Attended the book reading of ‘Mathematics of sex’.

 The book ought to be valuable for all interested in the gender question though the data is specific to the US, issues dealt within it should be relevant anywhere. Definitely contains lots of thinking material for parents with girls.

The review goes something like this: 

Nearly half of all physicians and biologists are females, as are the
majority of new psychologists, veterinarians, and dentists, suggesting that
women have achieved equality with men in the workforce. But the ranks of
professionals in math-intensive careers remain lopsidedly male; up to 93%
of tenure-track academic positions in some of the most
mathematically-oriented fields are held by men.

Three main explanations have been advanced to explain the dearth of women
in math-intensive careers, and in The Mathematics of Sex, Stephen J. Ceci
and Wendy M. Williams describe and dissect the evidence for each. The first
explanation involves innate ability--male brains are physiologically
optimized to perform advanced mathematical and spatial operations; the
second is that social and cultural biases inhibit females' training and
success in mathematical fields; the third alleges that women are less
interested in math-intensive careers than are men, preferring
people-oriented pursuits. Drawing on research in endocrinology, economics,
sociology, education, genetics, and psychology to arrive at their own
unique, evidence-based conclusion, the authors argue that the problem is
due to certain choices that women (but not men) are compelled to make in
our society; that women tend not to favor math-intensive careers for
certain reasons, and that sex differences in math and spatial ability
cannot adequately explain the scarcity of women in these fields. The
Mathematics of Sex represents the first time such a thorough synthesis of
data has been carried out to solve the puzzle of women's
underrepresentation in math-intensive careers.

------

Here, I am trying to put down the highlights of the more interesting part of the reading -the Q and A session with authors Stephen and Wendy. 

Audience: Maybe two men and many women and girls who don’t need a book or statistics to tell them what they live through as most came from math intensive departments. They were there to confirm or contest the major observations in the book.

Wendy: It is a non issue with lopsided numbers in any area as long as it was because women made an informed decision about not being in those careers, however it has to be analyzed and rectified if the numbers reflect some unconscious and conscious biases towards making and sticking it out with these careers.

Stephen emphasized that girls were better or equal mathematicians right through school, and the first drop  in numbers begins in the choice they make for undergraduate courses, the ones who persist and opt for math intensive graduate courses continue performing just as well as the boys. After Ph.D, females are still on par with their male colleagues in job placements, renumeration, publishing, advancements etc. However, in their thirties a major bleeding out of females from math intensive careers happens.

Wendy took over to say, the need for having a family  and unwillingness to relegate childrearing to third party (nannies) is one of the big reasons for this age/stage specific drop out. Analyzing this it is evident that women cannot postpone their decision to bear children if they want to avoid infertility issues with older age. However, this period also critically co-incides with the time when high productivity is expected of young faculty and women take the drastic decision to drop out of careers that they had invested and excelled in all along. Usually never to get back to the system.

Is this an individual loss or loss to the country? The country has invested equally heavily in the training of these women and just when they are about to make a contribution, they reach this impasse. The female attrition is a big loss to the country just as it is to the personal.

Responses that I recall which were interesting, amusing and insightful:

1) A girl from math dept: is there data to show fall in female representation as one goes higher in heiarchy of elite institutes? if the usual explanations don’t account for this, would it indicate sexism is more prevalent in these places?

Others from the same dept : “Of course !”

2) What about non math-intensive careers, why is there no drastic fall there, the biology and early to mid-career demands for high productivity must exist for say law? How have the women overcome this?

Authors answer: Those careers are equally demanding and one does see a fall in the highest levels and few women make it partners, yet such jobs seem to be a little more friendlier to decisions of family and work. And Wendy wondered if it has also to do with female preference for careers that provide an interface with people, making it bearable to hang on in tough times, unlike  math-intensive careers which can be isolating. 

(I found the answers unsatisfactory. None of this explains 93%  male domination.)

3) Another student from math dept, detailed how she started to see fewer and fewer females as she went into higher levels. And contested the data in the book that there were equal number of females at the graduate level. She said in her experience she found herself usually among the very few or sometimes the only one.

Response from a much older faculty: “Looks like little has changed from my time ” to the younger women’s chuckling and sound of weary laughter at all these revelations!!

