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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Women in science
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day, which set me wondering about how few women are involved in the physical sciences, and how that doesn't seem to make sense.
Now, someone will object, the Church hardly has a shining record on this. Very true. But in the twenty years since women were able to become priests in the Church of England, we've now reached the point where more women than men are being ordained. By contrast, it's now - what? - 60 or 70 years since women started being awarded science degrees in the UK, and only about 10% of science professors are women.
Why do we think the progress of women in science has gone so slowly? And if the answer is that male-dominated science departments are institutionally misogynistic, does this undermine any claims that science can provide a paradigm of rationalist thinking that can guide contemporary society?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
You might find this project of interest.
It's a pipeline of issues: making girls aware of SET careers at an early stage; supporting them in academic study (when they may be just one or two on an engineering course); addressing workplace attitudes through diversity training; enabling flexibility in career structure (career breaks, part-time working); encouraging networking and mentoring; identifying women who have achieved success and promoting them as role models - which in turn feeds back into attracting more girls to SET careers.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day, which set me wondering about how few women are involved in the physical sciences, and how that doesn't seem to make sense.
Now, someone will object, the Church hardly has a shining record on this. Very true. But in the twenty years since women were able to become priests in the Church of England, we've now reached the point where more women than men are being ordained. By contrast, it's now - what? - 60 or 70 years since women started being awarded science degrees in the UK, and only about 10% of science professors are women.
Why do we think the progress of women in science has gone so slowly? And if the answer is that male-dominated science departments are institutionally misogynistic, does this undermine any claims that science can provide a paradigm of rationalist thinking that can guide contemporary society?
I can't comment on women in science, but I think even before women could become priests in the CoE women made up a large part of the church in terms of volunteers, deacons, children's workers etc. Even in say, the RCC, a man may be in charge but it's women who do the legwork and keep the church going.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus
And if the answer is that male-dominated science departments are institutionally misogynistic, does this undermine any claims that science can provide a paradigm of rationalist thinking that can guide contemporary society?
Obviously misogyny is a serious problem, but I wouldn't concern yourself as to whether this could undermine "any claims that science can provide a paradigm of rationalist thinking that can guide contemporary society".
The reason is, of course, that science cannot do this anyway, because that is outside its scope. Science deals with the natural world, which, as we know, does not deliver any 'oughts' to us. Nature just is. Period. That's it. Science can say nothing more than nature can tell us.
Of course, certain scientists can pretend to be the new clergy. And I guess if they have an audience, then they can pull it off. But not with any recourse to reason.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
I think what Adeodatus had in mind was any notion that scientific knowledge and method stand on their own independently of who discovers the knowledge or uses the method. This is certainly of the essence of science, and any resistance to who joins the community would deny it.
To refer to something I muttered just a little while ago in another thread-- wouldn't you have to agree that as long as the Taliban etc. maintain such resistance to the extent they do, their outlook is inimical to the practice of science among them?
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Even before women could become priests in the CoE women made up a large part of the church in terms of volunteers, deacons, children's workers etc. Even in say, the RCC, a man may be in charge but it's women who do the legwork and keep the church going.
Quite, and not just in the CoE. In The Church Impotent, Leon Podles discusses this fact at considerable length. Clergymen may have the titles and be formally on the throne, but then there are the powers behind the throne... AKA balance.
Any such balance is now threatened.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
I think what Adeodatus had in mind was any notion that scientific knowledge and method stand on their own independently of who discovers the knowledge or uses the method. This is certainly of the essence of science, and any resistance to who joins the community would deny it.
It seems to me you've got this exactly backwards. If scientific knowledge and methods really are the same regardless of who discovers or uses them, then the exclusion of any particular class of person is fundamentally irrelevant to the essence of science.
Not irrelevant to the principles of justice or equality, of course. But I rather doubt we're ever going to look back on the history of (say) particle physics and say those scientists were somehow being untrue to science, or that their results were unscientific, because they discriminated against women. (I suspect there are fields where the exclusion of a particular gender might be found to have a material effect on the conclusions reached, but the OP did specify the physical sciences.)
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
The authority of science rests on the reproduceability of results by anyone who goes to the trouble of making the experiments. This authority is compromised by discouraging anyone from doing just that.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
This makes no sense to me at all. Does this mean the experimental results from the Large Hadron Collider should be considered less authoritative because women are discriminated against in the physical sciences?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Yes.
There have actually been efforts among a few radical feminists to denigrate science as only a male endeavor, and therefore of limited significance. Very post-modern.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Imaginary Friend
Real to you
# 186
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Posted
Sidestepping Alogon's mildly incomprehensible position for a moment, I would like to make an observation based on my short career in the academic world of physical science.
