Early last year when the whole Larry Summers saga broke out, I posted some data on gender and science that was floating in the public sphere.
Here I've reposted some of this data. THEN I'll tell you some recent data from Harvard ...
From a NY Times article Feb 22nd, 2005
Women in Physics Match Men in Success
Dr. Ivie said the main reason fewer women made it to the top in physics was simply that fewer started at the bottom. At each job level, she said, the fraction of women matched what would be expected for women advancing at the same rate as men. And at top-tier universities, the percentage of female physics professors is low because many current professors earned their Ph.D.'s in the 1970's or earlier, when the field was almost entirely male, and have not yet retired.Instead, the sex disparity arises earlier in the pipeline, between high school and college. Nearly half of students taking high school physics are girls, but fewer than a quarter of the bachelor's degrees in physics go to women.
The level of women in physics differs from country to country, hinting that societal influences may have a great effect.
In France and Turkey, women account for more than a quarter of physics Ph.D. degrees, as against only a tenth of physics Ph.D.'s in Germany and Switzerland.
In the US it's 18% according to the article.
Also the number of women in physics has been rising steadily over the last 3 decades. Are the differences Larry Summers seemed to suggest were innate disappearing? The original data from the American Institute of Physics.
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So are family and academia incompatible? And do women and men have different opinions on the subject?
From a column by Cathy Green in the Globe:
That is, quite simply, true. In a 2001 study by University of Vanderbilt psychologists David Lubinski and Camilla Persson Benbow, nearly a third of talented female graduate students in math and science -- and only 9 percent of the men -- said it was important to work part-time for at least a part of their careers. More egalitarian family roles would solve the problem.
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Here are more facts from another OpEd in the New York Times:
Until the last 30 or so years, few women studied the sciences, so there was little mystery about why most people in those professions were men. Over the past generation, however, our research shows, there has been a truly stunning change.
Women's share of the Bachelors, Master and Doctorate degrees has been rising ... if trends continue they should reach parity. This can be seen in the chart on the right (from that article in the NY Times).
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Now onto that Harvard Data.
Last year, our Cell Biology Department hired two junior faculty members in the height of the Summers' induced media coverage of gender politics in science. And you guessed it ... both hires were male. So was there bias? Well apparently out of the hundreds of applications that the department received, only 20% were from female candidates. (Another fact is that the head of our department, Joan Brugge, is female.) Now remember that these applications were sent fall of 2004, well before the Summers comments were made (Jan 14th, 2005).
So why?
Perhaps there are more male postdocs?
From the famed Sigma Xi Survey:
Male 57.2%, Female 41.8%
From the NPA (National Postdoc Association):
Life Sciences: 62% male, 38% female
The NPA claims that males make up 58% of RESPONDENTS of the Sigma Xi survey, thus the discrepency between the surveys.
But how about "elite universities"? I could only find data (in the Sigma Xi survey) for Caltech:
Male 75.1%, Female 24.9% ... and these numbers are overrepresented by postdocs in non-biomedical labs ... not a good representative pool for applicants to Harvard's Cell Biology department. Digging deeper in the 2003 survey, about 28% of Male postdocs and 47% of female postdocs are in the "BIO" division. So the estimated split in the "BIO" division is:
21% of all Caltech postdocs are male in the BIO division.
11.7% of all Caltech postdocs are female in the BIO division.
So, looking at the BIO division alone:
64% male, 36% female ... but Caltech is weird.
Here's one survey of Stanford Post Docs from 2002 in all fields:
50.7% male, 49.3% female (if you look at the numbers, postdocs in the biomedical sciences make the majority of all postdocs.)
