| Not sure if I'm going to express an unpopular opinion on that matter but I'm pretty sure that ot was already said somewhere in the comments in some different form. Not sure if my opinion even counts to people like ones who authored this strange piece of text since I'm from the mischievous and sinister kind of people collectively called "straight white male", and thus I may not have the fitting amount of oppression points to be heard. But I'll try anyway. I think that the article itself revolves heavily about some prestige or whatever. So here comes the first question: does the person who cares about prestige more than science possess the amount of dedication and discipline to get to the higher ranks? In my opinion, the answer is strong "no" at the very least. To be proficient and productive, to be useful, you have to dedicate all your hard work towards your chosen discipline. Apparently you must be interested very much in it. It doesn't just fall down upon the "privileged cast", it's a competitive field, and outcome of that, if any, depends on dedication and the ability to act smart without relying on anyone or anything else too much. The second question will be: do you actually know better than the people who make their own life choices? I mean, they do things or don't do them for a reason. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's good, but if we talk about education and science, it's nothing close to sexism in the vast majority of cases. The third part is simpler. What will happen if we enforce/regulate/implement quotas? The amount of useful output will decline. You can't force people into being effective and they will not be effective by "getting there" just by regulations and quotas. And for the last one, some personal part. Last couple of years I study quite complex math (abstract algebra mostly) on my own out of pure interest in it. I don't have any mentorship, and I don't suffer from it. My dedication compensates for it. It's a bit anecdotal but I believe that you can achieve a lot just by being dedicated and interested. You will not get even close by being placed there and babysat until you're "big enough". Think about it. Cheers! |