<p>The trend I see in medicine is for both men and women to forgo the 80 hour work weeks - the feeling of young physicians coming out of training today, both male and female, is that the 80 hour work weeks aren't very safe for the patients, and we want more time with our families anyway. My generation, just 15 years behind these guys (25% female class vs 50/50 nowadays), made quiet choices to allow time with kids, we were beginning to see what Garland is referring to - the damage 2 80 hr/week careers can do. It will be interesting to see in the future what it means when only a few physicians are willing to work "killer hours", and the society consensus is that those hours aren't safe for patients.</p>
<p>I think there are subtle differences in the way the male and female brain operate, that make them in general more suited to some types of work than others, however, there is such a heavy overlay of socialization (what if a woman has a knack for science, but also works best in a collaborative setting, will she ever be truly successful if she doesn't take primary credit for her work) that it is difficult to decide what is nature and what is nurture. Another intriguing example - why is it that many ?most gifted mathmeticians and physicists have done their most innovative work by age 30? Has that changed in the past 30 years? Why? Are we moving from a "brilliant lone wolf" way of making discoveries to a more collaborative model? Will that shift favor women.</p>
<p>Thanks to the pioneering women of the 60s and 70s, the way work is done, expectations for careers, the truth that children need their parents is all becoming known, accepted and new adaptations are taking place - not all to the good, as Marite mentioned - I think our children, not just the girls will expect more choices and new ways of doing things that may be healthier than the way some of us were raised.</p>
<p>This form of socializing may even affect the amount of young girls who go on to careers in the sciences. In addition, if college women knew in advance that there would be no need for them to spend unnecessary amounts of time with their children they may opt for careers that may have the tendency to take them away from their children for extended work days.</p>
<p>cangel: My H is part of the same MD cohort as you, I think. It's left him in a quandary about the future of medicine. I know I hated the hours he worked, especially when the kids were younger and he was a resident. OTOH, these days he's made a decision to cut back hours (and pay). However, when it's his week to cover the floors at the hospital he works out of (spends most of his time at a mobile pediatric clinic), he is very frustrated by the mindset of the residents, who clockwatch and leave the minute their time is up, often to the detriment of the patients, because the continuity of care is compromised (lab tests not followed up, treatments not monitored, social issues not pursued, etc.) So he ends up still working the long hours trying to plug the leaks. Not sure what the model is which would work better, but whatever it is , it doesn't seem to be one which are present medical system would pay for.</p>
<p>Yes Garland, I've heard some of those concerns - and the quandary of the future of medicine is discussed at the doctors' lunch table frequently. I'm not much of a feminist, despite being the main family breadwinner all these years, (I'm more of a pragmatist), but it gets my dander up when the older guys blame all this change on "the women" - when it is a change in attitude of both mwn and women. And in defense of the young residents, I think teaching hospitals are very nervous about their liability if an error occurs involving a resident who has "stayed over" the allotted working hours. I think they are really pushing compliance which leads to clockwatching. The truth of the matter is when your husband and I trained, things went on that were unsafe for both patients and residents - everyone knows of someone who fell asleep driving home, thank God usually without an accident, but sometimes with a bad outcome. I agree, thoughm that was what I was eluding to before, I'm not sure the market realizes how much it will cost for doctors to have real lives.</p>
<p>Marite (and others): I graduated in Summers' class of '75, which was less than 5% female. But I was admitted to the class of '76, which was the first class admitted to MIT without regard to sex--and in which the percentage of women admitted DOUBLED to 8%. Previously, the number of women admitted had been limited to the number of spaces available in the women's dorm; when they went to coed dorms, they changed the admission policy.</p>
<p>If MIT is "giving the tip to women", please explain why the women admitted have higher SATs and higher GPAs. (Only very slightly higher, and not in every class, but...)</p>
<p>The problem I have with Summers' remarks is that he should KNOW in advance how they would be taken out of context, and how they can be used by the wrong people to advance exactly the theory he is questioning, and therefore divert girls from the sciences and math on that basis. It seems that he was quite irresponsible in that sense.</p>
