Here’s the dilemma at the core of affirmative action in a nutshell. In recent remarks to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition, remarks that were largely overlooked by the press since they did not concern race, John Kerry lamented the fact that girls in large numbers lose interest in math and science between fourth and eigthth grades and came out in favor of “all-girls’ schools designed specifically to prepare girls for careers in science and math.”
Since my daughter, Jessie, just graduated from an all-girls college (Bryn Mawr) in physics, I’d be interested to hear whether she, and others, think baby Bryn Mawrs for elementary and middle school girls in the sciences is a good idea.
But the above is only the setting. What I found really interesting, and revealing, was Kerry’s comment in connection with this proposal:
As president, I will give all Americans, especially women and minorities, the same encouragement, and we have to give it early on.
Now, I’m not saying separate schools for girls is a bad idea. I am saying the underlying principle is, at best, a bit muddled. I think we’re confused about what we mean by equality when we can say with a straight (some would say long) face that we believe in equal treatment of all, especially for some, which in practice requires special programs that exclude some on the basis of precisely the characteristic that we are supposed to treat equally.
This is laugh-out-loud preposterous stuff. Equal treatment is special treatment and treating the same means treating differently. Um, ok.
The sheer babbling incoherence of the entire diversity hoax is a discreditable embarrassment to all who buy into it; the entire “diversity” rationale has finally reached such obviously nonsensical depths that I am constrained to disregard entirely the intellectual acumen of any single person who believes it.
“I think we’re confused about what we mean by equality when we can say with a straight (some would say long) face that we believe in equal treatment of all, especially for some, which in practice requires special programs that exclude some on the basis of precisely the characteristic that we are supposed to treat equally.” Obviously, John, you haven’t been a liberal lawyer who’s spent 20 years in the US Senate.
I wonder if Sen. Kerry’s typically vague remarks are of a different ilk than those normally skewered by our host. That is, it’s one thing to point out inconsistencies, contradictions, etc. in statements by school officials, etc. about diversity and so on. These officials may or may not believe what they are saying, but they do believe in their cause. In fact, much of what makes John’s criticisms effective is that he shows how blinded the officials are (sometimes) in their own unerring righteousness.
With Sen. Kerry, on the other hand, one never gets the sense that he really believes in much of anything other than his own election campaign. That’s not to say he isn’t criticizing, but rather that it’s hard to criticize his moving target platitudes (other than to point out what they are).
BTW, my daughter has gone to an all-girls’ school since kindergarten, and is now in fourth grade. She hates math, screams “I don’t understand” and rages at her homework, guesses wildly, etc., all the normal math-phobic activities. Then she has to ask her dad for help, since her mom (who also went to an all girls’ school) isn’t usually able to help her. So the all-girls’ school thing is clearly not the answer to this problem (assuming it is a problem: my wife has done okay in life despite her inability to understand, much less derive, the Black-Scholes formula).
Your comments are right on the money.
I would add that it seems likely that gender segregation would help boys more than girls; since women run K-12 schools any discrimination there is likely to be against the boys.
Well, I would’ve been SOL at an all-girls school. There were few boys at my level in math, and maybe one or two other girls. I rather doubt I would have been able to get into calculus by 10th grade if I had been in a girls school. The best they would have done for me would bump me up a grade or two.
It is just entirely possible that most females are not interested in doing higher math just like most men aren’t interested in doing early childhood education. You don’t see so many women going into construction. Some of it is discrimination, but a lot of it is that far more men are interested in the field than are women. There are plenty of fields where there will never be 50-50 parity without grave injustice.
“It is just entirely possible that most females are not interested in doing higher math just like most men aren’t interested in doing early childhood education. You don’t see so many women going into construction. Some of it is discrimination, but a lot of it is that far more men are interested in the field than are women.”
But why are men more interested in math? Isn’t it because they tend to be better at it? People get interested in what they have a knack for.
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