House of Eratosthenes

Not too long ago, three regular (or semi-regular) readers came down on the head of Yours Truly for saying women couldn’t get the job done in Information Technology as well as the men…although I said no such thing, and would not have said any such thing. The subject of the article, and presumably of the thread that opened up under it, was women avoiding technical fields of their own accord. The article I linked said that women were being given choices their mothers had not been given, and they were using those choices — female choosiness led to an underrepresentation of women in data centers. They didn’t want to do it.

My comments were that women tend — are you reading? TEND. TEND. TEND. (black marker, circle, underline) — to thrive on attention. As a technical field becomes more professional and more intensive, it takes on a certain “what’ve you done for us lately?” aspect. You aren’t a miracle-worker anymore. You do exactly the same stuff you did when people put you on a pedestal and worshipped at your feet, except now you do it on an assembly line. Next miracle, next miracle, next miracle…keep it moving. No applause. No kudos. No attention.

And that is guy-work. It isn’t that I haven’t met any lady miracle workers. Quite to the contrary, I’ve met quite a few. And if they make it that far, they are generally more intelligent, more articulate and more well-rounded than the men, brain-wise. But they have to have their “strokes.” Whether they want to admit it or not, performing before an audience is integral to the job they are doing. Without the feedback they become bored and frustrated. Sure they can tolerate it. But one way or another, after a time, they’re gone.

These efforts to “recruit more women into IT” therefore become, unavoidably, a sort of dog-chasing-tail exercise. What we ignore is that among women who are capable of doing these jobs, most of them don’t want to do it…and among the women who do indeed want to do it at any given time, if you give them a few years most of them will be gone.

Goldstein at Protein Wisdom also notes that men and women are not the same. The subject under discussion here, is firefighting in the great city of Los Angeles. Once again, there is an effort to recruit women.

This time, though, the difference in ability is more pronounced — the measures taken to overcome that difference in ability, are more determined, less honest, and, after awhile, actually become dangerous…

[F]or years, nobody questioned the underlying assumptions pushed by the City Council and the city Fire Commission: that women wanted to be firefighters, that women were kept out, and that women had special skills needed on fire lines, just as female cops brought special skills to their jobs. If Bamattre was jettisoning standards and practicing the equivalent of grade inflation in order to slip women into fire stations, the thinking was that the ends justified the means.

“It is a political-correctness issue, more than one [that asks] whether it makes good sense or not,” says [former Los Angeles Mayor Richard] Riordan, chatting by phone during a ski trip to Whistler Mountain in British Columbia. “But that is a fact of life.”

Then, in 2005, City Controller Laura Chick alleged in an audit that Bamattre was engaged in a rollback of physical requirements. […]

Then last May, a former drillmaster at the Frank Hotchkins Memorial Training Center testified in Superior Court that he had been ordered by two high-ranking chiefs to pass women, and had stood up to their double standard. “I recommended termination on 95 percent of the women that could not throw that ladder,” testified Captain Scott Campos, now at Fire Station 5. “And in all cases, it was overlooked — and they were sent to the field.”

Bamattre’s alleged lowering of standards “put people out in the field that weren’t qualified,” says Lima, who won a $3.75 million judgment after he claimed his superiors retaliated against him — for making life as tough for women firefighters as he did for the men.
:
“They recruit them, and then they beat them up,” claims attorney Thomas Hoegh, who is handling at least two lawsuits against the Fire Department. “They encourage the women to join the department, then look what happens to them. They are all getting hurt badly.”

Most of the injuries, he says, “are occurring during training activities. One wonders what is going on here. There is a double standard. They are encouraging them to join, then they do everything in their power to try to get rid of them.”

But firefighter Julie Wolf — one of the rare women working on the fire line at a fire station in Los Angeles — has a different theory about what is causing the endless cycle of female hirings, washouts, injuries and lawsuits.

“Some of the women can’t do the basics because of strength,” says Wolf, a tough-talking engineer at Station 63. “Captains document it, and all of a sudden it is a ‘hostile working environment’ against the captain… I have never seen a woman overdrilled, and it has never happened to me.”

Wolf is growing tired of the recriminations — from women. “That is what we do. That is our job. All of a sudden it is humiliating and hostile for a member to perform their job? I don’t understand that.”

As a result, she says, “I think they are a bunch of crybabies. When I come to work, I am a firefighter first and a female second. I come to work and do my job.”

This is all a case of confusing the moderate with the extreme.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our goal is that for each fella doing a job, there should be a gal doing exactly the same job…at the same grade, for the same pay. One-for-one, ten-for-ten.

Anything less than that is undeniable evidence of discrimination.

At the same time, we want the women to have choices. All selections conceivable, should be available to her, and woe upon the head of anyone who gets in the way.

Well the problem that surfaces is that in addition to being able to do different things, the two sexes also want different things.

It never once seems to occur to us that a woman can exercise her choices, and as a direct consequence of that, end up being absent in that seat we just got done deciding should be filled by a female butt. We think if the fellas want to do something, it just naturally follows the women want to do it too. It doesn’t really work like that.

The other problem that comes up is that when you start talking about statistics instead of talking about potential, the anecdotal tales about women-I-knew become irrelevant. It’s a conversation about commons instead of about elites. What women can do is no longer part of it — statistical tendencies reign supreme. That’s the conversation: Statistics. That’s what we’ll be sending the bean-counters in to start counting, so the lawsuits can be filed: Statistics. What MOST men do. What MOST women do. What most women want.

I’m going to let Julie Wolf have the final say on what most women can lift. In my experience, most women don’t like it when they do something extraordinary, and nobody notices. They certainly don’t like it when the attitude they get back, is “About time…now go perform this other miracle, over here.” They don’t deal with that situation the same way the guys do.

All you fellas who want to doubt me on that one, if you’re married, why don’t you go a couple weeks without saying anything appreciative or thankful about anything your wife does for you. Let me know how that works out for ya.

why don’t you go a couple weeks without saying anything appreciative or thankful about anything your wife does for you. Let me know how that works out for ya.

Hahahaha… yeah right.

Sorry man, I want to stay married.
- pdwalker | 01/26/2009 @ 12:04
The article I linked said that women were being given choices their mothers had not been given, and they were using those choices — female choosiness led to an underrepresentation of women in data centers. They didn’t want to do it.

My comments were that women tend — are you reading? TEND. TEND. TEND. …

Yes, I noticed this a long time ago. Racism and sexism are all about generalization and not being fair to the individual. To overcome this, we’ve practically outlawed generalizations. But generalizations are very, very useful. If we want to investigate problems involving the sexes, we are going to have to make some observations about the general male population and the general female population.

We really are enlightened enough these days to realize what a generalization is and that a generalization rarely if ever applies “en toto” to any individual.

Well I say we are, anyway. Apparently the Progs feel differently. And isn’t it all about how they FEEL????
- philmon | 01/26/2009 @ 17:25

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Difference Between the SexesMonday, January 26th, 2009

Difference Between the Sexes
Monday, January 26th, 2009