4) A male student: How come motherhood becomes so important that women take such decisions, the man is the parent too, why does he not have the same response?

Authors: It is changing to some extent.

A mother of 1 year old: “Have to run to pick up my baby (it was after 5.30pm), but want to say my bit, something happens post childbirth, maybe hormones or something that clicks into the mother not the father.” 

Student to this:” Really? Interesting! what hormones does one need to clean the bathroom?”

Wendy: When women give up the decision to have families/children then they are exactly like their male colleagues, so none of theories on brain apititute, biases etc are needed.

5) Question: In the 6% of women who have managed to remain in their careers and reach the top positions, is there data on how many of them chose not to have families and how many have families?

Authors: No clear data, but most of these women are non American, immigrants from European countries, where math ed. is always a push. So, once identified as good in math, the entire system gets them to focus only to enhance their aptitude in it.

Response to this: How does that explain the US having lower numbers of women excelling in math?

Wendy: That is a paradox, one would expect women from more patriarchal societies (Turkey), with lesser freedom to make choices would lead to them not taking up math-intensive careers but the data shows otherwise. One wonders if when presented with choice, women inherently choose what is more satisfying of their need to be in non-isolating careers? 

Indicators of solutions (from random reading over the years):

Studying department structures and cultures-

Departmental attrition data from one state show that the difference between male and female rates of undergraduate attrition from computer science varies by institution. This analysis suggests that departmental factors are important in attrition from CS. Some CS departments inhibit female persistence at the undergraduate level while other departments promote persistence. The observed variation encourages research that compares departmental characteristics such as structure and culture, and relates them to departmental outcomes. Shifting the research focus to departmental characteristics and outcomes will identify effective methods for retaining women.

By taking a hard look at work-family policies-

Employee Assistance Plans, dependent care flexible spending accounts, and emergency child care are associated with increases in the percentage of associates who are female.  Second, these policies are linked to reductions in the turnover rates of associates.  This, combined with the first finding, indicates that work-family policies help retain female employees. Overall, these findings suggest that firm provision of work-family policies can play an important role in retaining female employees without hurting firm profitability. 

Additional useful material is here

I wrote a post for Pavada about Sant Janabai. This however is not Janabai’s portrait . I just like it. 

I didn’t find many images of this Maharashtrain poet from the 13th century. But a few translations of her abhangs are available online, this is how i read her now, quite sure it will change as time goes by and i hope to find some more reference material on her, a few though are heading my way from inter library loans. Here is one of her reprimands to God for neglecting her:

O you Vithya Vithya

nasty brat of the original illusion,

your widow has become a whore

and wears bangles of Savitri,

your corpse has been carried away,

seeing it, even death cries.

standing in her courtyard

Jani curses you!

Elsewhere she tells him:

O God I have lost your love

and will not serve you again

there is nothing special about you

your vanity turns me away.

why should I fear your anger?

your strength depends on me.

—-

Source: Janabai and Kanhopatra: A study of two women sants. Sarah Sellergen.

Images of Maharashtrian women in literature and religion. Anne Feldhaus.

“The most widespread, pernicious and intractable form of discrimination on EARTH”. Pay attention to the very last bit on religion. Every word is worth its weight in gold, or may be platinum.

(i listened to this short speech the second time with my eyes closed, the two ladies are beautifully distracting )

While reading this if there are some kannada speaking ones, please let me know what you think of this vacana. I love listening to it, but cannot fathom it at all. 

This one below is a lot easier.

—–

Lord, if you will listen, listen;


If you won’t, don’t—


I can’t bear to live without singing of you.


If you will look, look;


If you won’t, don’t—


I can’t bear life unless I look at you and be happy.


If you will agree, agree;


If you won’t, don’t—

I can’t bear life unless I embrace you.


If you will be pleased, be pleased,


If you won’t, don’t—


I can’t bear life unless I worship you.


O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,


Offering you worship, I will play


On the swing of happiness.       [Chaitanya, p. 33]  (This sounds like this in kannada.)

