Even SF writers can be assholes

[annathepiper]

Spotted this over on Patrick Nielsen Hayden's blog today, a post wherein he introduces his readers to an individual who goes by the name Thomas Beale and the alias "Vox Day". This has reminded me that even people who write science fiction can be supreme assholes, as this quote of Mr. Day/Beale's illustrates:

The mental pollution of feminism extends well beyond the question of great thinkers. Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics, so they either write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are, or stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.

I find this attitude so offensive that I scarcely know where to begin to rant about it. Perhaps with the part where hypocrites such as this man sneeringly claim that women cannot 'hack' physics while avowing that any decent woman wouldn't be trying to step beyond her place by studying hard science in the first place--no doubt because they are scared that a woman with brains will prove them wrong. Or perhaps the part where he's ignoring that hundreds of men write soft SF and fantasy as well--including, I might add, Mr. Day/Beale himself. Or perhaps the part where all the hard science in the world, no matter how accurately depicted, does not mean squat if the author is not presenting a story the reader cares about.

I don't know physics. I'll be the first to admit it. I've never taken a physics class in my life. But the blame for this squarely rests upon my tumultuous teenage years, in which I changed schools four times, making it almost impossible to hold to the regular track of classes through which one might expect to proceed while staying four years in the same high school. One might ask why I didn't take physics in college, but there are only so many electives a college student can cram into her schedule--and other things competed much harder for my attention. Language classes, for example, and various and sundry electives more pertinent to my major of Computer Science and my minor in English. To assert that a woman is an inferior thinker, that she does not possess a rational mind and clearly cannot 'hack' physics, is nothing more than a misogynist excuse to keep her out of the field in the first place.

Maybe I haven't studied physics, and perhaps hard sciences are distinctly absent from my fields of study, but you know what? This has a lot less to do with my being a woman than it does with my deliberate choice to study where my aptitudes are stronger: in music, in computers, in language and literature and words. And it does not mean I don't have appreciation and respect for proper science. It does not mean I do not think.

As for "romance novels in space", I have some names for Mr. Day/Beale: Julie Czerneda. Sharon Shinn. Liz Williams. Kathleen Goonan. Sure, all of these women have included love stories as part of their plots, but you know what? So has practically every single novel I've ever read by men, too: J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, Dennis Danvers, James P. Blaylock, Jim Butcher, and all of the other gentlemen who share space on my shelves with female authors.

I'll stand up and yell it loud and proud: I LIKE LOVE STORIES. I want to see the boy get his girl. Or the girl get her boy. Or the boy get his boy, or the girl her girl. But this does not mean I want that to be the only point of the story, or that it will be the only point of any story I write.

Lastly, let's talk a bit about this half-baked assumption that fantasy novels are somehow less subject to rigorous critique than hard SF novels. Just because you're making up the universe does not mean you have license to suck. In fact, I would argue that you have to be even more rigorously consistent than a hard SF writer, because you do not have the luxury of falling back upon the foundations of known scientific principles to establish your author cred. Nor does it mean you are somehow ignoring basic science when you're trying to create a world from scratch, or that you are just going to handwave and say "it's magic" because you're writing a fantasy novel.

But then, what would I know? As a woman and a feminist, one who is working on both fantasy and soft SF novels, I fully expect that I would be classified by Mr. Day/Beale as one of the "mentally polluted".

I find myself strangely unperturbed by that prospect.

Comments

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

This has a lot less to do with my being a woman than it does with my deliberate choice to study where my aptitudes are stronger

If the guy wasn't an asshole, your points would largely be the same.

I know a number of women mathematicians and scientists or just outright science geeks. We've had a lot of this sort of discussion before.

There are things that fit gender models not necessarily for reasons of socialization, but because of biology. To some extent, this is true of the things that make men prone to study the sciences. However, the same things are just as likely to make this SF writer an socially incompetent asshole. Like a lot of SF geeks, he probably has more than his fair share of proclivity to Asperger's syndrome.

[annathepiper]

If the guy wasn't an asshole, your points would largely be the same.

I don't think so--if nothing else because, based on what I read of the various links PNH quotes off his own blog entry about this guy, his overall point is that women cannot hack the hard sciences specifically because they are women. My overall point is that while aptitudes for one thing or another may be biological, I have never been introduced to any evidence that proves that they are gender-based.

