I am not an expert in gender diversity in the sciences, but through my reading and talking about it with scientists, it appears that big strides have been made in the past decade or two, but the goal of gender equity is obviously still a ways off.
One thing I do know is that all disciplines need role models, and I just found out about an interesting web site called Women in Planetary Sciences (motto: "Women make up half the bodies in the solar system. Why not half the scientists?") which has a series of interviews with women planetary scientists. I know a few of these folks — like Emily Lakdawalla, Heidi Hammel, and Sara Seager, names that may be familiar to regular BA readers — and reading their stories is pretty interesting.
If you know a girl or woman interested in planetary science, or any science, then please send them that link. I think they’ll find some encouragement and support from the words of these women who have been so successful in exploring the Universe.
April 29th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Not only a great resource for women interested in planetary science, I’ve found this site to be one of the best single sources in general for information about planetary science.
April 29th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I wish I knew some women interested in science.
April 29th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Not that many people in general are interested in either science or engineering these days.
I’ll guess it’s the “Science is Hard” issue. The same issues seem to apply to both males and females these days (based on some younger friends I have). Students head off to business schools, law, or humanities because they’re easier and you still get a diploma.
April 29th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
@Matt B.,
Likewise, the only women that I know who are interested in the planets, tend to be those obsessed with the ‘science’ of astrology!
April 29th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
It seemed a little far fetched to me until I started at university.
But there it was. I was often shocked by the sexism practiced by the “old guard” if you will (professors usually over the age of 60, and some younger foreign professors ). It was appalling, especially in the confined laboratory setting where it became even more apparent. They acted as if it was an insult to them if a woman could learn what they taught.
The good news is I never saw or heard of any such discrimination from the younger proffers, many of whom were women, so this is probably a dying practice.
Last thing I wanted is for there to be less women around the department.
April 29th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Does anybody know why there is a planet Venus, but there is no planet Juno or Athena? And I mean, one of the major planets.
April 29th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
@ ^ Maurizio Morabito : Well, there are still plenty of exoplanets yet to be named properly!
Ceres was named for a Goddess when it was first discovered and it was considered a planet at the time and would be so again if we included dwarf planets in the ‘planet’ category as I think we should. Vesta is a feminine name too if memory serves, unsure of Pallas – and Juno was the third asteroid found. Sedna is an Inuit goddess and a dwarf planet too.
@2. Matt B. :“I wish I knew some women interested in science.”
I feel exactly the same!
I’m actually friends with Emily Lakdawalla and Sara Seager on facebook, but its not quite the same.
Women are getting ever more prominent in astronomy (as they are, I think, in all fields of science and Western culture generally) and I think this is a great thing to be fully supported.
@ 5. Krikkit : Can I ask when that was? I’m suprised because I thought most astronomers – not all but most – have long been more supportive of women in science. After all, astronomy has from relatively early on produced some very notable astronomical heroines and role models such as Caroline Herschel, Annie Jump Canon and Henrietta Leavitt who have played significant in advancing our understanding of the univese. Do you think things have improved and are still getting better?
April 29th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
For those who don’t know already – see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Herschel
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Jump_Cannon
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Swan_Leavitt
Sadly, Henrietta Leavitt recieved little renown and credit in her own lifetime – despite the vital importance of her work on Cepheid variables discovering the period-luminosity relation.
Another great astronomer and female scientist I should’ve mentioned in that company and who I have actually met is Jocelyn Bell who discovered pulsars – and was denied the credit for it which went unjustly to her male supervisor although she is more widely recognised and celebrated these days.
Asteroid name~wise, it turns out that all the first four asteroids discovered – and thought of as planets : Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta – are named after women, Pallas being an alternate form of Athena. Come to think of it, I think I remember reading somewhere that for a long time all asteroids were named after women although this tradition has since ceased hence asteroids 165347 Philplait & 153298 Paulmyers.
A number of comet Herschel’s are named after Caroline too – and she did recieve considerable renown and a number of prestigious awards in her lifetime back in the mid-19th century.
April 29th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
*waves* Here’s a woman that loves science!! Have ever since I was a kid – my parents bought me this whole series of science books for kids. Each book was a different topic. I loved them!!! I learned so much from them, and was forever sharing what I learned with anyone. “Did you know…” has been my main sentence starter pretty much since I could read. And still is, as my friends often point out. Yep, been a huge nerd my entire life and proud of it!!
However, I wish I knew more people (male or female) that shared my love. Very few of my friends have any interest in science, and those that do have a minimal interest – basically enough to listen to me ramble on. It’s a bummer.
Anyway, great site to encourage women (and really anyone) to follow their science dreams. Looking forward to cruising around the site some more!
April 29th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
PS. Source for the feminity of asteroid names (first quartet) : Wikipedia – ditto for the asteroid numbers for philplait & Paulmyers better known as PZ “Pharyngula” Myers.
If Emily Lakdawalla doesn’t have an asteroid named for her I’ll be very surprised – and, if not, that should be remedied ASAP!
