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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Why are there so few [female|black] physicists?
Message-ID: <1368@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jul-86 14:59:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.1368
Posted: Tue Jul 29 14:59:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Aug-86 19:50:53 EDT
References: <1970@brl-smoke.ARPA> <320@rtech.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
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Xref: watmath net.women:11706 net.sci:1403

In article <665@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP writes:
>
>Oh really.  So if teachers and faculties, (by dint of discriminatory
>treatment of their students) produce only white males who are "qualified" then
>discrimination is *fair* and no outcry is to be raised against unfair
>educational practices (such as requiring female students to be teaching
>assistants for four years of graduate study then claiming that "it's their
>fault" when little research progress is made, while giving research jobs 
>and important scientific problems to their male students...).

	No, it is *not* fair, and something should be done about it!
But when an employer hires the most qualified applicant that is *not*
discrimination, and should not be treated as such. It is time we
started addressing the real problem rather than trying to eliminate
the late stage symptoms(like unequal employment). I believe that it is
in fact in the area of education and social structure during early
childhood that the real problem *and* solution lies. More effort needs
to be spent providing a proper environment for individual developement
from early life on. Better schools for inner cities would help, as
would better preparation of teachers to handle people in non-stereotyped
ways. The more attention paid to such things, the better off various
"minority" groups will be in the future.
	But instead of applying our resources to source level fixes,
which necessarily have a delayed pay-off, we are putiing these
resources into symptomatic patches that have short term, apparently
beneficial, effects, but do not really address the real problem.
>
>If you read the original article, you would know that we started off
>discussing the influence of culture and teacher's attitudes on the 
>performance and interests of students.
>
	Perhaps we should get back to that, as that *is* the real
problem. I think an interesting question would be: What steps can be
taken both as individuals and as a society to combat inappropriate
influences of this kind?
	Actually, I would carry it further than the higher education
aspect that was originally brought up, this kind of biasing in
education starts *far* earlier than college.