<p>I agree that overt discrimination at the level of university hiring is not the only big factor in women's underrepresentation on university faculties (this is kind of a big DUH for me). Those responsible for hiring at universities cannot be blamed for all the factors that prevent more women from going into this kind of career, and I don't think any hiring strategy is going to cause a significant change.</p>
<p>One factor that turned me away from academia is the fact that few research mathematicians have tenure until they are at least in their mid-30s, and there is a lot of career pressure up until then. I don't want to put off having children that long, but if I had kids I would need (and want) to devote a reasonable amount of attention to them. It's easier for men to have children at a later age. Also, in most cases, people have been raised to assume that women will spend more time with the kids than men. And academia, especially before tenure, is not a career where you can take a year or two off and then come back. You always have to be up to date and producing something.</p>
<p>As to the different abilities of girls and boys, science and math take in such a wide range of skills, that it doesn't even make sense to me to talk about them generally. Biology does not take the same skills as physics, for example. Within math, topology does not represent the same kind of thinking as number theory. Perhaps it makes more sense to talk about quantitative reasoning, or spatial reasoning, or memory, or some other aspect of "intelligence" if discussing gender differences, but I don't think it makes sense to talk of innate differences in "science and math." </p>
<p>Whatever the broad differences between genders, I think they are irrelevant when dealing with individuals. It wasn't so long ago that society assumed that women as a whole weren't capable of the kind of logical thinking required for the law. When opportunities opened up -- amazing how many women suddenly developed the innate ability for this kind of reasoning. </p>
<p>Then, there is the issue of academic hiring and advancement. Some of the timing problems others mentioned here are especially relevant in scientific careers. Experiments and results and publications that take years coincide with the child-bearing years for women. (Child-rearing responsibilities aside, I haven't yet heard of a male who bears the children). Scientific careers are particularly difficult to interrupt and come back to. It's not something you can do part-time in academia without being dismissed as not being serious. Some women who have gifts in this area, may simply look ahead and say "this won't work with the way I want to raise a family."
Then, there is the issue of discrimination in academia. If it doesn't still actively exist, it sure did until very recently. It can be more subtle than you imagine. </p>
<p>Then, there are the socialization issues. Some girls are lucky in their schooling to find opportunities and role models. I think, however, that as hard as it is overall in adolescence to be seen as a geek or a nerd (and interest in science and math by definition make you a geek or nerd in many communities and schools) it's even more stigmatizing to be a teenage girls who is seen as a geek or a nerd. I realize that may be less true among those who flock to CC, but I think it is true of the country as a whole. I'd bet that it is in middle school that many girls who did well in elementary school math "decide" to hide their interest, or even ability.</p>
<p>Okay, first let me state that I am totally in favor of women in any math or science related field. Being female myself, I do not support any discrimination against women. Women, I believe, are, as a whole, just as physically and mentally capable of working in those fields. But that said, I have to remember that that is my opinion. It does offend all my sensibilities when anyone--especially someone so influential as the president of Harvard--makes such claims. </p>
<p>However, I think the problem comes when culture, and the sensibilites of individuals, stand in the way of scientific research and the hypotheses presented. Remember Galileo? Or the scientific proof that blacks were not inferior, suppresed because of current social leanings? As a reputable economist, even the president of Harvard has to have the right to present his theories, or, as he claims, the research being done on the capabilities of women. I don't think that those not involved in that research have the right to dictate what type of findings they should present. I don't think Summer's job should be in jeopardy because he presented conclusions I don't agree with.</p>
<p>Also, I do wonder about the fact that still, as Texas and Marite have pointed out, women are underepresented in math/science/computer fields, despite enormous, though very new, efforts to the contrary.</p>
<p>I think you have to be careful saying women are unrepresented in science fields. There are more women than men graduating from both medical and veterinary colleges right now, as one example of a scientific (and nurturing) field where women are excelling.</p>
<p>Dmd: Then why all the furor about trying to get women to become astronauts, for example? </p>
<p>But yes, and I just saw Sac's post, since I was typing while he responded, you have to separate out types of fields. I believe medical science is different from aeronautical engineering, for example. Still, as a whole which encompasses all the different bits lumped into math/science, there are not as many women as there statistically should be.</p>
