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Old 03-26-2005, 01:27 PM   #22 (permalink)
Gilda
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Location: Out on a wire.
Here is the controversial speech.

To summarize, the President of Harvard hypothosized about the reasons why there are fewer women in high end positions in science and engineering faculty at major universities, and why women might be underrepresented at the higher levels in major corportations.

He proposed that there are three reasons why this is so:

1. Married women tend to spend fewer hours at work than married men, thus they tend to get promoted less frequently to the highest positions.

2. There is a higher standard deviation among men than among women in many inborn attributes, including intelligence. Men and women are, on average, about equally intelligent, but men tend be spread out a lot more. You'll find a lot more men than women who are geniuses, and a lot more who are imbeciles. Because high-end engineering and science positions usually go to those with abilities three or four standard deviations above the mean, and you'll find more men at that extreme than women, you'll have more men in those positions.

3. Discrimination, either overt and intentional, or through the unfounded belief that women are automatically less capable.

I think it's a mistake to assume that number three is the only reason that women are underrepresented in high end business, science, and engineering, just as it's a mistake to assume that a woman can't be equally qualified for those positions merely because she's a woman.
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