UpClose: In sciences, female-faculty ‘leak’ begins early
As a college student, Joan Steitz was fascinated by science.
A chemistry major, Steitz stumbled upon molecular biology — then an emerging field — while assisting senior scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through her laboratory stint, Steitz even befriended James Watson, one of the scientists responsible for discovering the DNA double helix. At the time, though, Steitz was something of an anomaly in the science world: she was a woman, the first, in fact, to join Watson’s laboratory. And without many female role models, becoming a top researcher was far from her...
interesting article, but i have to say that in my time as an undergraduate i've seen a couple of articles like this one which highlight the gender imbalance in the sciences/engineering at yale but not a one which mentions the econ department (or math or statistics for that matter). i guess it's a sad commentary on the fact that nobody pays any attention until someone like Meg Urry really takes a stand and is outspoken about gender disparity in his or her department. where is the equivalent of WISAY for women in math or econ at yale? are there any mentoring programs or support groups specific to these two departments at yale which have very low female to male ratios (in terms of tenured professors, i think it might still be 0 in the math department...)? (the answer is: not that i know of...)
I guess those departments need to wait until there is someone like Meg Urry or Prof Shankar who is outspoken about gender inequality for the incredible gender disparity in those departments to be worthy ydn article material....
Good article. One point: it makes much of "gender schemas" but then does little to point out (or ridicule, which is what it deserves) the fact that lots o womyn at Yale settle for WGSS--where they proceed to b*tch about the lack of women scientists--rather than BECOMING scientists.
Weird.
Great article! I'm no expert on women's issues, but my impression is that the women's movement has largely worked. Women are doing better at the high school level than men and graduating college at higher rates, too. I think Butler's quote - the one about 10 to 15-year old pools - has a lot of truth to it. I think a lot of this will sort itself out in time.
You can't hire a 50% female faculty when 15% of job applicants are female. Not only will that OVER-represent women in proportion to the number of well-qualified candidates, it will create an association between crappy science and female faculty. That's something to be avoided, for women's sake. If the science faculty is to represent the sexes equally, change must begin with the number of women entering graduate school.
http://xkcd.com/385/
Sad but true.
http://xkcd.com/385/
true that all girls suck at math, but that's funny not sad
HA! I was going to agree w/poster #3... then was SHOCKED to think that someone had hijacked my nick.. then pleased to realize how OLD is this article, and that I still agree with myself!
interesting article... fascinating read.