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Article 6819 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: wentzell@ace.acadiau.ca (LEEANN WENTZELL)
Subject: Re: Biological Sex Differences? ("Women only" excusable ?)
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References: < 92233.141512RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <1992Aug24.003020.11881@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU> <92241.144153RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <1992Sep6.154026.14965@techbook.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 17:29:05 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.154026.14965@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
>Subject: Re: Biological Sex Differences? ("Women only" excusable ?)
>Date: 6 Sep 92 15:40:26 GMT
>In article <92241.144153RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
>
>>Exactly.  It seems like a matter of Common Sense, but people seem to have a
>>shortage of this commodity.  for example, the chiarperson of a Computer
>>Science Dept is asked by the administration to `explain' why only 37% of the
>>CS majors are women.  However, Doreeen Kimura states explicitly that high
>>mathematical ability (which is involved in many parts of CS) occurs 13
>>times as often among boys as among girls.  The implication is clear that the
>>chairperson HAS nothing to `explain'.
>
>What is meant by "high mathematical ability", and why is it important
>to CS?  Two things that I know are important to CS, are verbal ability
>and arithmetic.  In fact, in daily software engineering work these are
>very important and "higher math" not at all important.  Women (to
>grossly simplify things, as is usually done in these sorts of
>discussions) are slightly better at verbal skills and arithmetic.
>So, there is still the strong possibility that a bias exists here, and
>that it could be ingrained in the prerequisites to CS, classes like 
>calculus and physics that are important to the older engineering 
>disciplines, but not to CS.  (IMHO, logic and philosophy classes
>would be far more relevent, with perhaps a bow to linear algebra).
>
>So, I might (given these simplistic theories) expect to see more 
>men in "higher math", physics, and the kinds of engineering
>that actually require those skills, but I would expect women to dominate
>in computer science, if the prerequisites weren't biased in favor of
>men's skills (to be fair, they're biased in favor of traditional
>engineering skills, any bias against women may only be a side-effect).
>
>
>-- 
>szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 

I recently read an article which pointed out the bias in the college 
entrance tests (GMAT?? Sorry, I'm not American) towards males. For example, 
there were many analogies which dealt in sports terms. This is certainly 
not to say that females know nothing about sports, but I'm about to start my 
PhD (in biology) and I have never been interested in sports. Would I have 
been "weeded" out before even entering college in the States? Perhaps a 
little more fairness in these questions would lead to more women in 
traditionally male faculties, and, of course, vice versa.


