Shot in the Dark

Solved!

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

My computer automatically loads pop-up ads every time it opens.  This time, it informed me that hardly any girls want to be physicists, engineers, computer programmers.  Girls must be encouraged to science, technology, engineering and math careers.

Why the gender of the engineer matters is not explained.

If numbers are the sole concern – if meeting the quota is all it takes to make society better – then simply designate an appropriate number of biologically male engineers as involuntary pre-operative transgendered women and viola, instant utopia.

Joe Doakes

Simple, ingenious and PC!

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Mitch Berg

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23 responses to “Solved!”

  1. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    I think part of the problem is high school math and science teachers, who for the most part haven’t a clue what engineering is.

  2. MacArthur Wheeler Avatar
    MacArthur Wheeler

    If its your work computer too bad
    if its your home computer there are a couple things to do that will help you to get rid of most ads
    1) both Firefox and MS-edge support AdBlock Plus just search for it and follow direction for installation but if you want more granular control of the ad blocking process
    2) a custom “hosts”file from this site http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
    will go a long way to giving you back your bandwidth

  3. J. Ewing Avatar
    J. Ewing

    Actually, the best solution to the problem is the one we already have. Those women who choose to enter this once all-male profession generally have the drive and ability to be BETTER engineers than the run-of-the-treadmill males one usually encounters. I’ve known enough of them to recognize that this “theory” does indeed play out in real life. It’s a free-market solution. Why would we want to mess it up?

  4. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Elementary school matters a lot–when I was a math TA in college, I could tell whose elementary school teachers went into the profession because they hated math. To a man, they all couldn’t do arithmetic without a calculator. That doesn’t bode well for engineering and science, to put it mildly.

    I think at another point, we also need to remember that in many areas of engineering, it takes about a year to get back on course if you take serious time off, which is career death to those engineers who want to spend some time with their “infants.” So completely apart from the question on whether aptitudes and attitudes might differ between the sexes, you’ve simply got a biological reality that is going to give you different results.

  5. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    BB, one of my undergrad majors was in math. We firmly all agreed that mathematicians can’t do arithmetic — the famous “factor of 2” was nearly always messed up in a proof, especially if you had to do it on the board. I will say that engineers tend to be slightly better, but it’s certainly not by a factor of 2.

  6. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Women don’t enter Engineering and Physics as undergrads any more today than they did 30 years ago (when I was in school). The lack of researchers follows from decisions made by 18-year-olds. I’ve always struggled to understand the lack of appeal for young women in these fields.

    I have known quite a few female engineers, but I haven’t heard a convincing reason for this oft-discussed phenomenon. One problem is that interviewing the women who chose engineering doesn’t tell you why the ones who did not made that choice.

  7. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    Mathematics is a field where there is even less social interaction required than in engineering. No need for teamwork, no need for meetings. It is primarily an academic profession.
    Virtually all world class mathematicians are men.

  8. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Personally, I don’t do math. When I’m dining out and the check comes, I look at the pre-printed “how much should I tip” line. If it’s not there, I text my son – he does “Insanely Difficult Sudoko” in pen because it’s so easy.

    Therefore, I’m pleased that women are avoiding STEM classes in favor of English Lit and Poli Sci. The more fish in the sea, the better my chances. Well, not me, personally, since I’ve long ago landed the best catch of all; but you get my drift.

  9. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    Women don’t enter Engineering and Physics as undergrads any more today than they did 30 years ago (when I was in school). The lack of researchers follows from decisions made by 18-year-olds. I’ve always struggled to understand the lack of appeal for young women in these fields.

    For one, programming has always been more diverse than engineering, and for the last 30 years it’s also been more profitable. The attraction of fields where the rigor, discipline, and competition is legendary vs. one where it is less and pays better is understandable. Look at the proportion of electrical engineering grads who don’t even bother to go into engineering upon graduation because of better opportunities in other fields that value their education, it’s north of 20%.

