I hate people some days. Lets see, as a scientist-in-training, so far I have encountered:
1. A professor who announced to a group of undergrads that he didn't like to take on female students because they were "just going to go and get married and quit working." I wonder if he told the women he rejected that this was why.
2. A professor who clearly required less work from his male students than from female ones. The guys thought it was funny.
3. a (female) professor who made snide remarks about interest in one of her student's research being based more on the attractiveness of said student (female, of course) than the work itself.
4. recently a prof I collaborate with, who was part of our university's committee to deal with women's issues mentioned that he pushed for child care for grad students after a female student came to him in tears explaining that she couldn't afford child care and was probably going to have to quit because of it.
5. Physicists who've been told point blank they can't go into to physics, because they're women.
I could think of more, but it's too early for this.

I agree with your sentiment, but I think your substantiating logic is flawed.

Just because a percentage of a subgroup excels in a given activity does not reflect the disposition of the larger subgroup from which they came.

To go along with s.pisaster:

"It's important to note that these findings involve averages and do not apply to all women or men; indeed, there is wide variety within each gender. The researchers are not suggesting that sexism and cultural pressures on women don't play a role, and they don't yet know why women choose the way they do. One forthcoming paper in the Harvard Business Review, for instance, found that women often leave technical jobs because of rampant sexism in the workplace."

I'm not surprised that people are using sexism to try and prove sexist statements...

Um, students in the social sciences are predominantly women now. The gender makeup of my anthropology classes has been very close to the gender makeup of my women's studies classes, and my school only caught up to the national average on that a few years ago. If there are still more men becoming social scientists than women, it isn't because women don't want to be scientists.

And besides sexism, the lack of female role models in science and engineering has to have some kind of effect too. When I was a kid, even though I believed I could do anything I wanted to, it never occurred to me that I might do science because I had no female scientists (or male scientists who were actually encouraging to girls) to look up to and set an example for me. I didn't even realize I wanted to be a scientist until 4 years after leaving high school.

s. pisaster - I think you are missing the point of the post. I'm fairly sure that Jessica WAS NOT saying that this PROVES that women like science/are good at science. This post does prove that the inverse of that statment is false.

I don't think that women are better at science than men are.

I do think that sex (or gender, while we're at it) is a lousy predictor of scientific aptitude.

waxghost - I won't get into the issue of social vs. natural sciences, but I don't think that anyone is arguing that women have less aptitude for social sciences. The discussion is really about the natural sciences, which many people use synonymously with "science."

Yup, I do physics. Back to work now.

I come from a family of scientists, my dad is an engineer and my mom is a physician so science was always something I enjoyed because I was encouraged to do it. When I got to college I decided that I wanted to major in physics. I was taught by a female prof for roughly four years there and it was difficult but worth it. She was very inspirational in that she did it all, she took care of her family and graded our papers on time, and she is SUPERMOM! As most science majors do I took an internship at a major national lab in ILLINOIS. Let's just say it woke me up.

In school men and women are mostly on the same plane. I have NEVER encountered a sexist math or science teacher and maybe this was why I kept pushing myself to major in physics. I worked in a building where there were only three other women who were scientists including myself and my best friend. All the other women in the building were administrative assistants and custodians. There was at least one comment a day from one or more of the men with whom I worked with about how they thought someone at lunch was "fuckable" (these were married men). Or whose breasts were better or who had a bigger ass, whatever their comments were, they killed my spirit. I was self conscious about what I wore so I wore baggy clothing. I started to hate my job because everything was about sex and how good or bad looking someone was. They sent emails to each other of naked women and thought it was funny. I became the serious girl that everyone in my group made fun of, because I didn't think it was funny that they said I USE double sided dildos in front of another science group. After a year of this I decided I did not want to be a scientist.

This was too hard for me, because it made me despise the men around me who didn’t do anything wrong. It made me bitter an angry all the time, so I quit. Yes, I am a feminist, I definitely believe women should be in math and science and most of my best friends are either getting their master’s degrees or still working at the lab. I couldn’t do it anymore because the difference is that my best friend who still works there didn’t have to see what I saw or even experience it as much as I did, because she is more of a girly-girl whereas I am a tom boy and so the men I worked with assumed this was acceptable because I wasn’t a typical girl.

Now I am working as a computer programmer, a female friendly science and I love it. Because my boss also has a daughter and he hired me because I did well in school and I can do my job well. I’m certain that because he does have a daughter he expects that one day a male or female boss will treat her like a human not a rag doll.

Women choose other careers because they are told over and over again in newspapers and books and television “statistically men are better at math and science�. How can anyone have confidence in a subject if they are told over and over again that they will “statistically� be worse at it? A psych study was done not to long ago and either the SAT math section or the ACT math section was given to a group of girls alone, then with girls and boys together and then boys separately. The girls who took the test just with other girls scored higher than girls who took the test with the boys in the room. The boys’ averages were not any different. Meaning having boys present is intimidating enough to girls because they automatically think they will be worse at the subject. So the longer we keep EMPHASIZING GENDER DIFFERENCES the more we will find them.
The problem is history and science books, but luckily teachers have been trying hard to talk about the many female scientists who were never recognized. Example Einstein’s wife (Mileva Maric) DID ALL THE MATH WORK for him, because he couldn’t. Marie Curie was the first PERSON to receive two Nobel prizes and she was a woman. So please stop emphasizing the differences and maybe then we can discover great things together (MEN and WOMEN) instead of focusing on stupid things like what sex parts we have.

DT - I realize that, I'm simply trying to point out that the reason many women with the training "choose" other careers may well have more to do with sexism within the profession than a lack of interest.

Following on from waxghost's comment - does any know of any research into the importance of role models? I learnt in child development psychology that children learn to copy behaviour from those who they see similarities to, but is there anything more to do with the importance of role models in older children and adults' chosen careers? I'd definitely instinctively agree that role models are v. important but would like to read more about it.

Amazing that the BG surmised we aren't interested in science and engineering! Perhaps if there's any disinterest it comes from having to literally claw our way through the unbelievable depths of sexism out there?! In my senior year at high school, I tried to complete a Westinghouse science project with the top chem teacher at my school -- he gave the 2 male students almost constant assistance and guidance. I, on the other hand, was routinely left alone in the lab, and my questions were left unanswered. My prof laughed at me when I had no idea how to write up my results - consequently, I never finished the project. I'm *thrilled* to read that, 20 years later, women are now taking top honors in major national science & engineering competitions.

