As part of an effort to get a few other voices and opinions on this blog I asked fellow blogger Thinking Girl whether she would be willing to make a guest post here (actually a 'guest trade as I wrote an article for her blog)
I'm pretty sure I won out heavily in this deal as she has written knowledgably and eloquently about a subject a lot of this blogs readership think about on a daily basis; why there are so few women in maths and science.
If anybody else would like to try their hand at guest posting just drop me an email (address in the sidebar) and we can set up either a guest posting or a posting trade.
Anyway, with no further ado, here it is:
Taken from the original post at Thinking Girl
Several months ago, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers made the wild claim that men perform better than women in high-level math and science because women don’t have the biological capacity to excel in these areas and men do. This sparked a lot of heated debate, and Dr. Summers caught a lot of heat as a result of his sexist comments. However, Dr. Summers did point to the fact that women are significantly under-represented in math and science careers, despite studies in early childhood development that show young girls are statistically just as good or better at math and science than boys. This post is an attempt to account for this discrepancy.
Before I get started, some statistics. I admittedly didn’t know too much about this topic when I was asked to write about it a few months ago, so I had to do some research. I found a few great sites dedicated to women in math and science careers, some of which provided some stats that clearly show there are far more men than women in math and science - as well as far more whites than people of other races. This site shows stats for the top 50 schools in the US and the diversity in their math and science faculties. The highest % of women was to be found in the psychology department, at 60%. The lowest % of women were found in electrical engineering programs, at 6.5%, followed by physics at 6.6%, mechanical engineering at 6.7%, and math and statistics at 8.3%. White people were most populous in these faculties, followed closely by those of Asian descent (I believe Asians are actually over-represented here compared to the broader population, but I’m not sure), then Black, then Hispanic. The measliest, saddest numbers showed the % of Native Americans teaching at universities. Another site gave some interesting facts about women and technology, for example that women tend toward classes on the low end of technology like data entry, that parents tend to buy computers for boy children rather than girl children, and that women’s participation in computer science programs at university is one of the very few that have declined over time - despite the fact that women now make up 56% of university students - scary when 75% of jobs require computer skills.
In response to Dr. Summer’s controversial claims about women being biologically incapable of high-level math and science, Harvard psychology prof Elizabeth Spelke published a study in which she found there were NO differences between male and female babies, children, and adults in terms of cognitive capabilities and aptitude in mathematical and scientific reasoning. Jumping on the band-wagon to rebut Dr. Spelke was Steven Pinker, noted cognitive scientist and fellow professor at Harvard in the field of linguistics, specifically language acquisition in children. The two held a joint debate, outlined online at The Edge. It’s long, but the gist of it is that Pinker takes a "nature" line of argument and Spelke takes a "nurture" line of argument.
I’m with Spelke. I don’t think there are significant statistical differences in the cognitive abilities of women and men. I do think there are significant differences in the ways men and women are encouraged and socialized to think. (This is backed up by a study at U of Michigan, which suggests that women tend to choose careers based on their values more than on their skills.) All of Pinker’s points about "biological" differences between men and women have, in my mind (and Spelke’s), a sociological explanation. For example, Pinker says that men have different motivations than do women: men are more motivated by status than by family. My response to that point is that this has nothing to do with biology. Women are taught from childhood to care for other people, and men are taught that they must be providers and achievers. Is this difference in priorities really surprising?
My analysis of why there are fewer women in high-level math and science careers is that women are not encouraged and directed towards these classes from a very early age by the world around them. We are bombarded with images of women and what kind of value they have to society, which basically amounts to looking pretty and having babies. Even when girls are encouraged by teachers and by parents to get involved in math and science, the message from society is loud and clear that women have a place and it doesn’t include a whole lot of abstract thinking, number-crunching, or laboratory experiments. We don’t have a lot of great images of women making important scientific discoveries, or building amazing structures that are feats of engineering, or solving notoriously difficult mathematical problems. We do have images of starving blonde dummies whose main function in life is shopping and applying lip-gloss while living off the money earned by a man.