So besides Stanford, all the polls (that I've looked at so far) indicate that females are underrepresented in the pool of postdocs in the biomedical sciences (at about 40%)- HOWEVER it is not as low as 20%. So what is going on?
a) Bias in academia that culls off women at each step up the ladder?
b) Incompatibility between scientific life and the burdens placed on women in our society, particularly in family/childrearing duties?
c) Innate differences between the smartest males and females? (call it Larry's proposition)
I think that most would agree that it's a combination, although many would say a and b. But perhaps c does play a role, but not in an absolute way. It's likely that females and males TEND to approach problems differently, and the current system, dominated by males, undervalues the types of approaches that females TEND to take. I agree however that these may represent TRENDS and not be true of every individual.
I do believe (and many of the postdocs I've spoken to agree) that factor b is very great. It is tough to mesh postdoc-hood with family life. The Caltech survey has many revealing facts that support this. I'll post something on the findings of this survey in the next couple of days.
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as for b),
it's not just women who are affected by this. Impatient petulant artistically temperamental folks like myself who are all about quality of life are *also* turned off by the grind that most lab science represents, which is half the reaons I quit. (Whoever convinced me being a writer would be any different should be dragged out in the street and shot.)
Yes I totally agree! However in the society we live in the burden of family/childrearing is disproportionately placed on women. And it makes it that much harder for females. The sad part is that I think that academic institutions can do more.
Although you are critical of Larry Summers, the fact is that he was criticized for just entertaining the hypotheses, as you seem to do (Perhaps c does play a role).
" . . . the fact is that he was criticized for just entertaining the hypotheses, as you seem to do . . ."
Not sure you're entertaining the same hypothesis as Larry -- he seemed to suggest women's innately either lack of interest in or inferior aptitude for the sciences account for the imbalance. Are you saying that the discrepancy is due to the fact that men are overrepresented as hiring decisionmakers and are biased towards hiring men, since they think similarly? That seems to be a different explanation.
So... what?
Most physicists are men. Does this indicate a bias in science against women? Not necessarily. What if women aren't interested in becoming scientists, preferring instead to become doctors? Women are much better represented in medicine AS PHYSICIANS than in the sciences.
What would be interesting would be to determine if women WANT to become scientists, and if they do why they don't make it.
From my perspective as a businessman, amateur scientist and husband of a physician, I'd say the women were making smart decisions by avoiding careers in the sciences and going into medicine.
Let's consider then what "we" (academia, "Society" or if you are a liberal "The Government") should do if women don't want to become scientists.
We could discriminate against men and hire women until we achieve some kind of arbitrary ratio (51% female vs 49% male to match the overall population).
That would mean telling kids like my son "Sorry. You can't be a scientist because you are a boy." We could discriminate against thousands of such boys in favor of the scores of girls - similar to what Title 9 has done in college sports (underfunding men's sports and overfunding women's since men are more interested in sports than women).
Or you could simply realize the problem I mentioned earlier: Why go into Science at all?
Instead of discriminating based on sex, why not learn why Science isn't a very good career to go into for either sex?
a) Bias in academia that culls off women at each step up the ladder?
b) Incompatibility between scientific life and the burdens placed on women in our society, particularly in family/childrearing duties?
c) Innate differences between the smartest males and females? (call it Larry's proposition)
Oh, dear!
And all this time I thought it was because of my X or lack of Y (X or Y = different DNA=RNA=protein=activity). "Our society," he is such a meanie whoever he is.
It all seems so simple.
Modify
(b) to "incompatibility between scientific life and the burdens placed on women" by extra X or lack of Y.
Then (a) could be an indirect consequence of (b) although it's unfair to blame the ole meanie "academia" whoever she is.
Oh, my, (c) seems so irrelevant and ridiculous since "smartness" is so subjective and context dependent.
Polly
[Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart--Anne Frank]
Scott,
The truth is that we don't know the contributions of each of these factors (a through c). If 40% of postdocs, but only 20% of applicants to faculty positions, are women the obvious question to ask is why. I am a scientist, my gut reaction to any starnge data set is to ask why.
Increasing our understanding of a subject will invariably lead to improvements - and not just for women but also men. I'm not out there to fix the world or equalize gender ratio in the sciences but to at least understand what is going on.
