From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Apr 29 2001 - 13:21:36 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Amara Graps
> I strongly encourage people to pay attention to their own mindsets.
> If you *think* that people can only do limited things, then I'm quite
> sure that those limitations will be ONLY what you see, and you will find
> yourself in dreamy wistfulness "wishing" for something to exist, and
> you won't see it, even if it is in front of your very nose.
But Amara, to be fair to the person who thought women scientists are
unusual, it's *true* to a great extent that they're unusual, especially
women in positions of academic power. There are more female scientists now
than there were 25 years ago, but there still aren't very many who have
reached the top such that they're running research programsm heading
departments and so forth.
When I was 22 years old with a university degree and a commercial pilot's
license I applied to join the Air Force. I wanted to fly a plane, not a
desk. The guy who interviewed me laughed. You idiot, *girls* don't fly
planes. In retrospect, it's good I didn't join the military. I'd have hated
it; and if I'd been turned down because I had too much of an independent
spirit or a problem with obeying authority, I'd have said, okay, I see your
point. Nuff said. But to be laughed at because of my sex! I was a dmaned
good pilot too. For a girl. Just one memory out of many such.
So no one has to tell me anything about being discriminated against. Believe
me, I recognize it when I see it. But I didn't see that sort of thing in the
"cool athiest scientist chick" message.
Barbara
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