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Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

quillette.com

1–10 of 47 posts

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#3
Interesting article but it eludes me what his bibliographical research found other than gaps which where already known. I fail to notice where he differs from mainstream based on results his research found.

To be clear I don't like stifling discussion with non-scientific arguments either (which the author accuses CERN of). But imho the article fails to bring his arguments across other than "I was attacked on unscientific grounds". If he bases broader male variation on observations of citation indexes I think this is a poor measure as citation indexes favor the incumbents very much. A problem which also male newcomers have trouble with.

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#5
Remember a week ago when this site scoured a public GitHub repo to ensure a woman physicist wasn't getting more credit than she was due? Imagine having to conduct yourself in your professional life as though you were under persistent threat of audit by some know-nothings if you stuck your head up too high. I would go insane.

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#6
I'm not saying this to stir up some kind of controversy. But, I think it's wrong to silence him simply because we don't agree with him. He presented data, some efforts to support his view points. This is far better than fuelling hatred and bigotry just by providing opinions.

For instance, this person who wrote this article titled ("Why can't we hate men?") is actually a gender studies professor (now a director?) in a well known top university in Boston and still has their job:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men...

But we are offended and want to silence someone and fire them for providing atleast reasonable data to back his claims?

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#7
> I find it alarming that a scientific organization has rules that restrict free speech using such vague, subjective language.

Feminism has always been a sexist power movement, and the natural outcome of that is always authoritarian social policy.

At it's core, feminism is about the sole focus on accruing benefits and status for one sex (or gender, depending on who you ask).

Feminism fights for women's rights, but not men's: the vote, but not forcing women to enlist in selective service; workplace rights, but not for men to have parental rights; women in STEM, but not men in psychology, teaching, etc -- or even men in school at all.

Perhaps there was a time that kind of sexist focus was a force for good, but I have to seriously question that. Regardless --

If you're part of feminism in an academic context, you're part of a majority power movement, which routinely denigrates and attacks the minority gender in blatant violation of Title IX -- and have been for decades.

Feminism is sexism.

So it's surprising to me that the scientists are surprised.

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#9

> I find it alarming that a scientific organization has rules that restrict free speech using such vague, subjective language. Feminism has always been a sexist power movement, and the natural outcome of that is always authoritarian social policy. At it's core, feminism is about the sole focus on accruing benefits and status for one sex (or gender, depending on who you ask). Feminism fights for women's rights, but no…

> Feminism fights for women's rights, but not men's

I mean, that's the whole purpose. I don't have a crystallised opinion on 3rd wave feminism but the 1st and 2nd were clearly necessary.

It's like saying the black panthers were bad because they were not fighting for white people's rights.

Re: Why Are Women Under-Represented in Physics?

#10

> I find it alarming that a scientific organization has rules that restrict free speech using such vague, subjective language. Feminism has always been a sexist power movement, and the natural outcome of that is always authoritarian social policy. At it's core, feminism is about the sole focus on accruing benefits and status for one sex (or gender, depending on who you ask). Feminism fights for women's rights, but no…

I think this argument would carry more weight if, you know, the numbers had changed. If the top spots in the highest paid fields (finance, medicine, management, research, technology, media, government) were actually reasonably close to parity, you might say the movement has run its course. But since we are still far off from that, and women are still expected to do more than half the work around the house and so on, it seems there is still work ahead.

I'm not saying men should not have parental rights (and, it should be added, obligations). And of course there are people working on that issue (to pick one). But do you have data that suggests this is as large an issue as, say, the dearth of women in top positions?

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