Checking the wikilist :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planets_named_after_people#Astronomers
I can’t find her having a space rock there but then I couldn’t find PZ’s asteroid listed either so that list might not be complete. Anyone know?
Sara Seager, the exoplanet hunter Debra Fischer :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Fischer
& Heidi Hammel all deserve (& surely have?) asteroid honours too.
Caroline Lucretia Herschel was honoured with the naming of asteroid 281 Lucretia with 1120 Cannonia for Annie Jump Cannon and 5383 Leavitt named for Henrietta Swan Leavitt – although I couldn’t see that last one on the wiki-list either.
See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5383_Leavitt
Plus see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Klumpke
For another remarkable female astronomer who beat fifty men in a fair fight! Yes, she won herself an asteroid too.
April 29th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Those deities weren’t noted for things that would be as readily visible from a distance?
April 29th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Let’s be real skeptics here and get a definition applied.
What is not needed is “gender equity” as “the same number of female astronomers as men”. What is needed is “equity” as “opportunity not based on gender”. In many professions, this distinction is not clear. In my particular location, it meant the hiring of incompetent people to meet a quota. This makes output worse than if they were not hired.
What is needed is the abolition of discrimination NOT BASED ON PERFORMANCE.
If you can’t do what Phil did to get his PhD, then you probably shouldn’t have one. If you can, then I cheer wildly at your achievements, take a bow!
I’m sure that’s what Phil had in mind – I just wanted to make sure it’s clear.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I have worked with a couple of these scientists and can say they were first rate all the way. And fun once you get to know them. I say that as a lowly undergrad who has done interships at NASA. Very nice people.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
@Radwaste : “If you can’t do what Phil did to get his PhD, then you probably shouldn’t have one. If you can, then I cheer wildly at your achievements, take a bow!”
Exactly what Phil did? Why would everyone have to replicate Dr Phil Plait’s PhD thesis to earn their own individual one? Don’t they need to come up with something original to them instead?
Also whilst that may be alright for astronomy PhD’s, I’d rather my doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc .. had studied and qualified in the relevant subject areas rather than just copying what the BA did!
April 30th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Excellent post, Phil. This has been a matter of some concern to me.
If you can indulge a little parental pride: My humble self with two future scientists in 1982. (These are my daughters, the geophysicist on the left and the chemist on the right.)
April 30th, 2011 at 8:23 am
Maurizio@6: The official planets are mostly named after the Roman deities so the planet would no be named Athena but rather Minerva…
Messier Tidy Upper@7: Pallas is a feminine name. It’s named after Pallas Athena, an alternate name for the goddess Athena. So much for being named Minerva, whoops.
Incidentally, Uranus is also named after a Greek rather than Roman god… the Roman equivalent was Caelus. We could have avoided a lot of awkward anatomical jokes if they’d stuck with the Roman names…
April 30th, 2011 at 9:55 am
@ ^ dcsohl : Agreed! There’s also the alternate preferable spelling of Ouranos which is closer to the original Greek too.
In fact, the original name of the sideways planet is the stellar designation of 34 Tauri as it was catalogued by Flamstead without him realising its true nature.
Plus Herschel’s original name choice for the seventh planet out from our Sun was ‘Georgium Sidus’ or “George’s Star” to flatter the Hannoverian immigrants new King & patron. Whilst the French wanted to call the new planet ‘Herschel’ after its discoverer. Any of those even ‘George’ would’ve been better IMHON.
April 30th, 2011 at 10:00 am
I have not been to many scientific conferences yet but talking to people and what I saw at DPS planetary is the most female represented areas of Astronomy. Just saying … another reason Planetary Science is way cool!
April 30th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Also see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_astronomers
For some wiki-links to more great women astronomer role models.
April 30th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Some of these comments are so alienating. I’m a woman and I read the blog, I like science, and I don’t believe in astrology.
Interesting site! I will send the link to my female and male friends.
April 30th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
I have found the Women in Planetary Science site to be a great resource. Thank you for bringing some well-deserved attention to it!
April 30th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
“Men make up half the bodies in the solar system. Why not half the nurses, elementary school teachers, or flight attendants?” Not everything is about discrimination. As Radwaste said, what is needed is equity of opportunity. I have no reason to believe (as in, I’ve seen no evidence to support) that men are discriminated against in nursing, elementary school teaching, or as flight attendants but the gender ratio in those professions (at least in Europe and the States) is hardly equal. Having had a former female student discriminated against by a famous female astronomer, I can also say that, to no one’s surprise, both genders are capable of very nasty things.
Achieving equity of opportunity is both desirable and complex. I doubt that it’s achievement is made easier by simplistic “rallying cries”.
April 30th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Great link, great resource. I am constantly trying to keep my daughters interested in science and this site will help.
@realta faur – in 1996 my graduating class from nursing school was half male and about half the nurses where I work are male. Just sayin’
May 2nd, 2011 at 11:05 am
I will only say one thing: If women want to have careers in science and engineering, the door has been wide open for several decades. Women need only enter the door, and work at their education the same way all of we men have done.
