Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!lll-crg!lll-lcc!vecpyr!amd!pesnta!ucat!pyramid!hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!cheryl From: cheryl@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (cheryl) Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci Subject: Re: Re: Re: Why are there so few [female|black] physicists? Message-ID: <770@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Date: Tue, 29-Jul-86 10:46:18 EDT Article-I.D.: batcompu.770 Posted: Tue Jul 29 10:46:18 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 1-Aug-86 19:10:39 EDT References: <4368@decwrl.DEC.COM> <719@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> <326@encore.UUCP> Reply-To: cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP (cheryl) Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 90 Xref: watmath net.women:11698 net.sci:1401 In article <326@encore.UUCP> mikes@encore.UUCP ( Mike Skrzypczak) writes: >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? We just wanted to see if we could do it. Certain men had tried exactly the same tactics on us when it came to taking the top-tracked math courses and AP Chem. They made our job pretty easy for us. When they came around telling us *not* to take AP Chem, we just agreed with them that they were perfectly right, and then told them that they shouldn't take it either if they felt that way. It was more a case of holding up a mirror to the game they had started, rather than starting up a game of our own making. > I honestly do not understand what the advantage of making > the AP Chem class mostly women was. The advantage to us was not having to suffer the male-vs.-female game-playing that goes on in such a course. It was either us or them. We decided that we would rather have it be us. Politics ain't pretty, but it's the way things work. We proved that. Why should we have to put up with people in the course who don't *really* want to be there? I mean, if they *really* wanted to be there, they wouldn't have let us talk them out of it so easily. Of course we were fully aware that the men were possibly as capable as us, but why should we let them take advantage of a chance to show it, especially when they were so easily talked out of making the most of this opportunity? > 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. Actually, he was the one who started complaining about how hard the work was, perhaps making a feeble attempt at baiting us into feeling similarly overworked. I caught one woman giving into it, and promptly winked at her and said "Nah, it's not *that* hard. Just takes a little concentration and perseverance, right Sue?" Then she realized that it was the *effort* she was complaining about, not the difficulty of the problem set. The guy, being of weaker character continued to blame the difficulty of the problem sets, and dropped out. We merely took advantage of his weakness. > 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? We didn't try to force him out. We just told him that things would be easier for him in a different class, that he would have less work to do, and have an easier time of getting a good grade. > 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. Yeah, probably, but I decided to call him a martyr and a masochist -- because that's what women are called when they devote themselves to a course of study. Just trying to illustrate a point. > 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. You did? Sorry to hear that. We had to put up with men there. I guess they just couldn't stand the idea of women taking over. >Awaiting your reply... >Michael Skrzypczak