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The Gender-Equity Hammer Comes Out: Title IX at the door, by Christina Hoff Sommers

Women have surpassed men in most areas of education, but men continue to be more numerous in fields like math, physics, and engineering. For more than a decade, feminist groups have been lobbying Congress to address the problem of gender “injustice” in the laboratory. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit. Federal agencies are now poised to begin aggressive gender-equity reviews of math, science, and engineering programs. Groups like the National Organization for Women must be celebrating — but American scientists should brace themselves for the destructive tsunami headed their way.

At a recent House hearing on “Women in Academic Science and Engineering” Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington State, asked a room full of activist women how best to bring American scientists into line: “What kind of hammer should we use?” The weapon of choice is the well-known federal anti-discrimination law “Title IX,” which prohibits sex discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title IX has never been rigorously applied to academic science. That is now about to change. In the past few months both the Department of Education and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have begun looking at candidates for Title IX-enforcement positions. [end]

source: http://tinyurl.com/5h3wrs

Of course, as a group, women might not be as interested in science and math as men are.  Are women as a group “wired” for math and science? 

I must say that my mother was an accountant.  I never heard her complain of discrimination. 

And what about those areas of education in which “women have surpassed men”?  Will there be an effort to investigate discrimination in those areas?

If Title 9 is applied to academics as it has been applied to sports, academic programs for which there is legitimate interest from males will be cut in order to reflect the disinterest of females.

Liberalism is vapid in so very many ways.

Not only vapid, IDP.  An assault of this kind on research could turn out to be an assault on the country and its ability to stay abreast of advances in science and technology; let alone be a leader in those areas — all in the name of something as nebulous and abstract as “gender equity.”

This is just the sort of disruption and corruption that both Billary and BO would be eager to promote.

While the majority of mathematicians are male, there have been some demographic changes since World War II. However, it is still the case with mathematics, as with neighboring branches of science such as physics, that women and historically disadvantaged minorities are underrepresented. A number of prizes instituted by the AMS and other mathematical societies are aimed at changing this situation.

Prominent female mathematicians have included:

Twenthieth Century
1900-1909

Gertrude Mary Cox (1900-1978)
Mary Lucy Cartwright (1900-1998)
Nina Karlovna Bari (1901-1961)
Edna Kramer Lassar (1902-1984)
Mina Rees (1902-1997)
Irmgard Flugge-Lotz (1903-1974)
Dorothy McCoy (1903-2001)
Anna Stafford Henriques (1905-2004)
Sophie Piccard (1904-2000)
Rózsa Péter (1905-1977)
Ruth Moufang (1905-1977)
Alice Roth (1905-1977)
Kate Fenchel (1905-1983)
Maria Cinquini-Cibrario (1905-1992)
Mabel Schmeiser Barnes (1905-1993)
Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906-1992)
Olga Taussky-Todd (1906-1995)
Sister Mary Celine Fasenmyer (1906-1996)
Emma Trotskaia Lehmer (1906-2007)
Margaret Jarman Hagood (1908-1963)
Louise Johnson Rosenbaum (1908-1980)
Mary Ross (1908- )
Florence Nightingale David (1909-1993)

1910-1919

Sheila Scott Macintyre (1910-1960)
Cora Ratto de Sadosky (1912-1981)
Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw (1912- )
Hanna Neumann (1914-1971)
Marjorie Lee Browne (1914-1979)
Dorothy Lewis Bernstein (1914-1988)
Alice T. Schafer (1915- )
Elizabeth Scott (1917-1988)
F. Jessie MacWilliams (1917-1990)
Helena Rasiowa (1917-1994)
Ruth Aaronsom Bari (1917-2005)
Dorothy Maharam Stone (1917- )
Julia Bowman Robinson (1919-1985)

1920-1929

Edith Hirsch Luchins (1921-2002)
Deborah Tepper Haimo (1921-2007)
Olga Alexandrovna Ladyzhenskaya (1922-2004)
Jane Cronin Scanlon (1922- )
Gloria Olive (1923-2006)
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923- )
Cathleen Morawetz (1923- )
Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924- )
Mary Ellen Rudin (1924- )
Olga Arsen’enva Oleinik (1925-2001)
Carol Karp (1926-1972)
Vera Nikoaevna Maslennikova (1926-2000)
Lida Barrett (1927- )
Joan S. Birman (1927-)
Hu Hesheng (1928-)

