Joyeux 4th of July, mes amis américains! I am checking in from Montréal, a temporary stopover on the way back to the U.S. of A. from a brief visit to Quebec City. I was there for Renaissance Weekend, an occasional (five times per year) gathering of the important, demi-important, and merely interesting and/or well-connected to get together and talk about stuff.
I had a great time, and I would be happy to tell you all about it if RW goings-on were not strictly off the record. (For example, I could reveal the amusing story behind how nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler met his wife Rosa Wang, or how I took down a huge pot from Scripps College president Nancy Bekavac when my quad tens demolished her ace-high flush, but rules are rules.) But I am perfectly within my rights to share things that I said myself. I gave a few mini-presentations, among which was one in a series of two-minute lunchtime talks on “What I Would Do If I Could,” a rather free-ranging topic if ever there was one. Other people suggested banning torture, printing people’s phone numbers on their license plates, or moving to a chocolate-based economy. Here was my little spiel:
If I could propose one thing, it would be to do everything in our power to encourage young girls to get excited about science, math, and technology.
As a physicist, I know that my field is only about ten percent women. There is a theory on the market, occasionally suggested by people in positions of power and influence, that an important contributor to this imbalance is a difference in intrinsic aptitude. The technical term for this theory is “bullshit.” I say this not as a starry-eyed egalitarian, but as one who has looked at the data. This is a theory that makes predictions, and its predictions are spectacularly wrong. If they were right, the fraction of women that dropped out would rise at the higher ranks, as the competition for positions became more fierce; that’s not true. The percentage of women scientists would be basically constant from place to place; that’s not true. The fraction of women getting physics degrees would be stable over time; that’s not true. The truth is that women drop out of science between high school and college (and, tellingly, disproportionately more women try to specialize in physics later in college than those who choose physics as a major during their first year). And they do so because they are discouraged by a million small signals that add up to a powerful cumulative message.
We shouldn’t encourage girls to be enthusiastic about science, math, and technology because we need more scientists, mathematicians, or engineers. We should do so because many young girls are potentially interested in technical fields, and this interest should be celebrated, not deprecated. Support to pursue one’s passions is something that everyone deserves, regardless of their chromosomes.
Let freedom ring, everybody.
Dear Supernova,
“Pervasive prejudice doesn’t strike you as a heinous problem?”
Strangely, no… at least it is not obvious to me that the problem is so big as to be called heinous. A heinous problem would be a situation where someone with motivation and aspirations is being denied opportunities afforded to the more privaleged. But as I said, this does not strike me as being the situation in science. (To the extent that it is, it is a major problem). I don’t think it is a moral travesty when a woman decides that she is more interested in literature than chemistry, even if that preference was to some extent influenced by broad gender stereotypes learned at a young age. We are all influenced by societal expectations, for better or worse. In the end, our choice of intellectual and professional interest is an intensely personal thing.
I have to admit to playing a little devil’s advocate too. My problem is that I tend to think of things in terms of individuals rather than statistics… if every person is living a happy, fulfilled life, why should it matter what the current numerical gender ratios are in typical physics departments?
Of course, not everyone lives a “happy life,” and sexism is still a major problem in scientific academia, even if it seems (to me) that most women scientists remain unphased. I just wonder whether “proportional representation” (as such) is really the right goal to pursue.
Of course it is. And I think you and I are in agreement that to question someone’s personal choice of intellectual and professional interest — or the choices of a class of people — would be to patronize them and assume they don’t know what’s best for them. Certainly none of us is taking that position.
But what if that personal choice is not directly based on intellectual interest but feelings of discomfort and lack of collegiality in one’s professional surroundings? Being fed up with not being credited for one’s own ideas? Wanting a job in which one’s involvement with one’s family life is not seen as a liability or an indication of not being “serious” about one’s work? Distribution of resources (office/lab space, funding, students) that systematically favors male colleagues (as has been shown at MIT, for example)? Women facing such difficulties may well choose to leave the field, and this choice may well be the best one for them; but it seems to me that this situation indicates the field has serious problems that need to be addressed. In some sense, we’re interfering with women’s choice of intellectual and professional interest.
No one would tell a woman who left that she made the wrong choice and would be better off coming back. But wouldn’t it be nice if young women of the future were able to make their choices based on interest alone and not these other factors? Even if we accept “socialization via Barbie dolls” at a young age as inevitable, there are still many factors that discourage women from careers in the physical sciences and need to be addressed.
There’s always a bigger problem.
If you use the argument that there are more important problems in the world, then pretty much none of us can justify thinking about anything other than (a) potential devstation of civlization due to coming climate change, and (b) the genocide-du-jour, currently in (at least) Darfour.
However, just because there are other bigger problems doesn’t mean that a given problem isn’t real! Sean is a physicist. The problem of gender discrimination in physics is a problem *in his own house*. It’s eminently rational for him to consider that one of the biggest problems worth spending his time and energy on, if he considers it a problem at all.