I deny the idea that women have been denied entry to science and engineering in the last 30 years. I deny that women have been prevented by whatever force from advancing in their careers in science and engineering. There is no “glass ceiling” preventing women from achieving the highest levels of accomplishment and respect in science and engineering.
James Glass PhD, PE
Chemical Engineer, Licensed Professional Engineer, Colorado and Wyoming.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Well Quaoar (24), denial isn’t the same as presenting evidence. And that evidence is so hugely against you that it’s difficult to know where to even start.
Perhaps continuing your analogy might work. Sure, that door is open, but there have been far too many men standing next to it, whispering to the women wanting to pass through it that they should start families, that science isn’t a good fit for them, that women aren’t assertive enough to make it in science.
The very fact that you used the word “deny” in your comment is very, very telling.
For those of you who aren’t in denial, you can try reading this, or this, or the comprehensive list of resources here, or any of hundreds of other well-documented cases of discrimination in science.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:23 pm
I am a young female scientist. Because of her gender, my mother could not have attended the school where I got my undergraduate degrees. MY MOTHER. Not my grandmother or my great-grandmother, but my mother. My graduating class was barely 30% female. A lot has changed between when my mom went to school and when I did. But we still have a long way to go.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:24 pm
@Phil
“Sure, that door is open, but there have been far too many men standing next to it…”
I would argue that there were women at that door, too, whispering the same things. It is one thing to point out that male-against-female sexism has been a major issue for women in science. But it would be irresponsible to leave out the fact that many women and girls are kept down by the other women in their lives. ALL of us have an obligation to encourage women and girls to reach their potential.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Hmmm… I know of two undergrad, female physics majors who were told by the professor of an upper level mathematics course to drop it because he did not want women in his course and would fail them if they did not drop it. This was ten or so years ago, but the professor is still teaching…
Dr E
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Quaoar, for all your fancy titles you seem to have missed something in your education. It’s a vocabulary term, and it describes what you’re oozing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Men in various areas and levels make sure women are uncomfortable in any male dominated area. Half of the jobs I’ve had I left because of sexual harassment. DOLE said it was the worst case of sexual harassment it had ever seen. One manager was so blatant to say that we should go to his place to @!$# for lunch. At Hill AFB a man knew I was working late and attacked me after he cut the power! I was put into a lower position because a boss wanted a manager he could yell at. At two other companies flirtatious women were encouraged and promoted. Making babies is usually not an issue.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:31 pm
I’ve only commented one other time on BA’s blog, and that other time I pointed out he and I went to the same grad school. I came from an undergrad program that had a lot of female students, and was kind of surprised when I got to grad school that there were so few women in our program.
Myself and the other male grad students of my era worked really, really hard to try to convince prospective female grad students to come to our program, but often times they told us — “why would we come here when there are only 1 or 2 women currently, when we can go to other programs where they have 50% female grad students”. We slowly but surely wound up convincing a few women that our program was the right fit, and very, very quickly one single male faculty member convinced almost all of them to leave. It was really frustrating to see with my own eyes women get chased out of a program because a male faculty member didn’t want them there.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:31 pm
I loved Biology my first year of high school. Tried to take another science course the next year, and was told “No. You’ve met your science requirement. ” I met the same roadblock for math once I met that requirement.
What was I required to take instead? Home Ec. I spent a year learning how a balanced meal should have several different colors on the plate. No fish, mashed potato, and yellow squash dinners for me!
I wasn’t even allowed to take shop class. My guidance counselor looked at me like I said I wanted to father a child. “You’re a GIRL! Girls don’t take shop!”
I graduated in 1985. Though I wanted to, I didn’t bother to go on to college; I had too much catching up to do.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm
As a woman, and a mother of a young daughter who happens to be in the gifted program for math (an 8yr old with a 140 IQ), I honestly believe that women do have to fight a little harder to be taken seriously in the science community. I am in no way saying that women don’t or can’t compete with men or even surpass men on that level, but society still has a way of keeping us from even pursuing that goal. Women are still looked at as the primary care givers of children and family, and for those women who decide that they want a career in science they are left choosing between a career or a family. I do believe that the door is wide open for us to walk through, but when we reach that door we’re left with a difficult choice. I think that choice holds true for nearly any advanced profession though. I’m personally working on a legal degree, after devoting the last 12 years to raising my children, I finally have the time to devote to school. Taking care of the kids and housework have always been my responsibility – I am mom.
I believe that it needs to be looked at as more acceptable for a woman to choose to have an intelligent career. It’s acceptable within society for women to be teachers or doctors, but there are still defined gender roles. In the last 30 years this has begun to change, but not completely. And I honestly don’t think it ever will. Women are the compassionate nurturers, where men are the workers and providers. The only way I see that role ever changing completely, or even being totally equal is the day that men can carry and deliver children.
