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Profs warn that 'commitment to empirical science' hurts women
Campus Reform ^ | Mar 23, 2018 at 9:45 AM EDT | Toni Airaksinen

Posted on 03/29/2018 6:34:49 PM PDT by Eurotwit

A recent academic journal article claims that "meritocratic ideology" and "depoliticized" classroom environments contribute to a sense of exclusion and isolation among female students.

The professors argue that the emphasis on "meritocracy," "individualism," and "technical prowess" in engineering all contribute to a "masculine culture" that marginalizes women.

Four professors are warning that the “hegemony of meritocratic ideology” and other manifestations of “masculine culture” in engineering courses are detrimental to women.

Led by Carroll Serron, who teaches at the University of California-Irvine, the March 1 study contends that the sense of exclusion and isolation felt by female engineering students is exacerbated by the overwhelming “meritocratic ideology” in the field.

Though some scholars argue that engineering culture upholds hegemonic masculinity, Serron and her team take a different approach, arguing that it is not specifically “hegemonic masculinity” that hurts women but rather “meritocratic ideology.”

[RELATED: Meritocracy is a ‘tool of whiteness,’ claims math professor]

The professors are especially concerned with how engineering courses tend to be “depoliticized” compared to classes in other fields, which they contend is due in part to engineering culture’s emphasis on meritocracy and individualism.

“Socialization into the ideologies of meritocracy and individualism, coupled with a valorization of ‘technical’ prowess at the expense of ‘socially focused’ work processes, depoliticizes the gendered structure of the profession,” they write.

The professors add that this can be problematic because “students learn that raising concerns about marginalization—of themselves or others—is tangential or even distracting to what counts as the ‘real’ practical and objective work of engineering.”

“In its commitment to empirical science, technical thinking, merit, and individualism, engineering culture allocates what it sees as political issues, such as gender equality, to the realm of the social and subjective, therefore, off-limits,” the paper asserts. “Thus, the depoliticized culture of engineering also constitutes a degendered space where issues that may be of social concern to women in science are also devalued and marginalized.”

Based on a review of diary entries from three-dozen female engineering students, the professors conclude that female students are also guilty of upholding this problematic culture through their unwillingness to critique it.

“Rather than telling what [some researchers] describe as a subversive story...these women engineers are often reproductive agents of the ideology of meritocracy, helping perpetuate existing relations of power and inequality,” they write.

“Rather than resisting hegemonic meritocracy, these brilliant young women engineers are its active promoters,” they say, later adding that this commitment to meritocracy undermines women’s best interests, as it unwittingly reinforces the “gendered consequences of engineering professional hegemony.”

The study—“I’m not a Feminist, but…”: Hegemony of a Meritocratic Ideology and the Limits of Critique Among Women in Engineering”—was published in the recent issue of the journal Work and Occupations.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2018election; 2020election; academia; brianrubineau; carrollserron; election2018; election2020; engineering; erincech; feminism; postmodernism; susansilbey
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To: Eurotwit

Stupid.


41 posted on 03/29/2018 7:17:53 PM PDT by Innovative ("Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." -- Vince Lombardi)
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To: Eurotwit

42 posted on 03/29/2018 7:17:53 PM PDT by Covenantor (Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern. " Chesterton)
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To: Eurotwit

Professor Carroll Serron is trying to say, in her cute way, that “science is hard!”


43 posted on 03/29/2018 7:21:52 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: Eurotwit

I graduated with a BS in a true science and had to take every math class and chemistry twice.

Didn’t cry about it just did it.


44 posted on 03/29/2018 7:22:59 PM PDT by Rebelbase ( Hillary, DNC, DOJ and FBI colluded with a British National to influence the 2016 Pres. election)
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To: Eurotwit
In other academic news from last fall. A professor got an article published through peer review in some post-colonialism journal that there also were some positive elements to colonialism. The Professor is now in hiding fearing for his life last I checked.

This is what we get for throwing money at education when Leftist control the universities.

They create social sciences out of Leftist ideology. Then they populate these new sociology schools with SJWs.

These professors are like other professors, they have to publish or perish.

Thus, we get papers like this. These academics must find new socially misanthropic dragons to slay.

