The article's subject was feminism's legacy of destroying the ability of women to think by corralling them in Women's Studies and labeling rationality as a tool of the patriarchy to divorce women from their intuition. I agreed with most of what he said, even though I didn't like the way he said it most of the time.

But then he said that because of this contempt for "masculine" logic and intellectual rigor, most women aren't able to handle the science required for hard SF. They either go for soft, romance-oriented SF or fantasy. He implies that choosing this means a lower intellectual capacity.

So, why don't I see more women writing hard SF when I look at the "new books" shelf in my library?

Pardon my French.

But seroiusly, there is a time and place for cussing, and that often comes when something looks like shit, smells like shit, acts like shit, and is, in fact, shit.

I feel better now.

I know LOTS of women in hard science and engineering. I don't personally have that background, but it is actually something I regret. I keep thinking that I should go back to school and get a degree in physics. I've always had a knack for math, I just never knew what I'd do with it until now so I stayed away. Now I know exactly what I want to dow ith it:

write hard scifi.

I'm not saying this because you posted this article, either. I've wanted to do this for some time, although I admit that even in my ahrd scifi I will almost certainly have a human angle to cling to.

I teach computer science, another field that interests fewer women than men. For a while we shared a scholarship with math & chemistry, for women only, all expenses paid. We had the devil of a time finding female students who were willing to major in CS. We graduated one recently, not stellar, but good. And she said, if it hadn't been for the scholarship, she'd have gone to the business school. Now that she's out, she's gone to grad school, in business.

For writers, I consider one of my favorites: Connie Willis. She does the technobabble as well as anyone. Her novel Bellwether showed something we don't see that often in SF: how science is really done -- and I think she got it right. But hard SF isn't where her heart is, so she doesn't do it. It all has a soft feel, few machines and gizmos, more history and personal relationships. Why shouldn't it?

That said, Christine, blow us away with your next opus.

This is only speaking about my experiences with my classmates, so it clearly suggests no conclusions for man kind at large. But the women I know tend to learn science and mathematics by memorizing processes and limits; they learn that "this doesn't work, you can't do this, if you're given this question you do this...". It's all a very abstract affair, to them.

Myself, and a fair portion of the men I know, tend to learn by gaining a visceral understanding of the physics behind the problem. Half the time all I do is look at a problem and I have a working model of it in my head.

My undersanding is that the situation is reversed when it comes to people and relationships. I, and many men I know, have merely an encyclopedic knowledge of limits and processes. And many women I know are able to think on a more basic level and understand the underlying laws of behavour.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that while both sexes are extremely capable of handling both situations, we do use our imagination in very different ways. The part of your brain that creates a working model of a problem (be it social or physical) is the exact same part that we use to take an idea for a story and run with it.

I might (and have) start a story by saying "It's physically possible to have a device that does this, what if I had one right now?". I would end up with a story that is a relatively hard sci-fi. Someone who uses their imagination for more people-oriented applications might think "What if this kind of person were put in this situation?". The resulting story would be oriented around the characters involved. As mentioned before, these stories tend to sell better as people are more likely to care about other people.

There's my two cents. I could be wrong.

-Josh

Everyone: I agree about choice v. ability. I've had enough experiences with various sciences and math that I know I can do the work if I wanted to.

I chose, however, to focus on the liberal arts in college. As much as I enjoy science, I enjoy the arts more. Writing is one of the most intellectually stimulating exercises I've known. That, and raising kids. Especially kids who have discovered the question "Why?".

Christine: looking forward to reading that novel. Reading this article makes me want to start on the research for my SF story that's been simmering in the back of my brain for a couple of years now. But I've got two fantasy stories that are demanding my attention first. Soon, though... soon.

wbriggs: Bellwether sounds interesting. And I agree, I think it's a choice women make. The only reason I would have majored in CS when I was in college was because I heard I could make a good living from it, but money means very little to me. As shown by my current interests.

