In four years of chemistry research, I have shared becnchtops with twenty-three men and two women. While my male colleagues have ranged in status from peer to professor, however, neither of my female coworkers has held even an undergraduate degree. One woman was an undergraduate from another college working at Duke during the summer; the other was a high school junior working under my supervision.
National surveys indicate that such a dearth of women in science, especially in positions of authority, is hardly unusual. Numerical imbalances in research laboratories and other professional venues are predictable, because inequities persist even at the classroom level. In Duke's Department of Chemistry, for example, women comprised only 36% of the graduating majors in May 1994. During the preceding spring semester, only 30% of undergraduate chemistry research was performed by women. Gender discrepancies in post-graduation plans were even more pronounced: although 75% of male majors reported plans to pursue advanced degrees, only 44% of the women expressed similar intentions. While 33% of those planning on attending medical school were female, only one of ten students going on to graduate school in chemistry was a woman.
Although comparatively few women figure prominently in the popular annals of science, women's participation in and contribution to the physical sciences extends back to the very beginnings of these disciplines. The diversity and complexities of female involvement in science throughout the present millennium, on both practical and ideological levels, are catalogued by Londa Schiebinger in her 1989 book The Mind Has No Sex?, but the enormity of Schiebinger's work precludes an adequate summary herein. Equally enlightening, though, is a consideration of the analogous history of women in American science (drawn primarily from Margaret Rossiter's Women Scientists in America).
Until 1880, the widely-supported ideology of republican motherhood dictated that women's priorities be dominated by child-rearing. Because society considered learned mothers better instructors of its future citizens, this doctrine ultimately allowed women access to education through the college level. A few women chose to learn and practice science. It was well-understood, though, that these women would never be more than amateurs; at that time, the idea of a woman scientist was unimaginable. Ideal women were thought to be uniformly delicate, caring, emotional, and subservient. Science was just the opposite--rigid, impersonal, rigorous, and competitive. Female scientists and their first societies, founded in the 1840s, sought to establish a balance between these two opposing stereotypes. Women scientists tended to be modest and often refused recognition. Their societies disparaged fame, encouraging instead the mutual learning and local contributions of their members.
Between 1880 and 1910, new fields and occupations in science rapidly developed. Women sought access to these fields in increasing numbers. At the same time, the male-dominated scientific establishment was striving to validate science as an honored profession. These men perceived the inclusion of women, still considered "amateurs," as a serious threat to the prestige of their organizations. More and more, women were relegated to the lowest-ranking and most undesirable positions, often tedious, anonymous, and low-salaried. Over time, the scientific establishment erected formal exclusionary barriers to women: faculty positions began requiring doctoral degrees, unavailable to women at most universities before 1910. In turn, membership in elite societies required a faculty appointment or other prestigious position. Even admission to these arenas did not guarantee women a complete or comfortable welcome.
In response to flagrant discrimination, women's groups developed two quite different strategies. The first idealistically ordered the rejection of all gender stereotypes and proclaimed the unfairness of unequal opportunity. It had little impact. The second, more realistic and far less threatening to the establishment, was received and accepted. In this radically different approach, women accepted inequalities and used stereotypes to establish separate "feminine" fields in science such as home economics (a field populated by early female chemists,) for which women would be most qualified.
In light of a growing women's movement making many social gains, women scientists became increasingly frustrated. Despite years of effort, their situation remained separate and unequal. Limits on women's participation in science seemed deeply entrenched. Women's societies, which, in addition to their earlier roles, now aimed to recognize accomplished female scientists, were invisible players in the larger scientific culture. In the years 1920 to 1940, women scientists seemed to accept defeat. Again and again, these women rejected their professional identities, overqualified themselves for meager positions, and hoped, in vain, that individual ability would somehow warrant their eventual promotion. Former scientist and women-in-science scholar Evelyn Fox Keller, in an essay in The Outer Circle, reports that by 1950 the proportion of women scientists had shrunk to half of what it had been in the early 1900s.
Largely as a result of national efforts, the presence of women in scientific laboratories has increased dramatically over the past few decades. However, according to Harriet Zuckerman, one of the editors of The Outer Circle, the assessment of women's position is a complex process. Factors such as age, educational achievements, chosen field, career status, and employer must all be carefully considered. One thing, however, is quite clear--that women in science have not yet attained equality with men. In academia, for example, women are noticeable minorities on the faculties of most science departments. They tend to be promoted unusually slowly and are concentrated in the lower, untenured ranks. Research by women is generally perceived to be of lower quality and, even if significant, is still less likely to be considered critical in field reviews. A 1986 study by the National Science Foundation reports that among scientists with doctorates, "about one-half the differential in female-male salaries remains unexplained after standardizing for field, race, sector of employment, and years of professional experience."
Even a cursory look at most university science departments reveals a dramatic decrease in the presence of women as one ascends the academic ranks. Indeed, the problem now for women in science is not recruitment, but a far more serious one, retention.
In their book Failing at Fairness, Myra and David Sadker observe that girls begin to turn away from science even before they complete high school. Cultural descriptions of science, especially the physical sciences - rigid, hard, impersonal - and of the scientist - esoteric, lonely, intellectual - are the same ones from which many girls shy away. The Sadkers report that at the high school level, 100% of boys and 84% of girls describe their mental image of a scientist as male.
Even at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, a specialized magnet school that selects its students (approximately 43% female) based on mathematical and scientific ability, gender discrepancies are obvious in many upper-level science and math classes. All students are required to take AP calculus, but during registration for the 1994-95 academic year, 68% of the boys elected the more rigorous BC section, compared with 56% of the girls. In post-calculus mathematics classes, males will outnumber females 97 to 28. All students are required to take basic physics, but males will outnumber females 120 to 27 in advanced physics classes. And, while all students are required to take introductory computer science, males will outnumber females 260 to 50 in advanced computer science classes. It is crucial to avoid placing unqualified blame for these ratios either on the girls or the teachers. According to teachers, many girls claim that biology, a subject in which the majority of students are female, is just "more interesting." The question nonetheless remains: are scientifically-inclined girls unconsciously attracted to biology because it is often considered "softer" or more "appropriate" for girls than are math, physics, and computer science? Is it because there are more visible female role models in the biological sciences? Whatever the reasons for the discrepancies, the greater number of advanced math and science classes taken by boys gives them a distinct advantage, both in terms of knowledge and of confidence, when it comes to selecting such courses at the college level.
According to a 1991 report to the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, less quantifiable gender differences in high school science education also exist. The report indicates that female students often become interested in science as the result of encouragement by a high school teacher. These girls enter into a cycle of receiving personal encouragement and performing well in response. Girls accustomed to this style of mentoring are often unable to cope with large, impersonal college classes and busy faculty. For this reason, investigators have speculated that even sex-blind treatment of college students will lead females to view their experiences more negatively. The Sloan report indicates that 20% of female and 12% of male college science majors interviewed considered science too impersonal. 30% of the women in this group also reported feeling that their professors didn't care about them, while none of the males expressed this feeling.
Once women commit to full-time science by enrolling in graduate school, they often encounter additional discriminatory practices. Between 1992 and 1994, the Women's Studies Program at Duke designed and administered a National Science Foundation model project to study women in science and engineering. The female graduate students participating in the project consistently reported feeling isolated, explaining that "fitting in" required a deliberate change in personality. Such pressure may reflect the fact that qualities which society cultivates in women are discouraged in the scientific environment, replaced by such masculine characteristics as aggressiveness, confidence, and directness. These graduate students also perceived sex-based differences in mentoring styles, differences which could negatively impact on women's self-confidence, advancement, and sense of respect.
Because of the qualities and pressures of contemporary scientific culture, scientists actively interested in gender studies are rare. Science has been quite successful even without explicit concern for women's participation and recognition. It has produced time-saving computers and life-extending therapeutic drugs. It is very easy for a scientist to value technological progress over analysis of the potentially problematic constructs and assumptions implicit in the scientific culture. Thus science, blinded by its unarguably noble goals and accomplishments, has often lacked the ability to self-criticize. Science envisions itself as a shaper of a culture that it ironically claims to be unshaped by.
A study of the sociology of science from a women's perspective often proves a mixed bag. At the same time that the criticism of established scientific beliefs and biases offers comfort, the realities themselves are often disheartening. Historically, the important contributions of many women to science have often been veiled. Some women, for fear of prejudice, continue to use only initials and last names on their own research publications. Women continue to fall out of the "science pipeline" at much higher rates than do men. Some areas of science are still almost completely male-dominated. Women earn less money in almost every area of science. Society's image of the typical scientist is still overwhelmingly male. While it can be reassuring to generalize and understand one's own gender-based hardships as a woman in science, it is often easier to cope by ignoring the struggles of broader womankind, divorcing oneself from a female identity and being concerned solely with one's own personal and limited set of ups and downs.
In the long-term, however, the investigation of science from a women's studies perspective is a highly beneficial pursuit for all scientists. Such study accomplishes a great deal more than merely exposing practices that may alienate women; it allows for the general recognition and criticism of science's own set of characteristics. What is the impact of subjectivity on scientific practice? To what extent are scientists influenced by their hypotheses? Is the established rigid, hierarchical structure of science useful or merely intimidating and exclusionary? What values are being promoted by impersonal, "value-free" academic science departments? Because the practice of physical science is just as much a culturally-constructed phenomenon as is the practice of political science, the consideration of these questions is the first step in recognizing the true richness and complexity of science. It is the first step in making science better.
At the time this article was written, Alison Meekhof was a Trinity College senior majoring in chemistry, who had recently been awarded a Marshall Scholarship for study at Cambridge University, where she is now pursuing an advanced degree in chemistry.
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