Apologies for the light posting...
I start a new job today, and have been busy either preparing for it or relaxing in my jammies, getting caught up on sleep and otherwise performing non-web activities. Once I get settled into a routine, daily posting will resume.
But I just have to mention a New York Post article I read today. Ralph Peters pays homage to American women and talks about those "root causes" that make the Isamafascists so angry at us. It seems that the late Mohammed Atta and his buddies are "the world's most sexually insecure males this side of a child-molesters' convention", and the traditional Muslim communities are stalled because women are forbidden to move about in society:
For backward - that taboo word fits - societies, such as those that paralyze all hope in the Middle East, there isn't a chance of challenging America's pre-eminence. It's not just our head start: Our society is structured for ceaseless self-improvement. Much of the Arab world prefers self-delusion. And there's a "No Women or Dogs" sign above every doorway that could lead to national development.
THE math isn't hard. No society that oppresses half its population - the female half - can compete with a society that exploits the majority of its talents.
Worse, countries that revel in gender oppression consistently waste even more talent by excluding males who weren't born into the right families or tribes from the possibility of social and economic advancement. Woman-hating cultures, such as those of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, also fit a pattern of stifling the freedom of expression, shortchanging education, imposing a harsh religious orthodoxy, employing corruption as a tool of social control and blaming others for home-grown ills. This is not a formula for success in the 21st century.
If there is any single indicator of which societies will succeed or fail in the coming decades, it is the status of women. Societies where the girls get a fair shot at beating the boys at soccer, university studies or software writing are going to leave those whose sexual terrors are expressed in veils and an obsession with virginity in the dust.
Oh, and those 70 virgins? Sounds like a lot of dreary work to me. I'll take one American career-woman any day (ain't nothing like a major babe in a tailored suit who picks up the dinner tab).
American career-woman? That's me. I have the tailored suits, I can pick up the dinner tab (I know where the good, cheap restaurants are in Philly), and on a good day, I can pass for a babe. In low lighting. Over a bottle of wine. When I've gotten a good night's sleep.
Anyway, I've also had the chance to appreciate those shattered glass ceilings first-hand. Psychometrics is a relatively young field, and, from its beginning in the 1920's until the early 1970s, was composed of almost exclusively male researchers. Since then, women have been welcome into the field and now make up (by my estimate) half of all psychometrics graduate students. I've had the good fortune to work with nine talented, intelligent psychometric research assistants who are employed at testing companies while simultaneously working on their advanced degrees, and eight of them are women. And this growth is not attributable any quotas, or because of lowered standards. A high GRE (including on Analytical) and statistics courses and research experience are still necessary for graduate school admission, and a Ph.D. is required to work in the field. No exceptions.
I'm thankful to Ralph Peters for his article - in addition to setting the women-hating Muslims straight, he takes a delicious swipe at the reactionary, self-centered "feminists" on college campuses who bewail the state of American women. The article reminds me, amidst all my stress about the new job and the blog and life in general, just how lucky I am to live in a country that allows women so much freedom.