From _The Princess Bride_: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
From Wikipedia: "Sexism, a term coined in the mid-20th century, is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. It can also refer to hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole (see misogyny and misandry), or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation to men, or of femininity in relation to women. It is also called male and female chauvinism. Sexist is the adjective form of the noun sexism. Sex discrimination is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender."
Restricting an endowed professorship on the basis of any criterion is not sexist; it is discriminatory. And, frankly, I think it's totally justified: women are drastically underrepresented in the field, due to a wide variety of subtle discouragements that mostly fall under the broad label of institutional sexism.
The metaphor my partner uses is of a seesaw with one side on the ground. If you want to bring it back into balance, you have to make a deliberate change to the system by either removing mass from the side that's down, or adding mass to the side that's up. Continuing to pile mass on in the same proportions as before is, well, take your pick between "if we do not change our direction, we will end up where we are going," or "the definition of insanity."
Discrimination is justified? At first I thought I read it wrong... wow, its sounds like you are gay/lesbian and you say that!
If you believe (or anyone believes) that women are under-represented in the field, then why would you support the position of only hiring women? It doesn't solve the problem.
If you believe that women are underrepresented, then address the issue, NOT THE OUTCOME. Use that money to fund CS scholarships for women or programs that encourage programming for female high school students. Personally, I think that all teenagers should have learn a language(computer!) in high school; I wish I had learned programming sooner but there really isn't mainstream way to learn it outside of college and even then you don't get much exposure to it unless you know its there.
This would be no different than Harvard saying they are hiring a feminist studies teacher (A field that most agree is female dominated) but one of the bone fide occupational qualifications is being male. There are probably hundreds of qualified women who want an equal chance at that position. Instead they don't get a chance at all, why -because they were born with a vagina?!?!?!
The practice of hiring like that is discriminatory. The thought that we should only hire people based on gender is disgusting. I'm bisexual and when I fight, its for equal rights not revenge rights.
That's an awfully bi chip on your shoulder. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.) My gender and orientation is irrelevant to the argument, as are yours.
I agree that scholarships for women would help, but I'm curious -- why is subsidizing students based on gender okay, but hiring professors based on gender "disgusting?"
From Wikipedia: "Sexism, a term coined in the mid-20th century, is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. It can also refer to hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole (see misogyny and misandry), or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation to men, or of femininity in relation to women. It is also called male and female chauvinism. Sexist is the adjective form of the noun sexism. Sex discrimination is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender."
Restricting an endowed professorship on the basis of any criterion is not sexist; it is discriminatory. And, frankly, I think it's totally justified: women are drastically underrepresented in the field, due to a wide variety of subtle discouragements that mostly fall under the broad label of institutional sexism.
The metaphor my partner uses is of a seesaw with one side on the ground. If you want to bring it back into balance, you have to make a deliberate change to the system by either removing mass from the side that's down, or adding mass to the side that's up. Continuing to pile mass on in the same proportions as before is, well, take your pick between "if we do not change our direction, we will end up where we are going," or "the definition of insanity."