—–

So simple to translate, or is it? I have two colleagues taking a go at it, one in Spanish and the other in Hebrew for Pavada, both believe that they will be able to do a fairly good job of it. I am very curious though to know how they read and interpret it. Of course like me their grounding is biology, so God, worship etc is hmmmm. But Akkamahadevi’s vacanas is not godliness as much as spiritual in content. Which I am using as a start of sorts to understand how Indian women perceive their bodies and all that it entails, my first attempt is here on Pavada blog. If you are wondering what it has to do with this blog? The dalit world, is all about control of the mind via control over our bodies by the oppressor, be it  in labor exploitation -mostly manual comprising both genders or in sexual exploitation -largely women. For long I believed that scientific/biological awareness of the body would help in  loosening the tightly wound coils of physical and hence psychological oppression. But then if the educated women (all castes/classes) knew the biological significance of menstruation, would they still be having notions of impurity associated with it? The body can be explained through biology, but it will still clash with the inherited understanding of the body, that we receive from our cultural-historical milieu. It leads to what we do so well, partition our brains into modern and pre-modern/ logical and illogical selfs. So an attempt to understand the other non biological bodies in our heads is necessary, at least to me.

Source: Songs for Shiva. Vacanas of Akka Mahadevi. Translated by Vinaya Chaitanya.

Videos: Youtube.

I want to say, FINALLY! but i think i’ll wait. But i’ll definitely say, Yeah, to Nepal. One small Hindu nation country has the moral courage to acknowledge this ancient but persisting atrocity. 

——-

Manoj Mitta, TNN 28 September 2009

NEW DELHI: If the recent genome study denying the Aryan-Dravidian divide has established the antiquity of caste segregations in marriage, the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva looks set to recognize caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation. This, despite India’s opposition and following Nepal’s breaking ranks on the culturally sensitive issue.

Nepal has emerged as the first country from South Asia — the region where untouchability has been traditionally practiced — to declare support for the draft principles and guidelines published by UNHRC four months ago for “effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent” — the UN terminology for caste inequities.

In a side-event to the session on September 16, Nepalese minister Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam said his county welcomed the idea mooted by the UNHRC document to involve “regional and international mechanism, the UN and its organs” to complement national efforts to combat caste discrimination. This is radically different from India’s stated aversion to the internationalization of the caste problem.

Much to India’s embarrassment, Nepal’s statement evoked an immediate endorsement from the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, a South African Tamil. Besides calling Nepal’s support “a significant step by a country grappling with this entrenched problem itself”, Pillay’s office said it would “like to encourage other states to follow this commendable example”.

The reference to India was unmistakable especially since Pillay had pressed the issue during her visit to New Delhi in March. Pillay not only asked India to address “its own challenges nationally, but show leadership in combating caste-based discrimination globally”. The granddaughter of an indentured labourer taken to South Africa from a village near Madurai, Pillay recalled that in 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had compared untouchability to apartheid. Adding to India’s discomfiture, Sweden, in its capacity as the president of the Europeon Union, said, “caste-based discrimination and other forms of discrimination based on work and descent is an important priority for EU”. If this issue continues to gather momentum, UNHRC may in a future session adopt the draft principles and guidelines and, to impart greater legal force, send them for adoption to the UN General Assembly.

The draft principles specifically cited caste as one of the grounds on which more than 200 million people in the world suffer discrimination. “This type of discrimination is typically associated with the notion of purity and pollution and practices of untouchability, and is deeply rooted in societies and cultures where this discrimination is practiced,” it said.

Though India succeeded in its efforts to keep caste out of the resolution adopted by the 2001 Durban conference on racism, the issue has since re-emerged in a different guise, without getting drawn into the debate over where caste and race are analogous.

In the early days of this blog, sometime last year, CF in one of the comments here had discussed having a blog that focussed on Indian translations that are not easily available. The discussion then was in  a political context, where he had translated a news report for this blog. But time went by, and last week he asked me to write a piece for the new blog, he named Pavada. I sat on it, but it is really up and there is one Urdu translation of Ghalib’s poem and another one that I have to back and read again, it is by the Telugu poet, Sri Sri’s, Jayabheri, please go read. I finished my attempt at, not a translation but trying to understand some of them -I’ve never been good with languages, but would like to think that I have a good ear for songs. He has an open invitation for bloggers and friends who are interested in this kind of writing to send in articles. Way to go!!