<p>The other day, I was listening to an interview with the author of "Blink" during which he discussed how people arrive at conclusions about strengths, abilities and talent. He said that orhestra leaders used to audition musicians on the stage, and of course most of the "best" were men. Then someone put the musicians behind a screen, and suddenly many of the "best" turned out to be women. So are our statistics skewed by the very lens by which we judge success?</p>
<p>Another story: Beatrice Potter started out as a scientific observer of nature. On her own, she studied, drew and described the growth patterns of moss on trees. When her family took her into London to meet with some scientists, the scientists scoffed at her ideas, and told her (probably very kindly) that she was wrong. Many years later, of course, she was proven right. But by that time, she had been pushed out of her scientific leanings. Her drawings for her neighborhood children continue to show her strong powers of observation. And the next question is, did society suffer from losing such a potential scientist, or did we benefit because the world now has Beatrice Potter?</p>
<p>I guess one of my biggest questions is how we in our society determine "intelligence". Why do we speak of Einstein was the smartest man of the 20th century, and not James Joyce?</p>
<p>Do you count women who are teaching math and science at the high school level? What about the middle school level? What about the elementary school level? </p>
<p>If you're saying there aren't as many women in math and science at the highest levels, that is definitely true--but there aren't as many women at the highest levels in any field, even those traditionally "female" fields, like education. That, I think, is societal discrimination; it's hard to have a family, nurture that family, and excell, too. </p>
<p>But I think one has to be careful with broad sweeping generalizations. I can think of a lot of somewhat scientific jobs where women dominate, such as nursing.</p>
<p>I'm also interested in what the statistics are on women in math and science fields outside of academia. My sense is that academia is one of the last bastions to "fall."</p>
<p>For example, one of my close friends has a PhD in molecular biology. In the 1970s, when her husband was applying for a teaching position at an Ivy League School, she asked whether there might be any opportunities for her in her field. She was told she should look into teaching high school science in the area, like some of the other faculty wives. Instead, she and her husband both went into research in private industry, where they were hired by the same firm. She's had a spectacular career there, and heads a research division. Similarly, my husband's firm has included women engineers, geologists, and geophysicists for decades -- some of them in fields where you might still not find a female professor.</p>
<p>Yes, true. Generalizations are always weak when you look at specifics--that is the nature of generalizations. However, in many fields, men dominate. I wonder, what is the proportion of men to women in "hard" science fields, such as theoretical mathematics and physics? Warning: broad sweeping generalization ahead: As an aggregate of ALL fields involving math and science, men dominate. In some specific parts, women are numerous, but as whole they are not as present as men. Is this not true?</p>
<p>But the article, and I presume, the study Summer was presenting was concerned with the proportion of women professors teaching or admistrating at the university level.</p>
<p>Then you are back up against the wall of physiology again. You said: "If you're saying there aren't as many women in math and science at the highest levels, that is definitely true--but there aren't as many women at the highest levels in any field, even those traditionally "female" fields, like education. That, I think, is societal discrimination; it's hard to have a family, nurture that family, and excell, too." Is the choice to bear children imposed by societal discrimination? Is raising a family not excelling? I think that by this generation, we have allowed women to be free to choose only a career. So then, is many women's choice to either put a hold or leave their career track for the sake of a family socially imposed? Or is it merely a fact of life that only women can have children?</p>
<p>For complete numbers, including those not in tenure, look at the lists for those gaining PHD's. Though many of these people go on to academia, I would assume, some of them do not.</p>
<p>Frankly, I wonder if he had said that "innate biological differences" explain the difference in performance between blacks and whites (or asians and whites)---would he still have his job?</p>
<p>dmd77- I had the same thoughts! Just a few decades ago, many people believed that black people were inferior to white people. Today, there are stereotypes that asians are good at science. Once people accept that these "differences" in ability are not due to gender or race, but rather that they can be attributed to stereotypes and differences in how people are viewed by society.</p>