Whitten replies: Our article is a report on the results of a specific project, not a discussion of all issues associated with women in physics. I agree that pay equity and the tenure system are important issues; however, they did not come up in our interviews.
The article discusses family-friendly policies at length because we were struck by the disconnect between the attitudes of administrators and the needs of young faculty. If administrators were to see family-friendly policies as recruiting devices rather than as additions to ever-increasing benefits packages, they might recruit and retain a talented, diverse, and very committed faculty.
Child care is certainly of interest to all parents, and many young men have brought the issue up in our interviews. However, female physicists are much more likely than males to be married to other scientists (68% as opposed to 17%). So family-friendly policies or lack thereof are more likely to affect the careers of young women physicists.
I agree with Chris Paulse that much progress has been made for women in physics, but the very low participation by women, especially compared with that in related fields like mathematics and chemistry, remains a puzzle. I have no idea whether women are less disposed to wonder about ohms, carburetors, and quarks; I certainly find them all fascinating. Nor do I know what the “ideal” gender balance in physics might be. I do know, after 40 years in this field, that many women who are interested and talented in physics are driven out by the chilly climate. Their leaving is a loss to the people involved and to the physics community. This loss is what our project is designed to investigate and, if possible, to mitigate. We began our article with statistics because many people find statistics more compelling than anecdotal arguments. For more personal testimony, I suggest Evelyn Fox Keller’s essay “The Anomaly of a Woman in Physics” and “Never Meant to Survive, A Black Woman’s Journey: An Interview with Evelynn Hammonds” by Aimee Sands. 1
Paulse seems to suggest that improving the quantitative skills of our students and attracting more women to the field are mutually exclusive. I do not know of anyone who suggests that the level of mathematical rigor in physics should be lowered to attract more women. There is considerable evidence that the women who drop out of physics do so with as high a performance as the men who stay. See, for example, Mary Fehrs and Roman Czujko’s article (Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 45 8 1992 33 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.881315 August 1992, page 33 ) and reference 3 of our article. That evidence indicates that lack of ability is not what causes women to leave physics.
It is my hope that the improvements in climate that we suggest will help more young women continue on to careers in physics.
