Here at CV we occasionally pat ourselves on the back at the high quality of some of our comment threads. So it’s only fair that we acknowledge our dismay at the depressingly consistent character of the discussions about women in science; posts by Clifford and me being just the most recent examples. What a depressing exercise to poke a finger into the turgid world of pseudo-scientific rationalizations for inequality that people will believe so that they can feel better about themselves. Among other things, it makes it nearly impossible to have a fruitful discussion about what we could realistically do about the problem; it’s as if Columbus were trying to equip his ships to voyage to the Indies and a hundred voices kept interrupting to point out that the world was flat.
There’s no question: a lot of people out there truly believe that there isn’t any significant discrimination against women in science, that existing disparities are simply a reflection of innate differences, and — best of all — that they themselves treat men and women with a rigorous equality befitting a true egalitarian. A professor I knew, who would never in a million years have admitted to any bias in his view of male and female students, once expressed an honest astonishment that the women in his class had done better than the men on the last problem set. Not that he would ever treat men and women differently, you understand — they just were different, and it was somewhat discomfiting to see them do well on something that wasn’t supposed to be part of their skill set. And he was a young guy, not an old fogey.
Who are these people? A lot of physicists grew up as socially awkward adolescents — not exactly the captain of the football team, if you know what I mean — and have found that as scientists they can suddenly be the powerful bullies in the room, and their delight in this role helps to forge a strangely macho and exclusionary culture out of what should be a joyful pursuit of the secrets of the universe. An extremely common characteristic of the sexist male scientist is their insistence that they can’t possibly be biased against women, because they think that women are really beautiful — as if that were evidence of anything. If they see other men saying anything in support of women’s rights, they figure it must be because those men are just trying to impress the babes. They see women, to put it mildly, as something other than equal partners in the scholarly enterprise.
These are the same people who used to argue that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, that African slaves couldn’t be taught to read and write, that Jews are genetically programmed to be sneaky and miserly. It’s a deeply conservative attitude in the truest sense, in which people see a world in which their own group is sitting at the top and declare it to be the natural order of things. They are repeating a mistake that has been made time and time again over the years, but think that this time it’s really different. When it comes to discrimination in science, you can point to all the empirical evidence you like, and their convictions will not be shaken. They have faith.
The good news is that they are on the losing side of history, as surely as the slaveholders were in the Civil War. Not because of any natural progression towards greater freedom and equality, but because a lot of committed people are working hard to removing existing barriers, and a lot of strong women will fight through the biases to succeed in spite of them. It’s happening already.
Get used to it, boys.
I propose stapling leaflets which say “Discrimination hurts us all” on noticeboards in physics departments across the country.
Well, does anybody have any better ideas?
Great idea, Anonymous, but I’m afraid the people who are doing the real damage aren’t the idiots going on about sexual penetration, but rather the ones who truly believe that discrimination no longer exists and therefore they don’t have to change anything about the way they go about their business and interact with other people — that the system is either no longer broken or will fix itself given time. It’s hard for people, even well-meaning ones, to admit that they (that we all!) are still implicated in the ongoing problem.
Well said, Carpenter. You’re absolutely right.
“I propose stapling leaflets which say “Discrimination hurts us all” on noticeboards in physics departments across the country.”
Discrimination must exist for it to be hurting people. I like this idea, can I staple it to people’s foreheads?
“the people who are doing the real damage aren’t the idiots going on about sexual penetration, but rather the ones who truly believe that discrimination no longer exists and therefore they don’t have to change anything about the way they go about their business and interact with other people — that the system is either no longer broken or will fix itself given time. It’s hard for people, even well-meaning ones, to admit that they (that we all!) are still implicated in the ongoing problem.”
Yup.
–Q.
Carpenter,
Why not listen to today’s edition of Science in Action:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/science_in_action.shtml
The report on ”Shadenfreude” should be interesting.
Sweet Jesus the stereotypes never stop comming. The only Shadenfreude I’m interested in is when a guy in my research group flat out toldmyofficemate(a woman) that all women,even the physicists,are bad at math and theres nothing she can do about it, because obviously thenly reason he would do that is because he lacks any social grace and enjoys whatever emotional shock he may have caused her.
It is absurd to keep having this argument.
Long ago white peoplemade up the myth that blackmen were wanton and lewd and wanted nothing more thanto rape white women. The remnants of this hyper masculinization reamain today with the idea that backmen have larger genitals. This ‘fact that everyone knows’ isn’t true and never was but it has wound its way into the unconcious belief systems of many Americans.
