In the prestigious scientific journal Nature, my fellow University of Washington graduate, Dr. Jennifer Rohn, recently accused the entire scientific community of being “inherently sexist.” Her evidence? There are not enough female scientific “pundits” in the mainstream media. Instead of supporting her case with facts or statistics, she relied entirely on unpersuasive anecdotes about timid, defenseless women being bullied in a world full of big, scary men.
Anyone who has spent enough time in academic circles has heard this argument repeated ad nauseam. The viewpoint is so widely held and sacrosanct that even hinting that it might be exaggerated can cause a person serious trouble. On sensitive issues such as gender discrimination, facts have been replaced by emotion; science has been replaced by myth. No longer should this be tolerated. Let us reassess the “gender gap” in academia.
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Those who espouse the idea of gender discrimination invariably point to the same three statistics: 1) The number of women who get Ph.D.’s in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science is dwarfed by the number of men who do; 2) there are more male than female professors in these fields; and 3) there is a wage gap between male and female professors.
For the sake of argument, I will not challenge these statistics. It is the conclusion that sexism is the only plausible explanation for these observations that needs to be vigorously challenged, especially in light of the following:
In the 2008–09 academic year, for the first time ever, more women received Ph.D.’s than men in the United States. They also received 60 percent of master’s degrees. Additionally, among undergraduates, females outnumbered males 57 percent to 43 percent (females have outnumbered males since 2003). Even though men received most of the hard-science Ph.D.’s, women dominated the soft sciences. Indeed, women received 60 percent of social- and behavioral-science Ph.D.’s and 70 percent of health-science Ph.D.’s (including nursing).
Even in the hard sciences, women are making significant inroads. In the biological and agricultural sciences, women now receive 51 percent of Ph.D.’s. Also, women make up more than half of new medical doctors and more than 75 percent of new veterinarians.
Obviously, this is great news for women. But why do men still dominate the hard sciences and engineering? Several explanations have been proposed, including the understandably controversial yet biologically plausible hypothesis that men are genetically more likely to be outstanding at mathematical and spatial reasoning than women. This suggestion rarely goes over well; just ask Lawrence Summers.
The more likely explanation is simply one of preference: Women, for personal reasons, prefer not to enter the hard sciences. And that is exactly what recent research from Cornell University reveals:
Two psychological scientists have reviewed all of the evidence and concluded that the main factor is women’s choices — both freely made, such as that they’d rather study biology than math, and constrained, such as the fact that the difficult first years as a professor coincide with the time when many women are having children.
Science and sports are two remaining bastions where excellence is prized over social engineering - and so it should remain.
There is no great societal benefit in taking people who want to be doctors - men or women - and instead turning them into physicists. The gender gap is so narrow in science and math now (and where are the calls for males quotas and awareness in social sciences, at %70 female?) that it just feels like people are believing it is there because it once was. In other words, sociologists are victims of their own past stereotype bias.
Science and sports are two remaining bastions where excellence is prized over social engineering - and so it should remain.
There is no great societal benefit in taking people who want to be doctors - men or women - and instead turning them into physicists. The gender gap is so narrow in science and math now (and where are the calls for males quotas and awareness in social sciences, at %70 female?) that it just feels like people are believing it is there because it once was. In other words, sociologists are victims of their own past stereotype bias.
First of all, the discussion that follows is meant to address the question of whether science is “inherently sexist.” This is not the same thing as saying that science is “openly discriminatory.” No one is accusing anyone of being a chauvinist pig; as you point out, those days are (mostly) over; what is more at issue is whether academic science as an institution is setup such that women are at a disadvantage.
You present statistics that women outnumber men in terms of degrees granted and enrollment in secondary education. But, of course it is well known that women are certainly not equally represented higher up in academia. So clearly women are as capable as men of learning, thinking, being successful in these fields, etc. I would argue that the fact women get more PhDs than men is actually evidence that science IS inherently sexist; what is happening between graduate school and the level of tenured faculty that the numbers suddenly become so uneven? You argue that it is “simply a matter of time before the majority of professors are female.” But going back to 1992, 43% of graduate students in science fields (excluding engineering) were women. Yet in 2007, only 25% of biological sciences faculty were women. And while that is higher than it was previously, that’s an awfully significant time lag.
Maybe you should pick a year, and when that year comes around and the gender disparity still exists, you will admit there is a problem?
I think more telling are studies on what happens to male versus female postdocs. There is some information here, and on the data sheet you can download:
Some of the key points:
In 2006, only 33% of postdocs were female (41% in the biological sciences).
Of those postdocs who indicated a career goal of professor with a research emphasis at the start of their postdoc, a greater fraction of women than men have since changed their goal.29
Postdoc women who have had children since becoming postdocs are twice as likely AS MEN WHO HAVE ALSO HAD CHILDREN to change their career goal away from professor with a research emphasis. Goulden et al. 2009
Women are less likely than men to get their first tenure track job within five years of Ph.D. receipt.34
SO…it would appear that science loses many women because they choose to have families. As you point out, it is simply their “preference.” But so what if they have kids? Don’t women in lots of other fields have families too? Though I’ve heard it many times about academia, I have NEVER heard a woman say, “I would really like to work in industry, but I also want a family…” Isn’t it possible that this preference of child-bearing women to leave academia says more about academia than it does about the women? There isn’t data for me to know the answer to that question. But you don’t know, either.
