The other night a friend and I were having a bit of discussion about the role of men and women in a marriage.... i.e. the "proper" role. He took the position that women should stay in the home because, "women suck at work." Obviously, as a woman who has worked hard for the past 20 years (I started at an early age of 12, filing and preparing mailings for my grandfather's family business), I took issue with his response. I asked him why he thought that women "sucked" at work, and he concluded that women are naturally bad at things like science and math, and therefore are no good for the workforce. He then asked me to name any one woman scientist that has contributed anything worthwhile to the world of science. A-hem. Marie Curie? His response? "Who's that?" I listed off some more women of science and other highly compitent women of history, none of which he was familiar with.
As he is my friend, and things were getting heated, I decided we should table this topic and "agree to disagree". I ponder at his thought process on this partly because I am a woman, partly because I have been a woman of science since I was a teenager and I hold a BS in Biology. Mostly though, I ponder his thoughts because I am curious about cultural differences and I am certain it has something to do with his mindset on this issue. So, how are we different?
- I am female, he is male (stating again for the list)
- I am born and raised American, he is born and raised Egyptian
- I was raised Christian, he was raised Muslim
These are the only differences that I am certain of. It may be possible that his mom did and does not work, whereas mine has worked my entire life and could easily be referred to as a work-aholic. Both of my grandmothers also worked outside of the house. Therefore, our expereinces in the home could have differed in that way too. He is probably used to a different "normal" than I am.
I have decided to post this question of who is better at science and math, since that was his main reasoning, on my twitterfeed, @myownenigma77. I will update with what is presented in replies here in this blog. Feel free to add your comments here as well. I do ask please that you don't just leave an opinion, but also offer some type of referernce as well. Thanks!
Happy debating!
My reference is life, my own other never worked outside the home until I was outside the home...She herself held a job from the age of 16 outside of the home and upon meeting my father at age 21 left the only country she knew (England) and moved to my father's home of America. She raised their three children, while building a cottage industry from her home base, making and selling jewelry their basement. I have fond memories of having my own work station, in which I had all the tools to make beautiful ornaments. She wasn't necessarily great at math while I was growing up, but as a student in the UK, she did excel. Considering that she moved to a country that had an entirely different math system I thought she did pretty good. She muddled through and eventually became a model student of the American System. This doesn't actual speak to your question of who is better at Math & science. However, it does address the cultural differences we all suffer when we dare to enter the cultures of others. I graduated in the bottom half of my class, Math & science may have well been torture chambers for me in HS. But, I have worked for more than 40 years in one type if financial world or another with much success and with little more than a calculator!
ReplyDeleteas i see , both are equal
ReplyDeletethis videos are what i want to say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOvh9DEcVvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hiv74ukW0M
hope u like it