The observation is that there are many more women at the post-grad and post-doc levels than there were even a few years ago. They are still in the minority, but not by a huge amount, especially in the experimental branches of physics. There are also more women professors than there were - although admittedly they are significantly in the minority. So the direction of travel is the right one, even if it is perhaps a little slow.
In fact, I would also say that if there was an inequity that should be addressed it is the number of people of African-American descent in the physical sciences, which is astonishingly small.
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"We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass."
Brian Clough
Posts: 9455 | From: Left a bit... Right a bit... | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
It seems like there's a growing number of women in Academic positions and as college students. If history is a guide, unfortunately the feminization of the job is usually followed by a cut in prestige and pay for the job. ( secretary, phone operator, medical technition.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Imaginary Friend:
Sidestepping Alogon's mildly incomprehensible position for a moment,
Perhaps I went too far in saying "yes", i.e. the experimental results from the Large Hadron Collider should be considered less authoritative because women are discriminated against in the physical sciences. But we must recognize that they are. And frankly I am rather at a loss to say why they shouldn't be.
Googling for "feminism science" brings up, at the top, this article, Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I certainly can't promise that this explanation will make an incomprehensible idea any less so, but it does articulate reservations entertained in a learned school of thought.
This sentence, at least, is easy to understand:
"Gender differences in knowledge and background beliefs can be reduced if men and women participate in inquiry together." Especially when this is being done in many disciplines, but hard science is a deliberate holdout exception, I must agree that it is suspicious and, given science's claims to universal legitimacy, hypocritical.
I'm also remembering John Polkinghorne's caution that raw data in places like the Hadron Collider is totally meaningless without interpretation by trained people. We are far beyond Galileo's dropping two balls from a height and letting everyone see that they land in the water at the same time.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
My experience is that those who succeed best in science research are those who are totally focussed on that research to the exclusion of all else. That requires a support structure for the person that will organise their food, laundry, and housing so that they can concentrate on the research. That support structure can be an organisation (e.g., Google's in-house catering, an Oxbridge college's residential accommodation) or can be a willing partner. Traditionally women are less likely to find a willing partner to look after these needs than are men.
One result of this tendency is that male scientists who choose to take a full part in their family life and a full share of household responsibility will find that their scientific career does not proceed as well as those men who do not have these "distractions."
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
My experience is that those who succeed best in science research are those who are totally focussed on that research to the exclusion of all else.
The above is probably the main reason. Linked to that, it is still considered "unfeminine" / "unattractive" for a young woman to be a bookworm and/or to find her vocation in the Lab. Even worse for a woman to require a support structure.
And girls, who are -just as boys- very much influenced by tastes and priorities and lifestyle models shared by their "peers", will more or less unconsciously adapt to these lifestyle / behavioural patterns which will make them "attractive". It's sad, of course, but natural.
There's a nice song by Pelle Carlberg, "Clcver girls like clever boys more than clever girls like clever boys"
here
Well, c'est la vie. Get on with it.
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
That doesn't really explain why there is a particular problem in physical sciences as opposed to other disciplines. Academic and career success in any discipline requires drive and dedication. Women doctors would be the obvious counter-example.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Imaginary Friend:
I would like to make an observation based on my short career in the academic world of physical science.
The observation is that there are many more women at the post-grad and post-doc levels than there were even a few years ago.
Which is my observation too. When I did my PhD of the 15-20 students who went through that particular group (nuclear structure physics) only 2 were women, my recollection of the summer school was that that proportion of about 10% women was about right across the UK community. It didn't seem much different elsewhere in physics. A few of that generation of PhD students are now professors (15-20 years from PhD to professor is a fairly rapid career progression), though the majority of professors came through their PhDs at least 5 years before then. The current ratio of women in professorial positions is, in part, a reflection of the number of women entering PhDs 25+ years ago, also in part reflecting the number of women studying science at 'A' level (or equivalent) 5 years before that.
Over the last few years when I've been supervising physics student projects I have supervised more women than men - 6 women and 3 men to be precise. The number of women entering physics has increased dramatically, but we'll need to wait at least 10-15 years before we see that increase reflected in the number of women physics professors.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I guess it is all about providing opportunity and encouraging folks to look beyond cultural norms to the more obvious question of what they are, are can be, good at, given their gifts and talents.
That's not just a Women in Science issue of course, but it does apply there. I was glad to read IF and Alan's observations, suggesting that there has been at least some weakening of unhelpful and restrictive cultural norms.