One thing, tho, Jessica: why do you refer to the women who won the Intel competition as "girls"? To me, that's really patronizing and trivializes their accomplishment.

I think Jessica referred to them as girls because they are all teenagers Although I agree and do think young women probably would have been a better word choice.

I am very happy for the three winners and I do think it's bogus that instead of just reporting that there is a discrepancy in men and women both working in the sciences they have to claim it's cause we just don't want to do it. It's the same mentality behind the opting out idea that women just don't want to work and have children.
I just, for once, would like our decisions to be attributed to our different personalities and desires and not our sex.

rootedwillow- I heard of a similar study and it might be the same one as you're talking about, but I remember it a bit differently.

In the study I read about, they took two groups of women to test them on math. The 1st group, they gave them the test without much of an explanation for it. For the 2nd group, however, they told them beforehand that they were testing them to figure out why women score lower on math than men do.

It's not really that surprising that the first group scored much higher than the second. To just remind someone that they will score lower effects how well they can do.

alikatze, I think Jessica is referring to the Intel winners as "girls" because they are in their teens (17, 16, etc). I think it is generally acceptable to call people in their teens "girls" or "boys" until around 18- usually at that point you swtich to woman/man. (Though, I have to say- at 29, 18 hardly seems to qualify for full adult status!)

DT, there is no such distinction so I can only assume that they are talking about ALL sciences. Also, I have to wonder where that line of division between sciences came from. I can't help thinking that the predominance of women in the social sciences from the very beginning of their existences has contributed (though I don't doubt there are other factors too) to it being treated as less important and less rigorously conducted.

I find what you describe to be insufferable, and it underscores what I think has been going on throughout history, i.e. men subconsciously fearing women and using their(temporary) power to keep them down and out of certain fields and taking on certain societal roles.

I am disgusted by the men you describe, and my heart goes out to you.

david

My previous post was meant to be addressed to "rootedwillow"

sorry for any confusion.

rooted willow, thanks for the awesome post. I've seen numerous testimonies from women who leave science because of blatant sexism. Unfortunately, these women's testimonies are often ignored.

David, it's nice to see a guy who actually gets it.

As an interested father of a math-and-science-loving daughter, I think this discussion may profit by addressing more directly some of the points made in the article and the studies it describes.

I won't summarize all its points here, but the article definitely does NOT argue -- contra some commenters -- that women do statistically less well at math. It is not an argument about aptitude. It is not about "girls not liking math." It is not even an argument about "being interesting" per se, although Jessica pulls that phrase from the subtitle.

Rather, it is an article about choice, about "the preferences of women themselves." These preferences -- and the career choices that follow those preferences -- seem to persist regardless of aptitude (see the "Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth"). Further, these preferences (as it their wont) are expressed more fully in cultures where women have greater amounts of freedom.

Of course, this raises the next set of questions: Where do these preferences come from? How might we change them? And what steps ought we to take, even if we could? The article raises these issues explicitly. Choice is a tough problem for feminism (just as it's a tough problem for democracy). Sometimes people choose what they want, whether or not they "should" want it. We can do things to make them want it more -- to raise incentives, to make something "cost" less, to remove unnecessary barriers -- but that doesn't mean we should discount women's initial relative preferences out of hand. And it doesn't necessarily mean we ought to do everything to get them to develop new preferences, either (although that is the ultimate query of the article).

Jessica and some commenters use this article to argue that, once again, the media is discouraging women from pursuing the sciences. In its way, I fear, their misrepresentation of this article perpetuates that problem -- in essence, telling Feministing readers that yet another media outlet is saying you're no good. They won't let you win! How could girls, my daughter might conclude, ever succeed in such an environment? Those types of statements influence young women's decisions, too.

ROFL @ LogrusZed

"Just because a percentage of a subgroup excels in a given activity does not reflect the disposition of the larger subgroup from which they came."

By that logic, men naturally suck at science and hate it as well, but not nearly as much as they hate higher math.

So I guess we'd better protect the poor darlings by barring them from those professions, eh?

So apparently the fact that there are currently more women entering medical school than men has nothing to do with women excelling at science? This article was just plain wrong.

waxghost - Lots of people use "science" to mean "natural science." According to wikipedia (which is always right, natch) people have been arguing about whether or not social sciences are science since the 20th century. According to Yahoo "categories" only natural sciences/engineering are science.

I'm not saying that it's right in some greater sense, just that when we talk about women in science, we're talking about women in the natural sciences.

And yes, I think that to some degree it's the same debate. If social sciences are excluded from science because they are "soft" or "qualitative" or "not rigorous," then there's no reason to exclude delicate little females. But I think (and I could be wrong on this one), that the devision between social and natural sciences predates the inclusion of large numbers of women in either. So while I think they are connected, I'm less clear on the sequence or causality.

"By that logic, men naturally suck at science and hate it as well, but not nearly as much as they hate higher math.

So I guess we'd better protect the poor darlings by barring them from those professions, eh?"

Helen-

No. LogrusZed used actually logic. You just ROFL'ed.

He wasn't saying women suck at science. He was saying the fact that these three women are very good at science does not PROVE that women are good at science. And he said as much in his post. He also said he agreed with the sentiment (as do I), just not the logic used to attempt to prove the sentiment.

You claim "by that logic, men naturally suck at science." No. By that logic, looking at three men who are good at science fails to prove that men in general are good at science.

The boston globe article is actually more relevant for women and computing, where according to UCLA HERI statistics, the number of first year women declaring computer science as a major is at an all time low since the 70s. http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may05/vegso

This is especially disconcerting since computing and technology is so pervasive and powerful today. The question is: is it really so much of a "choice" and how much of it is due to socialization.

montefiore, sorry, but you hit a major logic fail on that one.

You're talking about 6-year-old logic, which if you want to argue like a 6-year-old, LogrusZed did follow. I'm pretty sure he/she/it is neither a 6-year-old nor stupid, however, so LogrusZed's attempt to invoke the standard cultural subtext of "if you can't PROVE the status-quo bigotry against women is somehow obviously bad/false in every way, then the status quo is fine/ok/should be left alone" is quite clear.