And I have been introduced to evidence directly to the contrary. You say you know several women who are mathematicians and scientists and outright science geeks; I can certainly say the same (hi cafiorello! hi lyonesse!), and hell, I see women on a daily basis in the computer industry. Also, I know several men who don't have an aptitude for hard science, at least none that they have ever demonstrated to me.

Furthermore, I have seen plenty of evidence that says that issues of socialization are absolutely at work to discourage women from going into scientific fields of study. I see evidence of attitudes that women shouldn't be studying such things because it makes them more "masculine"--i.e., interested in thinking for themselves rather than staying at home being pliant little housewives--coming out of the fundamentalist right every time Dara sends out an Active list update.

I have heard lyonesse, who has studied the issue in depth, present a very compelling description of how girls have to struggle to compete with boys in science classes because teachers gravitate towards calling on the boys. Biological proclivities towards one field of study or another may certainly be there, but so are sociological drives that try to teach little girls that "math is hard, let's go shopping".

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

[...]his overall point is that women cannot hack the hard sciences specifically because they are women. My overall point is that while aptitudes[...]

It sounds rather as if he's making a very black and white judgement while you're noting a spectrum. If that's the case, you're not going to be able to win any arguments with him anyway. :-)

while aptitudes for one thing or another may be biological, I have never been introduced to any evidence that proves that they are gender-based

I find that statement a bit boggling, even if only for the fact that gender is a trait of a biological system. :-)

I know better than to argue statistics with you and Dara. However, haven't you seen the various studies that show various aptitudes towards things such as spatial vs. social skills breaking down generally along gender lines? I'd be shocked if you haven't.

The point I think you're really wanting to make is that our current socialization essentially takes any chance women have for pursuing hard science or math and throwing it in the trash bin. I would agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, I'd also say that as a society we're almost criminal in how poorly many subjects, especially science and math, are taught across the board. If I could hack dealing with children much less the poor pay and politics, I'd probably teach science and math. As it stands, I wouldn't be able to tolerate the more moderate bad behaviors that children have in school, much less the kind I used to subject my teachers to.

(I was hyperactive until the age of 13.)

So, we have yet another nature vs. nurture argument. As with several things in that class, it's a bit of both biased by the individual's own tendencies. A little bit like being gay. :-)

[solarbird]

Fundamentalist social conservatives started pushing a line a bit over a year ago that both liberalism and feminism cause brain damage. As in real, physical, brain damage.

This is the same crew who brought you erototoxins, along with creationism and all that crap, so, well.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

So do you think their particular form of brain damage is due to nature or nurture?

[solarbird]

Really? I don't care. All I care about is what they do.

And a few things that come up:

1. I think you have no idea how bad it is. A stupidly high percentage of women I know has had a male teacher or professor try to chase them out of a math or science class, often with outright daily harassment. One woman I know attending a very rigourous private high school had her parents called in for a special conference with the administration because she was too good at math, and that clearly meant there was something physically wrong with her; specifically they suspected she was genetically male, and wanted to warn her parents that she was probably sterile.

This was in the late 80s, if you're curious. I don't think it's gotten better. The fundamentalists are stronger now than they were then, and they haven't stopped their propaganda, as you well know.

2. These "boys are just better at foo" argments always come up in the context of women being Not As Good As Men. The only exception comes out when it has directly to do with babies. It doesn't matter what the field is; this kind of crap is always used against women.

There are reasons for that, and those reasons do not include "it's true!"

3. All of the pointed-to examples of Things Men are Better At Just 'Cause They're Men have counterexamples in other large cultures. Writing, math - there are large culture examples of where those are "Women's Things" and women are thought to be just naturally better at them because, well, they're women.

This largely demonstrates that the large-scale assignment of talent in high-level abstract fields to gender is purely societal. Q.E.D. and all that. Somehow, however, demonstrating that doesn't stop the argument - in fact, it rarely makes any impact at all; the data is ignored, and the argument continues to be pressed as though the data were never presented.

Therefore, to my mind, the whole discussion reverts to the underlying motives of point one: that it's more about the assignment of gender roles - and from that, in this culture, the assignment of control - than reality.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

My attempt at humor has completely failed. :-)

(That attempt being, "are fundamidiots bred or taught".)

