I take it as a given that the boundaries of science are being pushed and stretched overwhelmingly by men, there are some 500 years of a history of scientific discoveries and innovations (by men) to back up my claim (yes, I understand that discrimination plays a role but I don’t think it can account for how lopsided the gender ratio is.) For this reason, the gender proportionality of the Intel Science Talent Search puzzles me: there are about as many females represented as there are males.
I think there are two possible reasons for this. First, at this level (high school) teen girls and teen boys do roughly equally well in the sciences, it’s at the upper levels where there is real differentiation. Second, there may be an active pursuit of gender proportionality by the selection committee (a type of de facto gender Affirmative Action thing going on.) This is not a bad thing, I mean we do want to encourage more people to practice science, it’s good for society. I’d still like to know the truth.
What do you think? Please chime in.
At my work we have many women engineers and it’s incredible how much ass they kick. They have risen through the ranks to take many leadership roles and I can say with 100% certainty my company wouldn’t be where it’s at if it wasn’t for them. Sadly, the proportion of males to females is still heavily dominated by men (I haven’t actually counted heads), but I do wish that my profession was 50:50 gender diversified.
Which is largely due to girls developing earlier than boys, mentally as well as physically. By high school, this effect is starting to diminish, but it’s not yet gone entirely.
Meanwhile, the decreased proportion of women in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) in college and beyond is mostly due to women choosing not to pursue those fields. The reasons for this are still debated, but they include at the least societal expectations that women not be good in math, and societal acceptance of women with no job outside the home.
The gender disparity surely cannot be explained entirely by inherent differences between men and women, because one would then be hard-pressed to explain why the disparity has been shrinking in recent years. And if it’s shrunk so far, the smart money is that it’ll continue to shrink. Might there still be some inherent disparity that’ll never shrink away? Maybe, but it would be premature to conclude that based on the current evidence.
Considering how extreme and rigid the prejudice against women was, I doubt you’d have seen much difference even if women were all born scientific geniuses. Just look how rapidly women have moved into all sorts of jobs that up until a few decades ago were exclusively male or nearly so; did women suddenly get smarter? No; they just weren’t allowed in those fields, and no amount of ability will let you excel in a field you are forbidden to take part in.
There’s also been a historical tendency for men in scientific (and other) fields to simply steal the credit for anything a woman does accomplish.
Actually, women are outperforming men in college as well. This is not surprising, as large scale surveys show female students study more, spend more time preparing for class, skip fewer classes and spend less time “relaxing” and “socializing.”
Im not saying women are better in any way, but I do think we very aware of the challenges ahead of us, while many young men are still counting on being able to skate through life.
Employment in STEM fields for women has been steady since 2000. This may be temporary pause but it has been long one. If I were a betting man, I would bet employment growth for women in the STEM fields is at a plateau.
FWIW, my field (molecular biology etc.) has an approximately even gender split, but at the highest ranks there are disproportionate numbers of old white dudes. Some of that is a historic holdover, since those dudes tend to be 60+ years old, so their education began when gender disparities where much more entrenched.
Still, even now we have a situation where gender disparity seems to be erased or even reversed at the earliest stages, but men are hired and promoted at higher rates than women. My undergrad major was 60% women. My graduate program is an even 50-50 split. The decline continues: hiring rates for female junior faculty might be 45%, 40% for tenure track, only 35% get tenure, 30% are promoted to full professors… (numbers off the top of my head.)
Some of this is due to blatant sexism. There are more than a few Old White Dudes that will plainly state that they think women should not be scientists. There are some that will sexually harass their female trainees, and some that will make greater demands. Naked sexism is in decline, but it still exists even among younger scientists so it’s not disappearing any time soon.
Then, the profession is extremely demanding and competitive, particularly when people might want to start a family. Even now, it’s more socially acceptable and expected for a father to work 60+ hour weeks, and for a mother to scale back her career demands and goals to spend more time raising a family. This adds to the gender disparity, since at each stage (1) women are more likely to choose to drop out and have children, and (2) women who decide to have children have less time to spend advancing their career. The latter point is amplified by the perceptions of hiring and promotion committees, who assume that a mother won’t be as successful, even if she has been in the past.
TL;DR: There is still gender disparity in science due to subtle and blatant biases against women, and women choosing to prioritize family over career due to social expectations and the biological clock.
I think there is a serious problem with your arithmetic. Women barely had access to education 100 years ago; the college I attended accepted women by the first time in 1975 (2 in a class of 200). For most of the last 500 years, actually for a lot longer than that, men were the ones doing scientific work because women were not allowed to. Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie and the other women who broke the barriers were viewed as “weirdos”, their tendencies “unnatural” and their being allowed to work in the sciences tut-tutted over. My grandmother was one of the first women in Spain to get a business degree (something which nowadays is a feminine realm here): 5 women in a class of 60, and they and their families received a lot of criticism for letting those uppity girls get above their status.
Discrimination doesn’t “play a role”, it’s the whole fucking drama.
You can imagine their thinking, “hmm… the last year or two, we’ve had a male winner, if it’s not wholly unjustifiable we should have a female winner this year.” I don’t know if this is what’s happening but it wouldn’t surprised if this sort of thing does go on behind closed doors.
Let me see if I’m getting your questions straight here:
You have a belief that women and girls cannot be as good in science as men, because history shows that men have always excelled. You’re dismissing the very real history of sex discrimination that was all-encompassing until about forty years ago and that persists in some areas today.
So, if girls and women aren’t excelling in science, you will believe it’s because they just aren’t as good as men. If you see evidence that they do excel in science, you’re going to believe that it’s because someone is giving them unfair advantage. That’s what I think.
No. Why would you think that? Bronx Science and Stuyvesant high schools have always been the top performing high schools in the competition. Science always admitted girls; Stuy started admitting girls in 1969. It turns out when you give girls an equal education and an equal opportunity to compete, they perform equally.
Is my example of gender balancing wholly implausible? Consider the case of the Miss USA beauty pageants (among others) did you know that from time to time there will be an African-American woman crowned as Miss USA? I do believe that behind the scenes there is pressure to achieve some racial balancing, heck it’s good for business!
Do you think your example has to be “wholly implausible” to be incorrect? I assure you that there are many hypotheses that aren’t “wholly implausible” but are nonetheless untrue.
You seem to have an unshakeable belief that girls can’t be as good as boys in science. I doubt that you’ll find much affirmation for your beliefs around here. Maybe you should try it out in GD?