-Rob
The Greenspun article is interesting. I have no grand theory about the situation, but I can attest to the “million small signals” adding up to significant discouragement. But ultimately what’s driving me (a woman) from the field is the lack of job opportunities, the job insecurity, and the low pay. I should note that I am an astronomy postdoc. I want to have a choice over where I live, enough money to buy a house, and enough money to support a family if I choose to have or adopt children. These concerns are overwhelming the positives, which are many, of my chosen field of specialty.
I will probably leave science entirely for business/statistics/strategy. Why? Because I want to be around different people. Sometimes I get so sick of it I could scream. The same color, the same introverted personalities, mostly the same gender, mostly the same economic class equals the same ideas and the same opinions. I hope that I will encounter a broader range of the human spectrum in the business world. Maybe it won’t work, but I’m ready to give it a try. I think I will feel an immense sense of freedom once I get a job outside academia. As long as I can negotiate enough vacation time.
Justin — two points:
if every person is living a happy, fulfilled life
They’re not. There are even people who have been extremely succsful in science who are unhappy about the conditions; there are more who have left science, not because they weren’t interested in the science or didn’t have the aptitude, but because they didn’t want to put up with the general misogynistic bullshit.
Here’s an editorial from a pundit of astronomy on the issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A360-2005Feb5.html
it seems (to me) that most women scientists remain unphased.
You don’t talk much in depth about these issues with many women, then.
Most women I know in science seem unphased to me, only because I haven’t talked to them much about it. However, of the handful of women I have talked to in some depth about it, every single one has stories to tell that are between shockingly irritating and utterly hair-raising.
Again, my evidence is anecdotal– but I would suggest that your anecdotal lack of evidence is merely evidence that you haven’t really tried to see if there is evidence.
-Rob
-Rob
But ultimately what’s driving me (a woman) from the field is the lack of job opportunities, the job insecurity, and the low pay.
The first two are what really stress me out. And I’m a man…. I don’t directly have to deal with the misogynistic bullshit, which is just on top of the normal everybody-gets-this stresses.
As for the pay: I know I could make a lot more in “industry”, but I also know that I make more than most of the people in this country, so I’m not so worried about the pay.
But the job insecurity: that kills me. See http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?p=27
I hate to break it to you all but things aren’t really any different in the business world or in the home. It’s a lovely idea to be able to spend your time pursuing only your most prized interests, but in reality most people have to work to make a living and not just for self-fulfillment. Anyone who is blessed enough to be able to truly engage in their intellectual pursuits with minimal interruption, interference, etc. from ‘lesser’ concerns AND to be paid for it should never complain about how ‘hard’ it is. Just the perscective from ‘below.’ How many women in prominent positions in any field have children? For instance, does Lisa Randall have children?
Anonymous Ph.D. : It’s possible to balance that work environment (where you state that you don’t experience people with a wide range of personality types) with a completely different environment outside of work. For example, by using your off-work time to engage in hobbies that have nothing to do with physics/science.
Anyone who is blessed enough to be able to truly engage in their intellectual pursuits with minimal interruption, interference, etc. from ‘lesser’ concerns AND to be paid for it should never complain about how ‘hard’ it is.
The point here is that women in science are suffering from more disruptive influences than men doing the same work. Also, I don’t know what point you are trying to make wrt children. Lisa Randell doesn’t have children – how is this supposed to demonstrate that things aren’t any better in the business world?
To Anonymous PhD: Amen! to your whole comment. I am only about to start my PhD (though I have been in grad school for a couple of years already – don’t ask!) but I doubt that I am going to continue in academia beyond that. I don’t think I want to spend my 30’s without any clear idea where I am going in life. I love to move around, but equally, I want some sort of stability, at least in the form of confidence that I will have a job in two years’ time. I just spent a weekend with a friend who is working in the City. I’m not sure I’d want his job, but his life – yes. He admits work isn’t exactly exciting, but he’s on the way to a life he wants.
To Annie: 1st grad school I tried, the issue wasn’t so much discrimination as creepiness. Like more than one guy turning up uninvited at my house in the evening, or trying to push the boundaries of “friendship” way too far. And the guy with porno in his cubicle, which the school did nothing about though I complained. In addition to this, I have experienced also the being ignored by faculty thing. I say something, they just glance at me and don’t respond; a guy says the same and gets a full answer.
To be fair, I have also been in a class in which the (young) professor said “great question!” whenever a girl asked, but dismissed the same or similar comments from guys. But those situations are definitely in the minority. IT’s great you haven’t noticed it yet, but eventually I suspect you will. Good luck in the meantime…
Dear Rob Knopp,
I think you’re missing my point. What I am arguing is that the gender ratio in science is mostly determined by the relative interest in the subject between males and females. It is not obvious to me that this discrepancy, in and of itself, is a major injustice. Most people have decided whether science interests them by the time they graduate from high school — long before they can have an inkling as to the social pressures and problems of working in academia. Sexism and other prejudices in the scientific community is an extremely important issue, but one that (I think) has only a small effect on the large gender descrepancy. So if sexism in academic science is the central concern, gender ratios may not the correct or relevant guage with which to measure progress.