JB: that's interesting. I write fantasy because I enjoy it, but I can see someone choosing it for other reasons.

Mike: you made a lot of sense. No matter what the genre, the characters are the most important part of the story.

Josh: feminists hate what you observed, for all their talk lately about getting in touch with "the goddess within". When John Gray's Men Are From Mars, etc. came out, I read more than one article in the more feminist-oriented mags that whined about his influence.

quote:

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...thus ensuring that this generation, like its foremothers, will also fail to accomplish anything worthy of historical regard.

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What exactly does he consider worthy of "historical regard"?

A few from the last century:
Mother Teresa
Freya Stark
Harriet Tubman
Florence Nightingale
Sally Ride (yeah, I'm sure she doesn't know anything about science)
Sandra Day O'Connor

If those women are not "of historical regard" then nothing is of historical regard.

People who write fiction are on the fringes of society. Those who write hard sci-fi are even more so. Unique people that have a strong interest in dressing fantasy in the nicest possible clothes.

Sci-fi is, after all, just fantasy with the illusion of realism. Hard sci-fi is just a stronger illusion.

Why should we believe that the fact that there are more male hard sci-fi writers has any significance beyond personal preference (or even chance) given the miniscule segment of the population that hard sci-fi writers represent?

I would agree with the concept that equality movements become counterproductive after equality has been established. I believe the vast majority of the US population believes women are just as capable as men. That makes us as equal as human beings are likely to get without degenderizing the sexes.

The guy's more of a jerk than I thought.

I think this man’s issue with women goes far beyond their ability or lack thereof (in his opinion) to write hard SciFi.

I think that any woman has the capacity to write as well as any man. Whether she is interested in the same topics is another matter entirely that has nothing to do with her ability. His statement that “women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics,” is a load of crap. If a woman was interested enough in the subject to do the research, she could “hack the physics” just fine.

I took particular offense at his comment that because women cannot “hack the physics,” they “stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.” I am a reader and writer of Fantasy and I do not see it as a weak-minded alternative to SciFi. You cannot create a believable world and all that entails without doing a good amount of hard research. You have to have a minimal understanding at least of biology, genetics, economics, geography, etymology, politics, sociology, physiology, psychology, and probably a lot of other ology’s that I’m forgetting.

I love math, geology, chemistry, biology, computers...my list could go on and on, but I can't stand physics. I learn what I have to as I need but I have no desire to do anything more than that.

I also have no desire to take a women's anything course.

I agree with what Christine said. This is nothing but a great big pile of unmittigated horse shit.

Now, even though I haven't seriously looked at biology in a few years, I don't remember it as particularly simplistic or "easy". In fact, some of the concepts were just as difficult to wrap one's head around as anything I saw in my friend's physics class where she played with tennis balls.

As for the higher mathematics, my husband tells me that the only trouble comes during Calculus II when a few paradigms have to shift. Other than that, it's relatively easy if you're willing to put in the work.

People are not stupid if they state they have no interest in physics or any of the hard sciences.

TaShaJaRo: I almost stuck that quote about fantasy writers in my original post. Then I decided to let it stay in context. It just seems too over the top to be believed. I'm surprised it ticked me off more than the obvious hatred of women this guy shows.

I remember Harrison ("Stainless Steel Rat") saying he thought it was sad that so many new writers are doing fantasy, because it's easy. I think he's half right. Adapting it to epic in particular: bad epic fantasy is easier than bad SF. But good epic fantasy is way harder than good SF.

I can count the epic fantasies I thought were worth reading. LotR; Hed; Forgotten Beasts of Eld (maybe not epic); Lyonesse. I may have forgotten one or 2. I find most of the others tedious. I think he's right also about the easiness in this regard: mostly, sword & sorcery has 1 milieu, as familiar as Star Trek, the difference being that if you set your story in the Federation, you get sued.

