Why aren't there more women in science? It's a dilemma that receives a lot of attention. There's more than a few ways of looking at this, but reading about the subject, you will first be convinced of a long history of women's contributions to science, for example at the website: "4000 Years of Women in Science". You'll also learn that throughout the millennia, women succeeded as scientists. You can find evidence of this in accounts such as, "Women in Science: A Selection of 16 Significant Contributors". 16 contributors, 4000 years, that's distorted. But if you're interested in seeing women get ahead in science, as an educator or young scientist, the real odds still might send you into a morose spiral, worsened when you realize how relentless the message will be. Year after year the same grants announcing the same basic questions, the same studies launched to puzzle quizzically over the same conundrum, ending up with the same conclusion.
Getting more personal, you could delve into biographies of women, classics of famous scientists like Barbara McClintock, and Rita Levi-Montalcini are readily available. Born in the beginning of the 20th century, these two women are/were (McClintock passed away in 1992) highly intelligent, tenacious and gutsy. Barbara McClintock discovered transposable elements that can introduce DNA into distant parts of the genome in certain conditions. Levi-Montalcini discovered nerve-growth factor. Both received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.The biographies tell of singularly driven individuals who labored deep into the night, who made tremendous contributions to science under conditions we would consider adverse.
If you were going to write a book, you might not consider a biography in this genre, one that tells some variation, some essence, of an American dream, of woman scientists renowned for their 20th century contributions and work ethics. However, "A Feeling for the Organism", Barbara McClintock's biography that was first published in 1984, has now been released in its 10th edition. These are timeless classics, and in their characterizations of women at the bench, struggling with firmed jaw against the odds and naysayers, carry a disconcerting longevity. It's almost ominous, as though these mythical struggling women scientists forever hover about our schools, presented this year and the next by earnest teachers in our classrooms as grim reminders of past struggles. Their ghosts might haunt women in their labs...work later?...um...what would Barbara McClintock do?
It seems that in many areas of public life we are afflicted by memory failures about history that are the bane of international relations, public policy, and banking. But as far as women and science goes, there's almost too much history, an endless recounting of a dark time in not so long ago in never forgotten past. According to the AAAS Benchmarks for science education, by the time a student graduates from 8th grade, they should have internalized the following:
"Until recently, women and racial minorities, because of restrictions on their education and employment opportunities, were essentially left out of much of the formal work of the science establishment; the remarkable few who overcame those obstacles were even then likely to have their work disregarded by the science establishment."[italics added]
The AAAS "benchmarks" were updated in 1993, but are still listed on the site as current. The astute 8th grader might deduce from the evidence as presented in the "benchmarks" that nothing has changed for women in science in her own lifetime -- since 1993. The present 8th grader might wonder what the AAAS means by "recently"? Before I was born she might wonder? An ancient time, like 1992? Or are we talking 1960,1940, or when Levi-Montalcini was born in 1909? Can the AAAS update this to give a date when they think things actually turned around? Or are women in science forever just about to turn the corner of milk and honey and equal opportunity?
Teachers are advised to let make their students understand by leaving 8th grade that "no matter who does science and mathematics or invents things, or when or where they do it, the knowledge and technology that result can eventually become available to everyone in the world." Which I suppose could mean that if you do science, no matter who you are, everyone in the world will recognize your work. Alternatively it could mean that if your don't go into science, you would still be able to access it even if you live in a remote village in Africa. A democratic interpretation either way.
You'll see articles that make it look like things are looking up. Nature last week reported in "Equal pay for women in science is achievable" about a study for the University of Arizona Hospital. (Originally published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine: A. L. Wright et al. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 22, 1398 - 1402; 2007). The U. or A. researchers recounted "administrative changes" at the University of Arizona that equalized pay between men and women and improved upon their previous study: "Unequal Pay for Equal Work in the Annals of Medicine (2005). The first study found that in 2000, the University had a total of 375 staff, men were getting paid $117,598, and women only $105,148, 89.4% of the male total. The new paper reports that by 2004, the University had 445 staff, men were paid $132,770, and women $124,108, 93.5% of the male total. To achieve this, the University gave 21 women raises of an average $17,000 over 4 years. The authors concluded: "This study shows that gender disparities in compensation can be reduced through careful documentation, identification of comparable individuals paid different salaries, and commitment from leadership to hold the appropriate person accountable."
A cynical person might say that transforming basic cost of living allowance into gestures of grand social reform, then parlaying these into an academic publication is probably a helpful recruiting tool for the University of Arizona. And though pay raises always help, a more thorough review of the study doesn't necessarily reveal all you would need to know to feel that the changes were meaningful, or that women will be any more emancipated from the U or A's magnanimous effort. Is 4% more pay equality really such an achievement? It's 2007, after all.
Moreover, academic science and engineering still suffer from inequality. Almost any month, one could find a study on this, this month we can report on a hearing before the House Committee on Science and Technology on Women in Academic Science and Engineering , which happened October 17th. The committee adjoined to hear from university presidents and woman administrators about the state of women in science. According to a 2003 NSF study, women at that time only held 28 percent of all full-time science and engineering faculty positions,18 percent of full professors, 31 percent of associate professors and 40 percent of assistant professors.
During the hearings college presidents including Donna Shalala (President U. Miami), and Dr. Kathie L Olsen (Deputy Director National Science Foundation) testified on the Report of The National Academies: Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the potential of Women in Science and Engineering. According to their accounts women still face "significant barriers in every field of science and engineering", including bias, barriers to promotion, cultural barriers, institutional barriers to women's success, disparities in professional assessments and rewards, difficulty in achieving a balance between work and family and even lingering discrimination. The women who reported to the committee also report some progress, but most was in undergraduate education. Any major University should be able to reach into it's pocket and pull out a couple of dollars to achieve equal pay. But what about these challenges?
Yet science work can be rewarding and women continue to enter science, despite a plethora of other opportunities. So young women are counseled not to lose hope. Despite AAAS's firm reminders of "recent" history, and despite evidence that some of that history still lingers, the "benchmark" recommendations are upbeat on science careers for kids: "Above all, children in early adolescence need to see science and science-related careers as a real option for themselves personally."
