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.
Is what killed America.
Ask any married man. A wife will drag up empirical evidence to show what a doofus her husband is at the drop of a hat. No need for reference books - she will drag out something from months ago from memory.
:)
The professors argue that the emphasis on "meritocracy," "individualism," and "technical prowess" in engineering all contribute to a "masculine culture" that marginalizes women.
Thanks Eurotwit. IOW, these professors are not fit to teach, and they prefer education to reward by gender, as long as the gender is female. Should have seen this coming when STEM becamse an alleged priority under Obama.
These concessions to “victims” have aggravated racial and gender problems because even when we give unearned diplomas, degrees, and certificates to “preferred minorities” and women, they quickly find that in the workforce they have little value - as they have little to offer an employer. Rather than denounce the sham educations, they denounce the job market and employers...who are then required by threat of lawsuit to hire them. Wealth transfers and window dressing, nothing more. I’ve worked with some bright women and minorities - but have noticed a strange trend where retiring old white guys are being replaced by TWO of these tokens at a clip - and still underperforming. They simply reach out tot he retirees’ peers, trying to reconstruct how he did his job.
The charade is exposed when you see women in unearned, unmerited positions refusing to hire men. It is beyond simple gender warfare - they are deathly afraid of losing their jobs to better-qualified workers. I’ve seen quite a few older women who hire friends and acquaintances, so whole departments are staffed by older white women who will all reach retirement age within a short time of each other. The fact that management allows this shows how little regard is given the whole department; no contingency exists for those retirements, and when they are gone the company will just start over with new talent - the talent these ageing, tired female managers will NEVER hire.
I wonder if this marxist professor would go to a surgeon who did not earn their medical license based on individual merit?
Great point. I pray the future standard for science and engineering involves something other than stating for the record “There are more than two genders” and yet I expect political affinity will be the deciding factor on who is designated as “employable” and “competent” in the living hell the left dreams of for the future.
Perhaps, but a commitment to empirical science is required if you don’t want your bridge to collapse.
And, compromise is failure.
Another reason I don’t trust new bridges
For years, crazy feminists complained that the design of rockets was sexist because they are phallic. I responded that once they successfully fly a vagina-shaped rocket, I will accept their point.
“I am literally lost for words...”
I’m not, IDIOCRACY is a documentary. I think that covers it.
We are living in the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
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