Believe me, while I don't have anywhere near the exposure that you do to the various stupidities out in the world, one of the reasons I've kept to Michigan is some of those stupidities are less. Every time I visit the South, an hour of morning TV filled with hellfire preachers tells me that I've been making a good choice.

[annathepiper]

See my other comment on the thread re: the falling out I had with the friend who was of an ultra-conservative flavor of religion. She wasn't stupid. She spent several years on pretty good terms with me and Dara, and with other queer-friendl, liberal folks of our social circle. She read science fiction. She wrote fanfic. Queer girl dragonrider fanfic, I might add, and she played a queer girl dragonrider on PernMUSH.

And yet, she's fled back into her faith, because it offered her what she wanted out of life and what she believes is right: an opportunity to get married, start having kids, and conduct what she considered to be a morally upright life.

That's what really drives it home for me on a personal level--that if you have two perfectly intelligent people who happen to be of diametrically opposed belief systems, it's going to be extremely difficult to have any rational compromise come out of it. People don't think with their heads when it comes to matters of faith, they think with their hearts.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

That's what really drives it home for me on a personal level--that if you have two perfectly intelligent people who happen to be of diametrically opposed belief systems, it's going to be extremely difficult to have any rational compromise come out of it.

One of the conclusions I've come to in recent years is that the most critical differences between "us" and "them" is that we're willing to tolerate differences. This means we're willing to say "we're willing to respect your point of view even if we don't agree with it". The "other" side, however, says "we don't respect your point of view and will fight you at every turn".

It turns an academic "right vs. wrong" thing very much into an "us vs. them" thing when it involves our quality of life.

[annathepiper]

Dara never said those individuals were brain-damaged themselves, and neither have I. People believe these things because they've been taught to do so by their religions, and when your religion teaches you something, it's a lot harder to be objective about it than when you're learning it in a purely academic environment. "God says this, and if you don't believe in it, you're going to HELL" carries a powerful punch.

I have experienced this personally, having had a bitter falling out with someone with whom I'd been friends for many years--because she could not reconcile her ultra-conservative form of religion with the fact that queer persons can and do live together in loving, committed relationships. Even after being friends with queer and queer-friendly people for many years. And she wasn't stupid. Meek, yes. Incredibly sheltered, yes. But not stupid. It's just that she ultimately chose to stand by what she thought was right.

Unfortunately, it was diametrically opposed to what I think is right, so we could no longer remain friends. :(

[annathepiper]

If that's the case, you're not going to be able to win any arguments with him anyway. :-)

I already fall into the category of people he considers "mentally polluted". So I couldn't have a reasonable debate with him to start with.

I find that statement a bit boggling, even if only for the fact that gender is a trait of a biological system. :-)

So is having blonde hair. Doesn't mean that intelligence is biologically linked to your hair not being blonde, despite the millions of "stupid blonde girl" jokes in our society even today. (Hell, I've seen several perfectly intelligent women--blonde ones, I might add--self-deprecatingly joke about having a "blonde" moment when they do something without thinking. The concept is that heavily ingrained into our society.)

However, haven't you seen the various studies that show various aptitudes towards things such as spatial vs. social skills breaking down generally along gender lines? I'd be shocked if you haven't.

I personally have not. But I have heard about, via Dara and via lyonesse (Vicka), other studies that sharply contradict this concept. Dara's already addressed some of this, so I'll just repeat my point that given that we both know examples of people whose life experiences and educational experiences contradict this kind of study, I should think that it would already be cast into doubt.

The point I think you're really wanting to make is that our current socialization essentially takes any chance women have for pursuing hard science or math and throwing it in the trash bin. I would agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, I'd also say that as a society we're almost criminal in how poorly many subjects, especially science and math, are taught across the board.

Which is exactly why I don't precisely trust any studies that try to assert that boys are better at science and math than women are. How are such aptitudes tested? How can we know that the tests aren't thrown off by these very sociological pressures? If a girl's already struggling in a science or math class because her teacher is--consciously or unconsicously--favoring the boys, how well is she going to score in an aptitude test?