Even if a woman perseveres through these crappy societal images, and takes the higher-level math and science classes, she is likely to be in a very substantial minority in those classes, she is less likely to be hired after her education is completed, she will be paid less, and she is still subjected to societal pressures like being the primary care-giver for her family and putting her career on hold to raise her children.
In addition, once women have overcome the odds, there is a sense of real accomplishment. Being one of very few women in a discipline is a very isolating experience, and it is possible that women in this position do not want to make it easier for women coming behind them. There’s the sense that, “I did it, I got through the adversity, so you should have to go through what I went through – then we’ll really know if you want it badly enough.” She has become a queen bee figure, powerful in her role as the rare female – power that extends to the exclusion of newcomers. It is a myth that the presence of women ensures equal opportunities and fair treatment for other women.
I don’t deny that there are biological differences between men and women. There obviously are differences between male and female members of the species. What I do deny is that those differences are significant enough to explain the phenomenon of having such a huge gulf between men and women in the sciences. Drawing too much attention to natural differences, and not enough to the ways society handles those differences, is faulty. After all, we can change the way society handles differences - but we can’t change natural differences. The only way we will ever know if women are not biologically as capable as men in math and science is if we were to remove all the social influences that say women are inferior in these areas, and allow time to tell the story.
I want to leave you with a thought, something that was not addressed in any of the articles I looked at for this piece. If we are so quick to point out biological reasons for why women are not represented in math/science programs and careers, what are our reasons for why those fields are overwhelmingly dominated by white people? Dr. Summers didn’t point out the fact that Black, Hispanic, and Aboriginal people aren’t represented in math and science either - just women. If he’s just using the statistics as evidence for his sexist claim, wouldn’t he also have to infer that Blacks, Hispanics, and Natives aren’t as smart as white people, biologically? It seems like it’s acceptable to say that women are biologically inferior in the fields of math and science, but the reasons why Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and natives are not equally represented is because of social inequalities. In other words, it’s not ok to be openly racist, but it is ok to be openly sexist! If we can use social arguments to explain why people of colour are not represented, why must we search for a biological reason to explain why women aren’t? If we can acknowledge that social reasons prevent non-white racial groups from pursuing math and science, why isn’t the same true for women?
Thanks for hosting me!
I'm pretty sure I won out heavily in this deal as she has written knowledgably and eloquently about a subject a lot of this blogs readership think about on a daily basis; why there are so few women in maths and science.
If anybody else would like to try their hand at guest posting just drop me an email (address in the sidebar) and we can set up either a guest posting or a posting trade.
Anyway, with no further ado, here it is:
Women in Math and Science
Taken from the original post at Thinking Girl
Several months ago, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers made the wild claim that men perform better than women in high-level math and science because women don’t have the biological capacity to excel in these areas and men do. This sparked a lot of heated debate, and Dr. Summers caught a lot of heat as a result of his sexist comments. However, Dr. Summers did point to the fact that women are significantly under-represented in math and science careers, despite studies in early childhood development that show young girls are statistically just as good or better at math and science than boys. This post is an attempt to account for this discrepancy.
Before I get started, some statistics. I admittedly didn’t know too much about this topic when I was asked to write about it a few months ago, so I had to do some research. I found a few great sites dedicated to women in math and science careers, some of which provided some stats that clearly show there are far more men than women in math and science - as well as far more whites than people of other races. This site shows stats for the top 50 schools in the US and the diversity in their math and science faculties. The highest % of women was to be found in the psychology department, at 60%. The lowest % of women were found in electrical engineering programs, at 6.5%, followed by physics at 6.6%, mechanical engineering at 6.7%, and math and statistics at 8.3%. White people were most populous in these faculties, followed closely by those of Asian descent (I believe Asians are actually over-represented here compared to the broader population, but I’m not sure), then Black, then Hispanic. The measliest, saddest numbers showed the % of Native Americans teaching at universities. Another site gave some interesting facts about women and technology, for example that women tend toward classes on the low end of technology like data entry, that parents tend to buy computers for boy children rather than girl children, and that women’s participation in computer science programs at university is one of the very few that have declined over time - despite the fact that women now make up 56% of university students - scary when 75% of jobs require computer skills.
