[quote]mbdix wrote:
This is my exact same view on the topic. I think this is fact.
Soooo…what do we do about it? This is something that needs to be fixed. Like now[/quote]
Get the government/coercive force out of it. Stop regulating everything.
Of course, that’s not likely…so maybe we just swing the pendulum back the other way and wait for the problems to reoccur.
[quote]NickViar wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
This is my exact same view on the topic. I think this is fact.
Soooo…what do we do about it? This is something that needs to be fixed. Like now[/quote]
Get the government/coercive force out of it. Stop regulating everything.
Of course, that’s not likely…so maybe we just swing the pendulum back the other way and wait for the problems to reoccur. [/quote]
It always takes awhile for things to loose momentum, or to turn around. Big institutions like the federal government tend to turn very, very slowly.
Of note - The current president of Harvard is a woman, Drew Faust. She says, “Over the past decade, the university has seen a 70% increase in female students majoring in the sciences. There are 45 female concentrators in statistics this year, for example, up from just two in 2007-08.”
That’s pretty huge. We’ll never have parity across the board though, for many of the reasons we’ve discussed. Personally, I don’t think it should be a goal. Until we begin to be realistic about why women will continue to be underrepresented in some fields, we’ll continue to fret about it. Right now the prevailing feeling for people running our universities is that we have to make things right for women and minorities. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Right now the prevailing feeling for people running our universities is that we have to make things right for women and minorities. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. [/quote]
I’m not a big affirmative Action person, at least in 2014. However if we are going to do it, we are doing ti wrong. We are currently pushing people through the system rather than pull.
You touched on it with your college admission example. Colleges want a more diverse base, so those that belong in the group the college is underrepresented by will have (slightly) lower admission standards. Which conversely means those groups over represented in colleges (Asians seem to get hammered here) will have higher standards to get in by nature of competition.
Because we push people.
If every year only 200 Black kids and 200 Asian kids apply at XYZ university, but the college needs to enroll 150 black kids, and only 50 Asian kids in order to meet pre-set diversity levels, the best 50 Asian kids will get in, and the best 150 Black kids. Assuming equal distribution of grade between the groups, the Asians have to meet a higher standard to get accepted.
So rather than push, we should pull.
As in the requirements to get into the university are X. If a member of the group you are looking to increase meets those, give them scholarships AT THAT POINT. Don’t just let them in because of a numbers game. This will cut down on any skewed failure rates due to talent fit.
If a kid would grow up to be a master plumber with his own business that makes 300k a year, but instead gets pushed into college, fails and ends up in a different field, society as a whole lost.
Having standards to ensure that everyone has equal access to everything is right, and should be implemented. However changing standards to make sure percentages of certain groups are met, simply for the sake of being able to say “hey we have 16% latino enrollment” is a waste of resources.
Beans/PP: this is why I said early on I’m big for equality of opportunity. People should be able to do whatever they want. Being born black, white, hispanic, female, muslim, christian, blue eyed, whatever should all have the same chances to do what they want. We don’t need to attempt to force equality by having every characteristic be the exact same so we can say now we are equal.
Make it to where everyone has the same opportunity and then let the best people no matter what race, eye color, estrogen level, whatever sort it out. All anyone should ever want and all we should strive for is to give people the same chances to do things. We don’t need to shift goalposts to make sure everyone is doing the same amount of everything.
[quote]H factor wrote:
Beans/PP: this is why I said early on I’m big for equality of opportunity. People should be able to do whatever they want. Being born black, white, hispanic, female, muslim, christian, blue eyed, whatever should all have the same chances to do what they want. We don’t need to attempt to force equality by having every characteristic be the exact same so we can say now we are equal.
Make it to where everyone has the same opportunity and then let the best people no matter what race, eye color, estrogen level, whatever sort it out. All anyone should ever want and all we should strive for is to give people the same chances to do things. We don’t need to shift goalposts to make sure everyone is doing the same amount of everything. [/quote]
The only way to do that is freedom.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
Beans/PP: this is why I said early on I’m big for equality of opportunity. People should be able to do whatever they want. Being born black, white, hispanic, female, muslim, christian, blue eyed, whatever should all have the same chances to do what they want. We don’t need to attempt to force equality by having every characteristic be the exact same so we can say now we are equal.