1930-1939

Mary Catherine Bishop Weiss (1930-1966)
Valentina Mikhailovna Borok (1931-2004)
Vera Pless (1931- )
Mary F. Wheeler (1931- )
Vivienne Malone-Mayes (1932-1995)
Grace Alele Williams (1932- )
Etta Falconer (1933-2002)
Sharon Menard (1934- )
Lesley Sibner (1934- )
Alexandra Bellow (1935- )
Louise Hay (1935-1989)
Gloria Hewitt (1935- )
Bhama Srinivasan (1935- )
Nina Uraltseva (1935- )
Argelia Velez-Rodriguez (1936- )
Judith D. Sally (1937- )
Marina Ratner (1938- )
Mary Gray (1939- )
Doris Schattschneider (1939- )

1940-1949

Linda Keen (1940- )
Cora Sadosky (1940- )
Nancy Kopell (1942- )
Karen Uhlenbeck (1942- )
Lenore Blum (1942- )
Evelyn M. Nelson (1943-1987)
Krystyna Kuperberg (1944- )
Jean Taylor (1944- )
Margaret Wright (1944- )
Dusa McDuff (1945- )
Mary Pensworth Reagor (1945- )
Judith Roitman (1945- )
Linda Rothschild (1945- )
Sylvia Young Wiegand (1945- )
Sun-Yung Alice Chang (1948- )
Raman Parimala (1948- )
Cheryl Praeger (1948- )
Fan Chung (1949- )

1950-1959

Nancy Reid (1952- )
Lai-Sang Young (1952- )
Ingrid Daubechies (1954- )
Verdiana Grace Masanja (1954- )
Bernadette Perrin-Riou (1955- )
Irene Fonseca (1956- )
Freda Porter (1957- )
Abigail Thompson (1958- )

1960-1969

Sijue Wu (1964- )
Irene Hueter (1965- )
Karen E. Smith (1965- )
Svenlana Jitomirskaya (1966-)

http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/chronol.htm

Interesting note: 

Linda Rothschild was born in 1945 in Philadelphia, PA. She received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and her Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970 (she had been rejected for graduate work at Princeton on the grounds that the university accepted only men).

Wonderful list Thugz, but you missed the point.  In today’s world, if a woman has rthe apptitude for math and science, she will not be held back.

But if the “gender equity” people force their views on math and science departments, we’ll have women becoming scientists, not because they are the most qualified but because they are women or gay.

Do you want good science or do you want “gender equity”?  You can’t have both.

Women have surpassed men in most areas of education, but men continue to be more numerous in fields like math, physics, and engineering.

You know, there is still the same old problem activists as groups sweep under the rug, and that is, there are fewer women interested in this field or pursuing it.  They don’t have time. 

I have noticed there are far more male surgeons in the field of medicine than female surgeons.

Most female docs set up family practices and are GPs and internists.

I think these fields of math and science and surgery attract fewer women. 

But you can see there are more and more female faces commenting on the astrophysics programs on the cable channels.  By numbers they may be fewer, but they’re certainly getting more “face time” on tv.

Pongo - 29 April 2008 10:49 AM

Wonderful list Thugz, but you missed the point.  In today’s world, if a woman has rthe apptitude for math and science, she will not be held back.

Do you want good science or do you want “gender equity”?  You can’t have both.

That’s probably the line Princeton used in 1966
when they denied a woman admission to postgraduate mathmatics BECAUSE she was a woman.

Note how “feminization” is used as a pejorative? 
Didn’t someone point out that Title IX relates to sports budgets?

That’s because “feminization” IS a pejorative and rightly so.  Once a field becomes majority female, standards and, thus, pay decline.

As stated, your example is from 1966 and is no longer applicable.

This crap of “representation by population numbers” is nothing more than an unsustainable quota system, if true scientific progress is the goal.  This is not to say that individual women don’t have remarkable and genuine contributions to make to various fields but that cannot be determined by government-mandated quotas.  Or whining about “unfair”.

Most scientists are men.
Some scientists produce “junk science.”
Most “junk scientists” are men.

Whose bright idea was “global warming”?