In response to Dr. Summer’s controversial claims about women being biologically incapable of high-level math and science, Harvard psychology prof Elizabeth Spelke published a study in which she found there were NO differences between male and female babies, children, and adults in terms of cognitive capabilities and aptitude in mathematical and scientific reasoning. Jumping on the band-wagon to rebut Dr. Spelke was Steven Pinker, noted cognitive scientist and fellow professor at Harvard in the field of linguistics, specifically language acquisition in children. The two held a joint debate, outlined online at The Edge. It’s long, but the gist of it is that Pinker takes a "nature" line of argument and Spelke takes a "nurture" line of argument.
I’m with Spelke. I don’t think there are significant statistical differences in the cognitive abilities of women and men. I do think there are significant differences in the ways men and women are encouraged and socialized to think. (This is backed up by a study at U of Michigan, which suggests that women tend to choose careers based on their values more than on their skills.) All of Pinker’s points about "biological" differences between men and women have, in my mind (and Spelke’s), a sociological explanation. For example, Pinker says that men have different motivations than do women: men are more motivated by status than by family. My response to that point is that this has nothing to do with biology. Women are taught from childhood to care for other people, and men are taught that they must be providers and achievers. Is this difference in priorities really surprising?
My analysis of why there are fewer women in high-level math and science careers is that women are not encouraged and directed towards these classes from a very early age by the world around them. We are bombarded with images of women and what kind of value they have to society, which basically amounts to looking pretty and having babies. Even when girls are encouraged by teachers and by parents to get involved in math and science, the message from society is loud and clear that women have a place and it doesn’t include a whole lot of abstract thinking, number-crunching, or laboratory experiments. We don’t have a lot of great images of women making important scientific discoveries, or building amazing structures that are feats of engineering, or solving notoriously difficult mathematical problems. We do have images of starving blonde dummies whose main function in life is shopping and applying lip-gloss while living off the money earned by a man.
Even if a woman perseveres through these crappy societal images, and takes the higher-level math and science classes, she is likely to be in a very substantial minority in those classes, she is less likely to be hired after her education is completed, she will be paid less, and she is still subjected to societal pressures like being the primary care-giver for her family and putting her career on hold to raise her children.
In addition, once women have overcome the odds, there is a sense of real accomplishment. Being one of very few women in a discipline is a very isolating experience, and it is possible that women in this position do not want to make it easier for women coming behind them. There’s the sense that, “I did it, I got through the adversity, so you should have to go through what I went through – then we’ll really know if you want it badly enough.” She has become a queen bee figure, powerful in her role as the rare female – power that extends to the exclusion of newcomers. It is a myth that the presence of women ensures equal opportunities and fair treatment for other women.
I don’t deny that there are biological differences between men and women. There obviously are differences between male and female members of the species. What I do deny is that those differences are significant enough to explain the phenomenon of having such a huge gulf between men and women in the sciences. Drawing too much attention to natural differences, and not enough to the ways society handles those differences, is faulty. After all, we can change the way society handles differences - but we can’t change natural differences. The only way we will ever know if women are not biologically as capable as men in math and science is if we were to remove all the social influences that say women are inferior in these areas, and allow time to tell the story.
I want to leave you with a thought, something that was not addressed in any of the articles I looked at for this piece. If we are so quick to point out biological reasons for why women are not represented in math/science programs and careers, what are our reasons for why those fields are overwhelmingly dominated by white people? Dr. Summers didn’t point out the fact that Black, Hispanic, and Aboriginal people aren’t represented in math and science either - just women. If he’s just using the statistics as evidence for his sexist claim, wouldn’t he also have to infer that Blacks, Hispanics, and Natives aren’t as smart as white people, biologically? It seems like it’s acceptable to say that women are biologically inferior in the fields of math and science, but the reasons why Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and natives are not equally represented is because of social inequalities. In other words, it’s not ok to be openly racist, but it is ok to be openly sexist! If we can use social arguments to explain why people of colour are not represented, why must we search for a biological reason to explain why women aren’t? If we can acknowledge that social reasons prevent non-white racial groups from pursuing math and science, why isn’t the same true for women?
Thanks for hosting me!