Make it to where everyone has the same opportunity and then let the best people no matter what race, eye color, estrogen level, whatever sort it out. All anyone should ever want and all we should strive for is to give people the same chances to do things. We don’t need to shift goalposts to make sure everyone is doing the same amount of everything. [/quote]
The only way to do that is freedom.
[/quote]
Precisely. And attempting to fill quotas is not freedom. Institutionalized racism/sexism simply can’t be a problem worth using quotas in 2014. Maybe it was at that point a number of years ago, but I just don’t see how it could be argued it is now.
Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, including the people who “benefit” from it. In college I worked as a tutor and I worked with kids from the the income-AA program (many of them white). These kids belonged in community college, not a 4-year liberal arts college, and because of that life sucked for them. They were surrounded by people who were 5 steps ahead of them at all times. If you’re still learning geometry and algebra, you don’t get a single shred of knowledge from a calc class
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, including the people who “benefit” from it. In college I worked as a tutor and I worked with kids from the the income-AA program (many of them white). These kids belonged in community college, not a 4-year liberal arts college, and because of that life sucked for them. They were surrounded by people who were 5 steps ahead of them at all times. If you’re still learning geometry and algebra, you don’t get a single shred of knowledge from a calc class[/quote]
Agreed. Is AA something that is used much less frequently now or could one even find out? Probably not a statistic that is easily findable or provable.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, including the people who “benefit” from it. In college I worked as a tutor and I worked with kids from the the income-AA program (many of them white). These kids belonged in community college, not a 4-year liberal arts college, and because of that life sucked for them. They were surrounded by people who were 5 steps ahead of them at all times. If you’re still learning geometry and algebra, you don’t get a single shred of knowledge from a calc class[/quote]
This is happening a lot. Kids who may be the first generation in their family to go to the top tier universities, but they aren’t ready. They often come out of poorer areas with public schools that are sub standard. They don’t realize that they aren’t as prepared as the kids from better schools. They can’t compete so they fail. That straight A kid from the hood is now devastated, and has to go back to the junior college or quits.
Or they spend 5 years drinking beer, while taking advantage of all the “free” college money thrown at them, and still don’t graduate.
As Bean mentioned, they could have been becoming a master plumber during that time. That was one things I really appreciated about the Paglia article.
College isn’t for everyone. We actually do a disservice to some kids by throwing college money at them.
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, including the people who “benefit” from it. In college I worked as a tutor and I worked with kids from the the income-AA program (many of them white). These kids belonged in community college, not a 4-year liberal arts college, and because of that life sucked for them. They were surrounded by people who were 5 steps ahead of them at all times. If you’re still learning geometry and algebra, you don’t get a single shred of knowledge from a calc class[/quote]
Agreed. Is AA something that is used much less frequently now or could one even find out? Probably not a statistic that is easily findable or provable. [/quote]
I think most areas of the country it is used less(read something recently about changing policies at University of Michigan along with others), the exception being the southeast. It was surmised in the article that due to history, most of these schools do not want to deal with the negative perception that minimizing affirmative action would incur.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, including the people who “benefit” from it. In college I worked as a tutor and I worked with kids from the the income-AA program (many of them white). These kids belonged in community college, not a 4-year liberal arts college, and because of that life sucked for them. They were surrounded by people who were 5 steps ahead of them at all times. If you’re still learning geometry and algebra, you don’t get a single shred of knowledge from a calc class[/quote]
This is happening a lot. Kids who may be the first generation in their family to go to the top tier universities, but they aren’t ready. They often come out of poorer areas with public schools that are sub standard. They don’t realize that they aren’t as prepared as the kids from better schools. They can’t compete so they fail. That straight A kid from the hood is now devastated, and has to go back to the junior college or quits.
Or they spend 5 years drinking beer, while taking advantage of all the “free” college money thrown at them, and still don’t graduate.
As Bean mentioned, they could have been becoming a master plumber during that time. That was one things I really appreciated about the Paglia article.