Until then, I’m going to make sure that my daughter knows full well that she is just as capable as any boy at accomplishing her goals in life. There is no glass ceiling in my home, and there are no defined paths that my children can take. The only way women are going to push farther is to be taught to do so, and that begins now, with these children today.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm
As long as women take on the majority of childrearing responsibilities, there will never be full equality in the workplace. When men start making the same sacrifices for their families and children as women do, then the playing field will be level. Have you ever heard a man wonder whether he could balance work and family? Or wonder whether he could “have it all?” Have you ever heard a man criticized or judged for leaving his children in daycare? Or even heard a man *worry* about daycare? Didn’t think so…
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I’m with Phil. Where, oh where, do I even start to address Quaoar’s comment?
Which is why I won’t.
Because I don’t feed trolls.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Have to agree whole-heartedly with Amy J here. Things need to be fixed up top, but we can also start off right from the start. Give your daughters telescopes, not dolls
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:39 pm
There is definitely still tons of bias out there. At least that’s what I call it when I’m contacted by head hunters and offered $18 per hour with no moving benefits for same job they pitch to my male colleagues at $32-$40 per hour. Even if you take the classes and get hired that’s only half the battle. Women consistently are offered 30-40% less to do the same job as men, I’ve even heard some male managers saying they like to hire women because they have less personality conflicts with them than male employees and they don’t have to pay them as much.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:41 pm
@Quaoar
I assume that you are making these comments because you advertise and employ everyone who applies for a job in the scientific field and are therefore in a position to “deny” all the claims made?
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Wow, Quaoar, that’s quite the case of male privilege you’ve got, there. You might want to get that looked at.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:44 pm
I’ve just started up the academic ladder into science after becoming a mother, and I’m hitting roadblocks in the form of social/gender expectations left and right. I have a few women friends in various scientific positions, and the biggest complaint across the board is that their male co-workers/superiors/etc. just don’t take them seriously. I’m constantly warned that I will get everything from paternalism to sexual objectification to just generic “you’re a woman and can’t know as much.”
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:44 pm
It would be ridiculous to suggest that there isn’t any gender bias in science education, and it begins early.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9815/ links to a PDF report entitled “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fufilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering” that documents many facets of this complex issue.
We would all like to believe that science is a meritocracy: that our ideas are judged by their own merits. But quoting the above report:
“Throughout a scientific career, advancement depends upon
judgments of one’s performance by more senior scientists and engineers. This process does not optimally select and advance the best scientists
and engineers, because of implicit bias and disproportionate weighting
of qualities that are stereotypically male. Reducing these sources of bias will foster excellence in science and engineering fields.”
We all have biases. The question becomes “can we recognize these biases, and figure out how to reduce their inappropriate effect on the actions we take and evaluations we perform?” This applies to both men and to women, and to parents as well as educators. When we send messages (explicit or implicit) to our young girls that pursuing science and math as a career is “too hard” or will make them “unpopular”, we are doing them (and our nation as a whole) a great disservice.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:46 pm
I am currently a Junior in the astrophysics program (a female). I am the only one- no one has really opposed me or tried to stop me. However, if it wasn’t for my passion and drive to do what I want to do- it would seem daunting to be the only girl. I will get my PhD too. It may help my situation that my advisor and professor of most of my astro classes is a woman who dealt with these issues and has strongly pushed me to be better so I can succeed as well as being able to reach my goals.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I have heard what Quaoar(24) has said and can not understand how someone with a PHD can think that. I will make only one point on this and it comes from what my daughter has delt with. It starts early. My little girl is four. Four! She has been told she can’t do things is science because she is a girl. How can anyone say there is no issue when four year olds are being told these things. If my four year old is being told things like this, what are older women being told? How can you deny that?
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
@Phil thanks for those resources, it really opened my eyes to some of the inequality, I didn’t realize educated people still thought that way. I used to be jealous of some the females in my jr. high and high school as they were given some opportunities which were never offered to me (Science It’s a Girl Thing, which is an excellent summer program that I really wanted to go to)
And it is important to encourage young girls into science, I am so proud that my parents, a teacher, and I were able to talk my little sister into taking the risk to pursue a PhD in microbiology, I just hope that by the time she starts looking for a job these discriminatory practices will end
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Maybe it’s just an ugly ceiling. I got my Engineering degree over a decade ago, and the female contingent was steadily rising. In fact, during my time there, the Chem department was over 50% women.
The joke was that the women had a HUGE pool of men to choose from. I was one of the guys who would note that the ratio of men:women was about the same as women:dateable guys. That “pool” of men was pretty smelly, greasy, sweaty, and a little creepy. This worked well for those of us who knew how to use soap and a washing machine and knew where women’s eyes were located(official co-ordinates? “Up here”)
Imagine walking to that door and seeing the morass of unripe dork on the other side. Segregated from the rest of the school because you’re a self-contained faculty with minimal electives. You couldn’t escape. It would be terrifying. Suddenly English looks a lot more appealing.