So, the new dragon is ‘meritocracy and individualism’. We can only hope that this paper is laughed off campus.

45 posted on 03/29/2018 7:23:40 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.L)
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To: aquila48

Note to self: Stay off recently constructed bridges.


46 posted on 03/29/2018 7:23:42 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX (For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. ~ Hosea 8:7)
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To: Architect of Avalon

Preach it!


47 posted on 03/29/2018 7:23:51 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Then if the bridge falls, a male scapegoat who was not even associated with the project will be found and punished, simply because he is male, thus an oppressor.


48 posted on 03/29/2018 7:25:02 PM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
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To: Eurotwit

2+2 doe snot equal 4 if it hurts some idiot’s feeling they didn’t know that.


49 posted on 03/29/2018 7:25:14 PM PDT by CodeToad (The Democrats haven't been this pissed off since the Republicans took their slaves away.)
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To: Eurotwit

“In my opinion, the people who should rise up and challenge this nonsense first and foremost is intelligent people of colour and females and whatnot.”

They are going to ruin the reputation of female scientists the same way they did it for black physicians. It used to be that for a black to become a Dr meant he was at least as good as a white. Then they started admitting and graduating them using affirmative action. Now I wouldn’t trust one to work on my dog.

I have worked with many good female scientists and can tell you that they they are very capable of doing “empirical science”. There is no need to dumb down anything or raise questions about their ability.


50 posted on 03/29/2018 7:27:50 PM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (The first step in ending the war on white people is to recognize it exists.)
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To: Eurotwit

“Four professors are warning that the “hegemony of meritocratic ideology” and other manifestations of “masculine culture” in engineering courses are detrimental to women. ... “Socialization into the ideologies of meritocracy and individualism, coupled with a valorization of ‘technical’ prowess at the expense of ‘socially focused’ work processes, depoliticizes the gendered structure of the profession,” they write.”

How would you like to be riding in a plane designed by these gals?

Give them a participation trophy and then send them to a Fauxcahontas Warren rally.


51 posted on 03/29/2018 7:29:44 PM PDT by SharpRightTurn (Chuck Schumer--giving pond scum everywhere a bad name.)
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To: Eurotwit
the “hegemony of meritocratic ideology”...

If the ghost of Marie Curie starts hunting these idiots down I swear I'd hand her the axe.

52 posted on 03/29/2018 7:30:49 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Freee-dame
Interesting thing on the bridge failure here (some foul language involved):

FIU Bridge Failure Analysis

53 posted on 03/29/2018 7:31:31 PM PDT by Tench_Coxe
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To: Eurotwit

These ‘professors are full of s1ht.

Don’t EVER let them near an engineering project !


54 posted on 03/29/2018 7:42:27 PM PDT by A strike (Academia is almost as racist as Madison Avenue)
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To: Eurotwit
The four authors of the paper:

Carroll Seron
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society
Social Ecology II, Room 3389

Susan S. Silbey
Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology
Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences, Sloan School of Management

Erin A. Cech
Assistant Professor
Gender and Sexuality; Culture and Knowledge

Brian Rubineau
Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour

55 posted on 03/29/2018 7:43:57 PM PDT by Tench_Coxe
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To: Eurotwit

The enemy of the godless left Globalists is always the same one: white male heterosexual men who are competent and intelligent. They are the least likely to be manipulated by the garbage these Communists are selling, therefore they must be marginalized and eliminated.


56 posted on 03/29/2018 7:44:53 PM PDT by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: Tench_Coxe

Sloan School of Management

That’s MIT.

Massachusets Institute of Technology.

Yeah...

As you were...


57 posted on 03/29/2018 7:46:16 PM PDT by Eurotwit (FRexit? No. AdiEU. - Loud Mime)
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To: Eurotwit

Slouching toward mediocrity.


58 posted on 03/29/2018 8:02:27 PM PDT by Spok ("What're you going to believe-me or your own eyes?" -Marx (Groucho))
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To: Eurotwit

Dumbing down science to make idiots feel good about themselves.


59 posted on 03/29/2018 8:03:22 PM PDT by Trillian
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To: Eurotwit

Who decided that women and non-white people lack merit? That sounds sexist and racist to me.


60 posted on 03/29/2018 8:04:08 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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