Women are wellrepresented in other sciences and in math. I think thesolution isto market physics and forge strong support groups for women a ta llevelsof education to counteract the effects of comon prejudice. Lots of girls don’t even know physics is an option for them. I also think physicists need ti be educated about where these subtleprejudices come from . For example the story I have related about hypersexualization of black americans I learned inhigh school history classs. The story of how science has been misused for social ills is along one- from declarations that women were so ill adapted to physical excercise that even walking was a strain to them to the Piltdown man hoax ‘prooving’ greater cranialcapacity in caucasioans- and maybe it should be told in some kind of ethics class…along with telling people the dangers of plagerism and fudging data/error bars to make insignificant results look bigger.
Did the guy in your research group say “all women” – as in every individual female human, or “women” as in a statistical population. If the former, the fellow isn’t connected to reality; if the latter, he may or may not be right.
#129 Count Iblis: Yet another example of male-female differentiation. Nature or nurture?
CI
Yes this study with all of 32 data points definitelyprooves conclusivley that and sex difference w/r to fairness/punishment responses is biological in origin and therefore women must be bad at math hence under represented in physics…he and also have lower sex drives and be less aggressive.
sisyphus
he was talking about all women even the ones already in physics but it scarcely matters. For some reason men think its acceptable to make derrogitory comments about womens abilities on average, and consider those women in thier immediate proximity as exceptions. I think I speak fora lot of women when I say that this
does not make you sound like any less of an asshole. If anything, it is meant to invalidate your personal point of view
B:”women are bad at physics’
A:’Hey, I’m not’
B:’Oh I didn’t mean you I meant women in general’
A: *aorta rips open in attempt to supress outrage*
see how B doesn’t exactly come off as a mensch?
Carpenter:
“A: *aorta rips open in attempt to supress outrage*”
LOL!
You’re quite right, of course, but this made me laugh. Thanks for that.
“I think thesolution isto market physics and forge strong support groups for women a ta llevelsof education to counteract the effects of comon prejudice. Lots of girls don’t even know physics is an option for them.”
I agree. How would you go about this (I blogged about this on my personal blog — I’m looking for ideas)?
–Q.
#134 Carpenter: If we restrict ourselves to literal content, B could be merely a not terribly aware mensch. (oxymoron?).
But, if we’re going to be honest (and sometimes honesty is unavoidable) we must acknowledge that in the real world much of a person’s identity is taken from statistically treatable populations: eg. “I, Jane Smythe, am a female, black, protestant, republican doctor.”.
This is so even of the most ardent individualist.
Anyone who attacks the status of females, blacks, etc., even with the most objective, dispassionate statistical argument, attacks Jane Smythe.
Attacking all or any part of Jane’s identity in her presence is aggression.
(I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything that hasn’t occurred to you; I just want to make clear my own take on the matter.)
Any discussion with Jane re. any of the populations cited must be approached in a gingerly fashion – particularly by anyone who isn’t a member of the group being discussed.
Or so I believe.
If anybody cares.
#17 says “Someone needs to do the damn study and obtain a convincing answer one way or the other.”
but no controlled experiment of the effects of gender on physics learning is possible until you first eliminate the effects of culture on (a) how boys & girls are raised, and (b) how physics works. In other words, you have to eliminate sexism before the study is possible.
So not only is the study nearly impossible (and to me reminscent of Bush’s calls to “study” global warming — more about implying false uncertainty than about trying to find truth in good faith), we know in advance that any “innate” gender differences are completely swamped by cultural effects. For example, look at how the # of women in physics varies over time, or from country to country (see this amazing graph). It seems quite unlikely that innate differences can say anything useful about there being 1-2% female physics faculty in japan and 47% in hungary.
137 aram: 47% in Hungary – really? That’s interesting. This is only anecdote, but I know lots of Hungarians; the men tend to be pretty macho. Even so, 47%. Hmm.
Maybe it has to do with gender security. The Hungarians I know are high-libido.
Maybe the sexier a society is the less sexist it is.
Maybe not.
Just a thought.
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I’ve seen a couple of stories on CBS News (2003) & CNN (yesterday), which seems to support the theory that the Environment (“Nurture”, in Nature vs Nurture) component is allowing women to get penetration into academics.
A Massachussetts male high-school filed a lawsuit arguing sexual-discrimination..against BOYS!!