I kid (kind of) of course. Maybe I was lucky that my social circle during those years as actually well-balanced with the estrogenically-enhanced, but while the male:female ratio was noticeably skewed across the faculty, many of the brightest and best-achieving Engineers from my class were women.
The problem could be less with the education system than the attitudes they reach upon graduation. The top woman in my class got a job for $45k/year at Motorola, and then decided to teach at a private school. The top guy bought a Ferrari after 6 months at Microsoft. I believe they were ranked 3rd and 1st respectively (I was waaaaaaay down that list). Things like that can be discouraging to women wanting to pursue this path.
Those Chemical Engineers? PhD’s, permanent students, post-docs… still heavily influencing young women in the classes they teach and research they do, further skewing the male:female balance in the female direction. Maybe my generation, now in the position to be professors and researchers replacing the old guard, will change these attitudes within the ivory towers. Those of us in the “real world” will have to work on attitudes outside those walls.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:52 pm
@24, a personal anecdote:
Picture it, 1998, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. A young woman is enrolled in Aerospace Engineering. A NASA geek through & through who adored her (optional) high school Physics course and wanted to learn more, she goes to an extracurricular lecture on avionics. Afterwards, she approaches the lecturer to ask a question. Her question is vaguely answered — TO THE MAN STANDING BEHIND HER, as if she were NOT EVEN THERE. She asks a follow-up. Again, the lecturer responds TO THE MAN STANDING BEHIND HER. This man is her friend, also a freshman AE student, and is befuddled by this anachronistic response. What can he say? The pair walk away, both dejected and confused as to the way this “expert” treated the young woman.
I assure you, this is merely ONE tiny example of the many ways women are sidelined even after persisting to walk through your door. Of course now, I (and I assume my friend) would have choice words to share with the misogynist lecturer. As naive, young freshman, however, it was telling and quite dispiriting. As is the fact that you deny the existence of such treatment.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:56 pm
@45, Astin, our saying at Georgia Tech was “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Perhaps I have simply been incredibly lucky; I have never encountered anything that made me feel unwelcome in math and science classes, degrees, or schools.
As a child I believed that girls were smarter than boys– it was many years before I even heard the preposterous idea that people thought girls couldn’t do math or science. I was one of two people in my high school to take Calculus in junior year. The other was male. No one ever differentiated between us when they spoke of this. I took every science class I could… and all my teachers adored me. In college, I have only once ever had a teacher comment on my gender… and then, it was merely to express how glad he was that he had so many girls in his class. He had noticed that the higher level math he taught, the fewer girls there were, and that bothered him.
I am currently at the Colorado School of Mines, studying Engineering Physics. And I’m still waiting to see any evidence of this sexism I am supposed to be oppressed by. I’m not denying it exists… I’ve just never seen it.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:10 pm
@24 You’re right in a sense – I’m a female scientist, so it’s certainly possible to become one! However, as Phil said, the door may be open, but there are still many obstacles. I had a physics professor tell me, at length, that women can’t do theoretical physics “because your brains are different. It’s not sexism, it’s biology.” I don’t blame him for the fact that I didn’t end up going into theory, but it wasn’t exactly encouraging. Also, now that I’m a professor in computer science, I’ve had literally dozens of female students tell me that our relatively female-rich faculty is one of the reasons they felt confident they could make it through the degree and be welcome in the profession.
However, it seems like the real hole in the pipeline is around middle school, when many students (male and female, but disproportionately female) decide that they can’t do math, and that science is boring. They often regain their interest later, but then don’t have (or don’t think they have) the basic skills to succeed in a STEM degree. If any of you have or know a child at this critical age, do all you can to keep them excited about science!
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:13 pm
@Maki. I gave my daughter a microscope. Does that count?
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:14 pm
@24
The science:
If you want to know why the door to science and engineering careers is still not wide open for women and minorities, the best place to start is the National Academies’ 2006 report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers.” It is readable, online, for free and there goes your ability to claim ignorance as the reason for your denialism.
The culture:
Some teachers and parents still discourage girls’ interest in science (maybe subconsciously) by telling them it is too hard, too boyish, or too dull. Cultural icons for young girls sure don’t do much to support the idea that science is a gender-equal endeavor.
On the whole, women bear disproportionate responsibility for child care, elder care, and house work. These things take lots of time; time that many science and engineering careers demand be spent in the lab or writing papers, grants, etc.
Graduate school and the early career years also coincide with the period when some women want to be bearing and raising children. We don’t do a very good job of allowing mothers (and fathers) to have discontinuous educations and careers if they need or want to have families.
To exacerbate matters: because we as society are doing such a lousy job evening up the domestic responsibilities between the genders and making career options that are viable for those with families, there are still faculty and advisors that refuse to take on women scientists and engineers “because they are just going to leave science anyway.” Sure there are some partners that do a great job of house-, child-, and elder-work, but not every woman gets one of those partners. They don’t come free with your science degree.
