2008 Woodie Awards
For many high school students, this is the time of the year when they find out which colleges they have been admitted to. Some receive the padded golden package, for others a thin envelope is all they see in the mail. But are students penalized for their sex? A NYT op-ed seems to suggest so:
Had she been a male applicant, there would have been little, if any, hesitation to admit. The reality is that because young men are rarer, they’re more valued applicants. Today, two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women. Demographers predict that by 2009, only 42 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in the United States will be given to men…
The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of gender balance. Should it trump the qualifications of talented young female applicants?
I don’t know enough about population demographics or women’s studies to say how correct the article is or what the implications are if it is more difficult to get into colleges in general if one is female. What is clear is that there is a tendency towards mean reversion, of forces maintaining equaltiy, an equality in number of male and female students in college. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing.
I sometimes wince when I come across an obvious and conspicuous typo in a publication. This is especially true when it looms in large print as part of an article’s title. For example, “How Execs and Students Are Failing to Incrase Minority Enrollment in Business Programs.”
Such was the typographical error that greeted me when I flipped through the latest issue of Princeton’s student-run magazine Business Today, which, for some odd reason, arrived in triplicate at my doorstep (no link to the article available -ed.). How people miss something so blatant after so many cycles of editing boggles the mind. But oh well, mistakes are bound to happen (excuse the clichés).
But less forgivable are those articles that amount to little more than diatribes lacking the thoughtful consideration needed to discuss the complex issues facing American society. Take Michael Short’s piece within the same issue of Business Today, “The Risky Business of Diversity”, which ought to perplex, if not incense, progressively minded individuals who care about the status of women in the business world (still earning roughly 70 cents for every “male dollar” by the latest count).
In the article, Short asserts a number of highly debatable statements as if they were fact. Initially, he claims that businesses’ practice of going out of their way to hire female employees is “harmful to competitive capitalism” (I didn’t realize there was another kind) presumably because a more qualified male will inevitably be passed for the job. Now, I’m not trying to start a debate about the merits of work-place affirmative action, but I do think that people need to be more realistic when making their claims. It hardly seems reasonable to expect businesses to purposefully hire bona-fide nitwits at the expense of vastly superior male candidates. Somehow I don’t envisage the worst case scenario here as an affront to western capitalism as we know it.
In actuality, the type of question that needs to be asked is: all other factors being equal, is an employer justified in choosing a woman over a man? Or perhaps, “can the installment of a female executive into a company’s board arguably provide some benefit to work-place relations, minimize gender inequality, etc. even if she is ostensibly less qualified than person x to fill the vacancy?”
Short also targets a Stanford MBA admissions officer who maintains that there is some value to having female students in business courses. Short claims that because we cannot quantitatively assess what sort of benefits students derive, we should not consider female presence a legitimate benefit in terms of the standard “learning” that takes place in a classroom setting. Frankly, I don’t see what measurability has to do with the issue given that we can all probably agree on the existence of less tangible factors that nonetheless improve our education, though not always in a calculable manner.
Finally, in a rather disorienting twist, Short undermines virtually everything he has thus argued for by disagreeing with the so-called nouveau “feminist” assessment that women “don’t have to sacrifice what it means to be a woman in order to succeed” on the grounds that women continue to face many obstacles to excelling in business, e.g. raising children. This acknowledgement, and in effect concession, of the serious impairments women confront, seriously weakens the original argument that women should not receive preferential treatment because, as Short states, to do so would be “an insult to women.” While many people may be insulted by receiving de facto handouts, recognizing a problem within the corporate structure and trying to remedy it is not the grave insult and danger to society that Short makes it out be.
Forget the essay; Alito will not save Roe.
Roe is basically dead. Which means that every state will have to decide for itself through elected legislatures whether to allow for abortion or not. The result will be that all the red states will outlaw it, all the blue states will allow it, and in the swingish states like Virginia, there will be a gigantic, titanic battle. Both choice groups and pro-lifers’ will pour untold millions into grassroots campaigns. The proverbial ‘two Americas’ will become painfully real.
I learned something interesting today from the Washington Post:
Rosa Parks, who died on October 24 at age 92, became the first woman to lie in honor at the Rotunda. (Oct. 31)
That’s one of those factoids that, upon closer inspection, makes perfect sense but is still somewhat surprising. Even in death, it seems Rosa Parks is still breaking down barriers.
This is now my third time writing about the morning-after pill debacle (see here and here), and the story keeps getting more ridiculous. Today, the FDA announced that they would once again delay their decision on making the morning-after pill an over the counter medication so that they could hear public opinion. You read that correctly. The body that is supposed to approve or not approve drugs based on science is now, apparently, checking out public opinion polls!
This is possibly the clearest evidence yet that what was once a scientific body is now completely politicized. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Alistair Wood, the head of the FDA advisory committee that studied Plan B has to say: “It seems improbable to me that given the information . . . that has validated the safety, that politics hasn’t trumped science here, which is a tragedy.”
Meanwhile, right-wing blogs have been salivating over a recent CNS News (which might as well stand for “Conservative and Not Sorry”) piece that claimed to have unearthed a scandal at Planned Parenthood. According to the article, Planned Parenthood struck a deal with morning-after pill maker Barr Laboratories to sell the drug at below market prices. The article concluded that this is somehow unethical because it will make a lot of money for Planned Parenthood.
Now here’s why the whole “scandal” is nothing but right-wing preposterousness:
First, why shouldn’t Planned Parenthood try to negotiate the cheapest price possible for its customers? Companies negotiate with suppliers all the time so that they can sell goods at cheap prices. In fact, according to CNS News’ figures, individuals buying Plan B from Planned Parenthood would be able to save $7, almost 25% less than what they would pay if they got the pills at other locations. As far as I know, there’s nothing illegal about this at all. Sounds to me less like a scandal and more like Planned Parenthood is doing its job.
Second, while the CNS News article claims that Planned Parenthood’s motivation in this whole thing is to “fatten its coffers,” it ignores the fact that Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization. Nobody is getting rich off of the money that it makes. It has no investors or owners. While even I may not always agree with what Planned Parenthood does with its money, the fact is, all of the money it makes goes back into making sure it can provide services like this one for its customers.
Sounds to me like the only scandal is CNS News’ reporting.
Asheesh, while I have no interest in getting in an extended row with you on this issue, I feel that I must quickly point something out.
The fact that a despicable racist cites Summers is not additional proof that Summers is somehow a closet eugenicist. Summers, just like you and I, has no control over who chooses to cite him. While I could be wrong, my guess is that if you asked Summers whether he endorses either eugenics or the work of Richard Lynn, he would give an honest and resounding HELL NO!
Well, Robby, I’ve got something unpleasant to report. From Northern Ireland’s Belfast News Letter, January 21, 2005 (sorry, no link):
Professor Richard Lynn, who has conducted extensive research on the links between gender and intelligence, claimed men are inherently brighter because they simply have proportionately bigger brains.
The psychology lecturer was adding his own fuel to the blazing row ignited in America last week, when the president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, told a conference audience that men made better scientists and mathematicians because of their superior genetics. “I agree with the president of Harvard University,” said Professor Lynn, speaking on Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan show.
There is in fact “evidence to indicate [some] sort of connection” between Lynn and Summers. Summers may not endorse Lynn, but Lynn sure endorses Summers. Surely that is not very good company for Summers to keep.
Just another WordPress weblog
RSS 2.0
