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.
They say that like it’s a bad thing.
Social and subjective are off limits because the are not measurable and do not contribute to the advance of science.
“Profs warn that ‘commitment to empirical science’ hurts women”
We’re dealing with 50 IQ apes who call themselves “professors.”
The collapsed bridge in Florida sure fell out of the news quickly.
Nice to know that some people of the younger generation keep diaries.
Why would any intelligent person allow a social scientist to read their diary?
I know.
You have to laugh otherwise I would be on my knees weeping.
The world has virtually become indistinguishable from an article from the Onion.
Liberals say satire is dead?
They are wrong. We are living in it.
I am literally lost for words...
Who creates clowns like this and why in the ell are they here instead of Venezuela?
“Meritocracy is a ‘tool of whiteness,’ claims math professor”
What is wrong with whiteness? Lord knows there’s enough of black this-and-that to choke a horse. What’s wrong with meritocracy? Everybody needs to pitch in.
I would guess the “diaries” were something they had to write because they had agreed to participating in this study.
That seems most likely, though I haven’t checked out the journal article itself. Then again, these sort of professors might not include anything about methodology...
Minorities RUIN EVERYTHING. If blacks cant score well on entrance exams, get rid of entrance exams. If they can’t pass civil service exams, hire them anyway, even though the service suffers. If women cant excel in “empirical science”, and are hurt by hiring the best, hire the less competent instead. This is INSANITY!
Well, the Leftist academics have decided to attack the last stronghold of conservatism in academia.
Science and engineering. The last bastions of logic in higher education.
How long can they hold out? I have little hope that they will be able to stand against the forces that will soon be unleashed upon them.
If the social justice warriors succeed in forcing political correctness on science and engineering education, we will see the end of the United States as a place for education. MIT Engineering will be relegated to the level of Granada Medical School.
Death of US Science and Engineering bump for later...
It is sexist to insist that women getting engineering paychecks be good at engineering.
Women engineers should get paid solely because they are women, not based on any patriarchal 18th-century standard like doing the work well.
Indeed, asking women engineers to show up is also sexist, and their paychecks should be mailed to them so that they can spend their time attending social justice rallies.
And another moronic, insane “professor”.
At one time, that title commanded respect, but like everything else liberalism touches, it’s been destroyed. “Professor” today is just a nothing burger.
Neither does the prof.
My son got his degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue. He described the course work as “grueling.” Good. I want it to be grueling.
At the chemical plant, the fluid in the pipe does not care about race, gender, age or sexual preferences of the person who sets the pressure, temperature and flow rate. If those things are wrong, the plant blows up and people die.
Yeah, I agree.
It is like they just threw a bunch of SJW cuss words together in something resembling a sentence.
Yeah who wants technology and bridges and planes that work because they are built using empirical science?
These profs and women would be the first to sue if harmed by faulty technology. They even blame working technology when they use it wrong. My wife got rear ended this winter by an old lady not paying attention who said her brakes failed.
Gotta wonder how the cop let her drive home if the “brakes failed”.
It has affected my view of professionals.
I am increasingly sceptical against minorities as well as females in various professions.
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.
Because their market value is rapidly declining because of this. (Next step is of course a government mandate to hire and a set salary - for “equality”)
And, insanity?
A few weeks ago there were massive student protests against a lecturer that had said males were on average taller than women. People are literally protesting reality.
Gravity?
I guess gravity is weightist since it affects fat people (ever ever so slightly) more.
BAN gravity. Perhaps I should not give them any ideas.
Can’t wait to hear Jordan Peterson’s rebuttal.
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