Engineering/Science/Gender Equity
This category deals with gender equity in engineering and science education and in the workforce - issues of access, climate, and culture. This category also deals with feminist science theory and analyses being developed by those doing gender equity work in engineering & science. I discuss what might be missing from an adequate feminist theory of science and engineering, and what feminist insights might be missing from the "gender equity" analyses.


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Wednesday, January 25, 2006
 

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has issued a new report on sexual harassment on college campuses.  Titled "Drawing the Line:  Sexual Harassment on Campus", the report is available for download here.  The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed both have stories on the report today; here's the link for Inside Higher Ed's story:   

New Form of Gender Equity. Study finds little difference in reports by men and women of sex harassment on college campuses. [Inside Higher Ed]

Some interesting findings: 

  • Nearly two-thirds of college students [male and female] say they have encountered some type of sexual harassment while at college. 
  • More than two-thirds (68 percent) of female students who experience harassment feel very or somewhat upset by right after it.  Conversely, only one-third (35 percent) of male students admit to being very or somewhat upset.
  • Harassers are most likely male, and tend to think harassment is funny
  • Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of LGBT students report harassment versus 61 percent of heterosexual students. LGBT students are more likely to be harassed often - 18 percent versus 7 percent.
  • Female students are more likely to be the target of sexual jokes, comments, gestures, or looks, (57% vs. 48%) while male students are more likely to be called gay or a homophobic name (37% vs. 13%).

The Inside Higher Ed article quotes Christina Hoff Sommers as a critic of the report.  Sommers is a well-known hostile critic of all things relating to feminism, who nevertheless insists on calling herself a feminist.  The media love to quote her to promote controversy.  Here's part of what Sommers had to say about the AAUW report:

Sommers also said that she found it interesting that the numbers on harassment were so close, considering that there are fewer men than women on many college campuses. “For many women on campus, their problems are not ones of harassment,” she said. “It’s that they can’t get a date.”

I really love that paragraph.  So many things going on at once! 

First, the invocation of the "women are taking over college campuses" fear, while totally ignoring the distribution of male and female students between community colleges (higher percentage of females) and elite institutions (no huge disparities) and between different types of programs (females predominate in nursing, but not in engineering, for example). 

Next, the trivializing of actual sexual harassment experienced by actual women:  Not such a big deal - their main problem is getting a date!

And lastly, she finds it interesting that the numbers on harassment are "so close".  Why, because over 60% of students experiencing harassment is not an issue as long as it's equal opportunity harassment?  Why, because there is no meaning to be drawn from the huge disparity in homophobic harassment experienced by males versus females?  Why, because the fact that LGBT students are more likely to be harassed, more often, than heterosexual students is a non-issue?  (I haven't found anyone discussing the LGBT figures in their press stories.) 

Here's a conversation I imagine:

Female physics student at UMD
I am upset by the photos on
Dr. Kim's website.  It makes me feel less comfortable with him in class, and it makes me feel uncomfortable when I am in the department office - is this how professors are thinking of me?

Christina Hoff Sommers:
I hear ya, honey.  It's tough getting laid when there are so few men around.

FPS:
But there are more men than women by far in physics.  And it's not about me wanting to get laid, it's about how this website upsets me.

CHS:
You think it's about the website.  But it's really about you wanting to get laid.  Maybe if you didn't insist on going against nature by studying physics, you'd get laid more often. 

Ms. Sommers is also terribly concerned about the "lack of civility" on campuses.  You know, what with women staging performances of The Vagina Monologues and all.  She is distressed because the AAUW has nothing to say about "this new style of raunchy feminism".  Indeed, this is distressing.  All this attention to students being groped and taunted, and nary a word for the poor souls who willingly bought tickets to go see a stage play!  It is good to see that some people can keep their priorities straight.  

In addition, Ms. Sommers is disturbed by all the attention paid to the fact that female students are more likely to be emotionally distressed by the experience of sexual harassment.  She weeps for the poor men, who are maybe just not disclosing how they feel.  I suppose, if men were able to disclose how they feel, and we found out that they are just as likely to be distressed by sexual harassment, then we could conclude that all things are equal and there's nothing to worry about here.  Or, we could pay all our attention to the men, and ignore the women, because after all, they are taking over the college campuses and are busy trying to get laid.  

It is a rough job, indeed, dominating the scientific and engineering professions, forcing the poor outnumbered men to date us and satisfy our wild sexual urgings, all the while planning our raunchy feminist plays that we will force the weak men, exhausted from servicing us, to attend.  But somebody's gotta do it.  I salute you, O Women Who Outnumber Men on College Campuses, for the clever way in which you carry out this agenda, all the while deflecting attention by issuing reports about fake issues.  You are so awesome.   

 


2:31:33 PM    comment []


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