Physics_wiz said:
There's something I don't understand here. At my university, we have clubs like "Society of Women Engineers" and "Society of Black Engineers". If there were a "Society of Men Engineers" or a "Society of White Engineers" people would call them sexist and racist respectively. Anyone know why that is so?
One could argue that the Society for White, Male Engineers would be whatever the prominent professional society is. There's a Women in Science group at the university too. I haven't yet attended any of their meetings, but if it's like it is at other universities, they don't exclude men from attending (men usually choose to exclude themselves based on the name). The focus is on addressing issues of sexism and racism and helping retain women or minorities in the field by combating the sexist or racist barriers (it's not about retaining women at all costs, but just making sure they aren't leaving because extra obstacles are being thrown in their path).
I haven't met any of the engineering faculty here, but at least among the students I've met, I've been impressed by the change in attitude that's happened in even just the time since I was an undergrad. When I was still in college, the engineering department still seemed to be a last bastion of sexism...not everyone, mind you, but it was definitely a far more blatant attitude than I ran into elsewhere. So, who knows, maybe it won't be long before such societies aren't needed.
We're starting to overcome it in the Ag schools too (I'm not at the Ag school here, but still have overlapping interests and collaborations with that crowd). The female faculty are still few and far between (as I sat in on a symposium this past weekend on nutrition in domestic animals, in a room of about 50 people...it was a small meeting...there were 3 female faculty present, me being one of them. The male:female ratio was a bit better among the students and post-docs present, but there's definitely still an imbalance among the faculty).
Then again, I really am not running into so much sexism here as I did at my prior institution. Actually, I haven't run into any, and I have to say it's wonderfully refreshing to be able to do what I do without having to butt heads with administrators who are blatantly sexist as I did before (when I was leaving, I talked with other women who were also leaving and thus less afraid of speaking up against the administration, and there was a startling pattern of bias, and a few cases where they'd have been fully justified in filing a sexual harassment suit if they weren't just more anxious to leave and put that place behind them...I used to laugh as our Dept Chair would promote the number of successful women faculty in our department...except for one who was hired long before he came to the department, the rest were ALL spousal hires, or non-tenure track...he never hired a single woman unless he had to hire her to hire her husband, but when they got recognition and high profile publications, he was of course first to claim credit for hiring them
).
(Sorry to turn the topic all serious; I'll try not to do that too often.)
Anyways, back to the topic...I'm all for women ruling. They seem to want to follow the rules. They'd get really angry if another woman in authority didn't follow the rules though. Men can be expected to take advantage of every way to get around the rules or break them. Oh and btw, I'm not saying ALL women or all men are like that. This is just based on what I've seen so far, which is a relatively small sample.
As Mistress of Discipline, I guess that making sure everyone follows the rules is my job, huh?
And Ministress of Health. Okay, I think I can make those two work together.
now i have arranged a treat for all you girls , if you would all go to the room with the funny metal door you will all have a big supprise.