Reply #86: how dare you say women and men are different at all?

[northzax]

that is verboten. The fact that you think that women and men are different at solving problems means that you are part of the institutional sexism that you rail against.

Is it worth considering that, because I agree that different people address problems differently, and women and men are, in general, different in problem solving methods, that our society, as currentlyconstructed rewards the way men solve problems more than how women do in the science and math fields? (over generalisation, of course) Maybe our sciences are set up to punish those that solve problems differently, whether they be male or female, and it just happens that, beacuse of the patriarchal history, the departments favour those who think like they do. Women who think likemen will succeed, men who think like women will not. Given the orthodoxies of science and math that have always tended to shun those who think differently, or process information in a different way, the system is rigged against those who think otherwise.

a summation: given the reality, as you post it, that women and men solve problems in differnet way much of the time, if the process is what is rewarded in academia, and the favoured process is that which is more prevalent in men, are not women set up to fail in a system that punishes them for thinking differently? And therefore, those in charge are not, actually sexist, they are thoughtist, they can only see one legitimate way of doing things, and if women can think that way, them they are welcome in the society, but if they think another way, they will fail. The same is true for men, but it just so happens that men are wired the same way as those setting precedent, and therefore more likely to succeed.

It's worth noting that MIT has only one tenured female mathmetician.