College isn’t for everyone. We actually do a disservice to some kids by throwing college money at them. [/quote]
Agreed on all counts. It is better for a kid with a Pace University mind/proclivity/aspiration to be at Pace University and a kid with a Yale mind/proclivity/aspiration to be at Yale, and a kid with a mind or proclivity or aspiration that doesn’t have anything to do with college…to not go to college. Rick Santorum is dumber than sand and his “snob” quote was the political equivalent of tripping yourself up the stairs, but he wasn’t all wrong in sentiment.
That having been said, a 4-year degree equates to about a million dollars in pay, on average, over a lifetime. So if somebody wants to go into a profession for which “college or no college” a toss-up, it’s usually the better choice.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
That having been said, a 4-year degree equates to about a million dollars in pay, on average, over a lifetime. So if somebody wants to go into a profession for which “college or no college” a toss-up, it’s usually the better choice.[/quote]
True, but since you brought it up, this is kind of funny. In my family, my two older brothers are both high school dropouts. One had his own successful appliance repair business, and the other is a skilled welder who maintains natural gas wells. Both of them can out earn the hell out of their little sister who went to grad school and has an M.Ed.S. 
Of course, nobody ever told me that being a school psychologist was going to make me rich. I mean, this is classic glass ceiling stuff, man. 
Tangent -
Some funny Super Bowl tweets from Portlandia’s Feminist Bookstore.
http://www.ifc.com/shows/portlandia/blog/2014/02/best-feminist-super-bowl-of-the-super-bowl
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
… the first to sacrifice her career for our family and my own. We celebrate this, and I see her as irreplaceable pin that the rest of us cogs spin around.
What she does is more important than the audit I’m working on now. [/quote]
I like you, Beans.
[/quote]
Thanks.
I will say though that having a daughter will certainly change your viewpoint on a lot of things. Socially I’ve always seen women the same as I do, but didn’t notice how other people tend to see them until I had her. (Don’t even get me started on sex, lol.)
Best example I can come up with is my mother-in-law put a picture of my daughter on facebook, and I counted at least 3 or 4 comments about “how she could grow up to be a model.” I politely pointed out that I was thinking SCOTUS judge or CEO, but I supposed modeling could be a fall back plan. And these comments are from women.
It is annoying as hell to see my little girl sold that bill of goods, like her first and foremost asset is her looks. (She looks just like her mother, so is likely to be beautiful, which is another daily struggle I have.) But she is also likely to be more intelligent than both my wife and I… How about she does something with that?
/rant[/quote]
I find this troubling as well. I recently had a friend tell me that she was making an effort to never to tell her daughter she was pretty, or make any comments about her looks/ the superficial. She wants to praise her for things that are internal, things she does. It’s something to think about, although I continue to tell my daughters that they are pretty, along with praising other attributes.
We do tend to praise little boys differently. There was a documentary about this. The title is escaping me right now, but I’ll see if I can find it. I haven’t seen it, but it’s about how little girls are praised for appearance.
Men are more visual. When you ask men what they value most in a woman these are the top two answers:
Number one leads to some poor decisions in choosing a mate, right?
We can blame the visual men. EXCEPT, when a pretty woman walks into a room, all the men look, and all the women look too. Women are probably just as likely, maybe more so, to focus on the outward appearance of our daughters. You cans see why there’s some backlash.
Culturally, we all know it’s a woman’s most valuable asset, in terms of desirability. That makes aging pretty tough on us, as we get to watch our youth and beauty fade. So many older women say that they become “invisible”. I don’t think men feel that in the same way. Some of the masculine features are enhanced with age, more rugged.
I don’t know what the answers are, but I do see value in emphasizing the child’s character over appearance.
^
What would really drive you nuts is watching your daughter play down her intelligence to attract boys.
My youngest is a pretty little blond. That is something I never want to see.
Notice numbers one and two above. Yeah, smart is somewhere down on the list.
For the record, I think we should clone Puff.
