Focus on females indeed! (1)

'Ibn Campusino' (The Sunday Times, October 29) belies gross misunderstandings of gender issues.

To draw attention to all the false insinuations would require one to write a paper and not a mere letter. Like a good scientist, be it male or female, but certainly different from the anonymous writer, focusing on just a few points is apposite.

It is surprising that the writer attacks females because they "sometimes fail to present a critical eye for detail and opt to look at the trivial". The opposite is often the case. In view of their brain physiology, the female corpus callosum allows them to process much more data than males. This makes them much better at multi-tasking and their decisions incorporate many more factors than males are able to take into account.

"Females need to take a harder approach", the anonymous writer pontificates! Mother Nature herself has gifted females with the ability to face more difficult situations than males ever have to. Indeed, the great achievements of females in environments such as those males assumed are their prerogative have been the result of a very hard approach because they had to face institutionalised bias, prohibitions and often also downright discrimination, at times promoted under the guise of religious orthodoxy.

It is indeed untrue to claim that "up to some time ago females barred themselves from following courses which were considered to be most demanding in physical terms". The truth lies elsewhere: social prejudice, lack of resources and a whole culture of male domination and intolerance are some of the real reasons why females 'were barred', rather than "barred themselves".

Other inaccuracies and vague allusions pepper the commentary. This does not mean that the University of Malta does not have a gender problem. Indeed it has, because it is riddled with male biases at many levels. The aptitudes of females are not properly tapped, and their successes pooh-poohed in male myopia. Most females tend to be constantly bypassed, their international achievements downplayed, and their leadership abilities kept solidly locked inside them. Often, they feel that they are treated as second-class citizens.

One simply hopes that this will change soon and that this is not a case of men being too afraid of the female potential and ability.