Her Dissertation Basically Argues That Women Have The Intellectual Capacity Of Deer
I'm confused. Are women men's equals or are they idiots, incapable of higher reasoning?
Joy Pullman writes at The Federalist:
Laura Parson, a student in the university's education department, reviewed eight science class syllabi at a "Midwest public university" and said she discovered in them a hidden hostility to women and minorities:Initial exploration of the STEM syllabi in this study did not reveal overt references to gender, such as through the use of gendered pronouns. However, upon deeper review, language used in the syllabi reflects institutionalized STEM teaching practices and views about knowledge that are inherently discriminatory to women and minorities by promoting a view of knowledge as static and unchanging, a view of teaching that promotes the idea of a passive student, and by promoting a chilly climate that marginalizes women.Even though the course syllabi contained no "gendered assumptions" about students or other overtly discriminatory implications, Parson writes, they display prejudice against women and minorities because they refuse to entertain the possibility that "scientific knowledge is subjective."
Women Are Too Stupid to Use Logic
Throughout her dissertation, Parson assumes and asserts that women and minorities are uniquely challenged by the idea that science can provide objective information about the natural world. This is an unfair assumption, she says, because the concept of objectivity is too hard for women and minorities to understand. "[N]otions of absolute truth and a single reality" are "masculine," she says, referring to poststructuralist feminist theory.
Legal beagle blogger Scott Greenfield posts similarly -- on a whine by Carolyn Kitchener in The Atlantic that law schools aren't admitting poor people because the "logic games" on the LSAT keep them out.
Scott: "If you're in that lower half of the socioeconomic spectrum, you ought to be outraged on the slur to your intelligence..."
Scott:
Calling it the logic "games" suggests that's just another ploy of the elites to keep the maginalized down. After all, it's a game. It games law school admissions. And as the post URL says, the game is "rigged," a word that's bandied about a lot lately. So what is this "Logic Game"?
As soon as I told my friends and family about my plans to take the LSAT, the standardized law-school admissions test, people started warning me about one particular set of questions. Analytical Reasoning, or "Logic Games," is a section that tests your ability to order and group information. The questions are written to seem accessible and unintimidating--they ask you to analyze combinations of ice-cream flavors or animals in a zoo--but, every year, they stop tens of thousands of applicants from attending top law schools.Well, sure, there are tens of thousands of applicants stopped from attending top law schools because they lack the capacity to do well with analytical reasoning. That's what tests exist to do, prevent people who lack the intellectual ability to practice law from hogging all the seats at Harvard. And, from the look of things, it's not doing a very good job of it.
The Logic Games section is different from all other sections on the most popular standardized tests--the MCAT, GRE, GMAT, and SAT--because it's unlike anything students learn in high school or college. The section relies heavily on formal logic, a concept rarely taught outside of high-level college mathematics or philosophy courses.Formal logic? As opposed to, informal logic? Or what has become popularly known among humanities majors as their feelz? After all, if you're not taught this "concept" of formal logic, then you obviously can't be expected to be, you know, formally logical, right? And this is so unfair, it's exhausting.
"I was a biology major. In college, I took three calculus classes, two physics classes, and six chemistry classes," said Laurel Kandianis, a first-year law student at Temple Law School. "And still, when I got to the Logic Games section on the test, I completely blanked. I guessed on 11 of the questions and canceled my score."When she stands up before a court, a person's life in her hands, and "completely blanks," will she be able to cancel the execution?
I suspect it's more of a man-woman thinking thing. Which isn't to say it should get yanked from the test.
Women tend to be more emotional thinkers ("empathizers"); men tend to think more as "systematizers" per Simon Baron-Cohen's research -- which isn't to say women are incapable of systems thinking (or this sort of logic). I happen to be good at it and a friend, who's a woman who's an engineering professor, must be good at it, because you need that sort of thinking for engineering.
Baron-Cohen on Empathizing, from "The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism":
"Empathizing is the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion. Empathizing does not entail just the cold calculation of what someone else thinks and feels...Psychopaths can do that much. Empathizing...is done in order to understand another person, to predict their behavior, and connect or resonate with the emotionally."
Baron-Cohen on Systemizing:
"Systemizing is the drive to analyze, explore, and construct a system. The systemizer intuitively figures out how things work, or extracts the underlying rules that govern the behavior of a system. This is done in order to understand and predict the system, or to invent a new one"
But as far as this being some specialized ability, unavailable to anyone with a uterus? Looking out over my friend pool, I would say that any female friend of mine -- that is, any woman intelligent enough for me to consider a peer -- can manage that sort of thinking and uses it with regularity.