So far as the accuracy of scientific findings goes, I don't see what gender has to do with the ongoing processes of peer review for scientific findings. That seems to be a misunderstanding about what makes such findings credible.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Generally speaking, in order to be 'successful' in an academic career (at least in the UK), you need to be a Professor. Before that you're usually on a fixed term, then fixed track progression. It is now fairly common for academics to have to work on several fixed term contracts (first as a postgraduate researcher then as a junior lecturer) before getting onto the permanent lectureship track.
As I understand the system, the lectureship track has a fixed pay scale, whereas Professorships are negotiated individually.
Anyway, the point is that there is a significant amount of work needed before you even get onto the permanent lectureship track - undergraduate degree, doctorate, postgraduate research (for 5+ years in some case), several fixed term lectureships. And when you get to apply for a permanent lectureship, you are assessed on your research portfolio you've developed over that time (which might easily add up to the last 10 years since you got your doctorate).
So if you're not committed and have produced a lot of good quality research papers by that point, you might not even be able to get onto the permanent lectureship track. For most people getting to that point will require more than full time work.
And then when you become a permanent lecturer, you are often expected to continue producing academic papers at a high rate whilst taking on a considerable amount of teaching. Often this means that you'll be doing more work than you were before. Sometimes when you become a Professor the pressure gets taken off, but usually it is considerably worse as you're co-opted onto other administrative roles as well as a pile of research and teaching.
It is not uncommon for science Professors to therefore be working very long days for 6 or 7 days a week, traveling to many conferences and having other academic commitments like being an editor of an academic journal. Because of the kind of people that they are (read:workaholics), they often take on a lot of work in other areas of life, such as the church.
The end result is that science Professors at the top of their game are usually either middle aged men with wives who take almost full responsibility for children, managing the house etc, youngish single people or older spinster women.
There are not many academics that I can think of who are middle aged married women, even in academic (scientific) fields where there are a high proportion of women. And there is a fair drop-off of women (in particular) before they get to become permanent lecturers and Professors, particularly as they begin to have children.
And so the message that is given to young academics who are female is to get married to the job or forget becoming a successful academic. Hence many simply leave and take better paid employment in the private sector.
[there is a considerable muddying of terms in the UK system at the moment. Traditionally Professors were the 'chair' of particular departments and the defacto head of department. But in the best research universities, there are now many departments which contain many full Professors. At the same time, some universities are changing the job titles from lecturer/senior lecturer to junior and associate Professor. So it is now possible to have professor in your job title without being a 'chair' and the associated benefits in terms of payscale, etc]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I teach science and engineering in a primary school, and I don't see any gender difference in aptitude - if anything, the girls are more willing to learn as the boys sometimes have the "I've been building stuff for years" attitude, with the consequence that many of my more able pupils are girls.
When I was doing A level physics, my physics teacher was appallingly sexist. Out of a class of 20, there were 3 girls, and they had to put up with his stupid, ignorant comments every single lesson. And yes, the rest of us complained, seemingly to no avail. It was the 80s - a reason, not an excuse.
Geology was mostly blokes. With beards. There were no tenured women and only a couple of women post-grads. My year had 5 women out of 25 students, one of which has gone on to become a well-known vulcanologist, but I don't know of the trajectory of the others. The difference between A level and degree level was marked - I saw no obvious sexism in either university I studied at, despite the all-male staff and mostly male students.
But what the long ranger says about drop-off rings true. An academic/research post will consume as many hours as you're willing to give it. I don't know if the same is true in other non-science departments, but having someone at home to do all (and I mean all) the other stuff was virtually compulsory.
This situation is, of course, not fair on either sex, and having a more realistic workload when it comes to supervision and lecturing, whilst being an active researcher and keeping up with the rest of your field, and writing proposals and papers and attending conferences is critical to retaining the best scientists at university, not just the socially inept ones.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
My original point was that one might (naively?) hope that rational thinking might seep over from the practice of science itself and into the construction of scientific communities such as, say, university physics departments. One might at least hope that in such communities, prejudice - including misogyny - would not exist. It seems odd that, at first glance, Britain's physics departments seem to be less good at this than the Church of England is.
I accept everything that's been said about the level of dedication, commitment, and the sheer quantity of work that's involved in a science career - but is it really much more than, for instance, a senior NHS manager (of which many are women) or a priest in a large, busy parish?
When I was a physics undergraduate I think there were four women in a class of about twenty. When I worked in a meteorology department, there were no women academics at all. That was all about 25-30 years ago, and those positions seem not to have changed all that much.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I accept everything that's been said about the level of dedication, commitment, and the sheer quantity of work that's involved in a science career - but is it really much more than, for instance, a senior NHS manager (of which many are women) or a priest in a large, busy parish?
