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Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the mans. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.
<p>“Science” fields are not all the same. Women make up the majority of those getting biology bachelor’s degrees and about half of those getting chemistry bachelor’s degrees, but only about a fifth of those getting physics bachelor’s degrees. However, the percentage of women getting PhD degrees is lower in each field.</p>
<p>Not a short article at all but well worth reading, especially for me, the non-STEM mother of a D who is talented and interested in math and science.</p>
<p>ucb the article does talk about women gradually disappearing from sciences - all of them including Bio - as they progress through high school, college, masters programs and PhD programs, and then in getting work in the field(s) after.</p>
<p>of course, the NYT could have easily asked why there are “so few women” now gravitating towards law school? (female apps are way down over the past few years, at a rate much higher than men; when in 2000 female apps actually exceeded male apps)</p>
<p>The Yale study was a artificial, in my view, if it’s the same one that I recall. The participants were assessing male/female applicants who had a B.S. degree and applied for a position as a laboratory manager. This is viewed by many scientists as a support-staff position, which does not lead to an independent career in science, although it requires some technical knowledge and skill.</p>
<p>There are science fields where the percentage of women is still low–to me, shockingly low. I had thought that we would be further along by this point. On another thread, I suggested that it takes a generation to move from equality of representation at one educational or career stage to the next–e.g., young men/young women equalize more or less in high school physics (not yet in my era), then they equalize among bachelors degree holders in physics (not yet now), then they equalize among Ph.D.'s, and finally they equalize as they move through career paths. This “model” seems to me to fit the data I have seen. </p>
<p>I disagree with Larry Summers’ interpretation that it is lack of aptitude for these scientific (or engineering) fields. Among the students with top performances in STEM competitions or tests, the proportion who are female is continuing to rise over time. After it stabilizes, it would potentially make sense to talk about Summers’ hypothesis.</p>
<p>S1 is getting his PhD in physics. There were no female physics majors in his undergrad class, and no women in his lab in grad school. I’m assuming there are female physics grad students, but none that he works with on a regular basis. In alot of ways, things haven’t changed much from the article’s author’s time as an undergrad in the 1970’s.</p>
<p>Larry never implied/inferred it was a lack of aptitude on an individual basis. But he did raise the question on an aggregate basis, based on numerous studies that demonstrate that men have a higher distribution of IQ’s. i.e, more men at each extreme – more highly gifted men and more dumb men. Females IQ’s have smaller statistical tails.</p>
<p>IMO, the question is reasonable for the scientific community to be asking: does top IQ play a role in interest/success in physical sciences? If so…</p>
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<p>If not, then the IQ argument can be put to bed. However, since it is un-PC to even raise the issue…</p>
<p>bluebayou, I believe that there are gender differences in the standard deviation on IQ tests, as you mention. However, it is not clear whether the gender differences in the standard deviation are an artifact of the way that the IQ test is constructed, a culturally generated phenomenon, or something biological.</p>
<p>Richard Feynman’s tested IQ was 124 (within a point or two–my recollection is imprecise), yet he is among the most important American scientists to date.</p>
<p>And there are still no women in either the NFL or NBA. Almost half of grade school participants in basketball are female, yet none are allowed to advance to the highest levels of the sport. The average salary for a professional female basketball player is 90% less than the average male basketball player. Why do we allow these billion dollars organziations to perpetuate this blatant discrimination?</p>
<p>I’m still hoping for a nomination to the Fed…</p>
<p>Around the same time that came to be the case, the life sciences underwent a big drop in earning power and (arguably) prestige. I have no idea what the causal relationship between those two is, but the correlation is interesting.</p>
<p>@bluebayou:</p>
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<p>That might be a valid argument for Nobel Prizes and tenure at Yale, but it’s not at all relevant to aggregate undergrad engineering, which is about equally skewed. According to the article, two-thirds of engineering students have SAT Math scores, which are a pretty good proxy for IQ, under 650. So the tails-of-the-curve argument cannot explain the disparity in engineering production. Perhaps, if you’re right, women “should” only be 30 or 40 percent, but at not even close to 20%, that hypothesis can’t stand on its own.</p>
<p>However for the rest of scientists, including biology and other disciplines where women are equally or over-represented, the characteristics associated with long term success include terms such as ‘drive’, ‘ambition’, ‘competitiveness’ (as in I must be first to do this at all costs). The majority of highly successful women I know in science do not have families. Scientists tend to marry other scientists, and only rarely do departments offer positions to two people at once. So whose career is sacrificed when the job search begins in the late twenties or early thirties (the baby years)? The answer to that explains why women drop out of competition for tenure track positions at higher rates than men.</p>
<p>It’s not an issue limited to science. Women occupy fewer positions as chefs, professors, partners in law firms, CEOs, CFOs. I wish we could stop homing in on STEM with the intimation that there’s an intelligence issue at work and look at the broader societal obstacles to equality in the workplace.</p>