Posted on 03/11/2008 6:25:36 AM PDT by doc30
Women earn most of America’s Ph.D.’s but lag in the physical sciences. Beware of plans to fix the ‘problem.’
difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” It is legendary among high school math prodigies, who hear terrifying stories about it in their computer camps and at the Math Olympiads. Some go to Harvard just to have the opportunity to enroll in it. Its formal title is “Honors Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra,” but it is also known as “math boot camp” and “a cult.” The two-semester freshman course meets for three hours a week, but, as the catalog says, homework for the class takes between 24 and 60 hours a week.
Math 55 does not look like America. Each year as many as 50 students sign up, but at least half drop out within a few weeks. As one former student told The Crimson newspaper in 2006, “We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.” Said another student, “I guess you can say it’s an episode of ‘Survivor’ with people voting themselves off.” The final class roster, according to The Crimson: “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male.”
Why do women avoid classes like Math 55? Why, in fact, are there so few women in the high echelons of academic math and in the physical sciences?
Women now earn 57 percent of bachelors degrees and 59 percent of masters degrees. According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2006 was the fifth year in a row in which the majority of research Ph.D.’s awarded to U.S. citizens went to women. Women earn more Ph.D.’s than men in the humanities, social sciences, education, and life sciences. Women now serve as presidents of Harvard, MIT, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and other leading research universities. But elsewhere, the figures are different. Women comprise just 19 percent of tenure-track professors in math, 11 percent in physics, 10 percent in computer science, and 10 percent in electrical engineering. And the pipeline does not promise statistical parity any time soon: women are now earning 24 percent of the Ph.D.’s in the physical sciences—way up from the 4 percent of the 1960s, but still far behind the rate they are winning doctorates in other fields. “The change is glacial,” says Debra Rolison, a physical chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory.
Rolison, who describes herself as an “uppity woman,” has a solution. A popular anti–gender bias lecturer, she gives talks with titles like “Isn’t a Millennium of Affirmative Action for White Men Sufficient?” She wants to apply Title IX to science education. Title IX, the celebrated gender equity provision of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, has so far mainly been applied to college sports. But the measure is not limited to sports. It provides, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex...be denied the benefits of...any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
sports, it has also caused serious damage, in part because it has led to the adoption of a quota system. Over the years, judges, Department of Education officials, and college administrators have interpreted Title IX to mean that women are entitled to “statistical proportionality.” That is to say, if a college’s student body is 60 percent female, then 60 percent of the athletes should be female—even if far fewer women than men are interested in playing sports at that college. But many athletic directors have been unable to attract the same proportion of women as men. To avoid government harassment, loss of funding, and lawsuits, they have simply eliminated men’s teams. Although there are many factors affecting the evolution of men’s and women’s college sports, there is no question that Title IX has led to men’s participation being calibrated to the level of women’s interest. That kind of calibration could devastate academic science.
But unfortunately, in her enthusiasm for Title IX, Rolison is not alone.
On October 17, 2007, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology convened to learn why women are “underrepresented” in academic professorships of science and engineering and to consider what the federal government should do about it.
As a rule, women tend to gravitate to fields such as education, English, psychology, biology, and art history, while men are much more numerous in physics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Why this is so is an interesting question—and the subject of a substantial empirical literature. The research on gender and vocation is complex, vibrant, and full of reasonable disagreements; there is no single, simple answer.
There were, however, no disagreements at the congressional hearing. All five expert witnesses, and all five congressmen, Democrat and Republican, were in complete accord. They attributed the dearth of women in university science to a single cause: sexism. And there was no dispute about the solution. All agreed on the need for a revolutionary transformation of American science itself. “Ultimately,” said Kathie Olsen, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, “our goal is to transform, institution by institution, the entire culture of science and engineering in America, and to be inclusive of all—for the good of all.”
