was categorized as a “club” sport, and didn’t receive much funding. Thanks to Title IX, a few men’s varsity sports were re-categorized as club sports while their female counterparts were elevated to varsity. Because UT has a powerful football program for men and a nearly powerful basketball team for women, it throws the dynamics off for all sports. While the women’s rowing team is a varsity team, the men’s side was only marginally higher than an intermural sport. Even though the men competed against varsity teams at other colleges, the UT system didn’t support them. Is this right?

On the other hand, Title IX had an unintended effect at UT. For generations, the state of Tennessee did not allow sororities to have houses on campus. A nineteenth century law mandated that any house with more than 13 women was considered a brothel. (Go ahead and laugh.) After years of complaints and watching fraternities build nicer and nicer houses on campus (and subsequently trash them. I’ve been inside those houses. Yuck!), it was finally decided that universities were discriminating against women by providing fraternity housing for men but not allowing sorority housing to be built.

Thus, Title IX both helps and harms students. As a former sorority member, I’m glad that women finally have equal access to housing on campus. Had Title IX not been around, the state legislature would have never struck down the brothel law. However, Title IX does discriminate and men are frequently the victims.

Feminists won a mighty battle with Title IX and have used it to demand that equal numbers of male and female professors per department or assistantships be evenly split. They also demand more scholarships go to women to decrease gender gaps, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. At graduation in 2004, I remember a female African-American student, who was sitting behind me, bragging about her full ride to medical school despite her C average. She was well aware that her scholarship was awarded because of programs like affirmative action and Title IX and quite happy about it. I just hope that I’m never one of her patients.

Call me crazy, but I never took a class because the professor was a man or a woman. I did take classes because a professor was the best in the field. I didn’t care what gender they were. I wanted quality and knowledge. The same goes for TAs. I would rather have a knowledgeable male TA than a female, who helped the department meet quotas but was otherwise unqualified.

Ultimately Title IX hurts students and the quality of their education. While it has good intentions, we all know where those lead, and I doubt that feminists in the 70s meant for this policy to help sorority women. Programs like Title IX should not exist. It should be up to the individual school or body governing that school to decide how resources are used. Title IX takes power away from the students, faculty and administrators and gives it to bureaucrats.