December 4, 2012

"Saudi school books feature women’s photos for the first time."

"Although the women appearing in photos in the books are veiled, the step is still regarded as a major change since only drawings of women were permitted in school books before."
An English book, part of the third year of high school, contains a picture of a nurse wearing a headscarf and a medical mask while preparing an injection. The exercise accompanying the photo asks students to discuss the changes in the percentage of men and women in traditional occupations.

There is also a photo of a girl standing in a lab. The woman was apparently not veiled in the original picture and an additional part was added in the school book to cover her face.
STEM careers for women... we still struggle with that in the U.S. (where there are plenty of photos of women).

43 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Bullshit, Althouse, we're not struggling with anything in the U.S.

Women don't want the kind of jobs feminists want them to have.

Jesus, this shit is old.

cubanbob said...

For Saudi men, work is beneath them. For Saudi women, work is liberating.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Today, photos in textbooks.

Tomorrow, Menstruation Barbie®.

Ann Althouse said...

"Women don't want the kind of jobs feminists want them to have."

Assume that's true, we are still struggling with it. It's regarded as a problem. One way to end the struggle would be to adopt the ideology that it is not a problem. That has not happened as of yet, however, so you haven't waved away the struggle. You've simply said the struggle should end through the mechanism of defining the problem as a nonproblem.

Shouting Thomas said...

Pretty fancy legal-eeze, Althouse!

I'm used to reading it. My sordid past in IT in corporate legal. Thank God, that was 20 years ago!

Maybe the problem is lawyers?

Leland said...

I have a problem with the linked article related to US women in STEM. It starts with statistics about women in engineering. That's 1/4th of what STEM stands for. In particular, the Sauds have a picture of a nurse.

What are the percentages for women in the medical field?

And we are struggling to have enough nurses in the US. This is made worse by fewer nurses seeking advanced degrees, thus fewer nurses able to teach new nurses.

Sorun said...

"STEM careers for women... we still struggle with that in the U.S."

We still struggle because there aren't enough good role models for women on The Big Bang Theory. (Ha ha, just kidding!)

Hagar said...

The denomination "engineer" is nearly meaningless in this context.
There is world of difference between designing the micro circuits of your iPad and standing out in the field at midnight in a rainstorm directing a recalcitrant contractor on how to repair a failing levee.
Yet both are "engineering" jobs.

Fernandinande said...

ST: "Women don't want the kind of jobs feminists want them to have."
AA:"Assume that's true, we are still struggling with it. It's regarded as a problem."

Only feminist social engineers struggle with "it" (it being the reality that feminists are too stupid to understand)- "we" definitely don't struggle with it or regard it as a problem: we regard the "struggle" as a silly fad.

AA: "... so you haven't waved away the struggle."

Your "you" and "we" doesn't include most people.

ST: "Maybe the problem is lawyers?"

Heh. That's a damned easy catch!

Hagar said...

In 50 years of practice as a civil engineer, I havee seen precisely two women engineers that I was glad to have in the profession.

I think there definitely is something to Larry Summers ruminations on on the workings of the female mind!

Anonymous said...

Fernandinande:

Thank you for saying what I struggled to say and ended up not posting. I think this falls under the category of first world problem.

karrde said...

Is the argument that not enough women are in Science/Tech/Engineering/Medicine?

Last I checked, nursing was a stereotypically-female profession. Not all of Medicine, but one corner of Medicine.

However, I view the observation that women are under-represented in Tech/Engineering (or my sub-specialty) as similar to the observation that white males are under-represented in the NBA.

There are reasons for this fact, and the reasons have little to do with discrimination inside the field. They have much to do with how many people from various cultural/ethnical groups are attracted to pursuing that profession.

edutcher said...

Man, next thing you know, they'll admit women have ankles.

As for the career issue, women keep themselves out of math-oriented fields as much as anything else.

The ever-popular math anxiety. Followed by not wanting to be a geek.

The biggest reason men ace themselves out of math-oriented fields.

That, and the fact you're either right or wrong in math; no trophies for everybody for trying.

PS Note the link to electronic trackers for women.

Tim said...

My eldest daughter is pursuing her education in a STEM-field. No struggle here, except, of course, working hard, focusing her mind and being disciplined.

Otherwise, it still remains an open question: Can Islam reform itself to be compatible with the modern world, or must it be violently constrained to limit its violence against the civilized world?