And of course, you have to bring up Lawrence Summers. Sigh. The lovely Dr. Isis said it better than I ever could:
Some main points:
In talking about aptitude and test score differences: “Yet, he clearly has ignored the fact that this phenomenon is unique to the United States. Indeed, in countries with more gender equal cultural norms, the divide disappears. In Iceland, girls out perform boys in math and science. Japanese girls out perform American boys.”
The data she sites is from this paper: External Link
She also points out that, “the performance of elementary school aged girls on these tests is related to the level of anxiety displayed by their almost exclusively female teachers, who have been socially pre-conditioned with this anxiety.” And then includes a rather disturbing video of a talking Barbie saying, “Math class is hard!”
From all the data I’ve seen on social influences, and the complete lack of any data in support of a sex-based genetic influence (please feel free to share if you have some), I’m concluding that Larry Summers is an idiot.
And finally, just FYI, I’m sure your comment on watching college football was intended to add some levity, but instead came off sounding vaguely sexist. (Really, ANY man??)
I am a professor at a major research university in a STEM department, and I can tell you that bias exists: pro-female bias, in a huge way. Everyone in the field knows that a woman applying to be a professor with comparable qualifications to the best male applicants will get ten (10!) times the number of job interviews and offers, on average. These days, an outstanding male applicant applying to all the positions available at the top-100 departments (i.e., those actually supporting research) will get maybe 1-2 offers. A top female candidate will literally get an offer from every institution she applies to. The same also applies in grad school admissions. A decently qualified woman will always be accepted and will get a fellowship offer, while a male with the same qualifications will have maybe 20-40% chance of acceptance. It is simply the fact that all major universities strongly discriminate in favor of women. Another way to see this: the better the quality of the departments, the more likely they are to have 50% women. That is because the best places snap up all the qualified women, and the lesser universities are faced with a choice of either being gender imbalanced or taking unqualified female candidates. Usually they compromise and do a little of both, take a few women with qualifications which are below their cutoff for men, and still remain roughly 10-1 male.
In my opinion this is entirely about preference. Look at the chart at this link: External Link
Females are clearly attracted to professions which involve more contact with people and men are attracted more to professions which deal with inanimate objects. I see this all the time when advising young people. Is this wrong? Why not let people do what they like?
One of my daughters and a niece were in science programs in college, and they had the same nickname -- "the white girl". But somehow I don't think they're hanging ou the NO GRILS ALLOWED sign on the engineering building. I guess we should just be glad the chattering class are content to play around with this, rather than counting black and hispanic doctorial candidate in the sciences
This "piece" illustrates the simple truth, that high degrees in Microbiology does not qualify people to conduct viable research in sociology.
Just follow the money and you will find out, that no matter the field, men get more money on all levels: More research funds (also a higher percentage of projects accepted), more salary, higher payed positions and so on.
Isn't it very convenient, that it just happens that women "choose" academic fields with significantly lower salaries.
Another reason for the discrepancy is IQ related. There are many more men with IQ's over 130 than women. And as the IQ goes up, the numerical discrepancy increases. Scientific fact. Thus, hard science, the most difficult field, falls to those with the greatest potential--either men or women. Men, however, outnumber women in this area.
I work in a university and am often charged with evaluating applicants for academic positions in scientific fields. As to the point about discriminating against political conservatives: we do not ask about ideology and thus it is not possible to discriminate on that basis.
Frankly, in 20 years doing this, I have met so few conservatives that it leads me to suspect that political conservatism and scientific thinking do not correlate positively.
Conservatives, after all, tend not to believe in evolution, which sort of disqualifies one from serious scientific discussion—as would believing in Zeus, the four humors, and that climate change is a hoax. Some discrimination still exists against women in the hard sciences, but the Cornell review of the evidence is reasonable; it's largely a question of preferences and the fact that in terms of innate aptitude there are some differences at the extreme right tail of math ability. This article is correct in stating that in most other fields women are dominating.
I suspect I have met so few right wingers in science, not because we bar the doors against them, but because in science there is a premium on evidence, facts, and doubt, and a penalty for simply believing what one wants to believe, facts be damned.
As an illustration, watch the youtube video of Richard Dawkins and Bill O'Reilly discuss the existence of God and religion, and you get a taste of what I'm talking about. Which of these two men would you rather have researching the nature of the world, or teaching science at a university? If you honestly say Bill O'Reilly, then nothing anyone could say would convince you that the low numbers of conservatives in universities is not a conspiracy.
"As to the point about discriminating against political conservatives: we do not ask about ideology and thus it is not possible to discriminate on that basis.
Frankly, in 20 years doing this, I have met so few conservatives"
Amazing how someone who claims to work in a University and has been interviewing people for 20 years can contradict themselves in so few words. You "can't" know their ideology, but claim to be able to quantify this same number.