If those roles involve full 9-5 days with additional work in the early morning or into the late evening, extra at the weekend, foreign conferences and additional administrative roles - none of these paid any extra whatsoever - then no. Otherwise yes.
My observation of clerical/ministerial roles in churches is that they're far more friendly to women than the average academic science role. Academics are workaholics almost by their nature.
I don't know about NHS managers, I couldn't comment on those.
quote:
When I was a physics undergraduate I think there were four women in a class of about twenty. When I worked in a meteorology department, there were no women academics at all. That was all about 25-30 years ago, and those positions seem not to have changed all that much.
I honestly doubt it is about the subject but the demands of the role. Even in subjects like mathematics, where there are many more women, the drop-off in higher levels of academic positions is very pronounced.
It kinda says something when highly trained academics find demanding roles in the non-academic sector to be more family friendly than in the universities. Clearly it depends on the subject, but it is reasonably common for them to involve shorter hours, less demands and higher pay.
Even in Meteorology (of which I know little), I have friends who moved from unstable roles in universities to better roles in government or industry.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I suspect the problem is as much at the school level as anything else. Those of us who teach in schools have to be very careful not to reinforce perceptions of "male" and "female" professions. In some ways the school I teach in is fortunate in not only having a limited subject choice but not teaching biology at all, which provides a strong pressure for everyone to take the physical sciences and maths, not just boys. At that age wanting to to what is expected by your peers is a strong urge.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Flossymole
Apprentice
# 17339
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Posted
Yes - that is horrible.
[QUOTE] Michael Jennings, the EC's science spokesman, wrote on Twitter: "[The] Commission doesn't really do irony. Hope was to get young people onto [the] site. That seems to be happening!"
He later added: "Lots of comments on #sciencegirlthing vid. 45 seconds of fun for launch to grab attention. Not central to main campaign [QUOTE]
I hope his afterthought reflects their real thinking.
It's a fact that girls have good biological reasons for wanting to find mates and bear children in early adulthood and kids (and occasionally mates) take up a lot of time and attention. It would be interesting to hear from any women who have embarked on new careers in science later in life. It seems to be more of a possibility now universities are more open to accepting mature students. Or is the best scientific research work always done by younger brains? Any info?
Posts: 43 | From: Derbyshire UK | Registered: Sep 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flossymole:
It would be interesting to hear from any women who have embarked on new careers in science later in life. It seems to be more of a possibility now universities are more open to accepting mature students. Or is the best scientific research work always done by younger brains? Any info?
Well, I'm not a woman. But I work at a college that specialises in both adult education and serious research, and is proud of its traditiions of supporting and promoting women in science. (I think the first woman university professor in and English university was here over a century ago - pretty certainly the first in a science subject - she was also an air force officer with the equivalent ranlk of a Commodore - some people have eventful lives).
Checking our Biological Sciences website (because its the bit of both science and this college that I know best) about 20 out of 50 researchers are women (guessing by their names, I might be calling some wrong), only 3 out of 15 lab managers and senior technicians, and maybe 14 or 15 out of 39 academic staff. On the other hand 4 out of 8 professors are women (including I think our only current FRS)
Better than a lot of other places but still not very good. There is clearly inequality here. My guess - its only a guess - is that selection against women (which might be self-selection of course) comes most strongly at the stage of graduation - women are probably a small majority of undergraduate students, about half of postgrads, but a minority of academics and full-time researchers. So maybe bright male students are more likely to turn study into a career than equivalent women are. Or les likely to be turned down when they try to.
Physics and chemistry are a different matter. I suspec the selection there comes earlier. There is still a popular feeling that "maths is hard" and not suitable for girls (or all but the geekiest boys). The schools my daughter went to somehow managed to give girls the impression that maths, and mathematical sciences, were not for them. I know the teachers didn't think they were doing that, they woudl be horrified at the idea that they were doing that, they were desperate not to do that, but they were doing it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
This is one of the stupid things, of course. Maths is hard, especially at A level, and ditto Physics. Both are highly technical subjects that require not only a decent memory but, contrary to expectations, flair and imagination.
But you could say that of English or History or Art. Why is it that girls with the aptitude to excel at academic subjects get deflected away from the sciences at this stage - which is where (IIRC, the IoP have just done a survey of this) the problem seems to start.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I'm not sure, ken, that the bias against girls in maths and physics comes from the teachers (though there is certainly still some of that), I think it comes more from the peer group and indeed from a lot of parents and other adults. The difference in attitude to science in single sex schools is interesting here.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
The irony is that girls are generally better at maths than boys, and quite a few of the very best Mathematicians are women. I don't know about physics, but academic women mathematicians are hugely in demand.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
There's something very odd about the premise of the OP. At least in the US, boys are abandoning higher education in record numbers. College enrollment is wildly skewed to female students now. And the problem is that the few boys who do go to college are in the majority in technical colleges? Are we so insistent that sexism has to be the problem that we ignore reality entirely?
