Empower girls to become scientists

In the United States only 21.5 percent of US females entering college after high school graduation plan on majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.  This statistic is curious because girls and boys take the same classes in math and science in high school.

Clearly something happens in high school to dissuade girls to pursue a career in the sciences. Even though the fields are open them, why do girls not envision themselves as scientists or engineers?  

The reasons why girls are not encouraged goes beyond the preconceptions about high school because even if they pursue the sciences, there are professional obstacles.  Not that long ago in 2005 an economist, and then president of Harvard, Lawrence Summer gave a speech at The National Bureau of Economic Research at Harvard University where he related archaic, misogynistic views of why fewer women were tenured scientists and engineers on university faculties.

According to the Association for University Professors, Summer’s remarks catered to outdated pseudo-science in describing the dearth of women in engineering and science.  “1) women are unwilling or unable to work the eighty-hour weeks required for success in science at top-flight academic institutions; 2) innate or biological factors, not socialization, probably account for sex differences in mathematical aptitude and also for adult choices of fields of academic study and occupation; 3) discrimination, which he defined as a ‘taste’ for hiring people like oneself, does not exist in academia because market forces eliminate it when less elite institutions hire highly qualified women and minorities, thereby gaining a competitive advantage.”

These remarks ignited a national debate about women and science, and Summer was forced to resign from Harvard one year later.  The fact that he suggested there were innate aptitude differences between men and women conjures allusions in previous centuries when African-Americans were considered less intelligent than Caucasians, therefore only suitable for menial labor.  Or that intelligence could be determined by reading the bumps on someone’s head, which was a pseudo-science called phrenology before being debunked.  It’s astonishing that in the 21st Century an academician would even consider such archaic ideas.  

Citing women are unable to work an eighty-hour week is just wrong on a couple of levels.  First of all, women are more than capable of working as long as necessary and working moms can testify to the fact.  Second, working eighty hours a week is not the best working condition for anyone and gender does not enter into it. 

Some believe like in the article in “Wired” that women scientists have been largely ignored, except for the exceptional Marie Curie; therefore, women lack role models in science and do not envision the pursuit of career in those fields. 

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As a society, we need to learn about and celebrate a diverse population of important female innovators.  “When we do, girls will gain Grace Hopper, who was one of the most important—and colorful—computer scientists in history; Marie Tharp, who mapped the ocean floor and saw evidence of continental drift years before her partner or others in the scientific community accepted the idea; Virginia Apgar, whose scoring system for newborns has saved countless babies' lives; and Inge Lehmann, who discovered Earth's inner core,” they said.  Sexism, however, has been evident in professional scientific fields which prevented prominent women from being recognized or credited with achievements.

Sexism in the sciences

One of the most astonishing oversights was recognition of Rosalind Franklin a British biophysicist who studied DNA and contributed to the work done by Crick and Watson both of whom went on to receive the Nobel Prize. Franklin died four years before they were awarded the prize, and it’s never given posthumously.  But even if she had lived, her achievements would have been overlooked because she was female, according to report on sexism by National Geographic.

Ruth Lewin Sime, a retired chemistry professor at Sacramento City College who has written on women in science noted that female researchers throughout the centuries have had to work as "volunteer" faculty members, seen credit for significant discoveries they've made assigned to male colleagues, and been written out of textbooks, they said in the report.

In addition, women typically had limited resources and fought uphill battles to achieve, only "to have the credit attributed to their husbands or male colleagues," said Anne Lincoln, a sociologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas, who studies biases against women in the sciences.

Some women scientists believe that attitudes have changed, said Laura Hoopes at Pomona College in California, who has written extensively on women in the sciences—"until it hits them in the face." Bias against female scientists is less overt, but it has not gone away.

Attributing status and well-earned recognition to women in the many fields of science for their accomplishments will encourage girls even in elementary school that they can not only be high achievers in science, but also attain prominence in professions as well academia.  

Universities and colleges must weed out those who choose to stigmatize women and girls as lesser human beings than men. Women and minorities have had to struggle for property rights, equal protection under the law, voting rights and social justice in the last few hundred years.  The fight will not be over until young girls visualize themselves as scientists and engineers, and women are recognized for their achievements on an equal plane with men and rewarded commensurate with their abilities.

Even more than changes at high levels of education, children’s books and television shows need to portray girls who excel in sports, scientific inquiry, and young entrepreneurs in addition to the traditional roles.  Females are over half of the population, and every girl and woman should have the opportunity to an advanced education in the sciences and a rewarding career without struggling to overcome bias and misogyny.   

Resources
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/women-in-sciene/
http://www.aaup.org/article/why-are-we-still-worried-about-women-science#.VRwf3rfQPcs
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/