Yeah, I think there is a happy medium. I think a girl should hear that she is pretty from her father, because the father I think ultimately sets the tone for how she thinks interactions with the opposite sex are supposed to work. There should be a balance of compliments on the inward and the outward. My .02 but what do I know. My little girl isn’t going to be here till July.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Yeah, I think there is a happy medium. I think a girl should hear that she is pretty from her father, because the father I think ultimately sets the tone for how she thinks interactions with the opposite sex are supposed to work. There should be a balance of compliments on the inward and the outward. My .02 but what do I know. My little girl isn’t going to be here till July.[/quote]
Thank you, Max and Push. I agree. If your wives and daughters don’t hear it from you, they’ll find someone who will say it.
And jbpick, I believe my relationship with my dad insulated me from a lot of trouble. Lets put it this way, I didn’t have to kiss a lot of frogs to spot a good man. And there was never some hole I was trying to fill because I didn’t get enough attention from him. My dad and older brothers all told me how cute/pretty I was. Men often think they are more important in raising boys, but I think the influence of a father is just as important in raising girls. I’m happy for you. Keep her close.
Our kids are all different. Some are just going to have to learn the hard way. We all learn somethings that way. I’m not sure if a healthy fear of pregnancy or a healthy fear of how how my dad would react, were bigger influences in keeping my clothes on in the backseat when I was young. He still tells me how pretty I am, and how proud of me he is. I have a close relationship with both of my parents. I’ve been very, very lucky.
I saw you talking about your wife finishing nursing school in another thread. If she can be part-time while your kids are young, that’s ideal. Most women with kids see that as perfect. I’ve always worked part-time or had some flexible gig that I could do from home (with the exception of a few years when our middle child was very sick). It will help your wife keep her skills current, and give her a little bit of a break. Even if she loves being at home, It’s always a good thing to have backup in case one of you experiences periods of disability or unemployment. Try to keep things simple so the part-time income is extra money for saving and for stuff you don’t NEED. That has been a big blessing in our lives, during years when I’ve needed to be home to take care of a medically fragile kid. We could have stepped up our standard of living. Bigger house, nicer cars, more stuff. We’ve always been glad we didn’t do that. The absence of debt is freedom.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Yeah, I think there is a happy medium. I think a girl should hear that she is pretty from her father, because the father I think ultimately sets the tone for how she thinks interactions with the opposite sex are supposed to work. There should be a balance of compliments on the inward and the outward. My .02 but what do I know. My little girl isn’t going to be here till July.[/quote]
Thank you, Max and Push. I agree. If your wives and daughters don’t hear it from you, they’ll find someone who will say it.
And jbpick, I believe my relationship with my dad insulated me from a lot of trouble. Lets put it this way, I didn’t have to kiss a lot of frogs to spot a good man. And there was never some hole I was trying to fill because I didn’t get enough attention from him. My dad and older brothers all told me how cute/pretty I was. Men often think they are more important in raising boys, but I think the influence of a father is just as important in raising girls. I’m happy for you. Keep her close.
Our kids are all different. Some are just going to have to learn the hard way. We all learn somethings that way. I’m not sure if a healthy fear of pregnancy or a healthy fear of how how my dad would react, were bigger influences in keeping my clothes on in the backseat when I was young. He still tells me how pretty I am, and how proud of me he is. I have a close relationship with both of my parents. I’ve been very, very lucky.
I saw you talking about your wife finishing nursing school in another thread. If she can be part-time while your kids are young, that’s ideal. Most women with kids see that as perfect. I’ve always worked part-time or had some flexible gig that I could do from home (with the exception of a few years when our middle child was very sick). It will help your wife keep her skills current, and give her a little bit of a break. Even if she loves being at home, It’s always a good thing to have backup in case one of you experiences periods of disability or unemployment. Try to keep things simple so the part-time income is extra money for saving and for stuff you don’t NEED. That has been a big blessing in our lives, during years when I’ve needed to be home to take care of a medically fragile kid. We could have stepped up our standard of living. Bigger house, nicer cars, more stuff. We’ve always been glad we didn’t do that. The absence of debt is freedom. [/quote]
Yeah, that is kind of how we look at things like that now. She does some temp work with a few local family owned businesses now when she can and for the most part that money has went to paying off a car loan or paying some more on our house. She has actually mentioned that if she works she would like to live off my income and take her income and use it to pay off any debt we have. I got a good one, probably not unlike yourself Puff. Thanks for the kind words and advice.