<p>wyogal:</p>
<p>I don't think Meg Urry was claiming institutional discrimination. She was trying to illustrate a more insidious pattern of discrimination that both those practicing it and those who were its victims were not always aware WAS discrimination. But it is the steady drip drip of discrimination that turns so many young women away from careers in math/science even as they earn more Ph.D.s over all than men. My own s-i-l, a Ph.D., in biomedicine, used to tell stories of having her ideas constantly hijacked by her male bosses. She eventually quit working (at least in the biomedical field) when she realized that work was causing her so much stress she was putting her health at risk.<br>
Of course, it is best not to give in to discrimination. And, obviously, Meg Urry did not, just as I did not when a fellow student told me that, if I went on to get my Ph.D., I would be taking a job away from a man who needed it more than I (huh?). The same guy, by the way, saw nothing objectionable in putting up calendars that we, women, felt demeaned us. When I began work, my male colleagues saw nothing wrong in calling meetings late in the afternoon; I, however, fretted that I would be late in picking up my child from daycare. It took the arrival of several younger colleagues, both male and female, with young children of their own, to change this pattern of late meetings. It did not do anyone any harm to start meetings a half-hour earlier. It helped a lot of young men and women with small children. It made those meetings far more productive, as they stopped watching the clock quite so anxiously.
There has been a steady decline of Ph.D.s awarded in math/science in recent years. This has been both mitigated and masked by the influx of foreign Ph.D.s. Universities ought to do everything they can to encourage more men and women to go into math/science instead of expecting at least some of them to overcome obstacles that have nothing to do with intelligence or dedication.</p>