The Science of a Gender Gap

After Harvard University President Lawrence Summers' inflammatory and controversial comments about women in math and the sciences at a January conference, experts and professors across the country are re-examining the ongoing problem of the low number of female scientists and engineers in academia.

In Summers' speech, he pointed to the "intrinsic differences" in the aptitude of the genders as his answer to the complicated question of why women do not pursue careers in math and science fields.

At UC Berkeley, the number of female faculty hires fell to 27 percent between 1996 and 2000. Observers have offered sharply different explanations for the drop, and not everyone attributes the gender gap to innate differences between men and women.

"I think it was a foolish comment that could have been made by a lot of guys in a bar, not by the president of a university," says Mary Ann Mason, dean of the graduate division at UC Berkeley.

The numbers prompted administrators and professors like Mason and mechanical engineering professor Alice Agogino to extensively research fair hiring practices, tenure laws and child-friendly environments on campus.

The debate over the representation of women in science stems in part from distinctions in theories that explain biological differences between boys and girls.

Although some cognitive research has claimed that males are more apt at mathematics, that assertion is largely disputed and most experts believe environmental factors steer young women away from higher-level math and science.

Researchers have also postulated that a cultural emphasis on relationships hits women harder. Even mathematically gifted women are more prone to "maternal" careers like medicine instead of fields focused in physics and chemistry.

"Encouragement is 99 percent of the game," Mason says. "Individual differences between genders are far less important than social encouragement."

Agogino argues that gender discrimination, while tempered slightly in younger generations, has a chilling effect on the advancement of women in scientific fields, pointing to UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton's struggle during her time as an engineering professor at University of Wisconsin.

"She was given access to a microfacility to conduct her research and when she got there, a male senior faculty member had changed the locks so she couldn't get in," Agogino says.

Agogino's findings in 2003 led to the revisions to recruitment and hiring guidelines including at least one woman serving on the hiring committee.

"It's not so much that the old boys club is against women, it's a style of interaction," Mason says. "Men are more comfortable relating to other men."

Although the struggle to break into the male culture in science frustrates many female researchers, others point out that a similar culture has been bred with women in opposition to the "old boys club."

"I wanted to work with a woman professor. I'm able to interact with them on a more casual level," says Lisa Valdin, a fourth-year molecular and cell biology graduate student who conducts research under professor Jennifer Doudna.

Another obstacle facing women in academia-across all fields-is the desire to have a family.

Often, women end their careers in scientific academia to have children because of the strict "up or out" tenure track, which Agogino says is inherently discriminatory to women. The first five to seven years of the tenure track cannot be interrupted by time off to have children, she says.

Mason, who is currently writing a book on her findings about women in academics and motherhood, proposes a shift to bring the possibility of starting a family as a post-doctoral student rather than as a tenured professor.

UC Berkeley has been making strides to create a part-time, flexible tenure track to allow both men and women, largely for parenting purposes, time off for child care. Starting in July, professors will be allowed a full year off of the tenure clock for childbirth or adoption.

Despite the struggles that female professors in academia face, professors like Agogino and Mason have reasons to be optimistic.

Female graduate students say they are encountering much more equality and encouragement in the laboratory than their older counterparts did.

"The fact that I'm a woman hasn't really played into it," Valdin says. "Whether or not I succeed in my Ph.D. career has nothing to do with my gender."

Younger women, fueled by the current discourse about tenure and campus daycare facilities, are also much more optimistic about having both a family and a successful career.

"I think having a family is hard and it's something that every woman in science considers," says Natalia Caporale, a third-year graduate student in neuroscience. "But it's only going to get easier."

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