(12-19-2024, 09:06 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote:

(12-19-2024, 12:11 PM)The Real Marty Wrote: That's idealistic, but what happens when the cream rises to the top and it's mostly from one group?  People start looking for reasons that fit their own point of view.  Then the blame game starts, and the assumption from some people is that the "winning" group got there because of an unfair system.  And if you don't agree with that, you get burned at the stake.

Right now in chess, they've tried to rectify the inequality by setting up special tournaments just for women, and a special category of grandmaster, called "women's grandmaster" where women can qualify for that title without being a real grandmaster.  Supposedly this is to encourage more women to participate in chess.  I think that whole approach is very demeaning to women, and some women who hold the real grandmaster title have refused to participate in such activities.

It's called human nature. If you go to the biblical story of Adam and Eve you see two people who were created to be stewards over the earth, not over other people but over the animals and such. They could have anything they wanted except to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge Good and Evil (something like that). They were 100% fine with that until the serpent tells Eve what she's (allegedly) missing, what's being withheld from her, why she's incomplete without being able to eat from that tree. And it was a lie.

That is what's wrong with society in general and it's been happening for millennia. Add that to what Bunnie said about how differently boys and girls are talked to and the fact that women not only couldn't have a checkbook of her own but couldn't buy anything that required a loan without her husband's signature. They also couldn't have their name on a news story even though they did all the research and wrote the articles. They had to turn it over to the men who put their names on it and were called 'brilliant'. That was in the 70s and these things and so much more was some [BLEEP]. 

It takes a couple of generations at the very least to weed that patriarchal BS out of people's minds but many, mostly southern white men, just can't let it go so it lingers and a diluted version is passed down to their kids who are told the things Bunnie mentioned and those kids grow up with a distorted view of themselves and the world. Just as Eve was told what was 'wrong' with her, us girls are too, just in different ways. I'm obviously not a boy and can't speak to that but I'm sure it's similar.

And don't even get me started on what present day so-called 'feminists' have done to undo so much of what my mother's generation started for women's rights. 

I went off the rails from your original intent for this subject but you only have two of us here that can give a woman's perspective and Bunnie had her say. I get a bit....animated on this subject. 

As for math and science, I sucked at both. Hardcore. If there is dyslexia or something similar in math I have it. Without math you don't have science. Or a career in the medical field above a nursing assistant or EMT. I wanted to be a nurse or a cardiac ultrasonographer in the Army but both required math that my mind couldn't process so I was a medic. I actually was not a good student across the board because I had undiagnosed ADHD (inattentive) and my brain couldn't learn the same way normal kids could. I believe things like that also affect how girls and boys think and grow into adult men and women and what they end up going into.

It was still true as I was growing up.  If a girl stunk at math, the school would just say oh well. But if a boy stunk at math they would try to figure out what learning disability he had and get him a tutor. A girl with a learning difficulty either had to stick up for herself, or have parents who stuck up for her, because the teachers were going to let her fall through the cracks.

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(12-19-2024, 09:24 PM)Jag149 Wrote:

(12-19-2024, 02:26 PM)mikesez Wrote: I don't understand this post. You are a white man, yes? I thought the topic was, what might work to increase professional success for girls or minorities. So if you can't tell us that your approach works for anyone but you, what exactly are you contributing to this conversation?

First the bolded is a pretty poor statement. Also, appears you are just being obtuse. Is it deliberate?

Well, sure. Because I have success at something doesn't mean everyone will. It worked for me also the guy who mentored me. Last I checked for those that moved on to a lot better positions and careers. (Time frame was 5-7 years) In fact a quite a few are pretty successful executives, Managers etc. in fortune 100 companies. That depended on what they wanted out of life a few began their own businesses. (Plumbers, electricians different trades, one runs a crane at the port) Your suppose to mentor people in life. Don'tcha know?

You have a pretty high opinion of your impact as a mentor.
One of the guys I mentored just had his face all over ESPN for a week or two last year.  But all I said was, "hey I know that guy!" Not "look at the impact I had!"

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