YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! xD

- A female scientist who left academia cause she was fed-up with the double-standard culture

John Tierney used to be the right-wing op-ed writer for the NYTimes, and I don’t see any change in his POV (or MO, for that matter) now that he’s reporting on science.

The gender disparity is disappearing in biological sciences rapidly compared with physical sciences. My mom is a biologist, and her department has plenty of women (at the lecturer and professor level too). In contrast, my department has one female associate professor, one research fellow, teaching fellow, and a handful of PhD students (including myself). I have always been treated on par with my male counterparts and have always felt welcome. They certainly aren’t the types who scare away females!

The physics (and engineering) gender gap has deeper roots. What those roots are, I don’t know. I do know that there are misconceptions floating around that you have to be some kind of socially inept genius to do physics (that 99.9th percentile?), which is completely untrue.

Right now, today, start telling your children, all of them, regardless of gender “you can pursue any interest you want, do any job you want”. Help them believe it.

All this focus on gender does is help the next generation to focus on gender too. Let’s worry about making sure the best person gets the job, not what’s between their legs when they do.

The debate, if there is one, is “can you measure opportunity to become a scientist by measuring the number of people who become scientists?” In other words, does equal opportunity -> equal achievement, and ~equal achievement -> ~equal opportunity?

Arguing that women and men are equally capable, either on average or in the tails, is only part of that question. Desire (either innate or cultural) is a part. So are more subtle things, like how friendly grad school and post doc positions are to having kids, and how much that might factor into men’s decisions vs women’s decision.

My other point:: I’d encourage people to be careful. What if someone someday unequivocally proves that men and women are differently suited for different intellectual work? (Similar arguments for people hailing from different parts of the world.) I think focussing too much on proving physical capability could end up burning people if it is proven not be. You don’t want arguments for equal opportunity to be depend on something like that.

Analogies: You don’t want your arguments about civil rights for gay men and women predicated on the belief that homosexuality is not a choice, because if someone invents a magic drug that changes peoples’ sexual orientation, your arguments collapse. Or, you don’t want to base your arguments for God’s existence to be based on a fossile record gap that may someday close.

In any case, if your group is homogenous then you’re going to be missing MANY perspectives, which is a disadvantage in science as it is in any other field.

I realize this is more a ideal truth than a practical truth, but I think if you are doing science correctly then who you are and your background should matter very little. The whole point of science is to remove the influence of the scientist on the result; that’s the benefit of quantitative measurement, controlled experiments, etc.

It is hard not look at a field like mine (an engineering team that is probably ~0.5-1% women) and not think, “there is something wrong here.” (Recognizing that ‘feelings’ are not ‘proof’.) But what if I saw a field with a 60:40 split. Or a 55:45 split. Would such an inequality reflect unequal opportunity? Would it matter?

Equal opportunity should be the goal, but what is the metric?

Or a 55:45 split. Would such an inequality reflect unequal opportunity? Would it matter?

Sorry, I meant, “would it matter that there was a 55:45 split”, NOT, “would it matter if there was inequality”

Also, as one straight white middle-class male to another: avoid complaining about how everybody makes such a big deal about race/gender/orientation in this country. Downplaying the problem makes us look like clueless fools to the people who have fought for generations (and continue to fight) for the rights and respect that we often take for granted.

Plus if engineering and science were totally male, how could you make jokes like telling a female fertility specialist to get back to making babies?

That’s right, you can be for gender equality because it’s self serving and a source of bad jokes.

I’m not so sure that ignoring the problem is the best way to deal with it. A person’s identity greatly affects how they experience life and vice versa.

All it really took for me was one good science teacher to tell me that what I liked wasn’t unnatural, even if I might hear it was unnatural from other people.

Love all of you, I hope when I get older I can do as much awesome as you!

I interpret your comment as sarcasm, trying to dismiss the importance of this discussion, but you bring up a valid point. Gender roles affect the composition of every field, and the sooner we dismiss them, and actually achieve parity, the sooner our children will actually have an equal shot at EVERYTHING, even a job as deglamorized and stigmatized as teaching.

Thanks for a very interesting article.

I don’t want to think my gender or my race or whatever is the most interesting thing about me, but it certainly colours how other perceive me.

The Times linked to this article:

Wai J, Lubinski D, Benbow CP. 2005. Creativity and occupational accomplishments among intellectually precocious youths: An age 13 to age 33 longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology 97(3): 484–492. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.97.3.484

The numbers Tierney gives are from that journal article, not his rectal orifice.

Personally, I would find it much more interesting if he would start posting recipes for pies we could make with all the cherries he’s picking.

That’s a great line, and I’m going to have to remember it the next time I argue with a cherry-picker over something like global warming.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

I am sorry that you are treated badly by some people who are men, but they’re not every man, and my point is that no-one is, it’s an irrelevant grouping.

My concern is that by focusing on gender statistics which are way out of “balance”, we’re masking the real issue.

They’re sexist bigots, and that’s their key characteristic, the fact that they’re male is not.

What I really want to see is people stop saying “male-dominated” like it says something useful. I’m a male, I’m not a sexist or a bigot, and I’m as tired of my gender being used to imply something about me that’s not true as you are.

Science and many professions are provably sexist-dominated, yes, and that’s something worth measuring and fighting. “Male-domination” is a statistical curiosity.

I’m not a sexist or a bigot

Everyone is bigoted. Even queers have internalized homophobia, even Jews have internalized antisemitism, even women have internalized sexism. It’s part of being raised and living in a paradigm of bias and inequality. It’s part of the human condition. The meaningful question is whether or not you acknowledge it and try to keep it from doing any damage.

Your mistake is thinking that any group composed only of straight white men is actually homogenous.

I reject the idea that those three things are the only facts worth measuring about me, and I encourage every person, regardless of orientation, colour or gender to reject it too.

Seriously.

And I do mean that that’s saying a lot.

I say gender is not a useful thing to balance on in the first place.

The goal is equal opportunity for all people, judged on personal merits relevant to the profession, not homogenous participation by every measurable human trait.

You can call it ignoring, you can call it downplaying. I’m going to teach my son not to concern himself with gender when assessing a person’s worth, and to not limit his own interests because of his gender. I’m going to model that for him in my behaviour and talk to him about it explicitly when he’s old enough, and that’s addressing the issue head-on.

I still think many kids are raised, consciously or not, in very gender-specific ways. Who’s most likely to be given a set of dinosaurs or a book on rockets in most households; a boy or a girl? Boys are very naturally encouraged to do more exploring (touching, playing with moving objects, building things…) early on. But unless a girl is surrounded by geeky types or scientists, it can take years until she may have her first opportunity to develop interest in sciences and have scientific materials available. Girls are often more encouraged to be social, have playdates and make friends than stay in the basement/backyard alone and goof off with their chemistry set.

That said, aside from gender alone, there should be more importance placed on differences in personalities and skills in individual children instead of cramming them into one or two subsets. There should be more attention paid to recognize the visual, kinetic, analytical, introvert and verbal (etc.) types early on and encourage them to explore and develop their natural skills.

Of course, there should then be more recognition of various skill sets and different expressions of intelligence in the educational and professional world. We’re probably missing out on lots of amazing new scientists (of either gender) because our models/measurements for skills and intelligence is so rigid and narrow.