Gender and Science

Posted on May 21, 2008
Filed Under Science |

Women and ScienceWay back in college (OK, not that long ago all things considered) one of my math professors made all his students read various papers on gender differences in mathematics and education. I believe this was actually encouraged by the department to try and get more women in the math and sciences. This was around 1991 so most of the papers were from the late 80’s. But they were uniformly interesting as I recalled. They suggested that the big reason women tended to not go into math and the hard sciences was because there was subtle discouragement in elementary school.

Part of this was because the teachers who tended to teach in elementary school were women who also didn’t do well in math. They then subtly transferred these fears to the young girls. Some was more overt but still probably unconscious acts such as praising young boys different from young girls.

Now there also were other issues related to perhaps more overt discrimination. Such as the old boys network that sometimes pops up in science and engineering departments. Perhaps even some of the sexual language that developed in the 50’s and 60’s and is now standard. (Male/Female connectors, and probably a bunch more that seem innocuous at first glance)

Various blogs have been discussing the issue. Many note that recent studies suggest that choice as much as discrimination are affecting the low numbers of women in math and hard science. However to me this doesn’t really resolve the question. Those papers I had to read for class would indicate that the kinds of choices young women make when entering college are already heavily shaped by the kinds of experiences they had in grade school. So the real question is why women don’t appear to enjoy taking math and physics classes.

Anyway, check out some of the posts. Razib has up a nice summary of some studies. As he notes, the job market for math and the hard sciences can’t be neglected. That can be a huge issue if you want a family. (As I’ve often said I don’t know how some grad students or post docs deal with poverty level salaries while having 2 - 3 kids and having a questionable chance of even getting a job when you have the opportunity around 30.)

Also check out Pure Pedantry, Daniel Drezner, The World’s Fair, and Megan McArdle. (I’m sure there are more - but that probably quickly shows most of the interesting kinds of perspectives without getting too repetitive.)

Comments

2 Responses to “Gender and Science”
1 Rich Knapton on May 21st, 2008 11:39 am

I only have a sample size of four (my girls) but they were pretty much consistent. In K-12 they were all math whizzes. And, they received lots of recognition for their math abilities. I high school, while still getting A’s in math, their interests all shifted to English, Poetry, Debate, etc. They were more interested in expressing themselves than pursuing math related subjects. In college two went for the tech/science stuff: IT and astronomy. One is leaning to finance and the other has just started.

I’m leaning towards the “I want to do what interests me” as the primary reason for fewer women in tech/science jobs

There are enough studies to show that generally speaking women are more focused on horizontal connections while men are more focused on vertical connections.

Rich

I’m not saying that the effects in ones childhood dominates. I do think it has an effect but it certainly may be swamped by real sexual differences. I’m not sure we know one way or the other though.

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