Womb envy sexist, arrogant

[Editor's Note: The following refers to the staff editorial "Womb envy plagues male engineers" in the February 11, 2000 issue of the Technique.]

Ms. Wiggins, I'm shocked by your sexist and arrogant article. In your article, you basically draw a picture of men (Tech men to be specific) where they appear as brutal beasts with neurotic subconscious impulses, as opposed to the sensitive, gentle and healthy minded women.

The term "womb envy" was introduced by the German psychoanalyst Karen Horney (a scientist) and not Evelyn Fox Keller who has used it several decades later.

You write that women are closer to the secrets of life because they can bear children. As poetic as that may sound, it still doesn't make any sense. And for the same reason you say that women have more control over life.

My biology teacher seemed pretty sure that you need both male and female to create life. I agree that men and women are equally capable of being scientists. However, psychologists agree that sex hormones, which start acting in the fetus, create changes in the development of the brain.

On average, men do better in mathematical reasoning and in some mechanical tasks while women do better in rapid matching of items, verbal fluency, some arithmetic calculations etc. So perhaps the reasons more males are inclined to science are much simpler than the Freudian nightmares you have created.

Psychologists also believe that there are more differences within a certain group (e.g., among females), than between two different groups (e.g., between men and women). Only a very narrow-minded point of view could categorize people in this way (e.g., men are like that, women are like that).

The same kind of thinking is one of the factors of intolerance and fanaticism in our world. You reject science as something almost "evil", something disrupting the forces of nature and trying to play god instead of letting things be. Fortunately, not everybody thinks like you, or else we would still be living in the Stone Age.

Stelios Neocleus

gte715m@prism.gatech.edu