Me? I've always been a systematizer, looking for patterns, underlying rules, how things work. I've loved doing this my whole life -- it's my mind's form of video games.
If you can't manage this sort of thought and you get into law school despite that, we're doing a huge disservice to your future clients -- especially if you end up representing indigent people in the DA's office.
Yes, by "helping" students who can't meet the intellectual needs of the profession, we end up hurting the poor -- those who have no real choice of lawyer.
I am a systemizer too.
I am computer programmer and need to understand logic.
I remember being taught basic logic (if P then Q and truth tables) in 7th grade math class.
I wanted to see an example:
http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/lsat/lsat-prep-game.pdf
I have no doubt if I took the time to solve those, I could.
Katrina at October 20, 2016 7:35 AM
My observation is that to succeed in a leadership role other than of a small group, BOTH the empathizing and systematizing abilities are needed.
If I understand Baron-Cohen's theory correctly, the E and the S are not endpoints on the same continuum, but are separate dimensions, so that it is indeed possible to have a lot of both E and a lot of S..or to have very little of either.
I know several people who are far above the average on both E and S...and also some people who are pretty lacking in both. The latter types sometimes have other redeeming abilities, such as a strong aesthetic sense or good hands-on craft/repair abilities.
David Foster at October 20, 2016 7:38 AM
um . . . practice test anyone? I remember these. I looked at some practice materials, went WTF?!?!? looked at them some more, figured out how to solve them with help from the prep guide (for me, make a diagram and carefully order all the data given). Then did a bunch of practice ones until I was good at solving them. Not actually difficult once you have an approach to solve them . . . but you do need to learn the approach. So - who takes the LSAT without even looking at one practice test??? Answer: someone not suited to be a laywer, which takes research and preparation to be a good one.
chickia at October 20, 2016 7:53 AM
Subjective? So E doesn't equal mc² when it doesn't want to? So water boils at whatever temperature it feels like? And Planck's Constant isn't?
This is an example of someone trying to dumb down a difficult subject instead of doing or acknowledging the work required to understand or master it.
"Math is hard."
Conan the Grammarian at October 20, 2016 9:10 AM
I love logic puzzles and games. I've been doing them since I was 12. Once you figure out the rules, then they're pretty easy to do. Never thought it meant I wasn't a girl.
Janie4 at October 20, 2016 9:25 AM
These ladies need to put their money where their mouth is and take a ride in an airplane built by feminists who thinks math and physics are subjective
lujlp at October 20, 2016 9:38 AM
Uh, if a lawyer ends up "representing indigent people in the DA's office" s/he likely is seriously confused about the job -- which involves prosecuting people (most of whom are indigent).
Houstonian at October 20, 2016 9:50 AM
At least 15 years ago I read about some feminists who declared that they were going to develop a feminist math and physics. Nothing ever came of it.
I have recently read and cited some top notch female philosophers (of logic and epistemology). There is nothing preventing a woman from doing anything she wants. Men often have to compensate for skills they aren't as good at in order to succeed (like acquiring people skills, reading faces better, not being rude). If men can learn people skills (it is hard, believe me) then women can learn logic & math. Oh, and not all men are math geniuses, just the top ones.
cc at October 20, 2016 10:49 AM
As a society we are deliberately getting stupider. Academia is eschewing all the gains from the enlightenment because of the gender and race of the proponents of these ideals. The alternative, funnily enough, is tribalism and superstition, the very things that caused sexism and racism in the past. Academia can find a million extenuating circumstances when it comes to defending minorities for their transgressions but only the sins of white males, whether now or in the past, are completely unforgivable and un-understandable. But facts and reason be damned in the name of progress. We'll all be dumber and some poor schlub is going to spend a long time in jail because logic was to "white" and "hetero-normative" for their lawyer.
Shtetl G at October 20, 2016 11:21 AM
Since when are facts subjective? When it comes to STEM fields, the laws are indeed carved in stone. We don't get to ignore the laws of gravity, for instance, because it might hurt our feelings.
It might be interesting if the laws of physics could be suspended or altered based on an emotional response to them. I could cry my way to Paris, for instance, adjusting the laws of gravity and intertia in such a way as to allow me unassisted flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
In the case of law, I can see that emotional appeals might have some usefulness. Sympathy to a defendant's plight, for instance, might get them a lesser sentence. But the law is the law.
Actually, now that I think about it, there is a disturbing trend in the law to give persons lesser sentences than their crimes deserve due to emotional appeals. Black Lives Matter has been somewhat successful in getting sentences mitigated. I recall one case in which a million dollar bond was reduced in half, apparently because a bunch of black people who sat in the court were putting pressure on the judge.