Women and men TEND towards differences that make men flock to physics and women flock to literature. There are two problems with this. One, the assumption that physics is somehow more intellectual, requiring more intelligence that literature or the fine arts. I would rather say that they require different kinds of intelligence at the same level, but this is a subject that has psychologists up in arms if you wave it by them.

Second, one of the reasons that men take to math better is the way that it's taught. Men tend to be visual learners and math, especially once you get into calculus-based math, is highly visual. I should know. I had to learn calculus without any ability to see the blackboard! Those of you who took this kind of math, can you imagine? I often wanted to ask my teachers to tape record their lectures and play it back to see if it made any sense to them. I mention this for another reason. That played-back tape is often what women, who tend towards auditory forms of learning, get out of a calculus class.

Sooooo....if I had my way I'd offer two different classes, one for visual learners and one for auditory learners. (notice I did not say one for men and one for women....these things are tendencies not rules but any auditory learner will get more out of a class geared that way). I heard the complaint from many women. Most of the older members of the hard sciences, the professors who pass on the knowledge, are men. Small wonder that they aren't taught differently.

I remember my first physics class in college. My test grades were, in order: C, C, A, A...final exam A. (I got a B in the class.) I got nothing out of class, but mid-semester I pestered the professor to no end. I asked him to explain again, and again, until I got it. And I do get it now. I was having trouble with forces. "Forces?" says my husband, "but they're easy!" Well, maybe to someone who gleams the information through those arrows he drew in this direction in that on those silly ramps. But for me, it only clicked after he SAID it in a way that made sense. After that, I even understood the pictures, but I needed them to have a verbal representation.

That's my take on women in hard sciences, anyway.

quote:

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I also remember when I was in college that a lot of non-science oriented students said that if you wanted an easy science course, take geology.

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Keeley, that's what the kids often thought when they started my intro geology classses. They were really upset when they found out that I was there to make them learn to think.

The fact is that in order to truly understand biology you need to have a very firm grasp of statistics, calculus, Newtonian physics, chemistry, and molecular physics, etc. The devices found in biology are so incredibly advanced that many of them take advantage of principles found in every single one of these fields. If you want specific examples, just ask. Biology is not "easy".

I agree in equality, and actually think that we haven't quite reached it yet; women are still payed less then men for the same jobs and it is usually assumed that when children happen it should be the woman that makes most of the professional sacrifices.

But to say that women's minds function in exactly the same way as men's is really pretty silly. There are documented differences in neuroanatomy between the sexes, suggesting that the behavior differences between men and women has a nature component as well as nurture. We go about things in different ways, that's all. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

As for the article...

And I do mean take them out. Take them out, take them out, burn them, BURN THEM I say!!

The really sad part is I love elves. *sniff*

Mike: At the risk of sounding like a kiss-up, if you were as passionate in your teaching as your characters in Stone Musings are about the subject, I think I would have enjoyed your class very much. Too bad you don't teach at my local college.

Christine: I never thought of looking at math that way. I do remember the first time I visualized an equation before I'd finished the problem. I told my husband about how excited I was and how different it felt. He frowned and said that he's always "seen" math.

Josh: thanks for the clarification regarding biology. I would accept your apology, but I'm no feminist -- in the traditional sense, anyway.

As for the article, I only posted the link so any respondants would have a reference for my question. We seem to be staying pretty much on topic... I think... and it's definitely an interesting discussion.

[edited to fix egregious spelling error.]

I know I shouldn't write this while my blood pressure is through the roof and I want to track this Vox waste of skin down and kick his self-righteous, miserably-ill informed, misogynistic ass into the next century.

Yet here I go.

First of all, you know how much his opinion is worth when he points to Anne Coulter as the only "serious" female author on the political scene. Are you freaking kidding me? This idiot's supposedly in SFWA, yet he hasn't met its president, Catherine Asaro? I'd like to see him talk down to her about astrophysics, quantum physics, or any of the other advanced sciences she has mastered. Or how about member Dr. Susan Shwartz? Or any of the dozens of other women in the field?