The anecdotes (really the least important part):
As a woman earth scientist, I’ve seen everything from friends sexually harassed on the job, to conferences that feature only male speakers, to having to get special permission to get safety equipment and field equipment in small enough sizes for smaller women (cf. space suits). I know women who were denied time off from field and/or laboratory work after childbirth and women who have been groped at scientific conferences.
Maybe you are lucky enough to live in isolated bubble where none of these problems have ever been encountered in your workplace or by your circle of close female scientist/engineering friends who confide in you. But I deny that such a bubble exists in the real world. Instead, I posit your denialism is just as mean-spirited, trollish, and purposefully deceitful as the climate change/vaccine/evolution/etc. denialism out there. Prove me wrong by educating yourself, reading, and really listening.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:28 pm
This isn’t a problem that starts at home. I don’t know of a single parent who would discourage their child from pursuing science. The problem lies in men like James Glass who believe that if women only worked harder and stopped all the dilly-dallying, they could be just as great as men. It’s that kind of mentality that prevents women from ever being “good enough” in the eyes of their male peers. And when guys who sign their names “PhD, PE” are out there perpetuating the idea that women are the weaker sex; that we haven’t worked just as hard as they, it creates the kind of hindrance that’s incredibly difficult to overcome no matter how encouraging your parents were.
So to any women out there pursuing careers in science, I commend you; you’ve done twice the work. You are an inspiration.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:32 pm
But wait! It gets better! Like Lady Vivamus said, I never personally ran into sexism myself, and was encouraged throughout high school and college (valedictorian of what was then America’s #2 public school, BA in physics in 1991, so it’s not ancient history, but it wasn’t yesterday, either). At grad school found some typical sexist male faculty members who’d rather have a conversation with a woman’s chest, and tried to brush it off. Eventually got that coveted PhD in astronomy in 2000, and have gotten pretty much everything I’ve tried for professionally. Great, right? Nope. I am now beset with ‘impostor syndrome’ (Google it). Every position, every promotion, every accolade is tainted with the notion that, perhaps, the only reason I got that position/promotion/accolade is that someone needs to visibly reward a female scientist to show that there’s no gender inequality here.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:43 pm
My Mom told me I was too stupid when, after a science class, I said I wanted to be a scientist. Don’t fool yourself into thinking parents, in one form or another, that parents don’t influence their children!
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Something a little more recent – I graduated with my physics degree last year – 2010, and while I am extremely pleased to report that I had both female and male physics professors, I am less pleased to report the reaction of just about every other human being on the planet was not quite so egalitarian.
Upon telling of my field of study, Every woman I met, without exception, who was not already in the field of physics, promptly told me that they could never, ever do something like that (ie, study something with so much darn math). From people my own age to women who were ready to be grandmothers, the response was the same, and it broke my heart. It was just example after example of how women are constantly and subtley discouraged from thinking themselves capable in science and engineering – and somewhere in there that I was really denying some long held convention put in place for my own protection.
While there may be many more anti-discrimination policies in place now than when many of the other commenters went to university (I know for a fact that sort of thing was not tolerated at my university, or in my department), the rest of society has no problem telling you, in a thousand subtle ways, that women in science are strange and rare creatures. They are somehow not the same as ‘normal’ women, who don’t dare to such aspirations. I’m young yet – so no one has gone and told me to my face that I don’t belong in my chosen profession (That would be rude!) But no one seems to have trouble painting me as an outlier.
And really, if there were no barriers, and no glass ceiling would I really be one?
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:56 pm
@24
Many links to solid information have already been pointed out in the previous comments, so I will simply add a very recent anecdote of my own, which I hope will make the point well enough.
I was recently e-mailing the director of a fellowship I was applying for. In all of the e-mails I sent to him, I referred to my advisor as female. In all of his return e-mails to me, he referred to my advisor as being male.
This is not the first time I have had this happen to me, this automatic assumption that my advisor must by default be a man.The women who do exist in science are often ignored and rendered invisible in a myriad of ways – so sure, the door may be open, so to speak, but that doesn’t make it look like an attractive place for women to go. It’s frustrating and maddening, when the default gender of your profession is male, and to be female is still an aberration, a curiosity.
One more anecdote:
I recently volunteered at a science fair where every project in the earth sciences division was constructed by a girl. (And let me tell you, that was sure a strange and exciting moment for me!) There were a lot of concern-filled jokes from my fellow (male) judges about where the heck the boys were, how strange it was. Think there would have been similar concerned joking if all of the kids in the category had been boys?
Maybe. But I kind of doubt it.
But hey, it’s easy to look down from a position of privilege and pronounce that you just don’t get why women aren’t walking through a door that seems to obviously open to you.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 pm
@Duane It was actually my first thought, but I decided to play to the topic of astronomy.
The joy of discovery and exploration are inherent in all humans, its only later that this joy is repressed by societal norms to be “unladylike” or “dull”.
I’ve been working at the World Science Festival for only a month now, but every day I hear from excited parents who want to know how their children can get involved, and I’m so happy to be able to respond to them positively with the various planned events for youth and family. It’s already so apparent that the joy of science is back on the up and up, and that there are so many programs to get children (and especially girls—looking at you, Teen Skepchick) involved and excited about STEM.
