It almost goes without saying that this has been an eventful weekend. Over 20 tornados touching down in Kansas, and similar weather shenanigans in Oklahoma. Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota all got hit as well. There were tornado warnings right outside the Twin Cities. Freaky stuff. Hopefully this is all winding down.

Now on to something rant worthy! As some of you may know via a Facebook note a while back, I hold engineering and the sciences in very high esteem. As an engineer I value hard work and judge based on merit, efforts, and results. The only discrimination is against those who can't do the job. This discrimination is necessary since the hard sciences impact so many lives. We cannot make mistakes.

This is why I got so upset when I saw this article a while back. It amazed me that people would think there's this huge discrimination against women going into the hard sciences. More women graduate then men, and more women hold higher degrees. There's nothing that says women aren't capable of doing anything they want to do. It's just that in the hard sciences, the percentage of women is much less than that of men. You can read my note on Facebook for more on that, and in the article itself. 

Then on Digg today there was this. Many women stay out of science and engineering because many aren't interested in it. REALLY??? People don't do things they aren't interested in? And this is a controversial study? I know lots of guys who dropped out of engineering because they weren't interested in the math or the amount of time required for the classes. Why is this some big mystery that we have to figure out? Just because some job or field doesn't have the same percentages of sex and race that the population at large has, doesn't mean there's a problem. It just means people do whatever they're interested in.

I've never understood the idea that men and women have to be supremely equal. We're not "equal" creatures, we're complimentary. A man is not better than a woman, and a woman is not better than a man. The only equality that is necessary is that everyone gets equal opportunity. That's it. If a guy wants to enter a field that's stereotypically female, he should be able to. If a woman wants to enter a field that's stereotypically male, she should be able to. The only restriction on anyone is just whether or not they can fulfill the requirements of the education and of the job. 

I'm tired of people still fighting the old gender wars. So what if there's not a lot of women in engineering or sciences? They can have whatever career they want. Categorizing people into groups instead of viewing them as individuals will only make the problem worse.

Now here's the real question, if we need to change things to make sure there are more women in engineering and sciences, why aren't we starting programs to fix the huge gender gap in the humanities and social sciences? I mean, everyone has to be equal, right?

-Mike