Letters to the Editor
MWise
Published Letters: 249 Editor's Choice: 19
-
Not the study, but the application.
[Read the article: Do women crack under pressure?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I will first admit that I have neither read the Slate article, nor the actual study. So I'm going to work under the assumption that the results are valid, ie women are "chokers". My problem comes when people decide to apply that to things, like hiring practices or education. You'll see that some people will then use these results to not hire women in positions of power or to guide female students towards less competitive fields. The excuse being that women are no good at those things since it's all biological...see Study A. And these decisions to me are discriminatory, ie you are taking group results and projecting them onto an individual with no consideration for what the performance or inclination is of that individual. In addition, when studies are done to prove gender differences, the female performance, although may be couched in a positive, it is used to put women in inferior positions. An example would be "women are better at communication" is used to push women towards jobs like human resources or elementary school teacher as opposed to, lead diplomat for the UN. It seems like every single time there is some new study, all it is used to do is to reinforce existing gender roles, most of which are not beneficial.
-
Women in CS
[Read the article: A woman gets the top computer science prize for the first time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well are we just counting CS or IT or IS? My IT degree back in 98 was out of the university's Business school. Recently they moved that degree program over to the school of engineering, but it's still the exact same course work. So I guess that I would not be counted in the number of female CS degree holders nor would any of my classmates..we were fairly evenly split as I recall and about a third of my professors were female. In one of the articles that I read, it stated that women earned less degrees in CS if that degree program was housed in the Engineering school. But the numbers for women in E-school were growing, but the CS degrees weren't. Is that because once you are in E-school and doing all that heavy lifting you are more likely to choose a major in an industry that isn't tanking or suffering from rampant job losses? With the rate of off-shoring and out-sourcing, I'm not sure if I would recommend to any college student to get a primary CS degree.
The female programmers that I work with didn't start with CS degrees but ended up in the field anyway. In my deparment the women actually outnumber the men, which is a first for me. I do see that positions that require a lot of on-call hours and odd schedules or travel are staffed more by men. Which if women are still carrying more of the burden of home life and child care, this is not unexpected. I certainly don't think it makes those men smarter, just that their non-work lives are more flexible. When I was in school I never felt that being female was a negative, in my first few jobs it was a problem. I had a manager that kept on steering me to the support ghetto while I wanted to do development. "But you are so friendly!" was what he kept on saying...this is patently untrue, yes I can fake being nice to customers, but if you ask any of my friends they would not use the word "friendly" to describe me. Friendly no, Snarky yes.
-
Ioan Gruffudd
[Read the article: "Amazing Grace"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dreamy indeed! I highly recommend the A&E Horatio Hornblower productions with him as the lead. And as far as dead guys go, Wilberforce's portrait ain't bad.
-
Hmmmm
[Read the article: My breast roommate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If this is real, which I'm not quite sure about. I agree with the writter about The Onion. So what happens if the vegans milk provider eats a turkey sandwhich or other meat products. And then they consume her milk...so doesn't that make them non-vegans???
-
I don't get it
[Read the article: Toxic wife syndrome]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]These men bought trophy wives, so why are they suprised that the upkeep is so expensive? The author says "How I pitied these rich and successful men who had naively hoped for a domestic goddess, only to end up with a diva." Why pity them when they knew exactly what the deal was? The women are doing what is expected of them; they are acting like rich men's wives. Rich men's wives have NEVER done domestic duties. Their very existence is predicated on keeping their shiney looks and living a life of leisure. For a rich man, having your wife work either in or out of the house diminishes your social standing. The wives are a status symbol just like their husband's flashy cars. The only difference is that it is harder to replace a wife with a newer younger model than it is a car. That's why there are pre-nups. Most men learn that lesson by the 2nd wife.
-
Hey Cindy
[Read the article: Worldwide ADHD pandemic?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's a big plate of STFU. You are a 100% bitch. You actually sat there and read the stories here about obviously caring and loving parents trying to deal with what must a very stressful and heartbreaking situation and you had the nerve to call them "ham-fisted buffoons." It's exactly because of horrible ignorant people such as yourself that these parents are here telling their stories.
Personally, I have no stake in this cause, I don't have children (yet) nor do I have ADHD. But what I do have is sympathy for parents who are trying to do the best for their kids.