www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Center for Gender Equity makes some more equal than others

San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 01&sc=1000

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Wednesday, April 27, 2005

UCSF's Center for Gender Equity hosts its annual "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" on Thursday -- but judging from the list of activities being offered, the gender equity program is anything but equal.

For example, the 9- and 10-year-old daughters are being invited to participate in 17 hands-on activities such as working with microscopes, slicing brains, doing skull comparisons, seeing what goes on in the operating room, playing surgeon, dentist or nurse for a day, and visiting the intensive care unit nursery, where they can set up blood pressure cuffs and operate the monitors.

They can learn about earthquake and disaster preparedness, how to use a fire extinguisher, how to operate several types of equipment -- even fire a laser.

And what do the boys get to do?

Learn about "gender equity in fun, creative ways using media, role playing and group games" -- after which, the boys can get a bit of time in with a microscope or learn how the heart works.

"It's ridiculous," says one UCSF doc, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the University. "I have no problem with the Center for Gender Equity, but just make it equitable."

Longtime center director Amy Levine, however, tells us the program isn't intended to give boys and girls the same learning opportunities -- nor, she says, is it a career day.

"It's about dealing with effects of sexism on both boys and girls and how it can damage them," she said.

Hence, while the boys undergo gender sensitivity training, the girls focus on their capabilities -- be it handling a scalpel or microscope.

UCSF tried mixing the boys with the girls a few years back, but Levine says it just didn't work out.

"It mirrored the same sexism that occurs in the classroom daily," she said, "where boys raise their hands more often, demand more attention and have discipline problems."

So now the boys have their own gender sensitivity program, where "they learn about violence prevention and how to be allies to the girls and women in their lives," Levine said.



Ringo

Also:

The University of California's San Francisco campus is almost, if not entirely, consisted of health care research and training. UCSF is not a diverse university like the other UC campuses, e.g. UCLA where you can major in spanish (but UCLA medicine and nursing are also top notch). By contrast, UC Santa Cruz, on the other hand, well, their mascot is the Banana Slug. Go Slugs! No medical school at UCSC.

UCSF is the premier medical campus within the U. of CA system, and as far as institutions receiving top-dollars go, up there with Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, et. al. And on career day they are keeping little boys "in line," even though numbers of med. school female graduates now exceed males.

Ringo

Ah, California.
"And the libs shall inherit the earth"
LVSteve

_________________
Just an old horney, fat gambler.

YO: California is just priceless.

Real men are going to become an endangered species in that state. But I don't see this as a liberal vrs. conservative thing. It's the NOW gang, lesbian and gay rights and a bit of female rage at men thing. It's a new age culture thing.

BTW, I predict that within 10 years form now that spanish will be required course study in at least 6 of 12 public school years and will be added to SAT tests. Book it Dano.

_________________
Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.

Ya gotta love California, the land of fruits, nuts, berries,
oh yeah, and agriculture.

_________________
It is cheaper to pay now and get it over with.
It is also easier to get them to leave.

little men like guns, wrestling, fighting, farting

little women like dolls, dress up, tea parties

the difference in the sexes is hardwired, PhD's got to come up with some enlightened view to validate their worth. Don't let the government educate your offspring...

that's the view from my pigheaded trench...

_________________
Eu gosto de brasileiras...

Ah the Peoples Republic of California lol.

I still loved my 3 years out there, you could count on good weather every weekend, and NO HURRICANES!

Having worked for the United States veterans hospitals for far too long before I finally threw-in the towel, I have some insight to government agency politics. This case is not about the "Peoples' Republic of California." This could have happened in Mississippi.

This here is a case of a man-hating witch with an agenda in charge of "gender equity." A man-hating witch with power, and a government job she can't be removed from without a horrendous lawsuit against the U. of CA. So the witch became an unstoppable tyrant, bullying little boys into classes "learning" how to be "allies" with women instead of playing with the microscopes like their sisters.

Somehow, little boys with their testosterone push raise their hands faster in class to get attention from the teacher. So the natural remedy for this original sin is to take little boys away from the girls and the cool hospital demonstrations, and teach them how to behave more like girls since boy behavior is bad. Did I mention boy behavior is bad?

Carol Gilligan of Harvard is the perpetuator of such dog mess.

Boy behavior is bad. Don't you ever forget that, men! Women are so nurturing by nature--especially to other women who are better looking than they are. Right?

Summing up, this is about a woman with power who has the insight of a female chimp taking out her primitive instincts upon little boys. In sum, a female bully. 'Nuff said.

Ringo

I have had many chances to move to CA over the years for career opportunities but the idea of living there with their liberalism, cost of living and politics stops me every time.

What I cannot figure out is how can CA be so goofy and feminist and then elect the guvenator? Seems like something is a little out of whack there.

I disagree.
Most states have a higher percentage of 'normal' people so that weirdness like this would not be tolerated.

_________________
It is cheaper to pay now and get it over with.
It is also easier to get them to leave.

Ringo -- You nailed a lot there, and my excessive consumption of coffee this A.M. is leading my brain down some further speculative pathways.

