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From: kapa@ihlpg.UUCP (Perkins)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Why are there so few [female|black] physicists?
Message-ID: <2274@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jul-86 10:18:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.2274
Posted: Tue Jul 29 10:18:12 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jul-86 04:37:04 EDT
References: <4368@decwrl.DEC.COM> <719@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> <326@encore.UUCP>
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Xref: watmath net.women:11663 net.sci:1392

> 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

Another example of something that when men do it, it is sexist;
when women do it, it expresses solidarity.