Interested in the gender gap? Want to help contribute to its widening? Then head on over to Seattle, where University of Washington glaciaologist, Erin Pettit, leads an exclusionary expedition, made up solely of UW female high school students, to learn about glaciers and their geologic impact. Greg Piper notes that the rules of the program (limiting enrollment to females) are similar to conservative based political maneuvering for public funding of single-sex education. But there’s always a but. Says Piper:
On the other hand, if this program were restricted to boys, think of the hell that would be raised. Miller is absolutely right that boys have been behind girls in academic performance for a while, but our political and educational leaders have continued to focus on girls’ achievement and even beat up on boys for being, well, themselves in class. The way this program was moved around is also unseemly, and its indirect association with a national park raises federal nondiscrimination issues.
There it is. The prominence of programs that openly discriminate through PC action is not new, but it is disturbing how few people seem to realize the ironies inherent in the methodology. Actually, when I think about it, I’m reminded of Affirmative Action, which is more race-based than gender-based, but shares similar, arguably worthy goals. It’s the perhaps unintended effect that these programs have on the portion of society that, in truth, needs as much attention as the ones being targeted. Minority benefits should not imply majority denigration.
Nevertheless, the focus here should be on the repercussions of this all-female program. Do we, as cherishers of individualism and freedom of society to advance in its own way through reform and social change, let this go? After all, no one’s stopping someone from starting an all-boy glacial class. Or do we call on the federal government to put its foot in yet another pie, based on cries of discrimination? I’d rather not see it come to the latter, though I’m not fully content with the notion that the implied double standard is allowed to stand.
Honestly, it’s been a while since I last confronted and thought about issues such as this. I’d like to get back into the game some–having had a nice break from the political and social circle I used to inhabit, I hope to put a few more brain cells on issues like these in the future. Here’s a shoutout to Greg Piper for keeping interesting posts of this nature on his blog, which I read daily and often link, and which you should be too, if you’re smart and interested. Keep ‘em coming, dude.
UPDATE: The students on the trip were/are high school students, NOT UW students. Sorry for the error.
I’ve surfed through the web about this subject and found most blogs to be similar to yours. I think it is unfortunate that a populist smear campaign doesn’t stop to consider what this project is. Erin’s work was a grassroots effort, is not publicly funded, and was designed to merely provide an outdoor educational experience for young women who might be thinking about the Earth Sciences. There is a huge gender gap in the field, and Erin’s project addresses it. We all should be grateful for that. There are other glaciology schools for all genders. We should be thinking about Erin’s project in the same way that we think about the Boy Scouts or Smith College – or will we have to debate homosexuality then too.
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My thoughts on this are not entirely made up. And whilst there may be a general consensus on the subject, I wouldn’t call it a smear campaign. After all, we’re all expressing our individual thoughts on it, not following a grass roots party line.
However, supporters of the program might do well to consider what we bloggers think about the program. Maybe we don’t have all the facts. But from our seat, the program looks a little too close to all the other hyper exclusionary, double-standard tripping PC programs that get us so riled.
Seems to me that there’s nothing at all wrong with this program. I have no objection to somebody restricting something like this to a bunch of girls.
At the same time, I wonder (along with Greg) what the reaction would be to a program exactly like this but restricted to boys. If it’s OK to do something like this for girls, why not for boys?
Same sort of thing as the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus: imagine the indignant cries from the usual suspects at the formation of the NAAWP and the Congressional White Caucus.
Exactly, Roy. This is my major complaint–what’s good for the goose SHOULD be good for the gander, but in our minority-obsessed society, it’s not. I think that’s where Greg and I, and much of the blogosphere, I’d warrant, have against these kinds of programs. The backlash for a comparable organization or program, dedicated to a majority class, would be tremendous.