A rape incident in Beed district of Maharashtra brought some of us together to look into caste-based atrocities, particularly against dalit women, in this State. Many public meetings later, it was decided that a letter expressing our concerns and articulating our demands be sent to relevant government authorities in the State and the Centre as well as various commissions and the media.

Following is the letter, which has been passed in the GBM held on Saturday. Please do sign up for it on the posters that have been put up near both the dining halls and the new campus canteen.

Respected Madam/Sir,

Lastly, the State must explore initiatives to encourage collective action among Dalit women for their empowerment and to provide them a safe environment. We would like to add, that we intend to follow the proceedings of this case closely and will be awaiting an urgent response from you, to decide on further action. We hope that the above demands are considered at the earliest so that the confidence of Dalits and the general public in the State is restored.

The world for me is split into the lords above and the pests below. The older sibling and their friends ignore me –the ignorers/lords. The younger siblings and their friends think I am a push over –the pushers/pests. I never asked to be a middle born, or even born at all. But such is my sandwiched life.

Left home to do research with the hope that the world would order itself in some other way, no such luck. I landed in the research scholars (RS) wing with senior researchers and a crowd of PG students accommodated there for lack of space in their hostel. The venerable RSs ignored and the pesky PGs began their pushing me around right away.

One decided that I was spending most of the time in the lab; it was better use of space –my single room- for her to study in. Key was dutifully handed. In the mess, my share of ‘perugu’ was given to the one standing behind me in the line, which would lead someone else to loudly draw attention to the atypical Tamilian. And the dining table would light up with animated discussion of the Tamils eating habits -relished by gults and all. Since there was always someone new at the table, I would be asked to explain my strangeness; an occasional “you will die in the Hyderabad heat without buttermilk” advice would be kindly given. Of course it was my moral obligation to pay for street food, dhaba or any other food that we all occasionally ate outside the campus, for I was the only one with a fellowship.

I did all this with natural practiced ease, good training at home, you see. But one little incident pushed the pushers one notch higher in peskiness.  One fine day, I was informed that I had been volunteered to be the exam scribe for one of her sight-challenged classmates. Date and timing was given. “Its simple, just get permission from your supervisor” I was ordered.

The exam was history. Chapters: renaissance and reformation. Now, the last time I’d looked at a history book was way back in 10 std and I schooled in state syllabus, which actually does not recognize the World or that it has some history. When I tried to get this fact in, I was talked down, “you have to write what he says, you, don’t need to know anything.” 

Permission was got. We were introduced and I again made attempts to say that history was a strange subject for me, he nodded and was saying something, when I realized, he was only talking in Telugu. The PG introducer had disappeared from the line of vision. The urge to flee the situation took firm grip on me. He was going to recount renaissance in Telugu and I was to translate it into English, in two hours, under vigilance? No way. Determined hunting resulted in me being told “too late we cannot find another scribe for him, it is history, the words are all in English, you can construct the sentences, how tough can that be?

Two days prior to the exam date, I had a visitor, which in ladies hostel means, opposite gender (females just walk into your room), males have to wait outside and a messenger will herald this to the whole female world. For reasons that are not clear to me yet, I had very few ‘visitors’ (the telugu guys must have thought ugh, one more from across the border, the tamils must have thought, ‘no eat curd rice, she no interesting’ I think they all thought I was weird) anyway, back to my visitor.

It was him. He looked very sad and tired. Concerned english-telugu combo questions, got me the gist that, he was suffering from fever – I tried to frame the sentence “but you walked all the way from men’s hostel to the ladies hostel” –it is far (logistics of don’t know what, but they were really located at two different ends). He then handed me a small pile of books. “Don’t you need it?” I asked. Received a negative nod, adding that for him, next two days was only “breadu and bedu” and walked away, forlornly.

Then the middle world metamorphosed. The lords glared their “don’t you dare flunk a PG exam.” The pest’s glee went up festive levels “ the scholar in my tenuously given RS title was on display, imminent disgrace awaited, definite proof that only the sorriest of PG’s opted to be RS.” Beyond all this, I stood at the other side of the great divide. I researched science -a knob turner, and they the true scholars.

