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.CB WOMEN IN SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS AND ENGINEERING


	I will start by reacting to the paper %2Mathematics and Sex%1
by John Ernest.  The paper starts with what I believe to be a lie -
the assertion that the author began without preconceptions.  The
paper simply reeks with preconceptionsnd ideas not in accordance
with them are simply not explored.

	The main contention of Ernest's paper is that college women's
reluctance to study mathematics is a consequence of expectations
imposed by their teachers and parents, and if the attitudes and
policies of schools and parents can be changed, women will study
mathematics with interest and success comparable to men's.
As one who has tried to get his two daughters to take more interest
in mathematics and who has seen them jeopardize their intended
careers by dropping it, I fear the situation is more complex than
that.  Therefore, I shall take the view:  what if Ernest is all
wet?

Remarks:

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	#. When we consider scientific research, we are ↔alking about
less than 0.003 of the population.  When we talk about leaders in science
we are talking about perhaps 10%5-4%1 to 10%5-5%1 of the population.
It is quite clear that the ability to do high level scientific
research is present in a very small fraction of the population,
and this is something quite different from an aptitude for
arithmetic or even high school or undergraduate mathematics.
That a rare talent should have a differential sexual distribution
is not surprising.  I.e. we are talking about something that only
one in a thousand men posess and perhaps only one in ten or a hundred
thousand women.


Conjectures:

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	#. There are genetic sexual differences in both ability
and in motivation.

	#. The measures suggested by Ernest will help increase
the number of women at the lower levels but won't affect the
higher levels of achievement more than marginally.  In the
Soviet Union, women are compelled to study mathematics, and
the graduates must be hired, but the number of woment who
rise above the lower levels is about the same as here.

	#. The diversion from the "achievement ethic" has been
especially harmful to women.  Foreigners who haven't been
subjected to the American intellectual anti-achievement fad,
do better here than American women.

	#. The purest motivation for scientific research is
intellectual curiosity, and the purest motivation for engineering
is a desire to make something useful.  The former is even
rarer than the latter.  I know that when I am motivated by
curiosity, I discover more than when I am motivated by a
desire for achievement.  Unfortunately, no social scientist
would condescend to study anything as vague as curiosity, so
I guess we won't know about its differential sexual distribution.

	#. Improvements in domestic technology are possible
and will help substantially.

	#. Direct propaganda among women for greater achievement
will do more than anything else.


Recommendations:

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	#. Formal equality of opportunity should continue.

	#. Women should be helped with specific situational
disabilities.
.subitem←0
		&. Pregnancy leaves, child care subsidies,
domestic service bureaus, elimination of hard-and-fast
nepotism rules in favor of objective consideration of
each situation.

	#. Direct propaganda for achievement at the college level
will help most of all.  More students - male and female - run
out of motivation than run out of ability, and this is worse
for women than for men.

	#. This propaganda for achievement must stop short of
intimidating those women who prefer to concentrate on marriage
and children.  The infertility of intelligent women is also
a serious cause for concern.