"But he didn't SAAAAAYYY that," I can almost hear someone wail. No, but he did carefully and deliberately invoke that. This is how sexism operates. Pretending that's not what's going on is sexist and downright dishonest. Unless one actually is 6 years old.

So I guess the fact that there are currently more women entering medical school than men has nothing to do with women and science? Ugh. This article is just plain wrong.

Female engineer here.

When I was growing up, in middle school, girls were good at science. Our science team often went to nationals and was dominated by girls. That is a lot of what pushed me into science and engineering.

Later, in high school, I had a chemistry teacher who was more of a feminist than most everyone in the class, male or female. He pushed me hard in chemistry, wrote my recs, and was happy that I went into engineering.

For some reason, though, I was the odd (wo?)man out during high school - all the girls stopped working at science, or stopped caring about it, so they wouldn't intimidate their boyfriends.

College was a bit different - the girls were gung-ho, smart as anything, and passionate. The professors went both ways. Some of the reason I left engineering was because one of my professors spent a year trying to get me into bed and, when I turned him down, attacked my intellect and achievements.

So I went into law. In theory, I'll out-earn almost any engineer, male or female. I'll also be part of the "women not 'interested' enough in science and engineering to do it full-time" group, which is complete and total b.s.. I needed a masters or PhD to get the type of position I wanted, and, although I had a lot of excellent mentors, I simply did not want to fight those who were openly antagonistic.

As a quick FYI - Science Olympiad Nationals will be this weekend in D.C.. If anyone is around, check it out - and I bet there will be a lot of interested, talented, passionate girls there.

When I was a girl, I got into competitions with the "nerds" about our trivial knowledge. Sometimes, it turned out I knew more about sharks or ancient Egypt than they did, but if I didn't, I never admitted it.

It's okay; they never admitted defeat either.

Anyway, now I consider myself a nerd.

That's great news. It's always nice to hear about people that you know will change the world.

I have a bit of a problem with this statment though: "For folks who "aren't interested" in the sciences, we sure do seem to be winning a lot of awards in the field."

I think by taking the role of girls against boys in this sense, you might find yourself playing their game. Its prefectly understandable of course in the context, but at the same time it holds the air of us vs them, which I think goes against the ideals of feminism.

Thanks for posting about this.

I thought the article was terrible, contradictory and illogical. Perception of its intentions were probably worsened by the headline (undoubtedly written by someone else).

I am a female physicist. The contention that women just aren't interested in computer science, engineering and physics, is demonstrably wrong. It simply does not respect facts. If women were not interested in 'hard' sciences, they wouldn't study them at all; and yet they do, and the low numbers of women at high levels has more to do with attrition. Furthermore, there are countries with near equal gender distributions in fields like physics. Women (or men for that matter) do not spend years getting post-secondary educations in fields which bore them!

I think peter has made a careful comment above about the article itself and is right that it isn't about aptitude, as Jessica seems to imply. I agree that it is okay to look into preferences, and to respect them, even if they aren't what we, as feminists, would prefer. I disagree however with allegation of the existence of these preferences or that the researchers cited have made a strong argument that choices made are related to the freedom of the women in the respective countries. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. The countries with higher participation of women in hard sciences typically place a lower cultural value on the hard sciences (from which I deduce that women are less likely to be viewed as a threat for succeeding in these fields, and may be subjected to less sexism). I think this is more pertinent, but it warrants a proper study.

I think, based on personal experience, that these fields remain largely unfriendly to women and families. Sadly, competent, capable, enthusiastic women leave these fields in droves.

Issues which affect women's decisions to leave hard sciences include:
-time and lifestyle being incompatible with child rearing (which is admittedly true of other more gender-balanced fields, but worsened by other issues)
-low relative pay (at least in academia and grad school in particular)
-low number of women and role models! It's generally unpleasant to be treated like a freak of nature, or with suspicion, because you are from an
under-represented group. In physics, we talk of requiring a "critical mass" of women before gender distributions start to normalize.
-sexism and sexual harassment
-extreme competitiveness (though also true of other fields)
-forced repeated re-locations for female academic scientists and engineers

The irony is that addressing some of the issues above would make careers in hard science more rewarding for everyone, regardless of gender.

I thought rootedwillow's story was sad, but am glad that she's found a home in computer science. I think this is representative of what the article failed to grasp- women ARE interested (and capable), but tend not to want to spend their professional lives battling in unwelcoming environments, when they can use their skills to make a living (often, a better living) in other fields.

I feel huge responsibility to be a role model for the younger women in my field.

Helen-

I honestly don't see the relevance of anything you said in your last comment to what I said in mine.

No one was talking about whether or not bigotry or sexism is bad. All that I, and I think LogrusZed, was saying, was that the specific means by which Jessica set out to prove the illogic of sexism was itself illogical.

There are myriad ways to prove the illogic of sexism logically, invoking three specific women is not one of them. That is the full extent of what was said, and thus I do not understand what you are talking about.

DT, I realize that the social sciences are not generally considered part of "science". That doesn't make it right, and acknowledging that all sciences are "science" would actually help to correct this idea that women aren't interested in science. Then we could explore why women are more attracted to/likely to end up in the social sciences than the "natural" (I think you mean "hard" since all sciences are "natural") sciences by giving us more closely parallel situations to compare.

It's interesting to hear the cries of sexism or "it's not a women-friendly" field. The women in my field (electrical engineering) tend to use every excuse in the book in order to make the professor feel bad for them, bump their grade, or do their work for them. It's quite sad, actually.

If anything, computer science, electrical engineering and physics (from what I've seen) are not friendly to anyone! They beat you down and down and down until your ego is broken. And the administration does want women in the field BUT why should they make it friendly to any sex? That would be sexist and undercut the toughness and rigor of the top 15 program.

waxghost - I didn't mean to imply that social sciences were unnatural! That sounds kind of funny, and I'm not sure what it might mean.

The terms "natural sciences" and "hard sciences" are synonyms as far as I know. Some social scientists resent the term "hard science" because it implies that their work is easy. To avoid pissing them off, I've been sticking with "natural science." Am I totally off base here?

