"Under-Representation"

So - it's come up in articles I've read and online videos I've watched in the last few days - not to mention at school. Somehow there's become an assertion in liberal circles that under-representation equals discrimination. Two big words - but they aren't just fluffy academic meanderings; rather, they have very real-world consequences.

One such example is at University - there aren't enough women in math and engineering. Somehow this has been attributed to some form of discrimination, and therefore money - large amounts of money - have been set aside by many parties to give to women to enter into these faculties for free: free tuition. One of my computer science profs stood in front of his large class and proclaimed that any woman in Computer science that pays tuition is an idiot: there are so many sources of funding out there, reserved specifically (and not) for women, that, given the current female population of these faculties, any woman would virtually be guaranteed thousands of free dollars per year.

The same goes with Wikipedia. This is related of course - because it has to do with computers - but only some small percentage of people who contribute to Wikipedia are women, and liberal / feminist circles would have you believe this is due directly to discrimination.

I guess what makes me more right-wing, since returning home from my time in 'the bible belt' of Alberta, is that I believe more highly in the personal responsibility of people, and the choices they make, than liberals. I recognize this on a very regular basis - at school during discussions, and in the media. Liberals and feminists, in their argument, always try their best to ignore, or play down, the role of choice that comes into play when they see a statistic they don't like. The 'wage gap' is a great example. What - women on average earn less than men?! - DISCRIMINATION! .. ugh. Never in their literature will you ever see them give due consideration to the choices people make that may negatively affect their life-outcomes, especially when said people are part of a group that they've deemed to be victimized.

Look, one of the best traits about humans is that we're social creatures who have the ability to make choices both personal and relative to others. Sometimes we're stupid and act like sheep, and sometimes we make moves to better ourselves - sometimes at the detriment of others. The underlying aspect of all this is choice - and we're all responsible for those we make.