Helpful tidbits in the common spaces (bathroom, dining hall, corridors) were sent in my direction, like “you cannot mug historical facts, imagination is needed, try to step into the shoes of the past actors.” Incidentally, the past actors were large white masses of flesh, often shoeless, spreads in the pages of books that had suddenly grown into a large pile.

Survival instincts kicked in and I kicked the door shut to the wing mates and did what I do best with exams. Cram. Surprise awaited me. I actually started to enjoy the deliciousness of that period. On the day of the exam we were seated in a beautifully decorated Prof’s room. And I wrote with moderated enthusiasm. The last warning in the hostel was still ringing in my ears “don’t get him in trouble by getting him high marks” and remembering to nudge the happily dreaming examinee to keep talking, now and then. The invigilator did not hound us, but would definitely wonder at what got written in total silence. 

He/I passed the exam. He made few more ‘visitor’ visits to get my signature on forms, as the Univ. admin did not take kindly to my asking him to donate my scribe ‘fees’ to the blind association. The rest of my short stay, I’d see him occasionally and to his “Hello, anu” ” from several yards before I stopped my bike, I’d always ask the idiot question “how did you know it was me?”  He’d respond with a grin “of course, I know it is you”. I have a vague idea of where some of the lords and pests are now, I think about them sometime, about him too. His name was Govind. I never worry about how he is. Of course he is doing fine. He just had it in him.

Image courtesy : Internet.

I recall a November day, he was not six months old and the master came into the shack…..

And this man was speculating over my son’s cradle, a slavedriver’s cradle.

MOTHER

Alas you will die.

REBEL

Killed….. I killed him with my own hands……

Yes, a fecund and copious death…….

It was night. We crawled through the sugarcane.

The cutlasses were chortling at the stars, but we didn’t care about the stars.

The cane slashed our faces with streams of green blades.

MOTHER

I had dreamed of a son who would close his mother’s eyes.

REBEL

I chose to open my child’s eyes to another sun.

MOTHER

……O my son…… an evil and pernicious death.

REBEL

Mother, a verdant and sumptuous death.

MOTHER

From too much hate.

REBEL

From too much love.

Spare me, I’m choking from your shackles, bleeding from your wounds.

REBEL

And the world does not spare me…… There is not in the world one single lynched bastard, one poor tortured man, in whom I am not also murdered and humiliated.

MOTHER

God in Heaven, deliver him!

REBEL

My heart, you will not deliver me of my memories……

It was a November night……

And suddenly clamors lit up the silence,

we had leapt, we the slaves, we the manure, we the beasts with patient hooves.

We were running like lunatics, fiery shots broke out……… We were striking. Sweat and blood cooled us off. We were striking amidst the screams and the screams became more strident and a great clamor rose toward the east, the outbuildings were burning and the flames sweetly splashed our cheeks.

Then came the attack on the master’s house.

They were shooting from the windows.

We forced the doors.

The master’s bedroom was wide open. The Master’s bedroom was brilliantly lit, and the master was there, very calm…… and all of us stopped….. he was the master……. I entered. It’s you, he said, very calmly…… Its me, it was indeed me, I told him, the good slave, the faithful slave, the slave slave, and suddenly my eyes were two cockroaches frightened on a rainy day…….. I struck, the blood spurted, it is the only baptism that today I remember.

———

Source: Lyric And Dramatic Poetry. by Aime Cesaire.

Translated by Clayton Eshelman & Annette Gail Smith

Dedicated to Raj Kumar’s Mother

Indian society with all its complex variation of lived realities will be excel sheeted into a sanitized, digitized, very middleclass, database version through the UID number. How many Indians deviate from this ‘normal’ table should be the concern of this agency (UIDA). For it has the task of assigning citizenship status to ALL Indians. And let me not forget to add, at the cost of $40 billion.

Kuffir asked here, will the UID number make the state know that I exist?

I added to this question:  If I exist, am I safe?

These are the core deliverables of a citizenship identification program from the point of view of the individual citizen.

Now, please watch this documentary for one group of Indians who deviate from the prescribed forms of identification parameters with respect to the data elements. The required data elements to be filled out to obtain UID numbers, are given in the table below.

These were female children abducted from far off places and sold into the sex trade. At this point it is not clear to me how this group will be included into the UID program without ambiguity. That is, how will it serve the primary question -do I exist- for this group of Indian women? 