It would be nice if fixing the nomenclature would solve the chicks in science problem, but I doubt it. Over here (in hard/natural science), we know that it breaks down further: there are plenty of female biologists (the most qualitative of the hard sciences), but a dearth of female physicists. Sigh.

Uh, waxghost, the social sciences are nonsense. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but their primary effect seems to be the generation of legions of destructive bureaucrats. There you go; I despise them.

That having been said, I would certainly NOT suppose that changing the commonly-held definition of "science" to include them would serve as a credible means of highlighting the prevalence of "women in science"! Changing the definitions of terms is a terrible way of winning an argument in any case: in this case, and I am not alone in this, I would think that if this is the only way to get women "in science," then their inclusion would place science itself under threat!

These Intel Prize winners prove that there's no reason women can't excel in the "hard" sciences. It's frankly INSULTING to women to say that we have to water down their field with the ideologically-driven pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo of the "social sciences" if we are to be "inclusive" to their sex.

the social sciences are nonsense. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but their primary effect seems to be the generation of legions of destructive bureaucrats. There you go; I despise them.

Way to generalize and denigrate an entire branch of academics. Glad to know I've spent the last decade wasting my time and not, you know, working to understand the most effective research methods, becoming acquainted in what careful studies of society consistently show, and brainstorming with some of the smartest people that I've ever met to find ways to make lasting effects on society.

Social sciences focus on society. Society is large and complex. However, if you actually pay attention, you could see where and how social sciences are able to explain phenomena in ways that will better individuals' lives.

It's the social sciences that are tackling the problems of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia (among countless other issues) to determine how they adversely affect our lives and the ways to systematically defeat them within society.

As a female student in a "hard" division of STEM, I dislike that particular division because it immediately indicates that I don't belong--you know, since I'm a soft, squishy woman.

Blarg, I have a rant to write here, but I need to go test specimens and learn some microscopy theory. See? Being a scientist trumps being a woman, for better or worse. I just want to suggest that anyone interested in a really good read about women in STEM check out Removing Barriers edited by Jill M. Bystydzienski and Sharon R. Bird

I definately think the point about female role models is something that needs to be considered. I had female physics, AP chem, and calc/trig teachers in high school. This definately helped with my confidence in going to them for help when I needed it. It's not that I distrusted the male teachers, but it was nice to have women to look up to and to work with women.

I feel that I go to a liberal and fairly feminist friendly university. Okay, so it's very feminist friendly on some aspects, but there definately is sexism/racism/classism lurking around the place. Sexism is always covert, but it does piss me off when my guy friends joke about how mechanical engineering is 'men-gineering.' It's attitudes like that, despite how harmless/joking they may be, that can discourage women. (The same said group of guys joke about which one of them has the biggest 'math cock,' too.) The sad thing is, these guys are just joking. They know that women at this school are smart . . . but guys acting like assholes is definately such an acceptable part of this culture that they can say these things (among friends) jokingly and be 'acceptable'. I explained this to my other guy friend, and he didn't get why it upset me. It was then that I thought of how those who are privalged not to have to deal with a specific oppression can just tune out and not pick up the subtle things that irritate and upset.

Strong Women, Strong Girls is a great program. It's pretty big at our college, and you should definately check out what they do. http://www.swsg.org/

DT, if it were up to me, the division would be along the quantitative/qualitative line. I'm not offended at all, but I do think that all science is "natural".

And I don't mean to say that it would solve the problem of women in science, but that it would acknowledge that there are already a lot of women in science - both kinds - and might help highlight what is so different about the two that women are staying out of one side while dominating the other. I can also say that I'm a little offended (not by you but by society in general) that my science is considered separate from "science" when it is just as valid as yours.

Kapek, geez, you're right. How could I be so blind! It's amazing that it took a complete stranger on a blog who doesn't seem to know anything about the social sciences and doesn't bother to even attempt to explain themself to help me see that Anthropology, Economics, Education, Geography, History, Law, Linguistics, Political Science, Psychology, Social Work and Sociology are "bunk" and contribute nothing to society but bureaucracy! I guess I should just start my college career all over again.

"The boston globe article is actually more relevant for women and computing, where according to UCLA HERI statistics, the number of first year women declaring computer science as a major is at an all time low since the 70s. http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may05/vegso

"This is especially disconcerting since computing and technology is so pervasive and powerful today. The question is: is it really so much of a 'choice' and how much of it is due to socialization."

I'm also wondering how much is due to socialization telling girls "you shouldn't do computer technology" and how much is due to socialization telling socially awkward boys, including the portion who resent girls for wanting social relationships instead of bending over on demand, "you should do computer technology"...

Since when are medicine and biology not "hard" sciences? Since women started doing them, I guess. Aside from not wanting to have to deal with sexism in the academic and career worlds, it could be that women are not interested in "hard sciences" because they are told since they are children that they should not be.

The women in my field (electrical engineering) tend to use every excuse in the book in order to make the professor feel bad for them, bump their grade, or do their work for them. It's quite sad, actually.

Thank God we have an Exceptional Woman here to enlighten us! If we're comparing anecdotes, Jenn, in my Electrical Engineering degree I saw more male classmates whining to professors about grades than female classmates. Not to mention whining to me: "But the professor only likes you because you're a giiiiirl". Umm, maybe he likes me because I pay attention and show an interest in the subject, rather than sitting in the back and slacking off. Try it sometime. My female classmates and I dealt with the same brutal beating down by the material as our male classmates, but on top of that we had to deal with subtle and not so subtle sexism from classmates and professors. When women say we need to make the science and technology fields more friendly to women, we don't mean make the material easier for women (fucking obviously, how would that even work?) we mean levelling the playing field by getting rid of the sexism only women have to deal with.

When I was a sophomore in high school my biology teacher (a very old guy with a PhD) said that girls couldn't do well in science. I got the only A in his class and he said I probably cheated (because I am a girl, you know)

I got into the University of California, San Diego and am currently double majoring in Chemistry and Critical Gender Studies.
Two weeks ago, I was doing a group lab and I asked, "Okay I am running to the stockroom to pick up some things, is there anything else we need that I don't have on the list?"
My lab partner (a male) said, "Hmm...no...well you COULD grab me some food while you're at it."

