Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Verdict is in-- women really don't care about science and math

This essay has been a long time coming.

This is an issue that it was always a tiny quiet murmuring (bad murmur, like a heart murmur), disquieting, unpleasant in the back of my head.  How come there aren't anywhere near the same numbers of women scientists and inventers as there are men scientists and inventors?  We really need to have a full feature-length essay discussing this topic.

--I always bleieved that
-> for one major reason.  I pesonally abslotuely love studyind science n nature.  physics, chemistry, string hteory (at least the pop culutre verson heh), all branches of biology n biochemistry-- cell bioogy,  [[menion all the cool philosopihcial __delve into the fantastical and phantasmagora of   __unlocking the secrets of the universe,
   And I have always been excellent at math, although I have no strong feelings for it one way or another. 

There has been a large conscious shift, in society, an acknowledgement that women should be encouraged to study science, math, engineering, and technology.  the dearth of women majoring in STEM subjects in college and the conspicuous absence of women employed in tech/engineering fields is a very [[_emergency]]] topic that needs to be remedied.  In recent years, a lot of outreach work has been done by booming tech companies to try to encourage women to become tech pros.  Very good on them for doing so.

To my mind, this seemed a truth that was no more and no less than self-evident:  if given the opportunity, any person should flock to study science.

So it has always perplexed me and astonished me that so many women don't major in any of the hard sciences or engineering fields in college.

But even more to the point, there have been so precious few women who are notable scientific achievers n discovers throughout all of human history.  So sparse and barren are female historical figures in the long epochal noble, storied chronology of unearthing the universe's secrets.

It left me scratching my head.

I concluded that the only way this could be possible is that throughout all of human history, women have been so tortured, brutalized, victimized that they have been scared senseless from pursuing their true passions and interests.  See, in my mind, a burning, fiery, passionate desire to study science is essentially a self-evident truth.  Therefore, surely the only way that the majority of a group of people would not be studying it is if they were subject to unspeakable, unfathomable acts of psychological and emotional abuse.  it must have been a breaking down of a people's spirit that demolished any whisper of perceivable possibility of them from ever considering STEM fields.

obviously, throughout history there has never been any sort of society-wide acknowledgement of the huge obvious fact.  The gaping wide hole that is the absence of women's attendance in science studies.
definitely not on the scale we are witnessing today, what with higher education institutions actively recruiting women and international students into stem degrees.
this must have only registered barely a blip in the minds of so many civilizations in eons past.  they were entirely indifferent to this plight of women and of all of society at large.  and certainly there were no sociopolitical movements enacted to effect this overlook in the forward direction.  Right?  That must be it; that is the only explanation that makes sense.

so, if only women were given the full range of motion in freedom n options, and life choices and possible destinies and full nahha control naha]]]] of what trajectories their lives may take,
->then surely they would choose to study science and math.  how can you not?  it is so [[[_list some superlatives here]]] vast and far and wide, so endlessly fascinating.  gazing in wonder and curiosity deep into the heart of space and time.

to me this was the only explanation that was fathomable.

Once they break the shackles, break free from the chains of oppressive "patriarchy" that prevented women from doing anything they want, women would surely rush to the science buildings in droves.

I rationalized it away with the follwoing:  wow, males must have severely beaten, abused, traumatized women all trhoguut history so badly that women simply could not reasonably study science.
in order to prevent women from liking science and majoring in STEM fields in college.