Tuesday, July 18, 2006
(Wo)men in Science
The overwhelming news in the science world today is the passing of the stem cell bill (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/washington/1stemcnd.html?hp&ex=1153281600&en=af381ec1100548d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage) and hopefully tomorrow’s news will not be the veto of said stem cell bill. But instead of blogging about it I’m going to comment on another article that appeared in the Science Times today regarding a scientist with a unique perspective on the role of women in science.
Appearing this week in Nature is a commentary entitled ‘Does Gender matter?’ written by a Ph.D researcher at Stanford named Ben Barres. The catch is, Ben used to be Barbara.
In the Science Times, Cornelia Dean asks of him:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18conv.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
“Q. What about the idea that men and women differ in ways that give men an advantage in science?
A. People are still arguing over whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. If they exist, it’s not clear they are innate, and if they are innate, it’s not clear they are relevant. They are subtle, and they may even benefit women.
But when you tell people about the studies documenting bias, if they are prejudiced, they just discount the evidence.
Q. How does this bias manifest itself?
A. It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don’t get the resources they need to be successful. Right now, what’s fundamentally missing and absolutely vital is that women get better child care support. This is such an obvious no-brainer. If you just do this with a small amount of resources, you could explode the number of women scientists.”
I think childcare is a good place to start for looking at inequalities in a wide range of careers, but particularly in science and particularly in academia. Note this bit of news out of Berkeley http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/04/30_facfam.shtml. Although the research is three years old now, pie charts indicate that 75% of female assistant professors have no children in their household, as opposed to only 58% of male assistant professors. The tenure system, as pointed out in this piece, is a prime example of how academia is structured against not only women, but also young families. The time taken to obtain tenure is lengthy and often corresponds to childbearing years.
Sadly, I think it will take two major steps to remedy this; one, the institution of new family-friendly policies and two, the end of stigmatizing those faculty who take advantage of them. There is a big difference between the rules on the book and the ones in practice.
Appearing this week in Nature is a commentary entitled ‘Does Gender matter?’ written by a Ph.D researcher at Stanford named Ben Barres. The catch is, Ben used to be Barbara.
In the Science Times, Cornelia Dean asks of him:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18conv.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
“Q. What about the idea that men and women differ in ways that give men an advantage in science?
A. People are still arguing over whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. If they exist, it’s not clear they are innate, and if they are innate, it’s not clear they are relevant. They are subtle, and they may even benefit women.
But when you tell people about the studies documenting bias, if they are prejudiced, they just discount the evidence.
Q. How does this bias manifest itself?
A. It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don’t get the resources they need to be successful. Right now, what’s fundamentally missing and absolutely vital is that women get better child care support. This is such an obvious no-brainer. If you just do this with a small amount of resources, you could explode the number of women scientists.”
I think childcare is a good place to start for looking at inequalities in a wide range of careers, but particularly in science and particularly in academia. Note this bit of news out of Berkeley http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/04/30_facfam.shtml. Although the research is three years old now, pie charts indicate that 75% of female assistant professors have no children in their household, as opposed to only 58% of male assistant professors. The tenure system, as pointed out in this piece, is a prime example of how academia is structured against not only women, but also young families. The time taken to obtain tenure is lengthy and often corresponds to childbearing years.
Sadly, I think it will take two major steps to remedy this; one, the institution of new family-friendly policies and two, the end of stigmatizing those faculty who take advantage of them. There is a big difference between the rules on the book and the ones in practice.
# posted by Sarah : 11:25 PM
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It is very discouraging that women still have so far to go in the professional world because our society lacks adequate support systems and continues to promote essentially sexist perspectives. Moreover, we are potentially crippling our own progress by forcing productive, intelligent, creative women out of the workplace/academia if they choose to have a family. Unfortunately, I do not think anything will change unless there is potential profit attached to it.
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