I came across this article this morning.

http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000690.html

What do you think?  Will this really get applied to all the sciences?  Will it be a good thing or a bad thing for women?

It’s hard to say.  I think quotas often do cause issues of resentment.  It is already difficult enough for woman to get accepted as intellectual equals. Enforcing a quota would play even more to the “they got in because they are a woman.” So in that case, I really don’t think it helps to have a quota. 

I found that article somehow insulting -though I can’t at the moment put my finger on why.  I am not a supporter of quotas in general, but there is just something about some of the statement: “For athletics departments, such rigorous Title IX enforcement has led to a huge increase in the participation and achievement of women athletes, but at the expense of some male sports.” There has often been an extreme focus on male sports versus female, based only on gender - and that line hardly recognizes that perhaps it is the male sports that can afford the expense.

I think that Nerd Girls can have a better impact in furthering the female advancement in the sciences! A positive pro-girl brainaics approach!

sports are very different from sciences.  for one thing, girls sports weren’t getting funding because people argued that girls were genetically not as strong as boys, therefore it was pointless to encourage them… ignoring the fact that encouraging physical fitness is done for health benefits, not so we can crank out more people who can slam-dunk.

in science, we ARE trying to crank out people who can slam dunk!  If we do nothing but throw money at the imbalance in academia, we’ll just have more discrimination.  and anyone here who’s tried to talk an 18 year old girl into science knows that kids make up their minds much earlier.  scholarships aren’t going to pull them in.

oh, and for the record, saying that title IX was bad for men’s sports is like saying that giving women the right to vote was bad for men’s politics.  there is absolutely no reason why boys deserved more funding, just for being boys.  yes, I’ve read sob stories about colleges who had to cut their third-string wrestling team, but they weren’t drawing ticket sales any more than the girls volleyball team ever was (actually, they were probably worse).  when you take away something that was undeserved in the first place, it’s hard to argue that you’ve hurt anyone.