I feel like a total cornball, and maybe my view is skewed from my own self-involvement, but I can only be positive about the future of science literacy.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
In December, I graduated with my degree in meteorology. Most of my peers are male, and, unfortunately, a lot of the women in my classes were pursuing degrees in weather communication – i.e. they were going to become tv meteorologists. The last time I had classes with them were the core classes of math, physics, and fluid dynamics, for the most part. I will admit that even I had a tendency to look down on the whole group because a few of them were the ones who asked stupid questions, sometimes the same question in every class for a week. However, for the most part, the women were afforded the same opportunity that men were in my classes. I will also note that, after our freshman introductory course, there were just as many men that I heard saying “This is too much math, I think I’m going to switch majors” as there were women, if not more.
That being said, I had courses in which I was both well-regarded and listened to, and classes in which I might as well have crawled under a desk and pretended not to be there. There were groups in which I did the bulk of the work, both mathematically and when writing papers – in one group, we had a perfect system going the whole semester: one guy got the concepts, two of us did the math, and one guy checked the math, and though I was the only girl, I was almost always trusted. But, in a class in which I was the only girl, my commentary was ignored entirely – to the point where my input was repeated minutes later as if it were novel. This pales in comparison to my high school AP Physics class where the guys (there were 3 girls in a class of 13) made sexist jokes and talked about how girls can’t do math while the teacher egged them on.
On the whole, I feel like I’ve been afforded many of the same opportunities as my male peers, but that is partly because I have always just ignored the morons. My parents never held me back, either, which helped. But now that I have decided that I want to get my PhD, i get a lot more comments and odd looks. My gynecologist asked me when I might start wanting kids, and I said after I finished school in 10 years, and she seemed downright astonished, asking me what I would want my PhD for. My sister takes the much more direct approach: she tells me that she is disappointed that I’m not going to settle down and give her nieces and nephews for another decade, and continually asks me to have children (note: I am in a committed relationship but nowhere near marriage, and she is three years younger than me and doesn’t want kids so that she doesn’t spoil her figure). It seems to me that society is alright with women having science degrees and being scientists, but that people are still put off by women putting off starting a family to pursue higher education beyond their bachelors degree.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:17 pm
@ Mason 34,
Today’s your lucky day, I’m a man, and a father, and a scientist, and I take equal responsibility for caring for my daughter and keeping her out of day care. Your statements are as wrong and discriminating as the “barefoot and pregnant” crowd. My wife also works, but we arrange out schedule so that one of us is always home. I do everything I can to support my family at home and at work, but there are still things that a mother is better suited for (feeding for the first year comes to mind). I can see the advantages to a division of labor in which one parent works outside the home and one takes care of the family, and in that case nature and society favor the mom staying home, but that’s not the only model available anymore. I don’t think a 50/50 mix in every field is necessary or even desirable for gender equity, but I agree that social pressure from any source to make a particular career choice is not good for anyone.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:18 pm
@Quaoar: I completely disagree with your assessment. I am a 31 year old female. I graduated from a math and science high school in 1997. I also attended several math, science, and tech summer programs for gifted students. My mother was a college graduate, was attending graduate school part time, and was a teacher for gifted students. I was probably set up for success in science in the best way possible, and I did not anticipate having any trouble whatsoever. Then, I went to college–on academic scholarship to an engineering school known for its tough curriculum. I majored in physics. My (male) honors advisor only wanted to talk about my dating prospects at this mostly male school, not my course schedule. My male classmates were encouraged to work with each other and not me. There were three female physics students in my class. I stayed the longest, changing my major at the end of my sophomore year.
I changed my major to management information systems, although my actual curriculum varied from the computer science degree by only two courses. I found both departments to be incredibly welcoming to me, and I thrived. If the environment had been different–or even if I had been better prepared to face the discrimination I met–I might be a physicist now. I’m happy where I am now, so I don’t mourn the fact that I’m not a physicist. I am incredibly disappointed in the experience I had as an 18 year old, and I hope with all my heart, it’s different now. I know that this isn’t the norm everywhere, but it shouldn’t be acceptable anywhere.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Georgia Tech is a good example of a place where a woman can fit right in with the students as a sister and the professors like a daughter. I was a freakin’ celebrity in that place back in the 1980′s because I wrote for The Technique and had my little picture by my editorials. Back then it was about 5 men to every 1 women. They aren’t kidding about the expression “the odds are good but the goods are odd.” I never had a date the whole time I was there. But I wasn’t there to get a husband so I could have babies. I never wanted any of that. I was there for an excellent education in creative problem solving. I took advantage of access to the finest professors to teach me things that were very difficult for me. My major professor still calls me on my birthday. Georgia Tech is awesome. The problem is SINCE Georgia Tech. At Georgia Tech they deal with ideas and improvements. But in the business world they have bosses with delicate egos and CEOs who want big bonuses. Being a woman is the least of my problems. There is just not enough investment in innovation in America, not nearly enough. There is not enough value placed on an INDIVIDUAL’S ability to be innovative. When there is a job opening they want somebody that has done that exact same job before, not somebody who can figure out a neat way to do that job better. This is my main problem with careers in science and technology, not gender.