Representative Brian Baird, the Washington-state Democrat who chairs the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, looked at the witnesses and the crowd of more than 100 highly appreciative activists from groups like the American Association of University Women and the National Women’s Law Center and asked, “What kind of hammer should we use?”
For the five male, gray-haired congressmen, the hearing was a happy occasion—an opportunity to be chivalrous and witty before an audience of concerned women, and to demonstrate their goodwill and eagerness to set things right. It was also a historic occasion—more than the congressmen realized. During the past 30 years, the humanities have been politicized and transformed beyond recognition. The sciences, however, have been spared. There seems to have been a tacit agreement, especially at the large research universities; radical activists and deconstructionists were left relatively free to experiment with fields like comparative literature, cultural anthropology, communications, and, of course, women’s studies, while the hard sciences—vital to our economy, health, and security, and to university funding from the federal government, corporations, and the wealthy entrepreneurs among their alumni—were to be left alone.
Departments of physics, math, chemistry, engineering, and computer science have remained traditional, rigorous, competitive, relatively meritocratic, and under the control of no-nonsense professors dedicated to objective standards. All that may be about to change. Following years of meticulous planning by the activists gathered for the hearing, the era of academic détente is coming to an end.
The first witness was Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami and secretary of health and human services in the Clinton administration. She had chaired the “Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” organized by several leading scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. In 2006 the committee released a report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” that claimed to find “pervasive unexamined gender bias.” It received lavish media attention and has become the standard reference work for the “STEM” gender-equity movement (the acronym stands for science, technology, engineering, and math).
At the hearing, Shalala warned that strong measures would be needed to improve the “hostile climate” women face in the academy. This “crisis,” as she called it, “clearly calls for a transformation of academic institutions….Our nation’s future depends on it.”
Shalala and other speakers called for rigorous application of Title IX and other punitive measures. Witness Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, stressed the need to threaten obstinate faculties with loss of funding: “People listen to money…. Make the people listen to the money talk!”
The idea of “title-nining” academic science was proposed by Debra Rolison in 2000. She has promoted Title IX as an “implacable hammer” guaranteed to get the attention of recalcitrant faculty. Prompted by Rolison and a growing chorus of activists, the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space held a 2002 hearing on “Title IX and Science.” Later, in 2005, former subcommittee chairmen Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Senator George Allen (R-VA) held a joint press conference with feminist leaders. Wyden declared, “Title IX in math and science is the right way to start.” Allen seconded, “We cannot afford to cut out half our population—the female population.” The Title IX reviews have already begun.
[more at link]
Bwahahahahah
I am old fashioned, some say sexist. One reason more women are getting more advanced degrees is that men have to enter the workforce earlier. Flame me if you want, but in most ( not all ) cases the man graduates and goes to work to support the family ( IMO the way it is suppose to be ) while wife goes on to get several more degrees in her free time. I have seen that a lot ( my family is one ). I work as a software engineer and over the last 6 years my wife went on to attain another BA, a masters in clinical psychology, and starts on her Ph.D in the fall ( she worked sporatically in her field too ). The perk in all this is she will someday make more than me and I will suddenly come down with golfitis and become good for nothing.
Of course it’s not really Title IX that’s messed up male sports, it’s how the NCAA has enforced it. Title IX just says there has to be equal opportunity, the NCAA is the ones who turned that into a head/ sport count.
My favorite is the Women’s rowing team at Arizona, or somesuch.
And what does Mr. Shalala, her husband, think about all this?
If Miss Shalala is unmarried as I recall may be likely, is there some reason our society has fallen into the bad habit of hiring/appointing non-married people to positions of prominence and leadership? Sets a bad example.
Companies and other institutions shouldn't do it. If someone hasn't developed the emotional/psychological maturity to maintain a lifelong loving relationship with a husband or wife, they're probably relativel less well-suited to positions of great responsibility.
It's a fair question to ask: "Is there some reason you haven't settled down with a member of the opposite sex?" And there must be less clumsy ways to say it/ask it.