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Perhaps I went too far in saying "yes", i.e. the experimental results from the Large Hadron Collider should be considered less authoritative because women are discriminated against in the physical sciences. But we must recognize that they are. And frankly I am rather at a loss to say why they shouldn't be. ... "Gender differences in knowledge and background beliefs can be reduced if men and women participate in inquiry together." ... I'm also remembering John Polkinghorne's caution that raw data in places like the Hadron Collider is totally meaningless without interpretation by trained people.
Physics, and high energy physics in particular, is not sociology. The idea of gender bias in the interpretation of LHC data is ... interesting. If you could perhaps mention a single instance where physics was actually held back by the lack of "female perspective"? I don't mean by the lack of female physicists. Good physicists are rare, and its silly to leave half the talent pool untapped. But I'm somewhat struggling here to think of anything in physics itself that requires a female perspective. Or a male perspective. Or any perspective, really...
(As it happens, my best friend from high energy physics days, and the only one of them still in the field, is a German-Turkish woman who now is a departmental lecturer in Oxford, though currently in fact living in France because she is working at the LHC... I remember hearing quite a bit of her perspectives on various bits of physics in our study group. But I never thought of them as being particularly right or wrong, negligible or impressive, because of her being a woman. If there was a need to evaluate her theories that involved checking the data and the maths, not her femininity.)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There's something very odd about the premise of the OP. At least in the US, boys are abandoning higher education in record numbers. College enrollment is wildly skewed to female students now. And the problem is that the few boys who do go to college are in the majority in technical colleges? Are we so insistent that sexism has to be the problem that we ignore reality entirely?
Yes, I was thinking something similar to this as well. It's as if all the areas where girls massively outnumber boys are considered to be perfectly normal, but the few areas where boys outnumber girls (and not by nearly the same margin, if the University I work for is typical) are because of rampant sexism holding the girls back.
Is the 5:1 ratio in favour of girls in one subject here because boys are being discriminated against? I doubt anyone would try to suggest that, so why should a 2:1 ratio in favour of boys in another subject be such a massive issue?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
This makes no sense to me at all. Does this mean the experimental results from the Large Hadron Collider should be considered less authoritative because women are discriminated against in the physical sciences?
One of our former churchwardens, a woman, is one of the physicists working at the collider. We used to have to schedule meetings around her visits.
I cremated a woman physicist earlier this year.
But the fact that i mention these shows how rare they are.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
But the fact that i mention these shows how rare they are.
Or perhaps how predictable you are...
--Tom Clune
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
But the fact that i mention these shows how rare they are.
Please tell me your job involves cremating only physicists. Because that is an awesome - if unlikely - profession.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
ken wrote: quote:
Physics and chemistry are a different matter. I suspec the selection there comes earlier. There is still a popular feeling that "maths is hard" and not suitable for girls (or all but the geekiest boys). The schools my daughter went to somehow managed to give girls the impression that maths, and mathematical sciences, were not for them. I know the teachers didn't think they were doing that, they woudl be horrified at the idea that they were doing that, they were desperate not to do that, but they were doing it.
Are you sure about that, ken? It's just that I've spent quite a while discussing this with both my daughters, and their message was firmly that it was peer group pressure where they were at school - certain subjects are "unfeminine". It wasn't the staff or the boys in their opinion - the attitudinal problem was primarily other young women. Of course, they would have had to get that from somewhere to start with, but even so...
You could probably say much the same about the falling numbers of boys in certain situations - the attitude that caring about your education is "girly" amounts to pretty much the same thing.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
as a very liberal, female scientist mother of a son (and a daughter), I have to agree with Marvin and others here. yes, there is some discrimination against women in the scientific fields (I could share some experiences of my own), but I certainly do not think that science itself is somehow compromised by this (other than by potential lack of talent). I don't even understand the logic behind this idea.
And more importantly perhaps, there is the concern of bias against BOYS in much of our education system. Some of it self-generated (boys for whatever reason don't want to be associated with "girly" things... education is becoming a girly thing.. hence boys are less interested in academics). But some of it is the very nature of our system of education: sit still and listen for hours, don't goof around, don't be physical, read and listen instead of experience... and by the way we are cutting out recess and PE, so there is no opportunity to burn off that extra energy, or a break from all that need to focus.