I made him wash all the glassware (including mine) and whenever he'd ask me how to do something I would simply say, "Augh, I don't know, I'm just a girl majoring in chemistry...wait....am I in a LAB!? I should be at home! Cooking that's as close to chemistry as I should be!"

I am just an undergrad and the sexism I have experienced fucking sucks! Besides volunteering at Expanding Your Horizons (google it), I can't wait to work very closely with WISE (Women In Science and Engineering group at my school) and start putting an end to all this bullshit!

Claudzilla-I was involved in WISE and loved it, but it didn't change my life or anyone else's. I was on track to become a research scientist but dropped out after a variety of things happened to me that would probably not have happened if I was a man. The sexism wasn't quite as blatant as rooted willow's (lady, I am beyond sorry...I hope you're happier now) but it was always there. Forcing your lab partner to wash glassware might be fun now, but you can't make the (male) chair of your doctoral thesis committee do the same. I hope you keep up what you're doing, but recognize that it's the long haul...

I didn't mean to imply that social sciences were unnatural! That sounds kind of funny, and I'm not sure what it might mean.

Social sciences are not natural. They deal with the social lives of humans which is an entirely artificial construct.

Now are social sciences actually science? That's a major can of worms.

Many social sciences are incredibly complex and demanding professions. The researchers working in them contribute meaningful knowledge.

However science isn't just something that's hard. It is about testable assertions, accurate predictions and unbiased objective descriptions of experimental results. In science, all the variables are accounted for and experiments are repeatable every time.

Science requires fallibility. Any idea that does not give rise to testable assertions and hypotheses is useless and unscientific. It can safely be labeled non-science and discarded.

Most social sciences do not meet these requirements, but that doesn't make them less important.

I beg to differ, M. Aloisius. And it makes me wonder how much you actually know about the social sciences.

First, if society/social activity/culture was unnatural, there would be groups of people without it. But every group of humans, no matter how remote or strange, creates a society; therefore, society is a natural part of human life and the human experience.

Second, science at its most basic is observing the world around you and finding ways to explain it. The quantifiable sciences are based on repetitive results, hypotheses, etc. but that doesn't make qualitative sciences any less scientific. Privileging the ability to test in a perfectly controlled environment as the only science would leave us with a lot of areas that we couldn't study... after all, when was the last time humans were able to manipulate a star into supernova-ing or force evolution of an organism larger and more complex than a single-cell to occur? Also, bias is unavoidable and the social sciences are the ones that taught hard science that.

My experiences as an undergrad have very been similar to what under_zenith describes. Until one other woman transferred into the program last fall, I was the only female electrical engineering major in my graduating class, and every time I do well on a test my male classmates say that the professor "went easier on me" because I'm a woman. This continues every semester, despite the fact that I've consistently done quite well in ALL of my classes... I find it very unlikely that these 15 some odd different professors are ALL "going easy on me". I was also inducted into a prestigious EE honor society recently, which was of course attributed to the fact that "they just wanted a girl so nobody thinks they're sexist"... Nevermind that my GPA was higher than most of the other inductees'. Even guys that I'm friends with think this way, and I have more than once considered changing my major over it. The work is very hard, and nobody likes having their accomplishments diminished for bullshit reasons. I have NEVER used my gender to "bump my grade" or get professors to "do my work for me" as Jenn describes, but people still assume that I do... Because the common perception is that "engineering isn't for women", so of course there must be other forces at work if a woman excels in the field.

First, if society/social activity/culture was unnatural, there would be groups of people without it. But every group of humans, no matter how remote or strange, creates a society; therefore, society is a natural part of human life and the human experience.

I said artificial, not unnatural. There is a subtle difference. Unnatural means that these ideas go against natural law. Artificial means produced by humans. In fact the very definition of artificial is, "Made by humans; produced rather than natural".

Humans created society. We created economics. We created politics. We created language. These are human constructs created by the human mind that would not exist without us in the universe (assuming no other intelligent life).

Helium on the other hand was created by nature (or is nature) and its interactions with other elements is governed by physical laws.

Second, science at its most basic is observing the world around you and finding ways to explain it. The quantifiable sciences are based on repetitive results, hypotheses, etc. but that doesn't make qualitative sciences any less scientific. Privileging the ability to test in a perfectly controlled environment as the only science would leave us with a lot of areas that we couldn't study... after all, when was the last time humans were able to manipulate a star into supernova-ing or force evolution of an organism larger and more complex than a single-cell to occur? Also, bias is unavoidable and the social sciences are the ones that taught hard science that.

You appear to have setup a strawman argument. Just because it isn't science doesn't mean we can't study it. Nor does it mean you can't try to apply the scientific method to these areas.

As far as astrophysics is concerned, well, while we can't move a star, we can set up devices to measure anticipated forces and wait for the universe to run the experiment. Luckily for us, the universe provides us with supernovas from time to time without us doing anything.

Bias is of course unavoidable, but it is the repeatability and rigid framework of hard science that reduces it to levels where we can be reasonably certain of an objective result. Scientific publications are torn apart if even single variable is unaccounted for. The great thing is that another group will produce another paper verifying or refuting claims. Get enough of these and you have yourself a fairly reliable unbiased answer.

Kapek, geez, you're right. How could I be so blind! It's amazing that it took a complete stranger on a blog who doesn't seem to know anything about the social sciences and doesn't bother to even attempt to explain themself to help me see that Anthropology, Economics, Education, Geography, History, Law, Linguistics, Political Science, Psychology, Social Work and Sociology are "bunk" and contribute nothing to society but bureaucracy! I guess I should just start my college career all over again.

Allow me to explain myself.

I'm presently in University (and have been for far too long, frankly) and have taken courses in Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Linguistics, and Political Science; my major is History, and I am considering entry into law school.

I would class History and Law as Humanities rather than Social Sciences. Some branches of Linguistics, Anthropology, and Psychology undoubtedly have aspects that fall into the categor of natural sciences: Linguistics is fairly empirical, and I'm referring primarily to Biological Anthropology and Psychology.

As for the others, having had a taste, and been exposed to people enthused by them, I can frankly say that I have recoiled in horror.

Social Anthropology, scientific or not, can be of immense value when it comes to things like the (OBJECTIVE) study of indigenous peoples; when it becomes tied to an agenda of social advocacy, and anti-racist, gender-neutral, anti-capitalist ideological positions become enshrined as dogma, it becomes a refuge of blithering idiocy. I'm not PRO-racist or pro-sexist, but neither am I pro-dogma, and anything that deserves to be considered a science must be absolutely free of it. Consider that before you defend Economics, a pseudoscience that has spent the past century unleashing the most appallingly destructive capitalist dogma imaginable upon the world, and, in complete defiance of every scientific theory, brought our environment to the brink of collapse.

The budding Geographers on campus claim to be preparing themselves to repair the damage: but by the end of my experiences with their department, it became painfully obvious to me that they all intended to do so within the framework of a faceless government bureacracy. Hundreds of people were being groomed to compete against each other for a select number of artificially protected jobs (nay, careers) in government ministries where they would spend their time thwarting the will of elected representatives and securing their own status by producing an endless volume of verbose, unengaging analysis, to which all dissenting voices could be directed. "How dare you," they would be saying (if only to themselves) in a few short years, "A mere Congressman, A mere Member of Parliament, question me, I who have spent half my life regurgitating academia? How dare you, you who are unwilling to read 10,000 pages of statistical Sanskrit, including that which I have written? Why, I have sixteen advanced degrees!"

It's education as a Ponzi scheme. It's sickening. Teaching, Political Science, and Social Work are even worse. Oh, I'm sure you won't reconsider your university career: you've invested your time and money, after all, and that's what it's all about these days, isn't it. Investing money for a fancy peace of paper that makes your opinions more valuable than those of others so you can BS your way into a job to pay off your student loans. Well, I don't have student loans to pay off. My parents are rich. I went to university for the JOY OF LEARNING. And I didn't care what I learned, so long as it was true. You know, truth, beauty, beauty/truth, all that old-fashioned claptrap.

Hey, you've probably been in university longer even than I have! Can I ask, is there any true basis for racism? Is there any true basis for believing in the superiority of men over women? Is there any true hope for the abolition of private property and establishment of a collectivist utopia? Because, um, I wasn't allowed to ask those questions. At least, not in the Social Sciences. Now since I never needed to work to pay for my lectures in the Arts, I was able spend my free time reading scientific journals. The "hard" stuff. And boy, I'll admit, some of it was really poorly written, and really dense, but I think I managed to wring from it, in combination with the Humanities, an answer: "NO".

But here's the thing: if it had been "YES" (and it still could be "Yes"), I would accept that. Because it would be TRUE. I guess I thought that was allowed as a possibility. I guess my expectations were just painfully obsolete.

I said I would be frank. Oh, hey, you may find this interesting though: to the question "Is class privelege OK?", the answer I got, strangely enough, was "Yes." How 'bout that, eh? Weird.

It's the social sciences that are tackling the problems of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia (among countless other issues) to determine how they adversely affect our lives and the ways to systematically defeat them within society.

Any line of inquiry locked into a particular social agenda is not science. Science is objective. Objectivity is possible, and frankly, I regard the efforts of my school to convince me otherwise over the last six years as nothing but cognitive dissonance. And I have a headache. It's time for me to find a patch of the real world not yet utterly polluted by social "science."

Kim Tolley's study, The Science Education of American Girls: A Historical Perspective, shows that American boys in mid- to late-19th century secondary schools learned classics (Latin and Greek), which were high status. 2ry school educators explained that Latin and Greek were too complex and rigorous for girls' weak brains to grasp. They taught basic natural science to girls because it was considered easier, and low status - a career dead end, for the most part.

That changed as US universities started to abandon rigid classics requirements for their entrance exams and curricula, and sciences began to cohere as disciplines and professions (ie, acquiring status, and decent paid work opportunities). Then, boys' schools switched to teaching science and left classics (still high status, but rapidly becoming obsolete) to the girls.

This is an oversimplification of her argument, but you get the idea. Rationalizing and dismissing the reality of discrimination is an old game. And it keeps on truckin'.

"Since when are medicine and biology not 'hard' sciences? Since women started doing them, I guess."

...and since they involve people more directly than chemistry and physics do.

Back when I was a high schooler feeling very lonely but patting myself on the back for having no friends, before I realized "if I don't care what anyone else thinks then why should they care what I think?" and went back to trying to learn social skills, I thought I'd be better off majoring in a harder sciences for that reason.

Likewise, no wonder students who major in physics and chemistry because they actually like physics and chemistry get stuck with more of the "waaah, why can't 'get N blow jobs per $M spent on her dinner' be as reliable as 'e=mC2'?!" crowd taking up space in their classes.

"Humans created society. We created economics. We created politics. We created language. These are human constructs created by the human mind that would not exist without us in the universe (assuming no other intelligent life)."

Human beings also created engineering. Likewise, languages such as C++ and Java are no less artificial than languages such as Spanish and French.

"Just because it isn't science doesn't mean we can't study it. Nor does it mean you can't try to apply the scientific method to these areas."

So true. For example, helium isn't science. It's the element with atomic number 2 and atomic weight 4.0026 - not the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. People can still apply the scientific method to helium and its roles in the universe!

"And I have a headache. It's time for me to find a patch of the real world not yet utterly polluted by social 'science.'"

Even an engineering or computer programming job involves dealing with other people. You might want to try subsistence farming instead.

"Since when are medicine and biology not "hard" sciences? Since women started doing them, I guess."

There is a long history of subjects and professions losing status as women take them up.

Weavers used to be male, and were regardes as being skilled artisans. When women started to take up weaving it became a low ststus hobby.

Teachers in the UK used ot be male and held a moderate level of status and pay, now it is a female dominated profession with low status and low pay.

Compare the pay of a hospital porter (typically someone with poor high school leaving grades)to the pay of a nurse (typically someone who got good grades and went on to complete a degree), The pay is pretty comparable even though the two have totally different levels of qualifications and responsibility but are working in the same industry.

I read an article by a woman writing for the BMJ some years ago, about how the medical profession needs to be careful about public perception of the medical profession due to the increasing proportion of female doctors that the same thing that has happened through the ages does not happen to medicine also. (She was not suggesting cuts to the number of female doctors, but more the profession needs to work to make sure the public opinion of their value remains high).

I'm also wondering how much is due to socialization telling girls "you shouldn't do computer technology" and how much is due to socialization telling socially awkward boys, including the portion who resent girls for wanting social relationships instead of bending over on demand, "you should do computer technology"...

Ooh, that reminds me of Lee Smolin's explanation in his book "The trouble with physics" of why male physicists are so hostile to female physicists. He says for many male physicists, their ability to do math is very embedded in their sense of masculinity. They were resentful in high school because they weren't good at that crucial marker of masculinity, sports, but consoled themselves with the fact that they were good at math and physics, which are also considered very male skills. So when a woman comes in with equivalent or better skills, it's deeply threatening to their sense of masculinity, because if a woman can do physics, what's left to make them manly?

I ran that by my fiance who used to hang out with a lot of entitled male geeks, and he said: "Yeah, I could have told you that."

Heh. Here I am, in my lab (I'm working on a PhD in microbiology), taking a break from benchtop work to find out from the Boston Globe that my work isn't considered "hard science" and that I'm a failure because even though I'm "math precocious" I didn't follow a career in engineering or physics. Interesting, that. After all I was accepted into several engineering schools as an undergrad. I even completed 2 years towards a biomedical engineering degree. But I decided the work was freakin' boring and enjoyed microbiology far more. Does that somehow qualify me as a traitor towards feminism or science? I would hope not.

There are a few things to bear in mind when discussing where a scientist chooses to work. First off, where is the funding? Sure, engineers tend to make more money in the corporate scene, but for the people going into academia, there tends to be more funding for academic research in medicine. Next, look at what each job actually entails. I won't say one is more difficult than the other, but the type of person who enjoys benchtop or field work will not like sitting in a cubicle in front of a computer all day.

And, finally, I've personally seen that there still remains a great deal of sexism in certain fields. A heck of a lot of the remaining old guard are unwilling to give all women a fair shake when we're all "just going to quit when we have kids anyways." Therefore we end up having to do ten times the work just to get the same recognition as a guy in our field. But that attitude can be seen in all science fields, not just physics and engineering. From my own experience it seems that the tide is turning and biosciences are getting more and more women in power. Therefore the prevailing wisdom is changing. We still have to work hard to advance, but we no longer feel we have to act like the guys or choose between a family and a career. That transition is far slower coming to engineering, even in corporate culture. I think in the next 10 years or so we'll see some serious changes.

I predict any children I have will think that science is "women's work" because more than 50% of working scientists (in the US) will be women. Why? Because more than 50% of the graduates in most sciences are women. And more than 50% of the people earning science PhDs are women. After all those women complete their post-docs and find "real world" jobs they'll be the ones to set the tone and policies in every lab, university or corporation in which they work.

Once again, Jessica, you choose to link to an article that you haven't even read. The posts on this page have the resounding message that -- girls are just as good, just as interested in studying the sciences-- which is NOT disputed in the article. However, after studying these subjects, these girls choose to work somewhere else. It is actually completely disjointed from winning the ISEF.

As a third year chemical engineering student at Princeton, I have not encountered anything akin to what the article mentioned, but it does seem much more likely to occur in computing related professions. I agree very much with the comments of "peter" earlier on the page with regards to this subject and the treatment of it on this blog.

"Just aren't interested?"

There's a reason my user name is TheNerd:

I LOVE SCIENCE!

Kapek, you're questions are philosophical, not social scientific. Very creationist of you.

Also, you are horrifically blind to your own classist and scientific assumptions, and the size of your own ego. The science is not to blame for your complete lack of ability to understand it.

Any line of inquiry locked into a particular social agenda is not science. Science is objective. Objectivity is possible, and frankly, I regard the efforts of my school to convince me otherwise over the last six years as nothing but cognitive dissonance.

ALL science has an agenda, whether it be social or otherwise. My SO is a chemical engineer. His agenda is creating catalysts that more efficiently create plastic products. His study has been around the different chemicals, their interaction, and testing to see which combinations under which circumstances create the effect he is looking for.

If a social scientist's agenda is stopping racism or sexism, they don't lose their objectivity when they study society any more than my SO does when he studies chemical reactions. Social scientists study racism (for example) under a variety of conditions. Since they deal with human nature, the conditions, situations, and interrelated circumstances are far more complex and not as simplistically predictable as physical laws or molecules. But like researchers in the hard sciences, they set up testable hypotheses based upon the accepted theoretical frameworks available, gather data, and test it to see if they can reject their hypotheses or if they find support for them. Any scientist, social or otherwise, who doesn't pay attention to what they data are telling them based on their preconceived notions are going to fail and have a very short and dismal career.

I got straight A's in my calculus, physics, biology, and chemistry classes. I had my pick of any branch of research I wanted to participate in. I picked social science (specifically Criminology) because I wanted the challenge and I wanted to actually make a difference in society.

You obviously don't understand social sciences based on your wholly uninformed criticism of them. However, they're not perfect and deserve careful criticism. But you should refrain from attempting that criticism until you get even the most basic understanding of what actually occurs within them.

@Kaylee - Pfft. Biology is totally a hard science! It is a true natural science in every sense of the word.

However you should know since you're doing your Ph.D. of the pecking order.

Mathematicians look down on everyone because their work can truly be proved. Physicists look down on Chemists because their equations are bigger. Theoretical Physicists of course trump other Physicists. Chemists look down on Physicists because first principles trumps abstract math. Everyone looks down on Biologists. I'm not sure who the Biologists look down on.

What's really fun is when you get into the cross disciplines. Physical Chemists trump Biochemists except for possibly Physical Biochemists, but Bio-physical Chemists are of course trump all.

That last bit has nothing to do with the fact that my girlfriend is a bio-physical chemist. Nope. Nothing at all. :)

Human beings also created engineering. Likewise, languages such as C++ and Java are no less artificial than languages such as Spanish and French.

Languages such as C++ and Java are abstractions of the underlying math. Math isn't science. It is a tool used by science. There is some computer science that is real science (, but the vast majority is engineering or math.

Look, we can argue this all day long, but it has been argued many times by many people. The fact is that social sciences and other soft sciences will continue to be call "science" for political reasons. People in the hard sciences will continue to mock the people in the softer sciences for calling their work Science instead of Research or Natural Philosophy.

"I'm not sure who the Biologists look down on."

Funnily enough, theoretical physicists. Ergo it all comes full circle.

I find that in the biological fields (I'm a molecular biologist), there is also sharp division. Molecular/cellular biology and genetics are usually well regarded (and, interestingly, have the higher proportion of females), whereas ecology, behavior, etc are less well regarded.

I'm lucky to be in a field where women outnumber men, at least at my level (PhD). There is still an issue of attrition, though, but I think as the younger scientists' careers mature this problem will be largely self-correcting.

Although I am really confused as to why molecular biology isn't science, according to BG....

Interestingly, from the article "When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs" CERTAIN being operative there. They don't come out and say it, but they're pink-collaring biological sciences. The article is only talking about those sciences in which there is a discrepancy between the number of women and men, creating a self-perpetuating or self-fulfilling argument. Eeeeeeenteeeresting.

Not to say women don't choose to leave scientific fields, however to frame it as "Well then they just aren't interested" without looking at other causes is pretty, well, unscientific(ironically, the study was done by "economists and social scientists"). Why aren't women "interested"? Blatant sexism and misogyny in the fields? Poor pay with little leeway for lifestyles that do not allow 60-80 hour work weeks, while at home still taking care of the majority of housework and child-rearing?

Heh. No. Women "just don't like science."

*eyeroll*

"Ooh, that reminds me of Lee Smolin's explanation in his book 'The trouble with physics' of why male physicists are so hostile to female physicists...

"...So when a woman comes in with equivalent or better skills, it's deeply threatening to their sense of masculinity, because if a woman can do physics, what's left to make them manly?"

Likewise, *this* reminds me of how some guys complain about girls growing up to do anything besides housewifery. The idea seems to be that if she can survive without him then he'll be worthless therefore she should stay only one man and his sex drive away from poverty. o_O

"After all I was accepted into several engineering schools as an undergrad. I even completed 2 years towards a biomedical engineering degree. But I decided the work was freakin' boring and enjoyed microbiology far more. Does that somehow qualify me as a traitor towards feminism or science? I would hope not."

Definitely not! Better for the science and engineering professions to be full of people who actually *like* or even *love* science and engineering. :) Staying in the field just because some idiot said one's gender sucks at math isn't much better than staying just because one's parents only respect engineers and doctors, staying just because one prefers playing D&D to playing baseball, etc.

Meanwhile, does the criticism of "social sciences" here remind anyine else of the criticism of "hard sciences" in the comments on http://feministing.com/archives/008887.html ? Condemning all economics for Reagan's trickle-down policies, condemning all sociology for social workers supposedly just doing it for the money, etc. makes as little sense as condemning all physics for the Chernobyl disaster, condemning all medicine for obstetricians supposedly just doing it for the money, etc..

NOTE: Not very many men or women go into the sciences. It has dropped drastically since the 60s 70s and 80s. I blame this on lack of funding and crappy teachers.

The discussion of which science group is better and which is worse is a little strange but understandable. I do remember people making fun of Biologists, when I was in school but then again we also made fun of music and art and radio majors as well. The reason for this is that at my liberal arts school the science majors would loose their scholarhips if their GPAs were not 3.2 and above, where as these other majors would have average GPAs that ranged from 3.5 to 4.0. Does that mean they were smarter than the science majors or vice versa, NO! It means it was different subject matter graded by different people. Maybe if schools in general would look at each major separately people wouldn't get so upset. At least from my experience that is the case.

But anyways I would like to thanks those women and men who choose to treat other women and men with respect. Mostly I would like to thank those women who are strong enough to accomplish what I couldn't, which is staying in that kind of environment. : )

"NOTE: Not very many men or women go into the sciences. It has dropped drastically since the 60s 70s and 80s. I blame this on lack of funding and crappy teachers."

Back in the roaring 80's, this became an issue when people began noticing for example, that IIRC 27% of PhDs were going to people from foreign countries. The claim then was students preferred going into business where they could make money (and I guess, without an additional six years of study). I recall one article that claimed that contrary to the image of researchers working on exciting projects, the average researcher with a PhD was making only $10,000 per year. No misprint. Crap funding. One of our university professors reported for our paper that his younger brother, a businessperson, had just received a bonus greater than the professor's entire salary as university instructor (back then, starting in the mid 50k- even the president of the university of 26,000 students was paid only $75,000 around 1990 - in Japan in 1993, the principal of my public school of 321 students made about $90,000 (pre bonus), with prior service on the regional board of ed; the lowest paid teachers without tenure got about $18,000).

"crappy teachers"

Just remembered. Another related issue was the increase (claimed to be seen across the nation) in teaching assistants (with as little as a bachelor's degree themselves, but particularly true of PhD candidates I saw) instructing undergrad classes. I had a good number of them in art (masters students), math, science lab, and accounting. So many that IIRC, I believe my school was one, that there was a danger of losing accreditation (didn't happen). The report claimed (also in my school) that many, being from various countries like in Asia or Europe, were difficult for students to understand because of accents or challenges with the language.

I wouldn't personally call anyone I knew crappy. Just not experienced or licensed educators. It's lame to have people with a bachelors in history or art critiquing my work for my grade as an adult. I got an A in art, but deliberately turned in bullshit for my projects because I knew that the teaching assistants from the masters program loved abstract work (from their portfolios and exhibits). Our first project was a self portrait in a given setting. Obviously most students tried to turn in photorealistic works (with some that should have been immediately identifiable as obviously the work of street artists).

The day before the due date, I measured my art board and used a compass to put a perfect circle in the center of it. I then used a straight edge to divide the board in half. I colored the circle yellow, and used shading to make it a sphere. I colored the top half of the background blue, and the lower, green. I turned it in.

One assistant called me in and asked me what it meant. I said that I was sitting outside on the grass (green), at peace (the sphere) under the sky (blue). She suggested I add some white swirls to the "sky" portion. In all seriousness, I asked if that was not contrary to my goal of "at peace." She said no. So right in front of her (we were required to bring our supplies to classes) I used cray-pas to add cloudy white swirls in the background arou