Men and women compete for power -- as said above, it's hardwired -- and women attempt to "steal" men's power in deceptive, manipulative ways, since they have only 20% of the upper body strength and need to harness men's strength to get things in this world.

In the million years of evolution (950,000? as hunter-gatherers) that got us here, "jobs" are a true anomaly. (They are even an anomaly in the 10,000 years of farming we've recently had.)

Government jobs are an even odder anomaly. Weird, weird things just have to come out of government jobs.

Now, put a woman -- power unchecked -- in a government job, leave her to work her power-stealing ways against men (in this case, little boys), and you have a real recipe for weird, weird manifestations of old female-male power struggle dynamics.

(My two female supervisors long ago -- one was great -- the other did office politics to the max, and found a male scapegoat for her failures, to save her job.)

(So it's not so much man-"hating", as the dynamics of the struggle for power. Women do not really gain very much, when they "win" such a struggle, or at least, when they destroy the opponent)

Unless everyone is ready to refer back to the original dynamics that got us here (and agree to continue "struggling" peacefully, with both eyes open) then we will only see things like this example from the surface, and wonder at their absurdity. We really have strayed far, far from our roots.

Like I said, just an initial speculation...

I think take your daughter to work days are fine. Women may be different biologically and predisposed to different behavior than guys but that still doesn't account for why they make so much less on the dollar vs. guys or why, in a world where one doesn't need the brute strength of the caveman or hunter gatherer, there are so few of them in real positions of power in the work world.

That said, this program that this femi-nazi radical came up with is WAAAYYY over the top. Its one thing to build a young girl up. Its another to essentially demonize a young boy and put him through some sort of sensitivity for behavior he probably hasn't even displayed let alone had any hand in creating to begin with.

There was a time when women in this country were treated like chattel and there are still areas where men could treat them more fairly, but in MANY other areas it seems the pendulum has swung way too far the other way. Divorce & Ch*ld custody laws, particularly in states like California, are good examples of that. And it can be seen in the subtle and sometimes not so subtle male-bashing messages that are put out regularly in popular tv shows, movies and ads by those very same "pinko-liberal-types" out in California.

Of course many men are as responsible for all of this as are the women. After all, who can really blame the women for wanting to get their fair share and THEN SOME or wanting to grab the reins of power after having been denied it for so long throughout human history? OTOH, the men HAD that power and have largely ceded it in so many areas, not the least of it being on the homefront. Guys, face it, we've ALLOWED ourselves to be pussy-whipped and if we don't recognize that in ourselves (such as when we throw money at chicas or treat them with such deference as they would never get from Tico's), then maybe we should be getting some OTHER form toughy-feely training (self-awareness, assertiveness, etc.)

I, for a long time, held the "moderate, can't we all get along?" opinion on this subject, but no more. For whatever the reason (age, experience, becoming more of an ass everyday), I believe that in a world of ridiculously polorized extremes as noted in this university's case, the best way to tip the scale back to level is to display an opposite, equally ridiculous attitude whether you truly feel that way or not. Now where did I put my gringa-konking club? Ph*ckum if they can't take a joke.

_________________
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
English poet (1809 - 1892)

FYI,

Gender properly refers to grammar and pronouns not actual people.....people and animals don't have a gender...they're classified by *ex..male or female.

Obviously this University's bastardization of the English language is a consequence of their outcome based "feel good" education. This is the type of education where everything is "sugar coated" to make it pallatable..and where you only read books from authors you agree with.

They don't call SF the "fruit orchard" of the world for nothing.

The way I see it a major reason many of us U.S. guys go (or in my case, will be going) to CR for companionship (however brief) is that the attitudes of women stateside are perpetuated by the continued victimization complexes of women like UCSF's Levine, Carol Gilligan, and many of the witches I have worked with in female-dominated health care. Their mindset is so '70s urban university-ish.

While I acknowledge our recent history of discrimination against women, as someone noted the pendulum has swung back, too far back. Way too far f'n back This is 2005 and men are suffering: socially, academically, and financially.

Yes, men dominate the very top workplace hierarchy, but is this exclusively the product of male discrimination against women? Whether it is or not many witches in mid-level management (or lower) will use the example of typical male-dominated, TOP management as pretext for manipulatively stomping the males in their environment, and smile and feel good about themselves in the process of doing so. I hold up as an example UCSF's Levine, who obviously needs a shrink (they're worth the money, Amy).

But this "smarter-female" crap-ola is perpetuated in the media. Obviously it sells. How many women in TV sitcoms are so much wittier than the males they pick upon? Everbody Fu*ks Raymond. If TV men picked upon TV women instead of the vice-versa status quo, women would cry and write letters about the male TV bullies.

Which brings us back to UC's Amy Levine. Female Bully. But that's okay and even one of the UCSF docs in the original article dare not speak out publicly due to fear of reprisal. In the media few apparently care about females who bully males but they are out there, rampant and too often unchecked. It's about time the pendulum rested at center.

Now for the rhetorical questions: If the pendulum swung to rest at center would US women view their relationships with US men not so much as the "victims" of US men? And if that pendulum came to rest would week-long flings (or even eventual settlement) in CR seem as appealing to us?

Ringo