Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!topaz!husc6!talcott!encore!mikes
From: mikes@encore.UUCP ( Mike Skrzypczak)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Why are there so few [female|black] physicists?
Message-ID: <326@encore.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Jul-86 13:43:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: encore.326
Posted: Mon Jul 28 13:43:18 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jul-86 03:33:55 EDT
References: <4368@decwrl.DEC.COM> <719@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Reply-To: mikes@encore.UUCP ( Mike Skrzypczak)
Organization: Encore Computer, Marlboro MA
Lines: 46
Xref: watmath net.women:11651 net.sci:1386

In article <719@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP (cheryl) writes:
>In AP Chemistry in High School, there were only two men to demonstrate 
>ability in front of.  One other student and the teacher.  All the rest
>were women. This was partly my doing. I went around socially to everybody who
>had taken AP Biology and the top-tracked math course in Sophomore year,
>and encouraged the women to take AP Chemistry ("Aw, it won't be that hard.
>I'm taking it.  That means it will be *fun*" [I was also the class clown])
>and discouraged the men from taking AP Chemistry ("It will be easier to
>get an A in Reagents chemistry.  And besides, if you take AP Chemistry
>now, they'll place you in sophomore-level Chem when you get to college,
>and you might not be prepared for it.  I'm not taking AP chem, No-Sir-ee."
>
.
.
.
>  Actually, it started out with 8 women and 2 men, but we women
>got one of the men to drop out by (a) intimidating him by working our
>buts off on the first few homework sets and pretending the material was
>easy and (b) telling him that if he had to work that hard to keep up with us,
>he'd probably be "HAPPIER" in Reagents' Chemistry.  We let up on ourselves
>once we had driven him out.  The other one was just a masochist and a 
>martyr so it didn't work on him.
>
>Cheryl

Cheryl:
	Why did you find it important to drive people out of AP Chemistry?
	I honestly do not understand what the advantage of making
	the AP Chem class mostly women was. I also do not understand
	why one of the males dropped the course just because you said
	it was easy and worked your buttocks off at the problem sets.

	Why is a person who stays in AP Chemistry a martyr and a masochist?
	Is it just because you tried to force him out the class?
	Maybe he saw through the bullshit and understood that he was there
	to learn chemistry, and not to match his own course performance
	with yours.

	I applaud you for encouraging more females to take the course 
	(I think it is overrated as to difficulty (I found AP Physics
	E&M harder)). I would applaud you more if you had encouraged
	more people to take the course.

Awaiting your reply...

Michael Skrzypczak