I don't think that the nature of academia is the only explanation for boys dropping out.. after all, males have certainly managed in the past to sit though lecture after lecture, focusing and not acting out.
In any case, that males and females have different skills and interests is not, by itself, proof of discrimination, or something which MUST be rectified. It certainly can be, particularly if talented members of the "wrong" sex are not allowed to succeed, or extra hurdles are placed in their way. But the simple fact that many women are not interested in the hard sciences may just be a mater of gender difference. as was pointed out, there are certainly other fields where females dominate, and we don't spend a great deal of energy encouraging men to enter those fields.
We need to try to remove any bariers that may exist for ANY capable and motivated individual in excelling in any field. But we can't change human nature. and I can assure you that, although I worked very hard at eliminating any gender bias in how I raised my kids, there were behavior/attitude/aptitude differences right from the start. something as simple as how they play with toys.. my daughter had a collection of machbox cars (my own collection from my childhood, supplemented by new purchases). she would happily play with them. in her play the cars would have conversations with each other, and then drive off together to engage in some anthropomorphic activity. when my son was the same age, he played with the same collection of cars. when he played the cars when BRRRRRRoommmm skreeeeeech SMASH (imagine typical carcrash sound effects). they did NOT have conversations about their feelings.
And that's OK. my daughter is studying to be an anthropolgist, and also wants to be a writer (on the side). my son will probably be an engineer or architect, or perhaps a computer programer (too early to tell). I can assure you that "anthropologist" was not even remotely on my list of future careers I envisioned for my children (male or female).
And I'm sure each of them will excel in their chosen fields, and I'm sure that in their fields they will primarily be surrounded by others of their own gender--and that's fine too, provided no one is mandating or in any other way encouraging it to be so. and of course, provided the two career paths are paid comparably.
And this is where I DO see a problem... overall, and in general, we as a society tend to value female dominated professions less than male dominated professions, and pay them less, regardless of actual importance to society or level of effort (or education) required to perform the job. I think it's no accident that the medical profession, for example, is starting to be less lucrative and valued now that women are starting to dominate (at least in general practice).
There is still plenty of sexism in the world, but I just don't believe that the relative lack of women in science is a major example of this.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
With the greatest of respect, Anyuta, the fact that you didn't encourage gender stereotypes in your children doesn't mean that the tendencies you have observed were inate. Society in general constantly reinforces gender roles and norms. Even going into most toy shops you will find "girls' toys" and "boys' toys".
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Is the 5:1 ratio in favour of girls in one subject here because boys are being discriminated against? I doubt anyone would try to suggest that, so why should a 2:1 ratio in favour of boys in another subject be such a massive issue?
The problem is this: there is no obvious bar to men entering what is perceived to be a 'female' subject or profession, while the reverse is not true.
I work in a Primary school, where there are only three men on the staff, vis 20 or so women. If more men wanted to join the staff, there'd be no problem.
Now, for whatever reason, the ratio of male to female physicists is very high, and it appears that women are being put off the hard sciences at around the 14-16 age, which then multiplies the effect throughout the profession.
I'd argue that this is a cause for concern far more than men not being engaged in Primary education, which certainly is a problem, but a different one.
In my own field (SF), it means that women authors have the subtle pressure to use their initials and surname on their book jackets, rather than their first name-surname. I can choose to do so, but they can't.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The problem is this: there is no obvious bar to men entering what is perceived to be a 'female' subject or profession, while the reverse is not true.
Nobody has thus far offered any evidence for what this bar may be, other than the fact that there is a difference in numbers between men and women. I can certainly affirm that universities are definitely not turning girls away from these subjects.
quote:
I work in a Primary school, where there are only three men on the staff, vis 20 or so women. If more men wanted to join the staff, there'd be no problem.
Now, for whatever reason, the ratio of male to female physicists is very high, and it appears that women are being put off the hard sciences at around the 14-16 age, which then multiplies the effect throughout the profession.
So boys/men are being put off primary teaching, and girls/women are being put off hard sciences. Yet one of these is a problem and the other isn't?
quote:
I'd argue that this is a cause for concern far more than men not being engaged in Primary education, which certainly is a problem, but a different one.
In both cases there's a sector of employment that is clearly - for whatever reason - weighted against people of one sex. The only difference is which sex is being excluded. So why is one so terrible, and the other not overly worrying?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The problem is this: there is no obvious bar to men entering what is perceived to be a 'female' subject or profession, while the reverse is not true.
Nobody has thus far offered any evidence for what this bar may be, other than the fact that there is a difference in numbers between men and women. I can certainly affirm that universities are definitely not turning girls away from these subjects.
