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.
1. Deeper into the rabbit hole we go. Academia is largely lost outside of the hard sciences and now they are coming for things like engineering. I would really appreciate if competency was a factor selecting those who designed the airplane I fly on, the bridge I am crossing or the skyscraper I am sitting in. Thank you.
2. A thought has really occured to me lately as well that I never really pondered before, but it is how there is a massive generational divide. I guess it has always been thus. The rocking 60's is just "history" for me experienced through videos etc. It's not quite real, whilst for my dad it was the most important years of his life. Likewise now, kids growing up these days have no idea about a world without microagressions, feminist madness and transexual activism as well as muslims blowing themselves up all over the place. To me and many of us...This is down the rabbit hole, but to them that is normality - the way the world has always been - for them.
With the massive attack on life, liberty and happiness that have occured all over the western world, it is frightening to consider how the generations now are separated.
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.
Welcome to 2018.
Euro.
Bookmark mark under “the west deserves what it’s going to get”.
If anyone believes this crap, I have an all-female designed bridge at Florida International University I’d like to sell you.
No wonder that empirical science is under attack.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah... technical prowess is over rated anyway. Especially if you want to build a bridge or something...
I put money on none of these professors have a science background. Most likely sociology
Just because they felt stupid in math or chem doesn’t mean the rest of us did
Good Lord! What a load of incoherent, sanctimonious twaddle!
I suggest that the professor apply those high ideals to the medical profession and challenge him to have one of the graduates be assigned as his only doctor.
Yeah, the truth hurts women. The end is near.
You can either:
A. Do the math
B. Not do the math.
If A then STEM degree. If B then basketweaving degree.
—Female with STEM degrees.
Ignoring excellence in engineering results in bridges falling on people.
Which means they’ve admitted that women can’t do math.
Cultural Marxism, which is behind this nitwitery, was an intentional assault on the character and conduct of the peopleof the West.
We should have hanged the communist, not let the Left adopt them as both victims and ideological heroes.
Basketweaving?
If it only were that well.
Instead you get sociology professors attacking STEM, whiteness, males, women who do not agree with them etc.
Thankfully, the women who themselves study engineering are not onboard with this madness it seems:
“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.”
I think it is no coincidence that math prowess correlate highly with intelligence which again correlates highly with societal stability and success.
Facts, merit, empirical science, rigor.... all the things that SHOULD matter in the practice of engineering and they are all under assault from these demented leftards.
What, do they want more collapsing bridges? Do they care if our planes, rockets, roads, vehicles, etc. work properly and safely??????
“unwillingness to critique it”
I’ll critique it.
Lazy a@@ women who want to party, get laid and otherwise stay out of math classes but want the big paychecks.
Eff them.
I’ll add ‘plain’ to the description above. The lookers already know how to get big ‘paychecks’.
I have no idea what the Prof is trying to say.
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