"I can't know if they are conservative but know how many there are"?!! Pathetic!! And you are "educated"?!!!
Marshall, you are right. That does sound like quite a contradiction. Actually, I should have said this more clearly--and thanks for so gently pointing it out--is that in 20 years at a university, I've met very few conservatives who are scientists. Sorry for getting your blood pressure up. Really didn't mean to.
Steve, your bias shines through your comments. You equate young earth creationists with conservatives. Are you really that ignorant of conservative ideas that you believe creationism their only position? Are there no conservatives who believe in evolution?!
Interestingly, you also correctly state "in science there is a premium on evidence, facts, and doubt, and a penalty for simply believing what one wants to believe, facts be damned." but, not surprisingly, fail to recognize that this defines the modern Leftist. This very article is filled with statistics which indicate that women exceed men in numbers in numerous areas but remain convinced, all evidence to the contrary, that they are somehow discriminated against. They are a majority in degrees, but not in underwater basket weaving, ergo, discrimination? And you are even remotely connected to "education"? Our country is well and truly screwed.
If women having less degrees of any kind is an indication of discrimination, wouldn't men having less degrees of any kind also be discrimination?
Individually, I am certain that it happens. As a group, how can 51% of science degrees for men equal discrimination but women holding more than 50% of another type of degree not be discrimination? According to the Leftist claims here, unequal IS discrimination, unless women are the majority and then it is....what? Scientifically they are just better and smarter?!
Let me pick my way carefuly through this. In my experience, men tend to have a higher degree of deviance than women (I'm a male). It certainly shows at the bottom of the curve---there are a lot more men prisons than women prisons. It may also show at the top of the curve---more Nobelists tend to be men.
I think the key thing is to make sure there are no barriers to female progress in the hard sciences, and then get out of the way. Given a fair playing field, genius will out---and it should be allowed to freely, whatever the sex. There may be more great English men than woman novelists, but the greatest one was a woman, for example. And that brings up my most important point--- whatever we say about groups has absolutely NOTHING to do with individuals---the family with the greatest number of Nobelists are the Curies, and the women won more than the men.
I think you meant "fewer" degrees, Marshall. "Less degrees" would be ungrammatical.
Nope, unequal numbers does not force the conclusion that bias exists any more than the "tide goes in, tide goes out" proves the existence of god, no matter how much the typical republican wishes it to be so. I'm beginning to understand why we see so few of your kind in academia. Waste of time discussing issues with the incurious.
There are more men in science and engineering simply because they enjoy it more. The same can be said for hairdressing, interior design and elementary education. Can women be physicists? Sure. Can men be kindergarten teachers? Sure. But God made men and women different - biologically and psychologically, and for good reason. So why all the fuss about what jobs men and women choose to do? As long as each may freely pursue what they like to do, there is no discrimination, and no problem.
@steven.sailer: Your having met so conservatives says much more about academia than it does about science. I have worked in both academia and industry, and I can tell you that there is a huge number of conservative scientists in the industrial world-- the majority of engineers and scientists in industry are conservative, I would say. There is a self-selection effect: conservatives stay away from academia because they assume that it is liberal. This atmosphere of liberalism is reinforced in a hundred different ways, from offhand remarks in the classroom to cocktail party talk that laughs at conservatives. So most conservatives keep their mouths shut and move on to industry when they graduate.
I am a woman, and an aerospace engineer, and i can attest that there is little to no gap. If anything, the gap is pro-female; engineering departments work very hard to attract female staff, and I could tell you stories about the last time my department had to hire a new professor. We ended up getting a very competent male prof, but not until after some serious headbutting between the department selection committee and the dean of the engineering college. Also, I would be willing to bet there is some biological/preferential difference between men and women. The more advanced you get in the department (bachelors, masters, phd, postdoc) the more the numbers slant tilts towards men. Fewer of the women I've met in the field seem to really excel in it compared to men (though admittedly, my sample size isn't exactly huge). And the prof life is indeed very difficult on a woman who wants children; there are legit reasons why women with PhDs wouldn't want to work in academia in any discipline, not just the hard sciences.
P.S. Not all Republicans are creationists, or even religious. You can be religious and still be a good scientist; if you want to believe the laws of science were written by God, I certainly have no evidence with which to gainsay you. Additionally, just because only 6% are official republicans does not mean that 6% vote republican. That count wouldn't take into account independents and libertarians (such as myself), and they tend to side more with the right as a rule.
Berezow makes a reasonable argument that gender discrimination does not necessarily explain the disparities between women and men in the hard sciences. At the same time, he betrays his own sexism. Men, he posits, are ”genetically more likely to be outstanding at mathematical and spatial reasoning than women.” Women, on the other hand, do what they do for “personal reasons,” suggesting there is nothing worth noting that women are genetically more likely to be outstanding at than men. A little pat on the head for the ladies and their “personal reasons,” rather than, say, their emotional IQs are higher; they are better able to take on subtle, nuanced human problems with numerous variables; they are often more comfortable in the “real” world than in the laboratory. Tsk tsk.
