OK; now that I've put out a couple of embers and have replenished my chocolate level, I think I'll disagree with several points below.
--- Jan Coffey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3110594.stm > > "Women have overtaken men at every level of > >education in developed countries around the world. <snipped rest of article quote> > What about an education system and workplace that > are now more focused on > empathic and rote memorization ability than on > problem solving ability? If by "problem solving" you mean mathmatical problems, then men generally do have an edge over women, but if "problem solving" includes practical solutions to quandries encountered in the home or workplace, I'd say women have just as much ability to organize, coordinate and solve such problems. Frex, the field of microbiology owes much to the practical knowledge of one of Robert Koch's assistant's wife, Fanny Angelina Eilshemius: she assisted her husband in the lab and introduced _agar-agar_ as a semi-solid bacterial growth medium -- which we still use today (ah, I recall the marvelous aroma of cooking agar! :P). http://www.slic2.wsu.edu:82/hurlbert/micro101/pages/Chap1.html#Agar And as for formal science and innovation, here are a couple of websites listing women scientists in a variety of fields: http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/discipline.shtml http://www.geocities.com/cherzenberg/history_of_women_in_science.html > "Womens lib" has benificial effects, but it also has > some detrimental effects > as well. I suggest that technolegy and buisness > would be progressing much > faster had "Womens lib" never happened. The focus in > the work place on > empathic systems rather than problem solving systems > leads to a highly > political environement more focused on polotics than > getting the job done. ??? In practically every office in which I've worked over the past ten years (city-> townlet, one-doc-office-> teaching hospital, Maine-> Oregon-> Texas), including the current one, the office manager and/or executive secretary is/are key to the smooth running of that office: from keeping supplies ordered on-time to coordinating conflicting schedules to smoothing ruffled feathers, she is indispensible to the efficient and harmonious workplace environment. Her one-week vacation - however she has tried to anticipate potential disasters - often causes several weeks' worth of snarled meeting schedules, short supplies, and various other SNAFUs. Offices with an ineffective or vindictive manager are hellacious places in which to work. I also don't think that "progress" is only measured by technology and business -- particularly I don't think that most corporations have a shining "vision of the future"- other than their own profits (of course there _are_ responsible and innovative companies which do). > Support for this can be shown in advancements made > in the last century prior > to "womens lib" and those made after it. ??? My understanding (and if someone has a site showing otherwise, I'd appreciate the posting) is that scientific advancement in the past hundred or so years has been on a nearly asymptotic curve (IIRC the term) compared to the prior millennia. Certainly lifespan, as a measure of improved health, nutrition, and safer working conditions, has nearly doubled since 1900 here in the West (and other "Westernized" cultures) [CDC stats previously posted]. Here is a timeline of the women's rights movement (USA mostly) from 1848->1990's: http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html > If this were true, then a socity which desired to > gain advantage by being > more efficient would recognize the abilities and > benifits of both "gendered" > mindsets and the spectrum between the two extreems. > And focus not on an > overreaching standard, but on the strengths of the > individual, and the > benifits of the microcultures which employ both > modles. Reason, logic, intuition and empathy definitely are synergystic when working on major problems, with of course one mode sometimes being more important than the others at different stages; the engineering/materials science had better be solid when a bridge is designed and built, and the foreman better have good people skills when it comes to choosing the right worker(s) for the particular job, and being able to spot trouble before it gets out-of-hand. > i.e. I think we are shifting from the standard being > the "male" model to the > standard being the "female" model and this is why > you see the numbers in the > article. At the same time I do not think that either > extreem is the best one, > but rather the acceptance of individuals. I agree that using the best strengths of individuals is an ideal to strive for, and would add that improving an individual's weakness(es) will benefit not only the individual but their community. (Except from the POV of those who want to be alone at the top of a pyramid -- it is not to their purpose at all for everyone to fulfill their individual potential. Women's equality under the law threatens the "I'm better than at least half of the population!" mentality of many men, particularly in many non-Western cultures, and in all extremist/fundamentalist religions. That last is IMO of course.) Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