My guess is, no.

Levi Starks said...

Women and Men are exactly equal all the time,
Except when they aren't.

rhhardin said...

Lack of women in science is a complaint, not a problem.

It's only a problem locally, and then only if you want to get laid.

Michael K said...

Oh God ! Eating disorders !

My high school girlfriend was president of the Society of Women Engineers a few years ago. We did math homework together. Note well:

After marrying fellow Purdue alumnus John Gleiter and happily raising a family from 1960 to 1980, Gleiter returned to professional life, undaunted by the challenge of catching up on 20 years worth of engineering change.


The income disparity has been debunked so many times only an idiot would still be talking about it. The Purdue article still brings up all the old myths of victimhood but I don't think any of that stuff occurred to her until the feminist industry got ahold of her.

Strelnikov said...

Oh, yes, that's a major step forward. For the 18th century. At least their looking ahead, out of the middle ages. Forgive me if I'm less than enchanted by their open mindedness.

MayBee said...

One way to end the struggle would be to adopt the ideology that it is not a problem. That has not happened as of yet, however, so you haven't waved away the struggle.

Who has declared there is a struggle, and how can you tell when it has ended?
Do we have to wait until we don't hear about it any more to know it's over?

Joe Schmoe said...
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Shouting Thomas said...

I do have to congratulate you, Althouse, for managing to confabulate the status of American women with that of Islamic women.

I guess that's an improvement. The old feminist trick was to confabulate the status of American women with that of blacks under Jim Crow.

Hard to know how so many American women managed to survive the horrors.

Joe Schmoe said...

Re: US women in STEM, there are no barriers to entry. Every tech school under the sun, from MIT on down, is doing their level best to attract more women. A majority of women just aren't interested.

On the professional side, more companies are dying for more women workers and women-run businesses as well. Example: If you are a defense contractor or a builder who works on govt. projects, then there are requirements that 5% of the contract must been done with minority-owned or women-owned businesses.

So now we're forcing private companies, if they want to do gov biz, to hire women for jobs that a lot of women don't want.

Shouting Thomas said...

Women comprise almost 60% of college grads, and they aren't going into STEM fields.

First reason... the quota system offers them the easier and more immediately profitable route of soft skills jobs, particularly in HR, where they can continue to enforce PC, as they did in college.

Second reason... those STEM fields require a lot of memorization of hard fact, tech details, etc. I meet quite a few Indian and Chinese women who are willing to do this, but just about no American white women.

Why would American women work so hard to do a tough technical job when they can be PC enforcers in HR?

And, why isn't it a crisis that only 40% of college grads are men?

And, Althouse, you didn't go into a tech field. So, what's up with the puffing about how other women won't do what you wouldn't do, either?

MayBee said...

My sisters are (or were, in the case of one of them) engineers. I graduated with a business degree, but moved into computer systems programming and designing.

One thing I'd say about many fields in STEM is they move fast, and taking time off from work to raise a family (full or part time) puts you ever further behind. By the time I would have looked to get back into the workforce, my previous experience was full of dinosaurs.

MayBee said...
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CyndiF said...

In 50 years of practice as a civil engineer, I havee seen precisely two women engineers that I was glad to have in the profession.

How many female engineers did you meet in total? And how did the fraction of useful female engineers compare to the fraction of useful male ones? Small number statistics can cause people to conflate the qualities of an individual with that of the group they belong to.

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

There are as many, if not more, Muslim women who are physicians in the U.S. than men.

Unknown said...

CyndiF@11:37AM

Another question would be how many male engineers was hagar glad to have in the profession and what percentage that constituted for each sex.

Have to agree with Althouse that this is a struggle - ignore it and some sort of doctrinaire 'solution' will be rammed down our throats. Just stating that women have other and better choices isn't a winning argument against true believers.

When I look at the quarterly magazine of the Tau Beta Pi engineering society, I see that student section officers are predominantly women. In school, there don't appear to be many barriers.

Kirk Parker said...

"It's regarded as a problem."

ISWYDT.

Rabel said...

From your second link:

"Because of the upcoming election, I saw a commercial saying that President Obama signed into law that women should get equal pay. It talks about his mother being a single mom, that he has two daughters, and that he strongly believes there should be equal pay. And women earn 77 percent less than men in the same positions as men. There should be laws in place to prevent that. It’s a disgrace that women are paid less. You should be paid the same."

