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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Income Disparities Based On Sex
Message-ID: <327@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 23:40:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.327
Posted: Wed Jul  3 23:40:11 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 07:31:42 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
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Xref: watmath net.women:6261 net.politics:9773

I haven't been accused of sexism yet (just racism), so I figure it's
time to give some of reason to hate me even more.

There has been a lot of discussion of disparities in income between men
and women lately; there has been quite a bit of discussion in net.women
of why there are so few women in engineering, with the clear presumption
that this must be because of societal pressures to keep women away from
"man's work".  I was reading an article in the paper today which, while
hardly conclusive, might want to give all of us some reason to wonder
if this presumption is correct.

The article was one of those rather chatty newspaper articles under the 
category "Science", where science has been simplified (and perhaps 
bastardized) in the pursuit of a wide audience.  Let me therefore state
that it is possible the newspaper reporter got something garbled --- then
again, maybe this is an accurate statement of fact.

The article is titled "What Einstein's brain teaches us", and along with
an interesting description of recent research into brain function, the
article says that Professor Marian Diamond and her husband, UCLA 
psychiatrist Arnold Scheibel, while teaching a course at UC Irvine
Extension, indicated that "studies of brain tissue continue to bear
out the notion that men and women do think fundamentally differently".
In more detail, "Male and female minds really are different.  Men
typically have more highly developed cells in the right half of the
brain controlling visual and spatial function, while such dominance
isn't marked in women.  'This isn't to say that either is better,'
Diamond says.  'By studying the brain, I've been able to understand
men better.'"

[end of quotations, opinion on]
*******************************************************************

Unfortunately, the article doesn't say if this difference is acquired,
or in-born, or if that subject has been studied.  (What do you expect,
it's a *feature* article.)  Still, before we get too carried away
assuming that engineering's shortage of women is the result of
discrimination, let's consider the possibility that there might, in
fact, be a difference in brain characteristics.  After all, it is
traditionally believed that ability with spatial relationships are 
related to engineering and "hard" sciences abilities.

Note that I am *not* saying that all women are lacking this ability,
and all men have more of this ability.  Nonetheless, if there was a
*on average* difference in built-in capabilities here, it might 
explain the disproportionate maleness of engineering and "hard"
sciences.

While everyone is busy looking for charcoal (for flaming), let me
play amateur anthropologist and suggest a possible cause of the
*possible* difference.  For a long time, or at least for a few million
years, it appears that hunting and war has been a primarily male 
function, and food gathering/preparation/child-rearing have been 
primarily female functions.  The biological advantages of spatial 
ability for hunting are obvious, since you miss where your spear 
or rock goes, and you either go hungry, or get gored by a boar.  It
is not implausible to me that over a few thousands generations, the
requirements of hunting might have selected disproportionately towards 
males with higher spatial reasoning, over females with higher spatial
reasoning.

****FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T READ CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU LIGHT THE
CHARCOAL, LET ME SAY IT AGAIN: THIS DOES ****NOT***** MEAN THAT NO
WOMAN HAS THESE ABILITIES, OR THAT ALL MEN ARE SUPERIOR IN THIS AREA.
WE ARE DISCUSSING AVERAGES --- JUST LIKE EVERYONE DISCUSSES AVERAGES
WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT DIFFERENCES IN INCOME, AND THE SMALL NUMBER OF
WOMEN IN ENGINEERING.  READ BEFORE YOU FLAME!  ****

I'm not going to claim that the remarks of Professor Diamond are
absolute truth, or that my suppositions are necessarily correct ---
but think about it before assuming bias, unfairness, and societal
pressure, or at least consider that there may be a intrinsic biological
difference causing *part* of the disparities.

You can't flame me worse than I've already been --- any more heat,
and all my 5.56mm will go off.