Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!think!mit-eddie!mit-trillian!vis From: vis@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU (Tom Courtney) Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci Subject: Re: Re: Re: Why are there so few [female|black] physicists? Message-ID: <944@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> Date: Wed, 30-Jul-86 17:03:13 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-tril.944 Posted: Wed Jul 30 17:03:13 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Aug-86 01:09:21 EDT References: <4368@decwrl.DEC.COM> <719@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> <326@encore.UUCP> <770@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Reply-To: vis@trillian.UUCP (Tom Courtney) Organization: MIT Project Athena Lines: 66 Xref: watmath net.women:11730 net.sci:1406 In article <770@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP (cheryl) writes: >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 ... >>> 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: >> 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. I went to a small private school where there were the traditional added burdens on girls to succeed that boys didn't have: there was pressure to prove that they indeed belonged there, usually (not always) applied by the parents. Tactics such as those described above were common by both genders. When I was a junior, a peculiar thing happened. I was in a calculus class with two other girls. They attempted the same freeze-out technique. It didn't work worth a damn, because I hate to lose out in anything. I escalated. They escalated. Seemed like they didn't like to lose either. Interim results: we all learned a great deal of calculus, and decided to take an intro to analysis course at SUNY/Buffalo the next year. Looking at the results 10+ years later, I am more impressed: Joanna became rich and famous at Apple Computers, Tahl recently got her Phd in Physics, and I'm a programmer at computer heaven, doing exactly what I want to do. I learned a bunch from the experience: 1) getting pushed farther than you normally would go has a bunch of value; 2) mathematics is a worthwhile endeavor; 3) if everyone involved is sufficiently pigheaded, adverserial relations break down after a while. >> 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. > Wow, what a mild response. Michael, can you explain why you found it neccesary to do the damning with faint praise routine? I found achievement test Russian to be harder than either AP Chemistry or Physics (I did lousy in it too: losing out in Russian was one of the big reasons why I came to hate losing in general). Your comment does nothing but belittle the achievement of anyone who got through Chemistry successfully.