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C00002 00002	women[f86,jmc]		How can women achieve more of their potential?
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women[f86,jmc]		How can women achieve more of their potential?

	The controversy over the use of the word ``girl'' is a
distraction.  If the opponents of the this usage are just having
fun, it's ok, but if they imagine they are contributing to the
advancement of women in human society, then they are under a
delusion and may well be acting to the detriment of their goals.

	First, what kind of advancement are we talking about?
Different people have different things in mind, but I want to
talk about scientific achievement by women.  In fact, I'll
concentrate on computer science or even computer science at
Stanford if I can think of something specific to say.

	My observations confirm to me the general opinion that
women are as intelligent as men.  Perhaps there are fewer, as
Benbow and xxx claim to have observed, with strong mathematical
talent, but my observations indicate that women even less than
men make enough use of the talents they have.

	To clarify my opinion, I'll give some numbers, but they
are to be interpreted only qualitatively.  My guess is that men
achieve on the average in science only 10 to 15 percent of their
capabilities and women achieve only 1 to 3 percent of theirs.

	Is this a problem?  For me it is, because I would like
to see science and technology advance faster than they have and
are.  I don't see why it should have taken 2,000 years to go
from the scientific level of the ancient Greeks to the present
level.  I don't see why many of today's advances in computer science
couldn't have occurred 20 years ago.

	Therefore, it seems to me that if more women achieved results
equivalent to those achieved by men of the same potential, science
would advance faster.  Some of those worried about feminism argue
that this would be at the cost of the next generation.  Maybe that's
so, but I think that women who don't marry or don't have children
still don't usually accomplish as much as men of the same potential.

	The feminist diagnosis of this situation is that women are achieve
less because they are still oppressed.  Indeed the fact that women achieve
less is taken as evidence of the oppression.  Actually they often blur the
fact that women achieve less by talking about the rewards of achievement
rather than achievement itself.  What feminists see as required to correct
the situation is that men change their attitudes and behavior.  What they
require from women is that they more actively demand that men change their
attitudes and behavior.  From institutions they demand affirmative action
of one kind or another.

	This analysis is expressed in many ways.  One of them is the
demand that linguistic usage be changed.  My opinion is that the energy
that goes into making and achieving such demands, even though they are
often successful in getting their way, is not helping women achieve
more and may even be hindering it.

	For example,