As you say, it does kind of come around to a nature vs. nurture thing. But in this particular case, the nurture--or lack thereof--is a very real problem. :/

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly why I don't precisely trust any studies that try to assert that boys are better at science and math than women are.

There's a big difference between "better at" and "predisposed towards".

I lack the time to go digging up the studies in question. Those studies supposedly tried to remove the biases we're talking about. Since I don't have the time, I'll just have to concede my points.

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

Mr. Freud would have fun with this guy.

[annathepiper]

One does expect so, indeed.

[snowqueene.livejournal.com]

I just want to say that I am usually pretty easy going about oppinions, but even I was offended by that. Why someone would think gender would have ANYTHING to do with how good you are in a certain subject just astounds me... I could say many other things but you basically have covered most of it. ^_^

[annathepiper]

Given what I gleaned from the links that Mr. Hayden included with his post, it seems that Mr. Day/Beale is coming out of an ultra-conservative mindset. Y'know, the one where women shouldn't be studying science or playing sports because it makes them more "masculine"--i.e., it encourages them to think and be competitive rather than meek, retiring housewives staying home and serving their lords and maste--er, uh, husbands.

There are actually individuals out there who think this way, appalling though it may be. Here's a particularly choice example of the bile spouted here:

We have a nation filled with weak men
and disorderly women. Much of the disorderliness among women comes from
feminist influences and activities like competitive sports. Weakened
marriages and divorce are often the result.

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that aspect of men not wanting their women to be masculine because they feel actually THREATENED by it. Not just that they want their women at home where they belong, serving them hand and foot, but also that they feel as if their very place in life, their livelihood, their masculinity, their identity, their lifestyle, their values, their upbringing, their earning potential, their ability to get a good cup of coffee- ALL AT RISK! Must beat back the feminists now! QUICK! Before our society joins the 21st century! Danger! Danger!

Er. Ahem. Anyway.

Someone should figure out a way to ship them back to the 17th century where they think they belong.

[annathepiper]

All I can say to this is, "I'm a woman with a brain! I'm a scary feminist! BOO!"

And wonder who the hell would actually find me frightening.

[snowqueene.livejournal.com]

I can't believe he is using the bible to try and make women be submissive. *sighs* no, wait... I realize now why I stopped going to church. -_-.

[annathepiper]

The part I really love is how this guy is blaming weakened marriages and divorce on "disorderly women". Grr.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I have yet to find the Penis Attachment for my computer. Until that time, I am forced to rely on the same things a woman would, as a computer programmer.

However, the prevalence of opinions like this convince me that it must exist, and will vault me to previously unforseen levels of productivity, so I continue my search.

Similarly, I've not seen a device that attaches to someone's vagina that makes it easier to discern the emotional state of another person, and so I manage to keep up on that count, but if such a thing were discovered, I'd be forced to concede all knowledge of human psychology to those with the appropriate apparatus.

(It's certainly true that most hard science fiction published is written by white men - I think there are more women than black men, or even asian men, hardly an unscientific lot. I don't know why. Could be some problems in the publishing industry, although that'd be bizarre, things like that happen. More likely, that's who chooses to write. Book sales are largely a meritocracy, people read what they think is good, and race and often gender of the writer is not often obvious. So, I dunno why it happens like this, but I really don't think it's aptitude.)

(Then again, I tend to _prefer_ the softer, character-focused sci fi most of the time anyway, and I have no shortage of writers of any number of genders to choose from in that subgenre, so I'm really not worried.)

[annathepiper]

*grins* Thank you, Kirby, this post made me smile.

And yeah, your observations about who tends to write hard SF sound on target to me. People do write what they know.

Though I do also ponder that a lot of what the U.S. fandom sees are books published in the U.S. It would be interesting to compare against, say, Japanese SF fandom. I hope that Dara and I will get the chance, for Worldcon in 2007, to get an idea of what folks in Japanese fandom write.

[me-fein.livejournal.com]

Sounds like that guy could be the clueless newbie (http://www.sff.net/people/beth-bernobich/SecretDiaries/Clueless841.htm).

Other than that, I say that's a helluva lot of horse hockey!

I remember a long while back, there was some study done and I think...(good grief, bear with me and my shoddy memory) young males & females start off about the same as far as aptitude. Then, at around middle school, or just before (about 10 yrs and up?) during science and math classes, teachers tend to call on the boys more than the girls. Almost as if it's an "anomaly" that girls grasp science and math - or like them well enough.