Vox populi is Latin for "voice of the common man" (I think. My Latin is rusty.)

Vox Dei is Latin for "voice of Gods" (Correct me if I am wrong here also.)

(I have the feeling I'm about to make myself very unpopular around here. And just so there are NO misunderstandings in gender--I am FEmale. But...)

I didn't read the article as so much an attack on women in general as an attack on a certain type of feminist who wants to be RECOGNIZED as equal to men without doing the work to PROVE it. I found the mood of the article to be very much lamenting this fact. Wishing that more women would pull their heads out of their feminist behinds and PROVE how very capable they are.

Not ONCE did he say that women are INCAPABLE of writing hard sci-fi. Not ONCE did he say that women are intellectually inferior. What he did say was that women have allowed, in the name of something called feminism, themselves to be shoved into a mindset that is proving to be detrimental to their intellectual development.

Did he go too far? Was he overly abrasive? Is he probably a big woman-hating jerk?

Sure. I'll concede that.

Did his comments offend women everywhere?

Of course they did.

Will women everywhere overreact because they've been conditioned by the vocal feminist movement to believe that ANY attack on women is akin to murdering babies?

Of course they will.

And how many of those same women will gleefully forward the next seven hundred man-bashing emails they receive from all their loving friends and family?

Every single damned one!

In the very appropriate words of Mr. Day himself:

quote:

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...no matter what sex you are, if you can't defend your assertions, if you can't fight on an equal playing field and if you won't engage in open intellectual battle with anyone who challenges your opinion, then you deserve the contempt in which you will be held.

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<awaiting hate mail>

I'm not a hard SF fan--don't read it and wouldn't want to write it. Don't like fantasy, either. However, my WIP does have a "strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely woman" who falls in love with a rugged man.... Well, not lumberjack rugged, so maybe that doesn't count in Day's estimation.

But I missed getting into Mensa by three IQ points. Several years later, as I recall, they lowered the limit and I would have gotten in with that same score. Thought of retrying but was afraid the years between might have robbed me of some grey matter and that I'd score lower. Was especially concerned I'd forgotten all the algebra I ever knew.

Almost a Mensa and I'm writing space opera. Go figure.

I was surprised Day didn't mention Nancy Hopkins storming out on Harvard president Larry Summer's speech about the possibility of "innate sex differences" explaining the dearth of women in top scientific echelons. Like Estrich, Hopkins just fueled the premise. No rebuttal, no counter evidence, she just ran off, afraid she would have "blacked out." Afraid she would faint. Talk about feeding a stereotype.

If Day might be troublesome for the conservative movement, Estrich and Hopkins are hardly helping the feminist movement.

I've read all Ann Coulter's books and I agree with Day that she's brilliant. Love what the Washington Post Book World wrote about her: "A fluent polemicist with a gift for Menckenesque invective...and she can harness such language to subtle, syllogistic argument." Even if you don't agree with her views, if you've read her books, you can't deny her intelligence. Day's point that Estrich responded to what she didn't like hearing with a "hissy fit" instead of some honest disputation is exactly why he admires Coulter. Hissy fits and fainting spells are poor substitutes for intelligent debate.

Thanks. I was afraid no one would say what you'd said by the time I got to the end of this thread, and then I'd have to say it, and I'm not even female and boy would that have caused trouble.

The point is, that while I disagree with some of what the guy said, and almost all of the way in which he said it, his points about feminism are largely valid--not all the details, but the effects. Fortunately, I don't think the effects are as extreme as he claims, but they're there and they're real.

Ah, and now I see that Kolona has posted while I was writing this. Though I'm still the only guy who's taken this position.

By they way, I DON'T think that women are unable to learn the hard sciences. Any of you who've heard me talk about my daughter should already know that.

I understand that MENSA accepts old tests. If you feel like becoming a member, and your old score qualifies, you shouldn't have to retake any tests.

