July 13, 2006
Boy Crisis Interrupted
The media is always obsessed with gender differences, but this week has provided several noteworthy articles. If you want to get angry, check out John Tierney's take on Title IX, complaining that men are now the minorities at universities and need the special attention. There's a great response here, mocking Tierney's argument that girl's have better things to do than sports and that sports "trick" boys into going to college. The next day, the New York Times published a study revealing that young men in the highest income group are "if anything, slightly MORE likely than women to be in college"(emphasis mine). In other words, rich white men are as comfortable as ever.
As the Washington Post pointed out, in many ways, the "Boy Crisis" is just another manifestation of the backlash against feminism. The latest example of sexism being alive and strong, especially in the sciences, is told by neurobiologist Ben Barres. Ben Barres, who used to be Barbara, published an article relating the experience of being a male biologist versus being a female biologist, as the Post describes:
After he underwent a sex change nine years ago at the age of 42, Barres recalled, another scientist who was unaware of it was heard to say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's."
And as a female undergraduate at MIT, Barres once solved a difficult math problem that stumped many male classmates, only to be told by a professor: "Your boyfriend must have solved it for you."
"By far," Barres wrote, "the main difference I have noticed is that people who don't know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect" than when he was a woman. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."
Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield calls Barres "a political fruitcake," and Mansfield's colleague, Steven Pinker, echoes his disgust with Barres's article "reducing science to Oprah." Well-known psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen agreed with Barres, however, and said the acceptance rate of her publications soared when she stopped sending out research articles under her full name and used the initials N.C. Andreasen instead. Why, when it comes to providing opportunities to women or taking them seriously academically (and let's be honest, in many other areas too), does less have to be more?
~M.E. Smithberger
Posted by Mandy Smithberger at 07:53 PM | Comments (11)
July 05, 2006
A tale of two victories: a lesson learned from U.S. elections
You might not have been aware of it, but Mexico is in the midst of one of the most dramatic election seasons in its history. The United States’ southern neighbor had been ruled by one political party, the PRI, for about 70 years. In the year 2000 Vicente Fox, an opposition party candidate finally won, breaking the PRI’s hegemonic rule. Now it is an election year again and the race has been extremely close.
The three most popular political parties in the race are the PRI, Fox’s party the PAN, and the leftist PRD. For months beforehand nobody could say who was going to win because polls consistently showed a tie between the PAN and the PRD.
The election took place on Sunday, with the polls closing at 6 PM and an official announcement of the winner expected at 11 PM. But it didn’t turn out that way. A representative from the Federal Elections Institute came on TV to say that the race was so close that with the preliminary results they had it was impossible to predict a winner.
In the year 2000, a notable contrast was apparent to Mexicans. The election of Vicente Fox was considered a victory for democracy, while the elections in the U.S. seemed to be anything but. And it looks like now, in a very close and controversial race, Mexico is taking a cue from the United States. Unlike the U.S. in the year 2000, neither Mexican journalists nor the Federal Elections Institute called the election prematurely and had to make an embarrassing retraction. And neither of the candidates made the mistake in the year of conceding defeat prematurely. In fact, they did just the opposite: both candidates declared victory on election night.
So who is the real winner? Votes are still being counted. At first PAN candidate Felipe Calderón had a 1% lead, but during the day today PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador gained an advantage. At 9:49 tonight he was ahead by 1.6 %. Any website with the results will also have a disclaimer, “The results could change at any moment and therefore do not indicate a trend.” Vote counting will continue throughout the night until the numbers from every polling place in the country have been computed. And even then there will probably be controversy and accusations of fraud. The real question might be what it is going to take to get one of the two candidates to admit defeat. And whether either will say “you don’t have to get snippy about it.”
Posted by Frances Kingsbury at 10:14 PM | Comments (11)