Science and women

Un e qual ac cess to re sources and gen der-linked lifestyle choices may be to blame for the cur rent un der rep re¬senta t ion of wom en in sci ence, re search ers say.

Ste phen Ceci and Wendy Wil liams of Cor nell Uni vers ity in Ith a ca, N.Y. re viewed 20 years of pre vi ously gen er at¬ed da ta on gen der dis crimina t ion and the state of wom en in sci ence. They con clud ed that pro grams to fight dis¬crimina t ion in the work place seem to have suc ceeded, and that oth er fac tors probably ex plain to day’s paucity of wom en in math-intensive fields.

Al though dis crimina t ion in the sci ence field does oc cur, the pair sug gested, in ci dents are rare, rel a tively mi nor and work as of ten in fa vor of wom en as against them. Men and wom en of

com pa ra ble re sources pub lish si m i lar quantity and qual ity of work, gain near-equal grant fund ing, and earn si m i lar pro mo tions and salaries, the re¬search ers al so found.

But, they said, few er wom en than men pur sue ca reers in sci ence be cause wom en are more likely to make per son al choic es—both freely and un der pres sure—that ham per their ad vance ment. These in clude de fer ring a ca reer to raise chil dren, fol¬low ing a spouse, or car ing for par ents.

Re port ing their find ings in this week’s early on line is sue of the re search jour nal Pro¬ceed ings of the Na tio n al Aca de my of Sci en ces, Ceci and Wil liams warned that con tin¬ued fo cus on dis crimina t ion may be a costly and mis placed. Ef forts should in stead be aimed to ward educa t ion and pol i cy changes to bet ter ad dress the un der ly ing fac tors that dis cour age wom en from be com ing sci en tists, they ar gued.

“Ex plana t ions for wom en’s un der rep re senta t ion in math-intensive fields of sci ence of ten fo cus on sex dis¬crimina t ion,” for ex am ple in hir ing and grant mak ing, they wrote. While those may well have been the key fac¬tor in the past, they added, “wom en’s un der rep re senta t ion to day re sults from a com plex set of in ter re lat ed fac¬tors, some of which so ci e ty could mean ing fully ad dress if the fo cus was placed squarely on them. One key to such suc cess is mov ing be yond his tor i cal is sues and con fronting cur rent ones.”