LJ Idol: Season 9, Week 8: Yes, and?
I find with age and experience that I’m exposed to more and more uncomfortable truths. These aren’t cases of right versus wrong, or even wrong versus wrong, but rather right versus right. My favorite fictional example comes from the movie The Incredibles (2004), in an argument between Bob and Helen Parr over allowing their (superhero) child to play sports. The point is true - we suppress genuine talents in the name of fitting in, and there are times in which one has to be subtle. Nonetheless, the more we expect people with genuine talents to hide them, the more of the idea is put out there that genuine talents aren’t wanted. The logical conclusion is those talents aren’t developed, and thus are squandered on the latest fad or just general busyness.
Come back to our world with me. We have this conundrum. We need more women in STEM. However we have this skanky cultural value of devaluing the work of women. But we don’t want to devalue STEM. So we put up barriers, direct and indirect, to steer women back towards “women’s work”. So women become teachers, nurses, social workers, and academics. All of which we closely scrutinize or decry as people not pulling their weight - how dare a nurse get paid $60,000 for an average 60 hour work week, or how dare teachers only have to work half the year for a full year’s salary (patent bullshit). Most of this criticism comes from people with no connections to healthcare or education, and almost always from the mouth of sexist men and women. Attempting to debunk only these two points would be enough for a full entry, so I’ll spare everyone (for now).
And yet we need more women in STEM, because those barriers aren’t going to come down unless men and women pull those barriers down. They need to come down for all of the brilliant minds who might not also have the stamina to endure fighting the system as well as the training for (currently) male-dominated professional careers. We need all the talent we can get, and we need to actually value talents in all fields. I think one of the markers of our focus on education in general, especially in STEM, was the Challenger disaster. Having a Soviet Union that as a nation we rallied around “beating” in a Cold War gave people a common purpose. People rallied during World War II over winning. Since the 1980s what have we really done? What common purpose do people share, that we’re willing to sacrifice as a whole in order for all of us to thrive? Apparently the answer is corporate profits, which none of us see.
From the mouth of Screwtape comes a parable of one tyrant to another discussing principles of government. The method of enforcing fascism was to ensure that nobody was more than an inch above the general level; that is to say nobody should be smarter, more beautiful, more educated, or more compensated than the average. Of course, this means the average consistently moves downward until you have a society that can barely function without its heads of state and those exempted from this policy. As the story goes, one tyrant demonstrated the principle by cutting off the tallest stalks of corn in a field, but today we cut each other down by making showing talent - especially STEM talent - unacceptable from girls in particular. We wouldn’t want the boys to feel bad!
And yes, self-esteem is important. That goes for everyone. Nothing creates self-esteem like genuine success, and everyone, even the most profoundly disabled, is capable of some genuine success. I’m tired of excuses as for why we can’t have it, because they all boil down to patent bullshit.
Come back to our world with me. We have this conundrum. We need more women in STEM. However we have this skanky cultural value of devaluing the work of women. But we don’t want to devalue STEM. So we put up barriers, direct and indirect, to steer women back towards “women’s work”. So women become teachers, nurses, social workers, and academics. All of which we closely scrutinize or decry as people not pulling their weight - how dare a nurse get paid $60,000 for an average 60 hour work week, or how dare teachers only have to work half the year for a full year’s salary (patent bullshit). Most of this criticism comes from people with no connections to healthcare or education, and almost always from the mouth of sexist men and women. Attempting to debunk only these two points would be enough for a full entry, so I’ll spare everyone (for now).
And yet we need more women in STEM, because those barriers aren’t going to come down unless men and women pull those barriers down. They need to come down for all of the brilliant minds who might not also have the stamina to endure fighting the system as well as the training for (currently) male-dominated professional careers. We need all the talent we can get, and we need to actually value talents in all fields. I think one of the markers of our focus on education in general, especially in STEM, was the Challenger disaster. Having a Soviet Union that as a nation we rallied around “beating” in a Cold War gave people a common purpose. People rallied during World War II over winning. Since the 1980s what have we really done? What common purpose do people share, that we’re willing to sacrifice as a whole in order for all of us to thrive? Apparently the answer is corporate profits, which none of us see.
From the mouth of Screwtape comes a parable of one tyrant to another discussing principles of government. The method of enforcing fascism was to ensure that nobody was more than an inch above the general level; that is to say nobody should be smarter, more beautiful, more educated, or more compensated than the average. Of course, this means the average consistently moves downward until you have a society that can barely function without its heads of state and those exempted from this policy. As the story goes, one tyrant demonstrated the principle by cutting off the tallest stalks of corn in a field, but today we cut each other down by making showing talent - especially STEM talent - unacceptable from girls in particular. We wouldn’t want the boys to feel bad!
And yes, self-esteem is important. That goes for everyone. Nothing creates self-esteem like genuine success, and everyone, even the most profoundly disabled, is capable of some genuine success. I’m tired of excuses as for why we can’t have it, because they all boil down to patent bullshit.