I assume your comment was not intended to be racist, but a commentary on how inadequate the government schools are in preparing students for a higher education. The Teachers are not prepared to teach a rigorous math curriculum they avoided “real” math in college and took “teachers” math. But we feel good about it, so that’s OK!
Just like Affirmative Action, though, there's no way to prove compliance (and avoid lawsuits) without some sort of quota system.
NCAA, Congress, Harvard, et al (purposely) confuse equality of opportunity and equality of results. Arguably equality of opportunity exists in the NBA, but the racial results are anything but equal....yet no one complains. My post graduate math degree daughter rather enjoyed the overwhelming opportunities presented her, but she would agree that she was in the minority...didn’t bother her bit! We don’t need no stinkin Title IX trying to guarantee equal results!
Like my wife: her father was a math professor and she can still look at a page full of equations and understand what she is looking at 30 years after her last math class. She was also accepted into a physics program at a university in Europe.
She gave that up and earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy.
Math ability is largely genetic and largely male: my father and all of my uncles were great math students and almost all my male cousins (and 1 female) became engineers, mathematicians or specialized in quantitative finance. My brother got a degree in finance (after 15 years in the US Army) & I wound up working as a computer programmer.
Feminist Quantum Mechanics may explain why feminists are able to whine and demand government handouts while simultaneously proclaiming their independence and strength. Like some subatomic particles, they can occupy two states at the same time.
bingo.
The Evolution Of Teaching Math
1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?
1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80.
What is his profit?
1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is $80.
Did he make a profit?
1990
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
2000
A selfish and inconsiderate logger who cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands cuts down a beautiful forest so he can make a profit of $20.
What do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes?
(Class Note: There are no wrong answers.)
2008
Un ranchero vende una carretera de mad era para $100. El cuesto de la produccion era $80. Cuantos tortillas se puede comprar.
.
Very simple. the number of women in the classes does not reflect the proportion of women on campus or in the population. The definition of anti-women bias is based on the numbers in attendance and not academic performance or cases of discrimination. If there is no bias, then why aren't 50% of the math, science and engineering PhD's women? Why aren't half the professors women? If the programs were bias free, this should be the outcome.
Seriously and without sarcasm, I believe that fewer women than men are interested in these areas. The problem, if you read the details of the article, is that in cases where bias was found, the women complaining were 1) typically assigned the investigation (probably becuase the profs in the hard sciences didn't want to stop their work) and 2) the statisitical regressions for analyzing the data assumed no other variants or combination of variants.
But the PC arguments faced by the science departments indicates that they do not live well rounded lives and that they are focused too much on their research. Aside from the Title IX approach, the more politically active departments (i.e. humanities and liberal arts) may create provisions that science profs must concentrate more on teaching and participation in non-research related committees. Burden them with meetings and social participation programs so they can't actually work as hard. Or mandate that they take summers off and not do research work. All kinds of administrative BS could be thrown their way.
Nonsense. Math and science have always been my academic strengths. I went to UT as a Physics major and encountered ZERO sexism from the faculty or other students. This is just the radical feminists and their cohorts continuing on their journey to destroy Western civilization. It's much harder to BS your way through the hard sciences than the liberal arts. So, instead of that route, they will use government force to get the universities to achieve their equal outcome P.O.V. and ruin our technological strength while they're at it.
LOL! As a female physicist at heart, I find that funny.
Is it just me or, with the number of boys raised by single-moms has increased, so has the number of proportionate weeny-metrosexual girly-boys on campus?
Most of the hard science WORKERS will be foreign imported to do the jobs Americans will be unable, untrained, but affirmatively degreed to do.
And the answer would be “none of your business”....
Someone not being married may be as simple as they haven’t met anyone they wished to marry or as deep as they were married to a sociopath that nearly killed them so marriage isn’t on their list of favorite things to do.
Geez.....
I got an advanced degree because I was hooked on some things——
Food, a warm place to sleep, a roof that didn’t leak etc....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.