CNN (yesterday):
“..girls do outnumber boys on the honor roll and in advanced placement classes..”
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/27/ltm.05.html
MILES O’BRIEN: A high school student in Massachusetts is on a crusade for equality in the classroom. He claims the academic deck is stacked against boys in his school district and he’s out to force the school system to reshuffle. Here is AMERICAN MORNING’s Dan Lothian.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Seventeen-year-old Doug Anglin is a senior at Milton High School near Boston where the 1,000 plus student body is almost evenly split by gender. But Anglin claims the treatment is anything but equal.
DOUG ANGLIN, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: I think the Milton High School system is designed to the disadvantage of males. The teachers assume that they’re lazy and they have bad work habits.
LOTHIAN: He argues that makes it easier for girls to succeed academically. So the B student who plays soccer and baseball has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. But School Principal John Drottar says gender never impacts the way students are treated.
DR JOHN DROTTAR, HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: We don’t discriminate. We want to have every student given the equal opportunity to be aa successful as they can be.
LOTHIAN: He admits that girls do outnumber boys on the honor roll and in advanced placement classes, but says that’s part of a bigger issue educators nationwide are grappling with.
DROTTAR: It’s part of, you know, many studies that will tell you and discuss and try to delineate where the differences are.
LOTHIAN: Studies show boys are increasingly falling behind girls and that they differ in their learning styles and behavior in the classroom. Harvard Medical Schools’s Dr. William Pollack, author of this book on the subject, says differences need to be addressed in order for boys to catch up to girls.
DR. WILLIAM POLLACK, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: But we’re not taking the data we have and acting on it and creating curricula, new reading environments, new learning environments that boys will run to.
LOTHIAN: Ask for Anglin’s complaint, which was filed with the help of his attorney father, the Department of Education says it is still under evaluation to determine if it is appropriate for an investigation. Milton’s principal says this controversy provides educators with a great opportunity.
DROTTAR: To recommit to helping everybody do the best they can.
LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, CNN, Milton, Massachusetts.
—————–
There are some datapoints like that in the CBSNews story (2003):
CBSNews (2003)
The Gender Gap: Boys Lagging
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/31/60minutes/main527678.shtml
Remember when girls became nurses and not doctors? Stenographers, not CEOs? Teachers, not principals?
Well, that’s not the way it is any more. Thirty years after the passage of equal opportunity laws, girls are graduating from high school and college and going into professions and businesses in record numbers.
Now, it’s the boys who could use a little help in school, where they’re falling behind their female counterparts.
And if you think it’s just boys from the inner cities, think again. It’s happening in all segments of society, in all 50 states. That’s why more and more educators are calling for a new national effort to put boys on an equal footing with their sisters. Lesley Stahl reports.
At graduation ceremonies last June at Hanover High School in Massachusetts, it was the ninth year in a row that a girl was on the podium as school valedictorian. Girls also took home nearly all the honors, including the science prize, says principal Peter Badalament.
“[Girls] tend to dominate the landscape academically right now,” he says, even in math and science.
The school’s advanced placement classes, which admit only the most qualified students, are often 70 percent to 80 percent girls. This includes calculus. And in AP biology, there was not a single boy.
According to Badalment, three out of four of the class leadership positions, including the class presidents, are girls. In the National Honor Society, almost all of the officers are girls. The yearbook editor is a girl.
While there are statistically more boy geniuses than girl geniuses, far more boys than girls are found at the very bottom of the academic ranks. School districts from Massachusetts to Minnesota to California report that boys are withdrawing from the life of schools, and girls are taking over.
“Girls outperform boys in elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, and graduate school,” says Dr. Michael Thompson, a school psychologist who writes about the academic problems of boys in his book, “Raising Cain.” He says that after decades of special attention, girls are soaring, while boys are stagnating.
“Girls are being told, ‘Go for it, you can do it. Go for it, you can do it.’ They are getting an immense amount of support,” he says. “Boys hear that the way to shine is athletically. And boys get a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be masculine and what it means to be a student. Does being a good student make you a real man? I don’t think so… It is not cool.”
“Girls don’t necessarily get teased as much if they do well,” says Meredith, a graduating senior at Hanover High.
“I think that boys are more, you know, expected to be the star athletes, to bring home the football title,” says Tom, another graduating senior.
Their classmate Colby agrees: “I think maybe girls are a little more goal-oriented, where guys, in general, are more apt to go with the flow, like, ‘Well, if I do well in high school, that’s great. If I don’t, hey, that’s fine.'”
