"Sexism" in Science

At Harvard University, writes Christina Hoff Sommers, they have a course called Math 55. Over 50 percent of students drop out. In 2006

The final class roster, according to The Crimson: "45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male."

Only 17 women have completed the course since 1990. The science on women and science uncertain.

The research on gender and vocation is complex, vibrant, and full of reasonable disagreements; there is no single, simple answer

But the gender activists are ready with a single, simple answer. They paraded before a Congressional subcommittee last fall and agreed that the dearth of women in science was due to sexism.

All agreed on the need for a revolutionary transformation of American science itself. "Ultimately," said Kathie Olsen, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, "our goal is to transform, institution by institution, the entire culture of science and engineering in America, and to be inclusive of all-for the good of all."

Rep. Brian Baird, chairman of the subcommittee asked the assembled throng:

"What kind of hammer should we use?"

The activists have the answer; Apply Title IX to science education. Title IX is the section of federal law that is currently being used to force gender equality in college sports. The activists want to force universities to have equal participation in science by men and women. And they have already started. The National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation are moving to make science more “fair.”

Already, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is administering a multimillion-dollar gender-equity program called ADVANCE, which, as Olsen told the subcommittee, aims to transform the culture of American science to make it gender-fair.

Except, of course, that women, mostly, don’t choose science education. Just as men, mostly, don’t choose education for the caring professions.

We Leninists believe that the only way to effect change is through the maelstrom of disaster: “the worse the better.”

But it certainly seems to be a pity that we will have to destroy education in order to save it. But really, will the activists be content with anything less than a complete bonfire of education as we know it?