lack of female engineers

[Crappopotamus]

in my eng program, apparantly 40% of the class is girls. hells ya.

 

[gotsmack]

Originally posted by: DaWhim
btw, women are better in literature than men.

no. Think about the best literature ever written. how many of the authors are women.

I believe that this is because when you get down to it, literature is based on structure and women are not as good as men at things based on structure.

women are better at more abstract things.

most of the worst literature I have ever read were written by women, like the book Ethan Frome.

 

[bigalt]

I think it's similar to the reason you don't find ethnic minorities in certain fields.

Basically, there aren't many women engineers now. Thus, there are few role models/strong supporters for women in engineering, thus not too many women tackle engineering and so there aren't enough of a pool to supply lots of really strong ones so they don't get much respect so they don't get hired that easily so there aren't many women engineers.

I think it's a bad idea to keep it that way. If you figure that a certain percentage of people have the capacity to be really good at it, even if that percentage is lower in women, we're missing out on lots of potential brain power by it not being a woman-friendly environment.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: gotsmack

Originally posted by: DaWhim
btw, women are better in literature than men.

no. Think about the best literature ever written. how many of the authors are women.

Lit major here... while there were more females than males in my department, in terms of skill and understanding, the genders were about equal.

 

[gotsmack]

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: gotsmack

Originally posted by: DaWhim
btw, women are better in literature than men.

no. Think about the best literature ever written. how many of the authors are women.

Lit major here... while there were more females than males in my department, in terms of skill and understanding, the genders were about equal.

I'm talking about the PRODUCTION of GOOD literature, not what percentage of the english department is female or level of understanding.

I'm sticking by my theory that literature is highly structured and that is why women are not as good as men at it.

 

[jagec]

I don't get it...because there are a good number of women in my department, and they're competent enough. I don't know what happens between school and work that changes things...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: jagec
I don't get it...because there are a good number of women in my department, and they're competent enough. I don't know what happens between school and work that changes things...

Or perhaps your school is just atypical.

 

[0roo0roo]

more then 50% of college students are female now. so what are they disproportionately in?

 

[Brutuskend]

It's quite simple actually.

Women make poor engineers because all their lives, they have been told that

THIS........................................................................

Is six inches!

Well, maybe that's architects ...but you get the point...

 

[nageov3t]

I'm talking about the PRODUCTION of GOOD literature, not what percentage of the english department is female or level of understanding.

I'm sticking by my theory that literature is highly structured and that is why women are not as good as men at it.

if you're looking at classic literature, you have to realize that for a long time, average women weren't even allowed to learn to read, and a woman writing anything other than personal letters was looked at as a mental illness.

plus, the canon of lit that is considered standard was mostly created by men.

in contemporary literature, there are just as many critically praised female writers as male.

 

[gotsmack]

I understand that and can not comment on the NEW stuff because it has not with stood the test of time. I also don't read 'literature' that was written after 1960.

Looking back there have been one or two good female authors like Mary Shelly who wrote well.

But do you honestly think that there are any female writers who can seriously challenge the writings of Vladimir Nabokov (mid 1900s) or Steven Crane (late 1800s).

 

[Rickten]

I'm taking a class right now for summer and its 40 guys. BLAH!!! When there is actually a girl in my class I guarantee she will be asian. This is why I take bs classes like design and communications. HOt women are abundant in those classes.

 

[nageov3t]

not a big fan of Russian Lit, but I think that Kate Chopin is just as good of a writer as Crane, and in the grand scheme of things, even more influential.

 

[Zebo]

Same reason not many male nurse... different strokes for different sexes.

Ed spell

 

[gotsmack]

Nabokov wrote Lolita in English, which was acknowledged as a masterpiece when it was published.

and I've read the awakening. Her style is different from Crane's, but I believe that Crane is a better writer. It most likely doesn't help that I think his Red Badge fo Courage is THE great American novel.

 

[Cattlegod]

and the ones that are engineers are usually fat+nasty

 

[purepolly]

"my wife is a chemical engineer. she says it is not a woman friendly environment "

Yep, I have to agree. I worked for almost twenty years in various manufacturing engineering positions before leaving the field, and everything you have heard about glass ceilings is true.

 

[Koing]

Originally posted by: Brutuskend
It's quite simple actually.

Women make poor engineers because all their lives, they have been told that

THIS........................................................................

Is six inches!

Well, maybe that's architects ...but you get the point...

Because they just don't fancy it in most cases.

Why aren't there more guys in dance type of classes? They don't fancy it. I know a guy who is at this Ballet school. He is gifted and will be hitting it with the fittest of fit ballet dancers. Hell there are only about 8 guys and about 35-40 girls in his year group!

There are quite a lot of girls in my CS class. About 35% of them are women I think. Not all are hot but some are some aren't.

Koing

 

[phantom309]

Truth is, most women just aren't interested in it. The ones who are tend to be just as good as their male counterparts, though.

 

[desteffy]

they can engineer me some pies and clean laundry













jk I think a lot more are coming up through the ranks. I just graduated as a math major, and actually the best couple engineering students I knew were double majors engineering/math and female.

 

[Yax]

Lets see.. From history,

Men had engineer new and innovative ways to catch prey (those who couldn't died off); while women simply cook, farm and clean. Ofcourse men will naturally have a better developed brain for engineering.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: loki8481
I don't think it's a female-friendly enviornment.

One of my best friends in college was a female Comp Sci major; she complained all the time about a) every guy CS major hitting on her, and b) male professors looking down on her because she was female.

Exactly! I've heard that from numerous female engineering students at my college. Their male classmates and professors don't take them seriously as engineers. As one girl explained it, you can almost hear "Aw, you're an engineer? How cute!"

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: brigden
Look in the mirror and the answer shall be revealed!

Well I WAS going to make fun of this...but it's just too easy

 

[MisterPants]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
But do you honestly think that there are any female writers who can seriously challenge the writings of Vladimir Nabokov (mid 1900s) or Steven Crane (late 1800s).

Sylvia Plath's Ariel poems are as good as Nabokov's best writing. I can't think of any other woman I'd rate with Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, or Kafka or any woman I'd rate with Joyce. This could reflect the distribution of talent, but it could certainly be cultural.

It could also reflect the differences between men and women in their reaction to stress. A less insecure person wouldn't have written The Trial. Plath's greatest work was written just before she killed herself.

 

[Twofootputt]

Grandad & grandaughter both MIT engineers. I think it's more hereditary than anything else. My one daughter was exposed to & attracted by the logic & discipline. The other two are more linguistic or artistic. While I don't always follow the thought processes of my wife & other two daughters, the middle one seems perfectly normal to me. However, I find this is more a lack in me than in them.