The picture doesn’t get much brighter for young men when they get to college. Campuses are now nearly 60 percent female, with women earning 170,000 more bachelor degrees each year than men. Women are streaming into business schools and medical schools, and will be the majority at the nation’s law schools. At some colleges, they’re getting so many more qualified women applicants than men applicants that the schools are doing something that might shock you.
“To make a class that’s 50/50, they’re practicing affirmative action on behalf of boys,” says Thompson. “Girls are so outperforming boys in school right now, one statistician said he took it out to its absurd endpoint and said at the present trend, the last man to get his bachelor’s degree will do so in 2068.”
Even if that never happens, the trend is ominous. Boys are falling further behind girls in reading and writing, and still, there’s no public outcry the way there was for girls, and we wanted to find out why.
“All the rhetoric in the gender equity movement is about how schools shortchange girls. There was almost nothing about how we could reach out to boys,” says Christina Hoff Sommers, a former college professor, now at the American Enterprise Institute. She blames the lack of attention to boys’ problems on feminists.
“In order to advance girls, they exaggerated how vulnerable girls were, and they understated the needs of boys. They depicted boys as … the privileged beneficiaries of a patriarchal society that oppresses women, demeans them and trains young men to be sexist, misogynists,” she says.
Sommers targets groups like the AAUW, the American Association of University Women, and feminist scholars. She says they published a blitz of studies and popular books depicting girls in crisis at precisely the moment when statistics showed girls were catching up to boys or moving past them in most academic areas. Sommers says the efforts on behalf of girls turned into what she calls a war against boys.
“I don’t have a war. I am not in favor of saying that girls ought to get anything over boys,” says Jacqueline Woods, president of the AAUW.
Sommers calls the AAUW and other similar organizations the “gender bias industry.” Woods disagrees: “Most people understand that gender equity is about making sure that both boys and girls have equal access to educational opportunities.”
Sommers also accuses women teachers of favoring girls over boys. She says they reward classroom behavior that girls find easier, like sitting still, and punish boys for being, well, boys.
“If boys are obstreperous and high-spirited and competitive, which most of them are, this is seen as behavior which is not tolerated. They see that as an expression of a toxic masculinity,” she says.
Thompson disagrees with this: “I do not think that feminism has ruined the lives of boys.” He blames fathers.
“Where are the men? Why aren’t men advocating for boys? We know that boys who have fathers who go to PTA meetings, those boys get better grades,” says Thompson, who believes there is a clear correlation when a father’s involved.
“If your father only shows up for town soccer and town football and never goes to PTA meetings, well, duh, doesn’t take too much to figure out what your father values.”
“Every small town in Texas turns out on Friday night to watch boys play football, and it’s lacrosse in Maryland, and it’s ice hockey in Minnesota and Massachusetts. Boys are demagogued, but not for their academic work.”
He says that could be fixed in large part if schools recruited more male teachers.
“I had a teacher at my school, and this teacher said, you know, ‘I’m the first man they’ve ever known who liked poetry and taught poetry,’ and this man is also their coach,” Thompson says.
At Jefferson Academy in Long Beach, Calif., Franklin Goodman fits this bill. He coaches, and also teaches seventh grade math and science, where the ratio of male to female teachers is 50/50. That’s unusual enough, but there’s another big difference. During academic periods, the genders are separated, boys in one room and girls in another.
“First of all, there aren’t any female distractions for them,” Goodman says. The boys told Stahl that other kids call them ‘gay’ for going to class with all boys, but they admit it’s been good for them. They learn more, they told her, without girls.
The teachers use more physical activity and competition in the all-boy classrooms and tailor the courses to boys’ tastes, with more books on topics like war and science fiction.
The school must be doing something right. Test scores for boys have jumped dramatically.
Why aren’t boys’ academic problems a bigger issue? “There’s a little cultural secret at work here. Boys go out in the work world and earn more money,” says Thompson. “Nobody wants to admit what’s happening, which is, ‘You girls work very hard, but sorry, ladies, when you get out there, we’re not going to pay you equally. And you boys, it’s OK. You can loaf through school. You’ll get good jobs afterwards.'”
But, Thompson says, there’s going to be a cold shower when the country realizes that women are completely dominating the numbers in professional schools. “We can’t have a country of women in white-collar jobs and men in blue-collar jobs. That’s not going to be good for this society.”
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