January 25, 2005
The debate continues... The women in science and engineering at UW-Madison created this nice website where you can track the progress of the debate surrounding the president of Harvard's remarks.
From my WIPHYS listserv:
EXAMPLES FROM THE PAST
It seems that the comments made by the Harvard president have dredged up a large number of long-standing misconceptions about women and their ability to succeed in science. What the Harvard
president didn't dredge up, some news commentators have. The most common arguments about the lack of women in physics have little to do with science and nothing to do with fact. The mystery is in figuring out why these arguments persist, in spite of having been debunked many times. Why is it so culturally necessary to "prove" that women are inferior in the mathematical and physical sciences, in spite of all evidence to the contrary? Here are some examples from over half a century ago. To wit:
1. Women's brains are smaller than men's. This is perhaps true, because women, on average, are smaller than men. However, there is no correlation between brain size and intelligence. Elephants and whales are not demonstrably smarter than people. Small men are not less intellegent than large men. Einstein was not a large man.
2. Women don't have the spatial reasoning ability that men do. C. J. Lapp, Teaching Engineering Physics, Am. J. Phys. 8 (1940), 346-354. Teachers of physical science and engineering seem agreed that the ability to build and hold images of geometric figures is a factor of primary importance; but, so far as is known to the writer, all attempts made to prove that this factor makes for success in physics have been conspicuously unsuccessful.
3. Women aren't as good at science as men.
Sister M. Ambrosia, Teaching Physics to Women, Am. J. Phys. 8 (1940), 289-290. A study of tables issued by the Cooperative Test Service had brought an interesting fact to light. In practically all percentiles, women had scored as high as the men on the test in Sound. Later investigations may show that the Sound test was at fault...
4. Women don't want to go into physics.
Sr. Mary Theresa, BVM, Some reasons why physics is elected by so few freshmen students; Suggested remedial measures, Am. J. Phys. 13 (1945), 45-46. 52% of the women students expressed the opinion that the profession of physics is definitely closed to them in normal times that it does not offer women the opportunities that biology and chemistry do.
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Damn, this stuff drives me crazy. I cannot tell you the number of studies that I have read that state that there is no difference at all. Rinse and repeat this several times.
People seem to think that because there is no outright discrimination...that there is no discrimination anymore. I guess that the problem is too diffuse for people to get handle on...much less care about...it is akin to many other issues (poverty, traffic of sex workers, etc.).
Just the other day I ran into a former male colleague of mine. He was looking through a generalized scientific journal...not too in depth. Anyway, he was glancing at a picture of Saturn...and it was very clear that it was indeed a picture of Saturn (especially with the caption written below). I looked over at the picture...and trying to make conversation said, "Hey did you hear about Titan and the Huygens probe?". I think a rather direct statement. And he said, "No, Jenny that's not Titan...that's Saturn. Can't you tell the difference?". Now, that's the problem in a nutshell...not a big knock at me...but a rather subtle one. The problem is that all of those little knocks add up over time. Gee, why is it so easy to believe that a certain sect or portion of society must be inferior...based on appearance, gender, etc. Why do we have to put others down to make ourselves feel better?
posted by JSK at 01:06AM CST on January 26