Of course one of their claims is that black people receive harsher sentences than whites, which is bullshit. Sentencing depends upon many variables, not just the crime committed. The impact of the crime, prior criminal history and attitude displayed in court all play a role in sentencing.
Patrick at October 20, 2016 1:11 PM
Conan, "And Planck's Constant isn't?"
LOL!
Bob in Texas at October 20, 2016 1:44 PM
I think you are missing the fundamental point. It isn't that systematized thinking isn't available to uterine humans; rather, it is that, statistically speaking, men are far better at it. As in way far better.
In a related, and easier to measure area, in mechanical reasoning, between men and women, D=1. In other words, the peak of the female bell curve is one standard deviation less than the peak of the male bell curve.
Which means that if men who end up specializing in things mechanical do so because they are good at it, say one SD right of the peak of the male bell curve, then roughly 5% of women are in the same mechanical reasoning range as as the top 32% of men.
Yes, women think systematically. But, in general, they have no idea how limited their systematic thinking is to most men, never mind those out on the tail of the male distribution.
Jeff Guinn at October 20, 2016 1:47 PM
I am reminded again of the panel at DragonCon about women in science and tech fields.
Panelists:
Elonka Dunin
Theda Daniels-Race
Kim Steadman
Tracey Wilson
Mika McKinnon
Cecilia Tran
If you suggest that they needed special help to figure out how the world works, I suggest that you not mention that in their presence. You might find just how inadequate your own training has been.
They might hurt your feelz!
Radwaste at October 20, 2016 3:08 PM
Jeff's point is well taken.
Again, the issue is difficult to clarify. It is not that men and women are equal in ability any more than two individuals or two races, it is that equality of opportunity is a laudable goal when it is possible.
Radwaste at October 20, 2016 3:12 PM
In a related, and easier to measure area, in mechanical reasoning, between men and women, D=1. In other words, the peak of the female bell curve is one standard deviation less than the peak of the male bell curve.
Which means that if men who end up specializing in things mechanical do so because they are good at it, say one SD right of the peak of the male bell curve, then roughly 5% of women are in the same mechanical reasoning range as as the top 32% of men.
Yes, women think systematically. But, in general, they have no idea how limited their systematic thinking is to most men, never mind those out on the tail of the male distribution.
Jeff Guinn at October 20, 2016 1:47 PM
I'm in that five percent.
Still my problem with other women and a lot of men, is not their logic, it is their reasoning skills.
Huge segments of the population, both men and women, but more so women than men, have no go areas of their brain where there refuse to use reason about an issue because it conflicts with either deeply held beliefs or some other learned behavior, that they cant let go of. Because women are more verbal than men they are more prone to verbal persuasion on an issue rather than visual evidence of an event.
From my personal experience, women's charlatan filters for things like politicians and rape accusers arent as good as most men's.
Women are more likely to believe what they read, and less likely to look for evidence that what they read isnt true.
I like to think of myself as the exception to this rule, but I know in the past there are a few issues that I have been bat shit crazy on, but as my estrogen levels dropped, the logical part of my brain seems to work better, or at least my emotions interfere less with my judgment.
Isab at October 20, 2016 4:39 PM
Give it time Isab. We are dumbing down the men as fast as we can. After all if you can't lift some people up the only way to equality is to shove everyone else down to their level.
And as for the bat shit crazy, plenty of men end up there too. I've spent several weeks working with crazy old engineers who see no reason why everything shouldn't be done exactly how they want no matter how trivial or foolish.
Ben at October 20, 2016 6:15 PM
> Planck's Constant isn't?
☑
Crid at October 20, 2016 9:02 PM
A few years ago This American Life ran an episode on testosterone (google ["This American Life" transgender testosterone] and look at the first hit, which discusses the show and provides a link to it.)
Jeff Guinn at October 21, 2016 12:05 AM
I've yet to meet an adult woman who was too stupid to use logic, but I've met quite a few who shun the practice because they don't enjoy it -- which is functionally just as bad.
More to the point, there is enough real data suggesting such a difference that the topic really ought to be studied by science -- but good luck ever finding an objective observer. In the meantime my experience agrees with this.
jdgalt at October 23, 2016 5:58 AM
While that was well written JDGalt I'm not quite convinced. I still say people are as mature as their environment forces them to be. But I don't argue against Jeff's point. Mature and interest in science are different things.
Ben at October 24, 2016 7:40 AM
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