Almost as if it is more social than biological...but that's just my female perspective... ;)

[annathepiper]

You may well be thinking of the same work lyonesse told me about.

And yeah, despite our allegedly enlightened day and age, there are still societal pressures out there to encourage boys, and not girls, towards science. For example, solarbird and I happened to take stock some weeks back in a toy store of how many scientific-type, puzzle-solving sorts of toys had pictures of boys on them, and how many had pictures of girls. The ones with pictures of boys were in a clear majority.

Though my own scientific education has been slipshod at best, I like what science I've studied. I'd like to learn more; I think astromony is pretty effing neat, for example. But I'd also like to write novels, learn how to play three or four instruments to expert-level skill, and learn five or six languages. I need to either live for two hundred years, or clone myself so there are enough duplicates of myself to actually accomplish everything I want to do.

[avram]

This has reminded me that even people who write science fiction can be supreme assholes

I’m guessing you don’t read rec.arts.sf.written much.

[annathepiper]

*chortle* No, I don't; I haven't been on Usenet in ages.

[poodlgrl.livejournal.com]

even people who write science fiction can be supreme assholes

I'm unclear why this surprises you. There's an equal % of assholes everywhere, in every group or affiliation.

[annathepiper]

Surprises me? No, not terribly--for the very point you mention!

[leian.livejournal.com]

(It's early in the morning here and I made the mistake of watching that movie till late last night...)

All I can say is: good one, Anna! You tell 'em! :)

[annathepiper]

Why thank you. :)

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

Let's completely ignore the fact that women like Anne McCaffrey write hard SF and have a damn good grasp of physics and astronomy and other sciences.

Or am I misreading her works that include other planets, and biological, cultural, astronomical, etc, studies in them? Last I checked, those were quite real, concrete, and pretty hard.

[annathepiper]

Er. Unless you've read different McCaffrey books than I have, I can't count her amongst the list of women I'd call hard SF writers. The Pern books certainly don't qualify; I'd be much more inclined to call those "science fantasy". Nor would I call her Crystal Singer books hard SF.

And even amongst Pern fandom, or at least the segments in which I have participated both online and offline, she doesn't exactly have a reputation for consistent science. Hells bells, even on PernMUSH, we used to call her Anne McCaffrey, Queen of Bogoscience.

Never did she earn that title more than when she started trying to retroactively work in her attitudes about homosexuality to how dragons Impress their riders. In the very earliest Pern books, it's very clear that the Impression bond is a psychological phenomenon, and that the way a dragon matches up with a rider is because of psychological compability. The dragon fills in that which the rider lacks in his or her psychological makeup; together, they are stronger than they would be apart.

Later on, she starts trying to claim that the Impression bond is driven by pheremones. She also starts trying to assert that the dragons are gender-locked to Impressing humans of their own gender.

This can only lead a rational person to wondering if she's trying to claim that green dragons Impress gay men because they smell like girls.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

She had *some* basis in some of her books. One of her books, Powers That Be, had some interesting stuff in it.

Then again, I don't LIKE hard sci-fi.

[annathepiper]

Well, some of Anne's books are more sci-fi than others. I think very few people would call any of her books hard SF, though. From what I remember about that particular series, I'd still call it 'soft' SF. Some authors I'd call hard SF would be more like... Kim Stanley Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, and the like.

Just poking around on Google, I see a couple of links that talk about hard vs. soft SF being debatable for other folks as well. This gets talked about here and here.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, what a douche! SciFi is entertainment, not an engineering paper.

[annathepiper]

*snicker*..... Yeah, actually. I have no pretensions of writing high lit-ra-cher, and neither do I have any pretensions of using any SF story I write as the basis for a doctorate. :)

[otoselkie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on the Fantasy novel part. Almost half the time in any of my writing group meetings (all of us are writing fantasy) is spent with "How does this work?". For magic, for people, for geography and for government. You cannot just say "It's a fantasy. People just do stuff like that." Even the eleven-year-old knows that.

[annathepiper]

Exactly. Making it consistent is one of the biggest things I've striven for in my worldbuilding notes for not only the my-own-universe fantasy I'm working on, but also the urban fantasy I've finished. It applies to characterization, to the workings of magic, to arranging plot events in a consistent fashion--it's hard, and it's going to be hard for any decent, well-written novel no matter what genre you're talking about. I heard it said once that fiction has to be more believable than real life, and it's very, very true.

[janne.livejournal.com]

Somebody should tell him about C.j.cherryh... rock/hard SF !

[rmd.livejournal.com]

syne mitchell is a woman writing now who i think of as being much with the geeky hard sf.

[annathepiper]

Ah, that name sounds vaguely familiar somewhere in the back of my exhausted brain. *looks her up on Amazon.com* Oh yeah. One of her novels showed up on my Recommendations list, that's why I found her name familiar.

She gets really contradictory reviews on Amazon, though. What have you read by her?

[janne.livejournal.com]

Weird typing on the above comment, my keyboard barfed. C.J.Cherryh and Lois McMaster Bujold are the SF writers who come immediately to mind when somebody claims women don't write hard SF, but it shouldn't be too hard to dig up more examples. (Oh, mustn't forget my longtime favorite C.S.Friedman, who also has more spaceships than lovestories :)

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

The types being discussed are probably unaware that C. J., Lois, and Andre (Norton) are all actually women. I bet they think they're men. Heh.

[annathepiper]

Andre Norton! There's another fine example of a female SF writer.

But as I mentioned elsewhere on the thread, it seems that this guy actually spoke well of Lois McMaster Bujold on his web page, according to comments over on Patrick Nielsen Hayden's blog, where I read about this in the first place. So it seems to be at least somewhat possible for a female SF writer to get onto his radar.

[annathepiper]

Skimming over the various comments on Patrick Nielsen Hayden's entry on this guy, I saw it mentioned that Day/Beale actually mentions Lois McMaster Bujold favorably on his web page. So I guess he's not entirely oblivious to women SF writers.

C.J. Cherryh, though, she is definitely a shining example, and I can say that with having only read a bare minimum of her books and fantasy at that. (Her Tree of Swords and Jewels stuff about Arafel. But I've been in fandom long enough to respect her reputation, nonetheless!)

Women, science and SF

[(Anonymous)]

There's a female author by the name of Viehl who writes medical SF..I'd consider that hard science..and at least up to high school, all my math and science teachers were women..Scott

Re: Women, science and SF

[annathepiper]

Hrmm. Let me do a quick comparison of what I remember of my teachers.

Men: Mr. Patton, my band teacher in middle school. Mr. Bischoff, my band teacher in my year and a half at the Youth Performing Arts School. His name eludes me, but I distinctly remember having a male teacher for chemistry my sophomore year at DuPont Manual. Although I wasn't there long enough for the individual teachers to stand out in my memory, I also remember having a male teacher when I tried to take chemistry in one of the two schools I attended in Chattanooga. Mr. Strong, English teacher in middle school. Dr. Miller, CS Prof at Transy, who taught FORTRAN. Another CS Prof whose name I'm forgetting, who taught COBOL.

Women: Ms. Gilkerson, biology teacher in middle school. Ms. Estes, math teacher in middle school. Tylene Garrett, CS Prof at Transy, who taught C. My German teachers--I think I had a couple--were women. My French teacher in college was a woman.

I am not pulling up any others out of my sleepy brain right now, but I nevertheless do have an impression that most of my women teachers have been in things like language classes and literature. The ones I list above are the exceptions.

Re: Women, science and SF

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't have any male teachers at all until seventh grade..a gym teacher and a science teacher. No others until high school in Florida..again, gym and science/physics. Scott

Re: Women, science and SF

[annathepiper]

*nods* One's mileage may vary, of course. All of my schooling up through age 16 or so was in Louisville, and once I got through elementary school (where I have this vague impression that all of my teachers there were women), I started attending schools downtown. Noe Middle, DuPont Manual High, and the Youth Performing Arts School were all geared towards the Smart Kids(TM), so that may be part of why I had a broader gender range of teacher.

Once I wound up in Lexington, for my last year and a half of high school, I think I went back to mostly women. I'd have to double-check my yearbook.

College, I was in a CS program, so not terribly surprised to have had several male teachers. Also, all three of my calculus teachers were men.