Women in spaaaaaace

So Phil Plait, a nice guy to be sure, has made another preening post wringing his hands about the lamentable status of women in the field of science. I don’t know about you, but when I look around the office here, I don’t see women doing too badly.

I am not an expert in gender diversity in the sciences, but through my reading and talking about it with scientists, it appears that big strides have been made in the past decade or two, but the goal of gender equity is obviously still a ways off.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/29/women-as-planetary-science-role-models/

“The goal of gender equity”. As if it’s a given. I don’t understand how leftists make this argument. The goal of gender equity amongst nurses and hair stylists is still a long way off. However, it should always be a long way off, or near, or past it, depending solely upon the free decisions of individuals who want to enter the field. I don’t want the leviathan to coerce the people to go into certain fields based upon what is basically a religion, Phil’s not doing that here though:

One thing I do know is that all disciplines need role models, and I just found out about an interesting web site called Women in Planetary Sciences (motto: "Women make up half the bodies in the solar system. Why not half the scientists?") which has a series of interviews with women planetary scientists. I know a few of these folks — like Emily Lakdawalla, Heidi Hammel, and Sara Seager, names that may be familiar to regular BA readers — and reading their stories is pretty interesting.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/29/women-as-planetary-science-role-models/

You know what? Fine. I’m fine with passive role-models being made available to girls to get them into science. This is activism that is not forced down our throats like the fascistic 40% women on boards law. I find his motto telling. "Women make up half the bodies in the solar system. Why not half the scientists?". This confuses me slightly. Why not half the scientists? Because women and men are not the same. It’s not even a question to me that women and men will trend to different things, we have different minds and different bodies. It’s not a burr in my psyche that this is true, it’s not something that I’m going to victimize myself over or toss and turn at night over.

Posted under: Gender Issues, Feminism, Liberty and Freedom, Victim Complex
Posted on: Tuesday, May 03, 2011 10:56 AM
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Comments

  1. Posted by: A loving wife on 5/11/2011 2:46 AM
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    Yes, we are different. The concept feminists need to grasp is that different does not mean inferior. Different just means...different. We women should celebrate who we are, not try to prove our worth by being more like or as strong/smart as a man. By setting as a standard something that men have done, we are only accepting as a premise that they are indeed superior.

    I don't understand how women (or anyone) can stomach being recognized for achievements based not on their skills but on some other factor, like gender, or race. I think Affirmative Action in any form is an insult both to those who don't fall in the minority group, as well as to those in the minority group who are truly skilled.
  2. Posted by: Allison on 1/3/2012 3:06 PM
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    Looking at your self-description, you sound almost exactly like me in terms of beliefs. ("He is a libertarian, atheist, anti-feminist, anti-P.C., science-loving sceptical individualist." Just replace "libertarian" with "conservative" and you've got me.) Regarding your post, I agree that the victim complex is obnoxious. I agree that quotas are harmful. But as a woman interested in science, I have to disagree with the idea that there is no sexism in the sciences.

    First, some background about myself. I graduated first in my class of 414 students in my high school. I was one of three students in New York State to receive a perfect score in the Mathematics League competition in 2008. I received a perfect score of 800 on the Mathematics II and Physics SAT subject tests. I scored a 5, the highest score, on the AP Calculus BC exam and the AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism exam, despite my school not offering those subjects at the time. I adore math and physics and hope to spend my life as a research scientist. My point in telling you this is to emphasize that, perhaps while women in general just aren't as interested in or good at math and physics as men are, I am not one of those women.

    Story time. Back in 2006, I participated in Brookhaven Lab's Community Summer Science Program (CSSP), a program to introduce students to Brookhaven's scientists and facilities in addition to some hands-on lab work, and it was the happiest time of my life. The people running CSSP had given us the impression that since we had participated in it, we were almost guaranteed a spot in Brookhaven's High School Research Program (HSRP), in which we would actually assist a scientist with research. So I was surprised when I didn't get in when I applied the next year; I had been one of the most active and enthusiastic participants in CSSP, particularly during physics week, and I felt I was more than qualified based on my application. My friends from CSSP were shocked I didn't get in. When I asked the program director about it, he told me it was because it was very competitive and because I hadn't contacted any scientists. (I was under the impression that I should only contact scientists if I wanted to do research with them during the school year, which I wouldn't have been able to.)

    Ok, so that was a mistake on my part; perhaps I would have gotten in if I had contacted scientists. But I knew another girl who had made a huge effort to contact scientists, and even contacted the director of HSRP to ask him to help her get in contact with scientists, and she received responses from no one. Unlike me, she was smart and didn't put all her eggs in one basket, and ended up getting into another research program, where she went on to receive awards and recognition for her work with another student. But my point is that if anyone should have gotten into HSRP, it was her.

    Then I found out that of the seven girls who had participated in CSSP, only one got into HSRP, and of the 16 participants in HSRP, only three were girls. When the proportions are that different, and knowing that at least seven girls had applied, I have to suspect that sexism is at play. (I know that nepotism was also at play; many of the HSRP participants had parents working at Brookhaven.) Obviously, I can't prove that sexism was the reason most of the CSSP girls didn't get in to HSRP, and I can think of other explanations (for example, perhaps the boys who applied really were more qualified, though I somehow doubt that), but I don't think it's fair to rule out sexism just for the sake of being anti-feminist and anti-victim complex.

    Since I didn't get into HSRP, I looked for other research programs to get into. Unfortunately, by that point, it was pretty close to summer and most scientists had their plans set for the summer. A friend agreed to look for research with me, and we contacted scientists at a nearby university to see if they would lead us in research. Most had their plans set for the summer, but I managed to get in contact with two who agreed to lead us in neutron star research, and we set up a meeting. At the meeting, one of the scientists paid much more attention to my friend (who is a male) than to me, even though I was the one who had been corresponding with him through email; he made eye contact with him much more and pointed out things on a research paper to him in such a way that it made it rather hard for me to see. When I worded something about gravity a little bit wrong, he gave me a dirty look as he corrected me. I thought that maybe he was being so hostile to me because I was sleep-deprived and maybe seemed a little out of it, but that doesn't explain why the other scientist was treating my friend and I equally.

    Anyway, the research ended up falling through because the scientists just didn't have time to work with us. But I've experienced that same sort of glare when I've talked to other male scientists; it's a look like, "You're stupid, you shouldn't be talking about this." And when I brought up my experience with the Stony Brook scientist to a female scientist, she said, "Oh yeah, you'll get that a lot."

    Fortunately, the vast majority of my experience with science and math has been more than positive, and I am thankful for the male teachers, professors, and other men in my life who have treated me as an equal or even as a superior when it comes to math and science. But that doesn't mean that there's no sexism in math and science.

    You might still say, "So what if there's sexism? Why is it important for women to be in science, as long as research gets done?" Consider this: http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/

    So what do I propose as a solution? In cases of things like applications to scientific research programs, I would propose hiding the names and any other information about applicants that would reveal gender; that should eliminate biases against women without imposing a quota. Other than that, I'm not really sure. But I'm optimistic that things are getting better for women, given the increasing number of women earning degrees in the sciences. As for me, I plan on advancing myself in science by working as hard as I can at it (following Study Hacks' Cal Newport's advice of "becoming so good they can't ignore you") and having faith in the meritocratic nature of my country. And if I do encounter more sexism? That'll encourage me to work all the harder.

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