Gates replies: Vicente Aboites poses an important question: Why should the physics community care about the number of women in its ranks? Or the number of minorities for that matter? The most compelling reason is because we want to create and work within a system that is fair and unbiased, a system that identifies, encourages, and supports the brightest and most motivated scientists and science students.
The difficulty is convincing some members of our community that we are not yet a pure meritocracy. Many male and female physicists believe that, as Kamyar Hazaveh states, “the playing field has been level for a while”—that they themselves, and their colleagues, are completely gender neutral in all of their scientific interactions with colleagues and students. Unfortunately, this is not true for any of us. Physicists are human and we are subject to the cultural and social influences that pervade society.
The evidence that gender inequalities in science continue is presented in the references of my original piece, and in the more recent report, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering (National Academies Press, 2006). I strongly recommend this report to all the letter writers and anyone else interested in this issue. The report’s authors do an excellent job of presenting and summarizing, in far more detail than is possible here, statistics on women in science and engineering, current data on gender biases in academia, and institutions’ structural obstacles that impede the progress of women and minorities. The authors also offer specific recommendations for addressing the inequities.
Jerry and Wei Smith would like to believe that these gender biases do not exist—an attitude that is not supported by the data.
The data also do not support Joseph Spicatum’s hypothesis that the low percentage of women in physics can be explained by a combination of gender differences in ability and interest. His first point, that the gender imbalance is due to a difference in mathematical ability at the very high end, has two problems. The ratio of 13:1 he quotes arises from studies done in the early 1980s. 1 If that ratio reflects an innate difference between males and females at the highest end of the mathematical-ability spectrum, it should remain constant over time. It has not. This same study has been repeated by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University several times since 1983. The ratio decreased to 5.7:1 in 1994 and to 4:1 in 1997; and the most recent data from the Johns Hopkins group show a 3:1 ratio. 2 Obviously, one should be careful in interpreting these results. Perhaps we should wait until the data have stopped moving before drawing strong conclusions from them. Second, mathematical genius as defined by high math scores is not a prerequisite for success in science and engineering. Fewer than one-third of college-educated professional men employed in science and engineering have SAT math scores above 650. 3
Spicatum’s second argument is that women, even those with high math ability, are less interested in physics. If this is true, we need to ask why. Physics is a broad and fascinating field, from cosmology to nanotechnology to medical physics. The low number of women in undergraduate physics programs (23%) cannot be explained by some purported innate lack of interest in the physical sciences and math; chemistry undergraduates are nearly 50% female, and chemistry is inherently no more “feminine” in its subject matter or work environment than physics. Women also earn close to 50% of undergraduate degrees in mathematics, so interest in math seems to be independent of gender. (Data from the American Institute of Physics Statistical Research Center are available at http://www.aip.org/statistics.)
The field of computer science may hold some interesting lessons that we can apply to our own field. For example, an article in the 18 December 2005 issue of the Boston Globe explored the dramatic drop in the number of young women studying computer science and questioned why women were “shunning a field once seen as welcoming.” The percentage of bachelor’s degrees in computer science awarded to women rose to a high of 37% in the mid-1980s before declining to about 27%—and lower at research institutions—by 1998. Innate differences in interest do not change over such short time periods; however, the culture within computer science experienced dramatic changes during that period as huge numbers of students flocking into the rapidly growing field strained departmental resources.
We need to identify the reasons why young women view physics as a less appealing, less welcoming, or less viable option for them, as opposed to math or chemistry, for example. We can then act on Hazaveh’s suggestion to make a career in physics more attractive to incoming students. This is not, of course, a recommendation that we change the subject matter or lower standards of success in physics courses. But if we find, for example, that a major factor in choosing a career path is the belief that physics is an essentially masculine avocation, it is our responsibility to counteract that view. We need to make it clear that physics is an exciting and rewarding field that will offer equal support, encouragement, and opportunities to students of any race or gender. And then we need to work to make sure that statement is true. At the same time, we also must determine if a failure to retain already interested and talented female students is a factor.
Such attitudes as those expressed by Smith and Smith and by Spicatum are not just unsupported, they are damaging. Work by Claude Steele and others on stereotype threat, 4 for example, demonstrates the negative impact that expectations based on stereotypes of race and gender have on performance. A belief that women are less able or less interested in physics will be transmitted to students and potential students and will affect their performance and their decisions. Physics is a challenging subject, and even subtle discouragement—or lack of encouragement—will help to perpetuate the problem.
The National Academies report concludes that “it is not lack of talent, but unintentional biases and outmoded institutional structures that are hindering the access and advancement of women.” E. O. LaCasce and Robert Adair identify some of the structural impediments. (Although I have to admit that Adair’s focus on reproductive biology was somewhat disconcerting.) They note that traditional physics tracks may pose problems for married physicists and those with children. That issue affects young physicists of both genders, as child-rearing responsibilities become more equally shared and dual-career couples become more common. Creative solutions—in the form of flexible tenure clocks, reasonable maternity/paternity leave policies, active mentoring programs, and dual-career-partner hiring initiatives—are already being implemented at some institutions. Such programs can improve the academic climate for all scientists.