I have talked to women scientists before. I hear a wide range of attitudes about women’s issues in science. Some have had terrible experiences… others have had few problems. Some are very engaged in women’s issues in science… others prefer to downplay the distinction between genders (my girlfriend is in the later class). However, I have never met a woman who has quit academic science purely on the basis of the discrimination she encountered. (I can only imagine such a thing in the most eggregious circumstances … for example sexual harrassment from a thesis advisor). On the whole, a woman persuing a science PhD or more is strong and is not going to be phased by bullshit.
Geez. It’s like I’ve gone back in time to 1972.
Cynthia, you must have missed the memo stating that it’s now okay to admit that men and women are innately different and remain a feminist.
If you want to believe that males and females have innately identical interests, you go right ahead. If you want spread the gospel that socialism raises the median standard of living more than capitalism does, knock yourself out. If you think astrology predicts the future, well, hey, it’s a free country. But you really can’t expect someone living in the 21st century to patiently refute for you these tired positions of another era. I wish I was up for that, but, frankly, I’m not. Maybe another time.
Peeve: phased
It’s “fazed”, people.
And the fact that some people are unfazed by it doesn’t make the bullshit any more acceptable.
Nor can we know whether there is a civilization of intelligent beings living in the center of the sun.
PK,
“Knowing” simply means holding a conjecture that seems most consistent with our experiences, which include formal experiments. The notion of innate interests better explains the phenomenon of young girls and boys adhering to stereotypical behavior patterns despite explicit attempts to change them. [For example, boys (however young) given dolls tend to decapitate them and use them as weapons; girls (however young) given toy trucks tend turn them into cuddle toys or lose interest in them. Do try this experiment at home.]
These effects needn’t be genetic to be innate. It appears that one can modify the innate interests of a child by modifying the hormonal environment to which it is exposed in the womb. Excessive exposure of a female fetus to prenatal androgens produces a tomboy, under-exposure of a male fetus produces an effeminate male. [See Matt Ridley’s popular works and the journal references therein.]
Amara,
Most of those jobs are offering a mere $60,000 per year or so to perform extremely demanding work, for which one must have mastered many technologies that did not even exist a decade ago, while living in the most expensive part of the country. The evidence of a surplus is the low salary offered for such a demanding job.
You could just as well argue that there is a shortage of physicians in the bay area, because few are willing to work there for $60K.
$60k is entirely adequate compensation for work which requires a bachelor’s degree and Competence, more likely, is.
Er, that’s garbled.
$60k is entirely adequate compensation for work which requires a bachelor’s degree and less than 5 years of experience. Competence, not mastery, is expected.
Therefore such discrimination doesn’t exist, or isn’t significant? Lack of (anecdotal) evidence isn’t evidence of absence. I’ve never met anyone with AIDS; can I therefore blithely claim it’s not an enormous factor in the lives of millions of people?
Anyway, I would argue that it shouldn’t be only the “strong,” “unfaze-able” women who get to be physicists (if they want to). It shouldn’t be only the “strong,” “unfaze-able” men either. But the unfortunate truth is that men don’t face nearly as many “fazing” factors along the way.
Interesting, therefore, that the percentage of women pursuing careers in physics and other technical and scientific fields has been increasing in response to explicit efforts to encourage such “non-stereotypical” behavior…
why are we talking about girls and dolls when French women are twice as likely to get a PhD in physics than American women? Like Sean implied above, let’s explain THAT little phenomenon before we start even talking about all this stupidity about inherent differences.
Oh, I get it, French women are genetically predisposed to act like American men. Or something.
I have boy/girl twins, and it was not because of prompting one way or another that the girl had girly interests and is much more oriented towards what other people think (about her!), while the boy isn’t. This isn’t statistical of course, but the difference MAY be indded valid at a population level. But so what. That has stuff all to do with an interest in physics and stuff all to do with whether or not more women should be encouraged to pursue curiosity about the natural world and translate that into a profession.
My mom wanted to do science but lived at the wrong time. She got me interested in science at a very young age and I really wanted to do astronomy but alas…I don’t have the math for it. I can do geometry and I was doing trig before I knew there was an actual name for it but I never was able to decipher algebra. I don’t have a daughter to interest in science but I’m working on my great nieces now!
Sean and Supernove,
The reference you are looking for is the study/book by Xie and Shauman.
It’s amazing and depressing how this conversation never progresses. It would help if people would read the literature and stop with the anecdotal stories (all of which have a counterexample).
Okay you want an explanation? Religion. There it is in it’s ugliness. American women are exposed to religion from birth to death on a far more aggressive level than anywhere in Europe. Want proof? How many women scientists do you see in the Muslim world? Getting little girls interested in math and science is great but weaning everybody away from a ridiculous superstition based on a fear of death is vital to our survival as a race.