A reference to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The first sentence indicates that the the lady, an electrical engineer and author of a book on how women can succeed in STEM fields, is completely misinformed on the subject. The following sentences indicate that she is a screeching harpy.

I bet she was a pleasure to work with.

Big Mike said...

Without knowing which fields of engineering the women went into, I have no basis for knowing whether the median salary for female engineers with a masters degree quoted in the article about US women in STEM is particularly meaningful.

One thing I noticed back when I was an instructor in computer programming a long time ago (I still had hair!) was the tendency of female students to try to impress me by telling me how hard they worked on their assignments. By contrast the guys understood that how hard they worked was immaterial -- did they get the assignment right? Full credit. Did they not? At most partial credit, depending on the sort of mistakes they made. That's how STEM works.

How hard did you work? Who cares? If anything, a person who has to work really hard to get a small assignment done is obviously not a candidate in a tech company to take on a more advanced assignment.

Michael said...

Rabel: She appears to be math challenged as well. Women might make 77% of what men make but they are not paid 77% less for the same work. A distinction with a difference. But, as lefties are inclined to say, "you know what I meant."

Crunchy Frog said...

You've simply said the struggle should end through the mechanism of defining the problem as a nonproblem.

Perhaps we should do what the Chinese do with their gymnasts - identify them early (age 4-6), take them away from their families, and run them through special academies where they eat, breathe, and dream physics 24/7. Maybe THAT will solve the problem. To hell with free will.

"But I want to be a ballerina." NO! It's electrical engineering for you! Off to the salt mines!"

The struggle will end when the idiots in Grievance, Incorporated are no longer listened to, and people feel free to decide for themselves what to do with their lives.

DADvocate said...

Humph! I didn't know cameras could record pictures of women. Isn't there incaptible light wave lengths or something like that?

DADvocate said...

"incompatible" that is.

Hagar said...

@Cyndi,

2 shining stars,
a few average,
a number of the simply appallingly unclear on the concept of acting like a P.E.

Just like Larry Summers was musing about.

Richard Dolan said...

"It's regarded as a problem."

Is it regarded as an economic problem, as some do the loss of manufacturing jobs to lower-cost countries? Or a social problem, in that women ought to pursue STEM because it's good for them/us/some of us?

If the problem is essentially economic -- the US is not making use of an available resource to remain competitive and achieve fuller employment -- part of the answer is that same answer given to the complaint about the loss of manufacturing: the value-added by US workers is of the higher skill sort. Basic STEM skills are not needed to provide that value (wouldn't hurt, but other skills -- management, finance, etc. -- are at least as useful. In all events we can import as many STEM-trained workers as we need (if we decided to do that), since many of them are educated here in the first place.

But I don't think people who make this complaint are trying to frame an economic argument. It's social/political -- what is a woman's 'proper' place? The preferred answer is 'someplace that is currently dominated by men.' Oddly, it seems to make no difference if that place is somewhere that women in large numbers don't necessarily want to be.

Richard Dolan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Seeing Red said...

I don't struggle with it, those who think men & women are equal, learn equal and who think they're God & can override nature struggle with it.

I wasn't strong in math or science, I have friends who are smart enough to be engineers, 1 is, 1 decided to go into Finance instead, but they have something in common, they chose to be SAHM.

mikee said...

AS the proud parent of a female mechanical engineering sophomore at a prestigious and enormous state university, I must add that Social Engineers are NOT a category within STEM career fields.

My daughter has taken advantage of multiple female-only programs at her university, all designed to make female engineering students as successful as they possibly can be. These programs range from preferential student housing, female-only scholarships and special academic advisors to the attention of every male in the coed Engineering frat, Theta Tau.

I am more proud of her accomplishments, even with the somewhat unlevel playing field she has enjoyed, than I can clearly state.

Saudi women might look to get the 2nd Amendment adopted in their home country, to level their playing field.

Seeing Red said...

Hundreds of millions if not a billion or more wasted over the last 2 generations for what?

Julia. No responsibility & Big Daddy Uncle Sam provides for me instead of a husband.

Girls just wanna have fun.

Great job, feminists.



Hagar said...

Seeing Red,
What I am fussing about is not "smarts" so much as attitude.

Laura said...

Next step, driver's licenses.

Where's my Math-Is-Hard Barbie?