OOOKAY- This Explains Everything- A Woman at the Helm of the Sewol

O was an affirmative-action hire. There was no evidence, before or after he was elected, that he was competent at anything.

Condaleeza Rice for President!

I'm always impressed by how many men really don't like women. They may want them and need them, but don't like them.

On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:49:26 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Not for the real sailors:

Insecure dinosaurs such as some of the people in this group hinder women from getting into engineering, electronics, computing, and other male-dominated fields. People get educated with a view towards a job and career - would /you/ pick an education knowing that your future employer might be a misogynist old fart who thinks your rightful place is in the kitchen? Such people as Jan and Bloggs chase away good candidates from the technical fields with their Victorian mindsets.

Perhaps they are trying to hide fears they might be more like them than they would care to admit:

Summers at Harvard speculated that women were not genetically inclined to do engineering. Here is one view of things: With the man, his genes getting passed on totally depend on capturing or conquering a female. With the female, her genes get passed on if she just gets along with her keeper.

The male has an all or nothing proposition.

This asymmetry has been the subject of game theory in evolution by biologists like RL Trivers.

Many anthropologists believe that the origin of war is males wanting access to the young females. That's what indigenous males say in interviews. But the official line is leftist: It's all about wealth. (A preoccupation of the leftists.)

You know, life is full of difficulties for everyone. At present we're living under the dictatorship of People With Delicate Feelings Who Are Easily Hurt And You're A Beast (With No Civil Rights) If You Hurt Them.

There's no way that any amount of disapproval from old farts would have discouraged me as a youngster--if somebody didn't understand why I cared, I'd have said they didn't understand much, and ignored them.

The best engineers, and the best scientists, are the ones with a fire in their belly. Male, female, white, black, Chinese, Antarctican, that doesn't matter.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

That's true enough - the best people in many fields are those with the most determination and commitment to the field, and they will not be easily stopped.

But the world is not made up of "best" people. They are certainly important, and in scientific and engineering fields it is these outliers that lead to real progress. But most of the work is done by "ordinary" engineers and "ordinary" scientists - people who are reasonably good at it, are interested in the field, and basically do the job because they get paid to do it. If there are significant factors pushing such "ordinary" people away from a field, then they will choose an easier path through life - and the engineering world looses a significant proportion of potential engineers, and consequently has lower average quality than it should.

I have nothing against telling people the truth (as I see it), and I certainly wouldn't want to encourage anyone beyond their abilities "to avoid hurting their feelings". But misogynists like Jan and Bloggs here are simply hurting other people because it makes them feel good to put people down - for the bizarre reason that they think being able to pee standing up makes them good engineers or sailors. They might not be able to stop a /great/ female engineer from having a successful career - but they can certainly make her feel bad, and they can certainly make it hard for a /good/ female engineer to have a successful career.

Makes no sense. Woman have a bigger concern for the quality of a mate than men do, so are more selective. Go to a bar and ask a random single woman if she'll marry you. You might begin the conversation by saying "I want to be your keeper."

Let us know how that works.

I had a great visit yesterday from the business development manager from the Tulane sci+engr school (itself a brilliant comeback from hurricane Katrina, and a catalyst of the rebirth of New Orleans.)

One of the things we talked about was how many women are in their engineering track (about 20%) and why so few. She said that young women, grade school maybe, need to have both a passion for engineering *and* the toughness to overcome stereotypes and peer pressures, to stick with it. The combination is a double filtering process.

But I've never met an Antarctican engineer. I think they are genetically inferior. [1]

The simplest quiz: if you will have only one child, do you prefer a son or a daughter?

Yes - or anything in between, as long as i knew they were going to lead a happy and useful life.

I have fond memories of sailboats and women. Can't recall a single case of doom.

On a sunny day (Wed, 23 Apr 2014 10:13:02 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

You being in SF, are you sure it were real women?

Right, the SED lurker population is full of young females with tender sensibilities, who have never encountered a bore or a blowhard in their entire sheltered lives and would be shattered by the experience. Silly me for forgetting about them.

Sylvia posts here sometimes, but she can shred Phil Allison, so she doesn't seem to need much protection from FB and JP.

How 'bout it, lurkers? It seems like we've got a lot of opinions based on zilch here, so have pity on us and tell us if you're out there!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Non-asian males have the same issue in lots of places. So you have to be tough to succeed, we knew that. You have to be tough to get through finals, for peace sake.

If the problem is lack of toughness, then the filtering is probably working fine. When you're in an engineering group that looks like missing an important deadline, having people with Delicate Feelings who have to be babied (male, female, Antarctican, whatever) is a serious liability.

Folks who fall apart under pressure just aren't worth that much in real life. Folks who don't gripe, don't act out, just dig in to get the job done--those are worth something.

In New York they dress in black and gold.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I've done very little sailing here. It's cold, rough, dangerous, and expensive. I did own a wooden 24-foot ketch when I lived in New Orleans, and sailed it mostly on Lake Pontchartrain, which is warm and mild. Hobie Cats were fun too; when you flip them over on the lake, you didn't die of hypothermia.

I'm absolutely sure they were real women.

This from Neil deGrasse Tyson is interesting.

I had a friend in college who got a job as a chem. engineer. She just couldn't stand the male dominated culture at the workplace. I think she's teaching high school science now.

George H.

I think "male-dominated" is a canard, and one that begs the question. I've worked with (and worked for) women, with no issues--I still keep in touch with a few of them.

Working under pressure makes some people fall apart, is all. Happens to lots of guys as well.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs