sparkle motion ([info]fireflygirl) wrote,
@ 2008-05-13 18:45:00
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Entry tags:feminism

scienced women
via io9:

Interesting article on Jezebel, Why Are There So Few Female Scientists. I'm glad someone's asking the question, but I'm still not convinced that the way we practice science (in strict disciplines with an emphasis on mathematical equations rather than the thought experiments that used to dominate science (see Einstein!) isn't a major contributor. Damn straight the boyculture of engineering and science is deadly to women's participation in science careers, but simply saying the system is sexist and we must get rid of the terrible hours and corporate meetings at strip clubs isn't going to get at the underlying disease. It doesn't help that studies and programs designed to reverse this trend, have little success. The number of women in computer science has actually decreased in the last 10 years which boggles the mind.

This post was inspired, btw, by Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy, which I reviewed on my 342nd supersekritidentity blog here.


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[info]jamiam
2008-05-15 08:21 pm UTC (link)
See, your statement about "the way we practice science" makes me very unhappy and uncomfortable. Exactly because it plays into the myth that women are, by and large, bad at math. And while there is plenty of solid evidence that women do, by and large, think differently from men--and while I'm all for introducing more diverse modes of problem solving into all of the academic disciplines, up to and including the "hard" physical sciences--the evidence is also pretty damn convincingly that women are every bit as good as men at theoretical abstraction, math, formulaic thought, etc., and in exactly the same fractions. (or possibly better...)

What women (as well as the men who judge, advise, and promote them) do seem to lack is a belief in their own abilities. This discrepancy, as well as its extermely negative impact on women scientist's career paths, is handily demonstrated in this article (Julianne Dalcanton discusses it at length in the second half of this entry--look for the phrase "jaw-dropping preprint").

And if you prefer your depressing cultural trends in anecdotal form, have you read Men Who Explain Things?

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