Polly,
I guess all I can say is that as a member of the department, I don't think that there was any bias once those applications (20% of whom were from females) arrived. I suspect that scientific life, being as demanding as it is, makes it tough to have a family. In modern day America those burdens fall (for better or for worse) disproportionately on the shoulders of women. And even if couples chose to share the responsibility equaly (as my wife and I plan to), I'm telling you that if I had the woomb, I would have to make tough choices - go through pregnancy and risk sacrificing my future, or charge ahead with my research. Sure I could do both, but I think that it would be too stressful.
Is that Harvard's fault? I'm not sure. Harvard can't force couples to share the responsibility of family rearing. On the other hand, although some departments at Harvard and many postdoc mentors may not discriminate against women, Harvard should be providing more daycare facilities and support for young families. This will help both males and females but probably females more as it would make that tough choice (whether to have a kid while being a postdoc or junior faculty) easier. Note that all this has nothing to do with intelectual capabilities.
Now as for choice c, there may be differences between females and males in how problems are approached. NOW whether males are smarter than females is something else entirely. In my personal experience I would say no. Many in the cognitive feild will in fact tell you that there are gender differences in HOW problems are tackled. But the decisions that females sometimes take may be undervalued by a community dominated by men (presently). In fact Elizabeth Spelke has made this argument to attack some of Summers' comments. See http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html
An example - female postdocs tend to be shy - and I could see how this could hurt them at a place like Harvard. In contrast, the female faculty here tends to be confident and assertive - and I would guess that is because those traits were selected for. Is this good? Not necessarily, some of the best scientists are shy people. But I wish that these issues could be investigated further so that we could understand all the facts.
While I would agree with you that study is needed, I'm just not that idealistic anymore. The moment you came up with results, someone, somewhere would feel compelled to act upon them. You would be taking the first step towards social engineering.
Our society has decided to rectify racism by focusing on a person's race (affirmative action policies). Should we pursue the same with sexism by focusing on a person's sex?
Instead, I think the opposite approach works best: being color-blind regarding race, and focusing on the right person for the task regardless of sex.
I'm a frumpy middle-aged guy. If I tried out for the military, I would hope that a younger and stronger woman would be hired over me because of the two of us she was the better qualified applicant.
Now that same woman might apply for a job coding complex software interactive mockups - a task that doesn't require feats of human strength but does require analytical skills, writing, marketing and interface design. I would hope that I would be hired over her because I do that job better than just about anyone.
Equal opportunity does not mean equality of ability.
Hmm. You have too much of a knee jerk reaction. One moment we're investigating something, the next moment Stalin comes to town. This type of rationalization kills debates - both side uses the same type of logic and mental paralysis sets in. I'll tell you something. I'm Canadian, and been living in the US for 9 years now. I love many parts of American society, but the one thing I hate is this type of public debate. And it is a disease here. Sorry if I sound like I'm over reacting but it's my number one peeve. And you get it from the right and the left of the political spectrum. Foreigners here (and I know a lot of them in the sciences) see this type of debate and think - "Americans always have their minds made up ... they abstract an argument to the extreme and react in a knee jerk reaction, instead of coming to a deeper understanding, platitudes and ideologies are regurgitated."
Again you (just like the ones on the other side of the argument) assume too much. How do you know what the problem is? How do you know that simple steps can't be taken to ameliorate life for scientists? You assume that any action taken is bad. This is dangerous. After the depression, the government initiated many social programs that made the US the most educated and richest country in the world. Its economy grew strong as its brain capital increased. After Sputnik the US government invested in science, and the US economy benefited even more. The US has the best universities because of that. You and your kids benefit from this legacy. But go ahead and kill all of that because of some vague fear of "social engineering". Society succeeds through a BALANCE - arguing that one extreme is not acceptable so we should head to the other extreme is a recipe for disaster. I'm not advocating social engineering, I'm not claiming I know best, but this fear that the other extreme side of the political spectrum will jump on findings and turn us into zombies IS NOT A VALID ARGUEMENT.