    Then look at the job prospects 20 years down the road. The proportion of engineers who leave the field by then is huge. Yes, the pay is good, but the attrition is huge due to the overtime (and overload).

    You can have a good career as an engineer, but it takes a certain mindset and determination and the willingness to value things differently than the average person does.

  10. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    In the course of my work, I deal primarily with engineers. A lot of them. Mechanical, Chemical, Industrial, Aeronautical. None of them have seen a slide rule in decades, and some have never engineered since they got the coveted iron ring.

  11. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    BTW, Joe, if that’s an MS Windows 10 ad, I’d suggest you turn them off. It’s not easy to get MS to give you a modicum of privacy, but there are tools out there that can help make the process less painful.

    For example, you do realize that W10 has a keylogger enabled by default? And that while Microsoft claims it doesn’t do much, the entirety of what’s communicated to MS servers is encrypted so nobody outside of MS knows with any certainty what they’re really sending? MS didn’t/doesn’t charge for W10, so you should know who’s the real product and who’s the real customer, and frankly, you’re not MS’s customer any more in this model.

    It will be interesting to see what settings change when this next W10 update comes out and to what extent MS tries to sell telemetrics even more than they do now.

  12. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    If 60% percent of women prefer occupations with more human contact, versus 40% of men, if you force them to go 50-50 into these occupations, you’ve made a bunch of men and women miserable simply to meet an arbitrary “social justice” metric.
    This is what is inhuman about the progressive agenda.

  13. Alt-Good Swiftee Avatar
    Alt-Good Swiftee

    I have known quite a few female engineers, but I haven’t heard a convincing reason for this oft-discussed phenomenon.

    Yeah well, they probably just want you to empty the damn trash can and put it back so they can get back to work, SSOLSEmery. No time for chit-chat with Emery the Maintenance Engineer.

  14. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Nerdbert, you remind me of the old joke; there are three kinds of mathematicians, those who can count, and those who can’t.

    MP: agreed that if we shoehorn people into professions, we make them miserable. Just might be reason why the Soviets led the whole world in alcoholism, no?

  15. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    Bikebubba, the USSR led the world in the number of engineers their university system produced. The Soviets were also known for crappy engineering — except for their military and space hardware.

  16. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    MP–and I’ve had the privilege of working with a BUNCH of them, especially those from the Jewish diaspora of the 1980s. Thankfully, to my knowledge, not many of them had a drinking problem–though all of them could regale you with stories of how much it sucked “back in the USSR”. Some of the best engineers I’ve ever worked with, and a wicked sense of humor on almost all of them.

    But that said, not all Soviet military engineering was good….I’m thinking T-72, for example, as well as the Kuznetsov, nyet?

  17. MacArthur Wheeler Avatar
    MacArthur Wheeler

    BB the head on Foxtrot B-39 Soviet (1962) sub is either an example of the Soviet era sense of humor or proof that not all engineers are created equal
    http://www.theworldisraw.com/maritime-museum-of-san-diego/

  18. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    MaCarthur Wheeler, the Russian engineers did not want the crewmen to have as much as a second when they could imagine that they weren’t on a submarine.

  19. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    Please give me more STEM, beats the heck our of liberal arts for most trying to make a living, and they’ll likely give a larger contribution to society. I think in the long run the gender stuff will sort out favorably.

  20. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    SH for the win.

  21. Bill C Avatar
    Bill C

    In a side note, Robbinsdale ISD 281 jumped on the STEM bandwagon a few years ago. But, being the libs/progs they are, they just couldn’t leave it alone. So now we don’t have STEM, we have STEAM (Arts).

  22. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Bill C: instead of my geometry proof, I’ll do an interpretive dance! Maybe involving body paint or something, and definitely with NEA funding!

  23. Alt-Good Swiftee Avatar
    Alt-Good Swiftee

    Mamm, how could you overlook the rich, wood appointments throughout the sub? Some guys are never satisfied!

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