Women in Physics

WormBanshee

I feel that most of any sexism present in the field isn't necessarily due to the field itself, but because of a societal issue. We can't forget that the women's rights movement (this is coming from a student in the United States, btw) didn't really begin all that long ago. So, coming from a world where the sciences (not just the sciences, but almost any field that required education, since society generally dictated women to be housewives and whatnot) were VERY male dominated so recently, it will obviously take time for the genders to even out as our society adjusts to the fact that women now do the exact same things that men do.

Also, I'm pretty sure that I've heard that there has been a serious issue with young girls having strong role models in school that promote them to pursue their gifts in math and science. Which would be another societal issue, but also an issue with outreach. I do know that some women professors at my university actually just held a computer science camp for middle school girls. It's more things like that that we need, until the gender ratios even out.

Let's not forget that Marie Curie was the very first person to win two Nobel prizes, and her first one was in 1903, so clearly the field itself can't be entirely to blame. I'm sure that it was mostly men behind making the decision to award them to her.

Zarqon

I remember seeing a study about a general difference between men's and women's communicating styles a while back when I was reading teaching methods. It said that, in general, men like to communicate by disagreeing, i.e. trying to attack or poke holes in someone elses argument in order to understand it, while women communicate by agreeing, i.e. trying to put themselves in the shoes of the other and understand the argument by seeing it form the other persons perspective.

Over the years I've definitely noticed the trend that women tend to be more intimidated by the aggressive type of argumentation that I normally use (as a male) and I can certainly see how women could find an environment dominated by male discussion styles difficult, even if there is no intention to make it so. Do you women here agree that there are these argumentation style differences?

Rika

Hm... from your description it seems that my style is closer to that of man ^^" But this style is natural for me so....

king vitamin

I've met a lot of people who express this sentiment. Also, by some enormous coincidence, they all happen to be straight white upper middle class males. Isn't that funny?

I noticed that you bolded the "good for you" quote without bolding my subsequent modifier "motivated by the sex of who you're talking to." Certainly this is the definition of sexism (eri mentioned that the speaker did not react with awe to the new male faculty member).

Nano-Passion

Oh please. Sexism has a VERY negative connotation, let us not use in this situation. Almost anything can be labeled as sexism, but if the way the word is used is in any consideration-- it is BS in this scenario.

To me, "good for you," is a statement out of respect. People respect those who prove to others that minority can beat the odds -- it is a sign of toughness whether for women or for african americans. If I was faced in the same situation, I would be inclined to give a statement of praise.

Is it wrong to be proud of someone standing up and saying "women can do the same things that men do!" Women go through more difficulty than men to be in academia, due to societal pressure and cultural paradigms -- so it is all the more impressive.

I dislike when people jump on the sexism bandwagon, it does not apply here. It is akin to other minorities who are led to believe that they are being discriminated against, only to lead to their own pitfall. It is a very negative paradigm to carry along, and if minorities are to succeed-- they are less to worry about discrimination and more to worry about succeeding in their goal. A good example of this is the other poster who complained that the other men do not pay attention to her in group discussions. The sexism bandwagon can hurt, because in this case it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But someone who is more proactive would inspect the problem and look for a solution. (For example, is it the way I communicate?) You can blame it on sexism, or you can blame it on yourself. This could have also happened to a guy, blaming sexism is a cheap scapegoat.

P.S. The use of sexism to imply discrimination of women only and not men, is sexism in itself!

Woopydalan

Somehow we can discover all these amazing things, yet don't know what to do when there is a woman in the labroom?

king vitamin

Oh please, of course sexism against men is a terrible thing and is something that should be disparaged and actively fought against when present. But sexism against men in academic physics is not a major societal problem. If I do see men being sexually harassed or belittled the next time I'm on campus I'll speak up! For some reason, this has happened exactly zero times.

I also think it's funny how you responded to Geezer's comment that she and many other women regularly get ignored in physics conversations by saying that they must all have some sort of personal problem (like bad communication) that they need to be proactive about. So, the fact that many women get ignored is that many women have a personality flaw? I understand that there are men and women who communicate badly, but denying that sexism exists where it does exacerbates the problem.

Minorities will succeed if they ignore discrimination? Brilliant! The only way it could fail is if minority groups were in the minority.

mfb

Well, this is not as clear as it looks like.

Situation: Two scientists did different, similar tasks with the same performance and report that in a meeting or whatever. Of course, the correct way of acknowledgment would be "same to both". But in reality, it can be a bit different, due to multiple reasons. As I did not specify the gender, the issue is clearly not gender-related at this point.

Now imagine the scientists are a woman and a man, and the woman gets less acknowledgment. I am sure some will complain about sexism.
Now imagine the scientists are a woman and a man, and the woman gets more acknowledgment. I am sure some will complain about sexism.

Obviously, the setup is symmetric. If one of them is sexism against women (why?), the other one should be sexism agains men, right? Which one?

meldraft

I think the key here is the third situation, that they both get the same aknowledgement. Seeing, however, as to that this sweet spot is difficult to achieve, one of the two will most of the times complain. The other thing here is 'intention' and 'perceived intention'. The aknowledgement one person meant to express is not necessarily the aknowledgement perceived by the other parties.

But this goes much beyond sexes and I believe that what each person perceives depends highly not only on the country, but on which faculty of a certain university someone works in. For instance, I remember a story an Iranian colleague told me about a university in Canada (I think) where many faculty members happened to be Iranian. Then, they all brought Iranian grad students, and soon the language most often spoken in the faculty was Farsi instead of English. What did the faculty eventually do? They vetoed against all new Iranian grad students.

Now, someone here is definitely racist. But who? Is it the Canadians who want their own language spoken in their own universities? Is it the Iranian professors who chose Iranian students over others? It is often very hard to say, and I think that this fits nicely into this thread. Note also that these sorts of things are often said and done with little to no bad intent.

Finally, from my viewpoint (I'm a man), women are in a disadvantageous position for a different reason than the one regularly perceived. This is that since they have such small representation (usually) in technical fields, people jump to conclusions based on the few technical women that they have actually met.

If you had 200 men and 5 women in your year, you'll naturally think that ALL technical women are like those 5. If 4 out of the 200 guys where brilliant, you get the impression that male scientists can be brilliant. In the 5 women it is statistically difficult to find a brilliant scientist (considering it's the same as the guys, it's about 2%). Even when you do, you tend to regard her as an exception since, hey, she is just ONE person. Statistically speaking, women are simply burdened with a bad sample. This is what, in my opinion, perpetuates the myth of women being weak scientists. Still, this data is what we have to work with in order to make generalisations (at least that's what our subconscious mind does).

Of course, anyone who has studied engineering, mathematics, or physics, should know that these generalisations are dangerous unless you have that proper data and reasoning to make valid ones. Therefore, anyone who treats you as an inferior colleague because of your gender, is simply a bad scientist

Nii Sapu

Sexism is very common in all fields of science and engineering. Here is something from an MIT biology professor:
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-rep...ale-scientists

I would imagine sexism would be even worse in more male-dominated fields like physics. My biology department is not that divided, but I don't go to an engineering school like MIT or study physics.

Ryan_m_b

Thus speaks the priviliged.