I need coffee ...
"An example - female postdocs tend to be shy - and I could see how this could hurt them at a place like Harvard."
Is this based on personal experience alone...maybe they are just shy around you! Perhaps, you are way cute. (Heading over to check out pics now...)
What I think these shy post doc girls needs are wives.
I'm a post-doc in life sciences. I am out going, NOT shy, NOT afraid to approach people/network at conferences, and athletic (yes I played sports in college thanks to Title IX!). I am the antithesis of what you claim is the typical female post-doc. As a graduate student, I decided to not persue the PI tract. I WANT A LIFE OUTSIDE THE LAB! I had a daughter during my post-doc. My husband is helpful and understanding. BUT I know the PI tenure track is not for me. WHY? Because I don't want to be an absent mom. I want to go to the soccer games and school plays instead of finishing up an experiment or sending off a grant. This is a CHOICE, a well thought out decision. This is not a failure of climbing the ladder but a choice to take the stairs instead.
Yes exactly!
I think that the whole postdoc/academic thing is nuts. And instead of hiting eachother in the head we should push for the powers that be to fix the system. I agree not every female postdoc is shy - but at Harvard, it helps if you are an egotistical maniac - something that I see more often in male postdocs than females (and I'm not saying that this is a good selection process either). Right now my wife and I don't have kids. If I were in your position I don't know what I'd do.
Look I'm not deffending Summers, but it's not as simple as overt descrimination against females ... the problem is that the system is bad, and for the reasons you've pointed out.
I totally agree with you. The system does need to be fixed. But until that happens, many of us will opt out of the rat race.
In addition, I agree with you about the ego. Being a PI tends to be about independence, talking about your own work, and self-promotion. Most women like to work in groups and be a part of a community. Most women don't like to self-promote either. They tend to give credit to others.
I feel like working at a biotech or pharma is about community and teamwork. Everyone is working toward a common goal. In academia, it is every man/woman for themself and collaboration (especially early in the career) is often frowned upon.
Look. It's really simple people.
It's not just a problem in the sciences, post docs -it is an issue in any demanding career choice - and it's an issue for people who work three bad jobs - it's a matter of how we structure family life by the choices we make as a nation ...not simply the agregate of individual choices.
Look at social/family policy in other countries.
Why don't we support both parents and non-parents by forcing companies and institutions to have equitable and generous policies that do not discriminate on the basis of gender?
And to the guys - raising the next generation is not a 'women's issue'....
Fight the equation that says if you want to be at the top of your discipline - your family has to take a back seat.
I get so frustrated when this is repeatedly framed as the 'difficult choices women face between motherhood and work.."
We are forcing that difficulty on women instead of making family policy an issue that concerns all of us.
Other things have to be considered:
1) We think discrimination is gone, so we tend to think we are doing the right things, when maybe we are only saying the right things and maybe not even that. We also tend to not believe women who complain these days for the same reason.
2) We still have stereotypes about women. They are deeply and emotionally ingrained, since childhood. Logic can't change them overnight. Even increasing numbers doesn't change them.
3) It is not that we need to make all things "female friendly" but that we have make them "human friendly." If we think the "female-model" is better, ie, all touchy feely, nurturing and considerate of women's needs, we still point to stereotypes. We then put pressure on women add these elements to the "previously evil male" work or academic environment better (because "the men won't do it and they don't care or the males don't see how it helps them").
4) Put all the things in place for all. If a women is not touchy feely, let her be that way. If a man is the child rearer, let him. Put in status blind harassment laws to cover everyone.
5) Power corrupts/the powerful are often the most aggressive. Even if women and minorities get into leadership, it does not guarantee better conditions for newly arriving women. Think Clarence Thomas. Think the female leader of APS.
6) Physicists often think they can just lead or influence with mental skills. How about teaching and learning interpersonal skills? This is how you reach those outside your realm. My major in college required these classes.