Will the state apparatus go to them and fill out the data elements, if so, how is it going to do it? Use the police, NGO, activists network? How long will this take?

Or will these young women self identify to gain the benefits of UID number, that is a beginning of sorts for better services and rights? If either of these does happen, will their digitized information be safe? What are the safeguards for this information from becoming vulnerable to more agencies in addition to the exploitative ones that these women are already exposed to? That is, if I exist now as a number with all my personal details filled out, where I live, what I work as, etc. visible in the card/database, am I safe or is it safe? 

See how such a simple data filling exercise falls apart in this specific instance. The ? mark against the data element refers to data that is not likely to be verifiable and + sign indicates those that can be.

Page. 18.  5.5 Person identification data elements. 

Personal identification number……..?????……….

Personal name in English ………….. ?

Father’s identification number ……………..?

Mother’s identification number ………………?

Mother’s name ……………..?

Spouse’s identification number …………….?

Spouse’s name ……………..?

Gender identification code : ….. …… +

DOB ……………..?

Status in family –Head of family/not head of family…………?

POB (place of birth)…………..?

Premise Address …………….?

Photo. …….. +

Finger print…….. +

Visual identification mark……… +

Signature………. +

Current marital status……….?

Education qualification…………?

Occupation category…………..?

Title ……….?

Of the 24 plus data elements,  7 data elements can be filled unambiguously either by the state or by the individual.

All other elements, by their very nature for this specific group of women are not available as reliable data.

The name, date of birth, place of birth, fathers name and mothers name if known would and should have been used to relocate the girls back to their families.

Will the agencies record their information in the absence of documentary evidence?

Study these specific dataelements in the context of these women: 

Occupation: This data element has already been finalized and codes have been assigned for the UID for most jobs. However, sex worker unions have been waging a losing battle to have this profession legalized. So what is going to be filled here?

Address: The documentary gives visual proof of the kind of temporary hovels they are likely to reside in. Will it be recognized?

Relationship to head of the family: Who will that be? The pimp, the brothel owner?

Marital status: What?

Of the data elements that can be filled; gender, photo, fingerprint, physical identification marks and signature are actually the biometric data, literally proof that a person is alive, nothing more. And this is the only data that is going to be available for a large number of Indians who find themselves as stateless trafficked humans involved in slave labour.  For those who would like to say that these women and men are miniscule percentage of the population, I would like to remind them that they are also paying for this mammoth project. The tax that they pay on salt, dhal, clothes contribute to the funding of this project. So kindly hold that line.

On a personal note, I would also like to reawaken the deadened empathy of such argument profferers –these girls/women were beloved children of parents, they are Indian daughters, their rights are not be relegated to some arbitrary or representative numbers of exploitation/trade as against any other larger or smaller numbers of categorized Indians. 

Since the data elements are designed for the imagined ideal Indian, the data can be filled quite easily by the middleclass, with ‘normal’ families with access to institutions such as education, ‘respectable’ employment and marriage. So, for the already citizenship-rights accessing Indians, this is indeed a better system and seems like the best solution for the tiresome multiple identification systems.  The  -am I safe question-  for this class has more to do with credit or identity thefts, which is a significant valid concern. However it becomes even more worrisome, for the marginalized whose meager savings/earnings are also susceptible to the same fears. They have nothing else to fall back on.

Do I exist? Will remain the basic question, while the am I safe questions will immediately materialize as soon the system recognizes the existence of the marginalized, and be ever ready to derail them further away from seeking their aspirations, without built-in protections especially designed for them.

I hope to elaborate on the individual marginalized safety questions arising out of digitization, and reflect on their group/caste/geography, then, dwell on the bigger concerns of safety of such citizen’s information. While all the time never being sure of what specific benefits are really gained for the marginalized by the UID. Whereas for the IT component of middleclass Indians there is an immediate and definite benefit in terms of jobs and unending contracts.

 Until the activists and civil liberties groups have clear cut answers from the UIDA as to how the marginalized are going to be included in this system and provided safety, the UID program has to be seen as the BPO/IT industry’s very smart switching of ‘outsourcing’ from other countries to making the government of India and its citizens its largest ‘insourced’ assignment.