So can I. Universities are not the problem, as several people (including the Institute of Physics) have already said. It's at A level, where the ratios for biology and chemistry are roughly 50:50, while for physics, it's 80:20. That's where it is.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I work in a Primary school, where there are only three men on the staff, vis 20 or so women. If more men wanted to join the staff, there'd be no problem.
Now, for whatever reason, the ratio of male to female physicists is very high, and it appears that women are being put off the hard sciences at around the 14-16 age, which then multiplies the effect throughout the profession.
So boys/men are being put off primary teaching, and girls/women are being put off hard sciences. Yet one of these is a problem and the other isn't?
Yes, because primary teaching is traditionally considered a low(er)-status job. Physicist is not a low-status job. There's nothing to prevent men from taking lower status jobs, but women have been prevented for a very long time from entering high status professions. This is why the lack of women physicists is a problem that needs addressing.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, because primary teaching is traditionally considered a low(er)-status job. Physicist is not a low-status job. There's nothing to prevent men from taking lower status jobs, but women have been prevented for a very long time from entering high status professions. This is why the lack of women physicists is a problem that needs addressing.
There is actually still some societal pressure for men not to become primary school teachers. There is an undercurrent of assumption that a man wanting to work with young children must have ulterior motives for doing so, as primary education is seen as a caring, and so female, role.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Inger
Shipmate
# 15285
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
I don't know f anyone else has seen this video http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9349923/Science-girl-thing-video-branded-offensive.html which was released by the European commission this year to promote women in science. It is quite shocking in it's sexism and might go some way to help explain the barriers that exist.
quote:
Originally posted by Flossymole:
Yes - that is horrible.
quote:
Michael Jennings, the EC's science spokesman, wrote on Twitter: "[The] Commission doesn't really do irony. Hope was to get young people onto [the] site. That seems to be happening!"
I hope his afterthought reflects their real thinking.
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I've spent quite a while discussing this with both my daughters, and their message was firmly that it was peer group pressure where they were at school - certain subjects are "unfeminine". It wasn't the staff or the boys in their opinion - the attitudinal problem was primarily other young women. Of course, they would have had to get that from somewhere to start with, but even so...
You could probably say much the same about the falling numbers of boys in certain situations - the attitude that caring about your education is "girly" amounts to pretty much the same thing.
Did anyone read the comments to the Telegraph article and the video? One linked to this web site which seems to show that the EU didn't get it so wrong after all. The aim was presumably to show that you don't have to be "unfeminine" to be a scientist.
quote:
Before Viewing
13 out of 38 girls stated that they enjoy science lessons at school.
11 out of 38 girls stated that they want a career in science. Only 2 of these girls had parents in scientific occupations.
After Viewing
30 out of 38 girls had positive comments about the video.
25 out of 38 girls said that the video made them motivated to look into science as a career. This is an increase of 14 girls: from 29% to 66%!
Interestingly, the girls were generally positive about the video: it’s difficult to argue with the numbers.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Marvin: quote:
So boys/men are being put off primary teaching, and girls/women are being put off hard sciences. Yet one of these is a problem and the other isn't?
Both are, but only one is the subject of this thread. Why not start another if you want to discuss the dearth of male primary school teachers? I'll join in if you do - the best teacher my daughter has had (so far) is male.
I suspect part of the problem is lack of role models in popular culture. I'm thinking especially of soap operas like EastEnders, which hardly ever seem to show characters bravely struggling against impossible odds to pass their GCSEs/get into university/qualify as a brain surgeon (delete as appropriate).
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
With the greatest of respect, Anyuta, the fact that you didn't encourage gender stereotypes in your children doesn't mean that the tendencies you have observed were inate. Society in general constantly reinforces gender roles and norms. Even going into most toy shops you will find "girls' toys" and "boys' toys".
Yes, I do recognize this. I also know that my own children hardly represent all children everywhere, and also that anecdote is not data. I just tell that story as one example, which I happened to take note of (I really stood out for me). My children are in many ways surprisingly gender typical, even though my husband and I are rather non gender-typical in many ways.
As it happens, though, at the age of the example, my kids had minimal exposure to the world at large.. we spoke only Russian at home, and at that age they did not yet speak English (well, my daughter might have a little). TV was limited (they coudln't understand it). but as you say, there are other subtle influences. I shudder whenever I walk by those horrid pink filled isles in the toy depatment full of "girl" stuff! (previous anecdote notwithstanding, my DD is actually quite a tomboy in many ways).