Just checked Mensa website where they mention that different tests can be used and how different scores from two different tests can mean the same thing. Now I'm wondering if they used a different test from the time of my original try to that of the subsequent article I read.

I'll have to dig out my photo albums and find that letter.

Anecdotal evidence does not equal proof. Ever.

Yes, there are die-hard feminists out there who, in my opinion, cause more damage to the cause of women than good. Yes, there are women out there who take offense if someone opens a door for them or tries to pay for dinner. There are women out there who would like nothing better than to turn the world into an androgynous planet. And there are probably even women out there who will follow them like blind sheep. I have to have faith in my own gender that more women than not are NOT like that.

So for him to lump us all in with the vocal minority is a lack of research on his part and a blatant attack.

I’m also just fed up with the perception that Fantasy writing is some kind of sub-intelligent writing form and that SciFi and Literary writing is what the “real” writers write. Only those who have had their submissions to The National Enquirer repeatedly rejected end up writing Fantasy because that’s all they’re good for. I know that no one here thinks that but it seems to be a pervading attitude out there. I’m also sick of math and science being the end-all be-all standard of intelligence. I totally suck at math and sciences so I greatly admire anyone who can understand them. But do not forget that there are ancient languages out there that scholars today still cannot decipher. Take Nubia for example. After thousands of years, we are STILL unable to translate their writings, they were that advanced.

And one last thing, though I’m in danger of sounding like a feminist saying it…how many women major in business and arts because they have been told all their lives that they will never excel at anything else? And they were not told this by feminists but fathers and mothers and good old fashioned regular people. When I wanted to learn oceanography and study to do all those marvelous things the people who discovered the Titanic do, my mother told me not to. “That’s not what women do.” When I wanted to play drums in the school band, my mother made me play flute instead because “women do not play drums.”

Until I got to the part where he said that women hadn't learned to think well enough to hack hard SF and that's why more women didn't write it.

I still agree with his basic premise that feminists are turning into the Victorian images they tried to obliterate (the idiot schemer and the delicate flower). And I agree that this very vocal minority has put out some very bad science makes the situation of women seem worse than it actually is. And I agree that people are, for the most part, sheep. There's a reason Jesus kept calling himself the Good Shepherd.

But to say that women have chosen to avoid writing hard SF because they've been lulled away by feminism struck me as ill-informed and just wrong. My own opinion has already been stated. I posted this because I started to wonder if maybe I was looking at the situation wrong. I'm a relative newbie to the writing world, after all. And this guy is a member of SFWA. He must be in the know, right?

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and opinions, every single one. I love knowing this board can discuss this topic without turning into a flame war.

As for Ann Coulter, I think she's intelligent, but I can't stand the way she writes. She's too combative. I much prefer Wendy McElroy.

1) Children learn the hard sciences best prior to puberty.

2) Girls' puberty comes before boys'.

3) The hard sciences are taught in schools AFTER the girls' puberty and prior to the boys'.

As for me - I adore science and math. I discuss Quantum physics over lunch and calculus is a light chat among friends.

Unfortunately I went to school in a small town (one my father threatened to burn daily) and girls were sent to Home Economics and not science.

Everything I know, I taught myself and continue to keep abreast of the ongoing studies. Has anyone read about the String Theory? But I digress.

I write SF - hard SF - but stick to Paranormal and Mythology as they're closer to my heart. Besides, I find most hard SF to be a boring read and I much prefer to creep out my victims than educate them.

hehe

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050307/

The instructor teaching Linear Algebra was one of those rare non-visual engineers, and he was in love with the language of math. He would go on and on in class about spans and vectors, and without a picture to look at I was completely lost. I barely passed that class, and I love math.

I would guess that if I kept getting classes like that I would be able to find ways to cope and get normal grades (probably by memorizing a series of limits and processes ), but my understanding would never be intuitive enough to write a story based on it. I'm not entirely sure who'd be interested in reading a story based on linear algebra, anyways.

<shrug>