The latest issue of The Dartmouth Review contained a rather harsh condemnation of The Women in Science Project which, not surprisingly, garnered little attention on campus. In an era of rampant political correctness such programs seem immune to claims of discrimination. Liberals and members of the "oppressed" group simply write off criticisms as the continued tyranny of their oppressors. But even if we ignore for a moment the obvious discrimination practiced by WISP, other considerations bring into doubt the program's true objectives and make it imperative that it be terminated or radically revamped.
WISP director Mary Pavone says the program attempts to increase the number of women science majors by reversing the loss of self-esteem that inflicts women soon after their arrival into the subtle sexism and competitive atmosphere of the Dartmouth science departments. But the program's structure contradicts this and reveals the WISP for what it really is: College-sponsored sexism.
Currently the internships sponsored by WISP are open only to freshman women while the discussions, newsletter and study rooms are open to all.
Purportedly, women lacking confidence should receive a self-esteem boost from both the sense of accomplishment the internships provide and their improved grades that result from the study rooms.
But as the WISPers will quickly point out, science professors often grade on a harsh curve, so study rooms open to all cannot possibly boost the grades of women. The men and women who attend the study rooms may earn higher grades than if they had not attended, but the curve ensures that it will be at the expense of the men and women who did not attend. The study rooms cannot create more As and Bs for women. Only by barring men from these study rooms will the women as a group gain a competitive edge, earn higher grades and bolster their sagging self-esteems.
The internships present the opposite dilemma. What possible sense of accomplishment could a freshman woman receive when she snags an internship with the main qualifications being an accident of birth and an expressed interest in science? This year 100 women applied for 87 internships through a selection process that, while comprehensive, is clearly not very selective.
Handouts may be nice, but it is hard to imagine how they make one feel better about oneself. Maximizing the number of available internships and opening them up to all freshmen would benefit both the currently banned men and the women, who would know they earned the position based on their own merit and were not given it based on their sagging confidence.
True, a woman may feel a sense of accomplishment from the work she does in an internship, but having men working in other positions with other professors would not sacrifice this.
Having seen that both the internship program and the study rooms are not structured to boost self-esteem, one can only conclude that the boosting self-esteem is simply a facade for official handouts to Dartmouth women.
Since both sexes arrive at Dartmouth with equal interest in the sciences, something must be occurring in Dartmouth classrooms to make the women drop out of the sciences. But why aren't the WISPers trying to fix the problem rather than compensate the victims? Perhaps a concerted effort to expose and eradicate sexism in the science classroom would be a better use of resources than banning men from the excellent opportunities a research internship can offer.
The ultimate irony is that the WISP program may itself be contributing to the flagging self-esteem that it purports to correct. How must a freshman woman feel to be told she may not make it in science without a handout? And not only that, but that she will need similar handouts in graduate school and beyond, or she will surely drop out of science. The very idea is patronizing and degrading to women.
Even Pavone does not deny that the WISP is an affirmative action program. "I've never quite thought of [WISP] as affirmative action, but that may be hairsplitting," Pavone said. As such, it should only be allowed with powerful justification, justification that has not yet been proffered.
"Life isn't fair," Pavone said. "The closer you get into adulthood and on, you realize that it's never equally divided." Perhaps not, but the College should not be fueling the inequality.
The WISP is evaluated annually, but the evaluations are usually conducted by WISP staff. An outside evaluation of the entire project is long overdue. This is not to suggest that the WISP does not positively affect its participants -- it often does. But WISP bears the large burden of justifying the discrimination it practices, a burden it has not met.
