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WHAT IS BEHIND THE ACADEMIC ELECTION?
After looking at this history in retrospect, we can see that almost two
hundred years after its founding, the internal process of the member selection
shows that there have hardly been any changes in the gender proportions (today
the female ratio is prox. 10% among academics), so we can take cognizance of
its uninterrupted operation indeed.’ The elections are held based on peremptory
laws, which are de jure democratic, but are de facto reflections of conserved
habits. They do not allow the enforcement of new approaches of shifting
demands. ,. Non omnium, quae a maioribus constituta sunt, ratio reddi potest””®
— writes the Latin. Today this way of thinking is still considered valid, leads
public opinion, and considers certain rules unalterable. Accordingly, it is not
necessary to seek any order or system in the cast of the thought of the earlier
generations and in the categories they have made, we should simply accept
them, good as they are. We tend to forget that every rule based on an old habit
was likely made out of an instantaneous necessity, so it was serving a certain
need that surfaced at that given moment in time. But as of today these have
become outdated and in the new eco-social context do not hold up anymore.
“It is well-known that in the course of electing new members in a male¬
dominated organisation males are naturally chosen again”! Since the same
method of election has been in place for a longer period, and since men have
been a majority for all this period, it is easy to think that its operation is only
possible as it is, and that this is all well and natural.
To the question of femininity of whether a female would be called to master and
represent higher sciences and arts, as it is stated strongly by the knights of female
emancipation, we say no without any hesitation before God and man after learning
the times and observing the outstanding facts.’*"
Technology and science has been the territory of men since the XIX. century,
because there is an existing preconception about women being naturally unfit for a
scientific career, as they are not capable of rational thinking, understanding abstract
ideas and unable to use this knowledge for technical purposes.’
This assessment was conserved by facts like those that Claudia Wagner and
her colleagues studied in their work titled Women through the glass ceiling:
18 Today there are 11 functioning classes, eight out of these are of natural sciences, three are of
social sciences.
19 Iulianus 55 Dig., Dig. 1.3.20
189 Hargittai, M.: Korlátozott pozitív diszkrimináció, Magyar Tudomány 177, 2016, http://www.
matud.iif.hu/2016/07/12.htm (accessed 1 May 2017).
Herczeghy, M.: A nő physikai és szellemi természete — Különös tekintettel a keresztény vallásra,
az erkölcsiségre és a tudományra, Budapest, Grill Károly Királyi udvari könyvkereskedése,
1883, 121.
Mosconi; guoted by: Papp: A nők és férfiak közti esélyegyenlőség.
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