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:22 pm
I’m a little late to the jump, but I have some more input for Quaoar(24). Check out Why So Few? here: http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/whysofew.cfm
There’s a ton of research on why there are so few females in science and engineering. Long story short– sure, the door was technically open, but getting to face it, and then through it are completely different matters altogether– unconscious bias is pervasive and powerful. I personally didn’t experience any barriers until undergrad, when in my first physics lab, my partner turned to me and told me, “No, I’m doing this since I got stuck with you. Girls can’t do physics.”
As I’m still in science (at the grad level), I’ve managed to keep said voices (mostly just whispers anymore) at bay. But that doesn’t mean the extra energy required to deal with it isn’t prohibitive. Things are changing, things are getting better- I can tell. But there’s still a disparity and it’s not because women aren’t interested, motivated, or talented.
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Though women may be being impeded by a “glass ceiling” in other areas of science, my profession, dentistry, doesn’t seem to be following that trend. In the 2009 Survey of Dental Practice, it was found that of all employed dentists in the US, 39.2% are women. Remarkably, though, of all dentists graduated from dental school in the last ten years and who are currently employed, 55% are women. I could not find if there was a disparity in income, however.
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:39 pm
I am an engineering student, and I have never had more than 5 girls in any of the engineering classes. Keep in mind I attend a school that has 35,000+ undergrads and all of my classes have 30+ students. In the case of engineering, women simply do not find this occupation “attractive.” You look at the communications college on the other side of campus, they claim 63% of their students are female. I guess they feel like something in communications fits a woman better than engineering.
P.S. My school is in southern California and women here are the most self conscious in the world. Therefore I think they take the “girl” major as to not seem wierd.
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:05 pm
[...] einen Retweet auf Twitter auf einen dämlichen Kommentar unter einem Blogeintrag habe ich ein spannendes Blogprojekt gefunden: Women in Planetary [...]
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Like Wayne on the plains (#59), I found Mason (#34)’s comment a little offensive. I’m an astrophysicist and next year will be a full prof. One of the biggest problems I have faced is exactly Mason’s attitude that everything is on Mom. My husband is an equal partner (he is also a prof and a scientist). We make it work. But even people who know us well assume that I do the brunt of the housework/childrearing which means that (a) they assume I’m not pulling my weight; and (b) there is no comprehension that he might have to do kid/home stuff. Yes men should pull their weight in the home, and many do, but the idea that they don’t hurts progress in this direction.
May 2nd, 2011 at 11:33 pm
I’m sure it doesn’t start at the academy’s “door”. Skill tests back at preschool at times give biased results, extracurricular activities at school are sometimes still biased, and as Amy said, women can sometimes be their own worst enemies. Just last month, one of the top professional women at the Israeli ministry of health wrote that female MDs are about to cross 50% of the market and then lists a very odd list of reasons why this is bad for the system and the female MDs personally. I guess prejudice is a strong force in the human neurology and culture, but how many generations can this last?
May 3rd, 2011 at 11:42 pm
“The goal of gender equity”. As if it’s a given. I don’t understand how leftists make this argument. The goal of gender equity amongst nurses and hair stylists is still a long way off. However, it should always be a long way off, or near, or past it, depending solely upon the free decisions of individuals who want to enter the field. I don’t want the leviathan to coerce the people to go into certain fields based upon what is basically a religion.
“Women make up half the bodies in the solar system. Why not half the scientists?”. This confuses me slightly. Why not half the scientists? Because women and men are not the same. It’s not even a question to me that women and men will trend to different things, we have different minds and different bodies. It’s not a burr in my psyche that this is true, and it’s not something that I’m going to victimize myself over or toss and turn at night over.
May 8th, 2011 at 10:38 am
[...] The Bad Astronomer asked his readers for help setting straight a commenter who denied that there were any remaining obstacles for women in science and engineering. Anne offered her take, and other commenters also did a good job taking him down. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/29/women-as-planetary-science-role-models/#co... [...]
October 1st, 2011 at 11:35 pm
I once dated a guy that was studying aero engineering, he was doing his theisis and I would visit him for lunch when we had the chance. Due to the fact I was visiting him t uni I had the opportunity to meet the other students working with him and who shared some of his classes. Of the 30 or so people I met only two of them were female. On a couple of occasions we all went out for drinks and I was treated as something of a novelty, this went on for a while and I could see the other two girls becoming increasinly frustrated by the behviour of these men. Eventually one of the girls spoke uo and said “hey! We are girls too!” Their response, no you are not! You lost that right when you walked into that physics lecture and passed!
So of the girls that did manage to make it through to the end th
April 27th, 2012 at 11:16 am
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