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Jewish World Review April 14, 2005 / 5 Nisan, 5765 What math gender gap? By Laura Vanderkam
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Freshmen at Harvard University are choosing their majors this month, and Nicole Ali from St. Paul is leaning toward biophysics. That's no surprise. In fourth grade, when most science projects involve vinegar volcanoes, Ali focused on the polymer foundations of different industrial materials. In high school, she conducted research on growing blood-forming stem cells outside the body, work she's continuing in Harvard's labs.
Yes, Harvard — the university that has stumbled, like a cow into a river of piranhas, into the debate over women in science. I chatted with Ali in late March, just after Harvard's faculty gave president Lawrence Summers a "no-confidence" vote, in part for his recent statements suggesting that differing abilities might explain why women don't go into science and engineering. Critics wailed that girls are taught to think they can't do science and math.
Ali was puzzled by the fuss. After all, she told me, "there isn't any noticeable difference" in the number of men and women in her science classes. That said, Ali is going into physics with a "bio" in front. It's a subtle distinction. But in this debate, it's key.
For all of the noise, young women are going into some sciences. Women earn 46% of biology Ph.D.s. They fill more than half of incoming medical school classes. It's just that their proportion in pure physical sciences, while rising, remains low. But physics isn't tougher than biophysics, which suggests that these choices have little to do with aptitude or confidence. In fact, studies suggest girls simply don't view pure math and physics as practical or varied enough to justify the slog to professorship.
Since that's partly the nature of these subjects, gender parity is unlikely. But some savvy marketing from university departments would nudge the ratio up.
As a recovering math nerd myself, I've long pondered the questions Summers raised about women's career choices. I scored a perfect 800 on the math section of the SAT when I took it in eighth grade. Yet, while my brothers chose math-oriented fields, I did not.
Wrong script
The politically correct script would say society somehow steered me away or convinced me math was too tough. Since this script is widely believed, schools stage various interventions to assure girls that they, too, can become math whizzes.
Last week's National Council of Teachers of Mathematics convention in Anaheim, Calif., touted the theme "Embracing Mathematical Diversity" — i.e., closing achievement gaps by teaching that mathematicians come in all stripes. But I didn't doubt my abilities. I had no fear of raising my hand in class or trouncing boys on tests. Few bright girls do. Today's young women have grown up in a more equitable world than our mothers did.
The same day Summers got his no-confidence vote, Intel announced its annual Science Talent Search winner. Surprisingly, it was a boy. Girls had won four of the past seven years.
Yet, in college and grad school, gifted girls choose medicine over physics and biology over engineering. In 2003, just 18% of physics Ph.D.s went to women, and 17% of engineering Ph.D.s.
Different choices
Recent studies suggest why. One, from the University of Michigan, surveyed young Michigan scientists' career choices. Women in the sample said they viewed pure math and physics careers as isolating and not so helpful to society. Since they saw themselves as people-oriented, they chose biology research or health instead.
In the second, Vanderbilt University researchers tracked students who, like me, scored well on the math part of the SAT at age 13. They found that mathematically gifted girls had broader talents. They often had high verbal SAT scores as well, while mathematically gifted boys tilted to the math side. Students with high verbal scores were less likely to pursue math or physical sciences. They didn't believe these fields would do all of their talents justice.
Much of math is now theoretical. Physics requires fewer verbal skills than medicine. I decided that writing could incorporate my love of math and science better than math could incorporate writing. These fields will never achieve total gender parity. But they could come closer. They'll need to if we want to maintain our supply of engineers and train enough Americans to do the math and physics work that supports our national security, because men are starting to shy from these fields, too. The number of science and engineering Ph.D.s awarded to U.S. citizens fell 12% between 1998 and 2002.
The trick is to appeal to women's helpful, multitalented sides.
"Math and science are relevant," says Kay Dee, an associate professor of applied biology and biomedical engineering at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. "Engineering is all about using math and science to help people. You don't have to just sit in a room and think about numbers all day."
Yet that's the impression out there. To counter it, university departments should push professors to write for popular publications alongside scholarly ones. Math needs a Stephen Jay Gould writing about how a team cracked a spy code; engineering needs a Sylvia Earle describing how a better water system saved a Nepalese village.
Universities should make sure young women see their professors rewarded for great teaching, alongside research. That way, they'll learn that math and engineering involve many talents — as well as helping people, just as medicine does.
Undergraduate and graduate programs can streamline requirements so students can study more music or art, and tenure tracks should be flexible enough that young professors have time outside the lab. Above all, people should realize young women don't doubt their talents.
"As far as girls at Harvard go, if they're in science, they're not going to give any weight to what Larry Summers has to say about them," Ali says.
But if math, physics and engineering fields want those talents, they should worry what girls think of them.
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Comment on JWR contributor Laura Vanderkam's column by clicking here. © 2005, Laura Vanderkam |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
