BrownBag Series - April 2007 - Hard science doesn’t come naturally to women - Summary
Groups of women discuss provocative topics at locations in academia and industry throughout BC. The April topic is: Hard science doesn’t come naturally to women – Discuss.
While trying to put together this month’s summary, an article I had read about Carnegie Mellon’s new approach to attracting students, in particular women, to the computing science program, kept coming back to me. In the end I couldn’t find the original article, however I found another one with a particular quote that struck me. It relates well to this question of whether women are suited to “hard science”.
The article talks about how Carnegie Mellon noticed a decrease in enrolment in their computer science program and decided to make changes in order to attract new students. The associate dean for undergraduate science in the school of computing science, Allan Fisher, was instrumental in shaping many of the changes at Carnegie Mellon. One of his comments cited in the article struck me as one of many pointers as to why it may be perceived that women are not suited to hard science. His comment is as follows:
Women will experience a problem or not understand something and they will blame themselves. Men will experience a problem, not understand something, and they will blame you. The women are far more likely to conclude that they just don’t have what it takes, lose interest and disappear.
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19990820compwomen4.asp
This sounds very much to me like a self-realising scenario. If women conclude they “don’t have what it takes”, i.e. “hard science doesn’t come naturally to women,” then they will not pursue this hard science and the numbers will continue to support the false idea that women don’t have what it takes, exactly the attitude that women in science and technology-related fields all over the world are fighting to counter.
This month there were discussions at BC Hydro, NRC, Douglas College and SFU. One of the common themes from the various locations was that women still take on more family responsibilities and therefore don’t have the time to pursue “hard science” as much as men. My favourite comment was that women went into science fields based on not conforming to societal expectations. (This is something I like to do frequently!)
Finally this quote from NRC covers the most important aspect of women in science and technology; we can all do more.
The consensus was that hard sciences are equally difficult to women and men but that there are other external factors that influence a woman’s decision to enter the field of hard science. We can all do more to encourage and support girls and women to study the sciences.
BC Hydro
- attendees: 9
Factors that influence choosing science as field of study:
• Innate ability
• Family expectations
• Teacher’s viewpoint
• Societal trends
• Role models
The influencing factors came mostly during middle school or high school. These included both positive influences from role models as well as negative ones from society.
NRC
- attendees: 20
Societal expectations of women:
• Most participants agreed that women feel the pressure to juggle their own desires with what society expects of them.
• Cultural differences play a role. Some cultures are more accepting of women in non-traditional roles whereas others consider a woman’s place to be in the home.
Career choices:
• Women make some career choices based on family considerations rather than just interest or ability.
• Fewer women employed or studying hard sciences should not be interpreted as support for the argument that hard sciences do not come easily to women.
External pressures:
• A lack of sufficient day care can influence a woman to opt out of studying or working in hard sciences. Again, this has nothing to do with ability.
Research on the topic:
• Studies have been done that show the calibre of women who are at the top levels of academia or research is higher than that of men.
• It was suggested that this was perhaps because it is only the “top notch” ones who make it past the obstacles or who decide to sacrifice other areas of their lives to focus on a career in the “hard sciences”.
Douglas College
- attendees: 2
1. They dispute the argument that hard science doesn’t come naturally to women.
2. And they argue that even if hard sciences do not come as easily to women as it does to men, this should not be a basis for discrimination.
SFU
- attendees: 7
• According to a researcher at SFU, Dr. Doreen Kimura, there are physical differences in the brains of women and men which influence the way that each think/function. However, this doesn’t imply that hard science is more difficult for women.
• Suppose men and women think differently or approach hard science differently. Who is to say that the way women think or do things is wrong? The framework for hard science has been established by men, so women may be at a disadvantage but that only means that hard science needs women’s perspectives even more.
• The book The Mind has no Sex, argues that the links sociologists make between the structure of the brain and how women and men do things differently is actually very weak. And that those arguments if evaluated using “hard science” would probably never be used as conclusive.
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