OK, since you have me on the topic, I want to share another somewhat related anecdote (only slightly off topic): when she was 5 or 6 my daughter discovered Barbie-Dolls. one evening while playing with Barbie she turned to me and said "Mom, I need a Ken doll for Barbie". mentally preparing my liberal "girls don't NEED a man to be happy" lecture, I asked her "oh, really? why does she need Ken?" she looked at me as if I was an idiot (most parents are familiar with this look) and said:
"well, what if Barbie wants to have children....
who would watch them when she went to work?"
She got the Ken.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Marvin: quote:
So boys/men are being put off primary teaching, and girls/women are being put off hard sciences. Yet one of these is a problem and the other isn't?
Both are, but only one is the subject of this thread. Why not start another if you want to discuss the dearth of male primary school teachers?
You're dodging the issue. Imagine that someone chose to start a thread on the terrible problem of women raping men. Wouldn't it be appropriate within that thread to point out that the real problem lies elsewhere? Similarly, our universities are becoming sororities at a rapid rate. And yet the problem is sexism in science?
It strikes me as much more likely that those few sciences that are still predominantly male will become a female domain simply because there aren't enough boys getting higher education at all than that the sciences will remain all male bastions. If we have a legitimate concern about wasting the talents of half our youth, that concern reasonably lies elsewhere.
Concentrating on the horrors of sexism in education is just perverse. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, because primary teaching is traditionally considered a low(er)-status job. Physicist is not a low-status job. There's nothing to prevent men from taking lower status jobs, but women have been prevented for a very long time from entering high status professions. This is why the lack of women physicists is a problem that needs addressing.
There is actually still some societal pressure for men not to become primary school teachers. There is an undercurrent of assumption that a man wanting to work with young children must have ulterior motives for doing so, as primary education is seen as a caring, and so female, role.
This is true. As I've been (and still am) the primary carer for my two kids, I'm aware that I'm bucking a general trend.
However, if they doubled the starting salary of all primary teachers, I'd expect the gender difference to be very rapidly eroded.
(Also, there's a lot less caring than you might imagine, especially in KS2... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) )
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Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
This is true. As I've been (and still am) the primary carer for my two kids, I'm aware that I'm bucking a general trend.
However, if they doubled the starting salary of all primary teachers, I'd expect the gender difference to be very rapidly eroded.
(Also, there's a lot less caring than you might imagine, especially in KS2... )
I work in an all through school, so I have a fair idea! Primary teaching is already fairly well oversubscribed, I'm not sure you'd alter the gender balance without quotas at the training stage - increased salaries by that amount would make it competitive with law and medicine for female graduates as well as male.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm not sure you'd alter the gender balance without quotas at the training stage - increased salaries by that amount would make it competitive with law and medicine for female graduates as well as male.
But it's the training stage we to address: certainly by (a) making primary teaching equal in worth to secondary teaching, (b) putting more subject teaching into primary schools, then the potential pool of recruits would be more evenly distributed. I think there's a certain reluctance to teach subjects which haven't been studied for a while. I'd hate to teach art (because I'm crap at it), and I know some don't like teaching either maths, or english. And hardly anyone likes teaching science. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Stereotypically, our school's dedicated science teacher is male, and his teaching assistant is, er, me.
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Concentrating on the horrors of sexism in education is just perverse. Or so ISTM.
Depends on what you're concentrating on.
A popular theory amongst people I know is that I became horrible at math and science when I moved north and teachers (and classrooms) no longer combined visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning. My math and science teachers (mostly female) simply taught the way they learned, which was auditorily (they stood in front of the class and lectured for the entire period). As students, we had to form study groups to teach each other the material, as so many of us were incapable of learning it from the teachers the way they were teaching. My male math and science teachers could teach in the way that I could learn; however, for the most part (largely due to curriculum differences I would wager) they were reduced to teaching me things that I had already learned in elementary or middle school. There was so much peer (and teacher) pressure for women to go into math and science (even if they didn't have the necessary talents or skills) that people couldn't necessarily sort themselves out and find out what subjects and jobs they were in fact good at.
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
However, if they doubled the starting salary of all primary teachers, I'd expect the gender difference to be very rapidly eroded.
Not in the US. I, and any number of people I know who wanted to go into education were driven out of the field by the fact that the classes you had to take in order to qualify were a) so expensive and b) so mind-numbingly boring that there was simply no way to justify paying that much/going that far into debt in order to take that many classes that didn't actually teach you anything you didn't already know just so you could have a piece of paper saying you were qualified to teach in one state (but might not be ten years down the road when they changed the requirements and/or wouldn't necessarily be qualified in a different state if your life circumstances required you to move across state lines).
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