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The Push For Quotas For Women In Science
mlimber writes "The NYTimes has a story about how Congress has quietly begun to press for an equal number of women in the hard sciences and engineering under Title IX, which is best known for mandating numerical equality for boys' and girls' sports for institutions that accept federal funding. The problem is, the article says, it is not merely that women face discrimination from male colleagues, though that is often true, or that they are discouraged from pursuing these fields. Rather, women with aptitude in these areas often simply have other interests and so pursue their education and careers in other fields like law, education, or biology. Opponents of this plan, including many women in scientific fields, say implementing sex-based quotas will actually be detrimental because it will communicate that the women can't compete on even terms with men and will be 'devastating' to the quality of science 'if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women's level of interest.'"
If anything, the mandated ratio will foster more discrimination because of the perceived view that they "didn't earn it".
Exactly. While I don't believe in discrimination based on superficial factors (race, sex, etc), I would, without hesitation, apply far more scrutiny to my co-workers (male or female, for that matter) if I knew they quite possibly only got hired because the law said to hire them. I have far less tolerance for failure from someone whose presence is mandated by law.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Oh I don't know just think if it was implemented in computer science...
CS professor: "We now have to have equal numbers of male and female students. The bad news: we had one female applicant, and she withdrew to do law instead. The good news: I guess we get the year off!"
In recent job searches I've been involved with at university in the sciences the ratio of candidates was far less than 50% females. Assuming that ability is randomly and equally distributed in a given batch of candidates, on average, this makes it statistically impossible to achieve a 50:50 female:male ratio without seriously compromising the quality of the people you ultimately hire. Let's say that the candidate pool is 30% females and 70% males. What are you going to do to reach a quota of 50% in the hires? Regularly reject males that happen to be better candidates and pick the female regardless of relative ability?
What these politicians are describing is a recipe to downgrade the quality of math and engineering over the next several decades: NOT because females are less capable or because they can't be the best candidate, but because fewer capable females are deciding to apply for jobs in certain fields in the first place. That problem is what should be worked on -- encouraging females to study in the relevant fields. Offer more female scholarships. Offer extra signing bonuses if they are hired in certain fields. Maybe it will reach 50%, maybe not. But trying to impose it at the hiring stage itself when the candidate ratios aren't at 50% already is nuts.
It is not sexual discrimination to pick the best candidate regardless of their gender. To be honest, all things being equal, we would like to pick the female candidates because we know it is important that teaching be done by female and male role models, and the competition for the relatively few female candidates in some fields is fierce. Ultimately, the quality of the candidate is what counts, and we can only pick the best candidate from a pool that reflects the current male and female relative interests and ambitions in that field. So, work on that. The rest will follow naturally.