Physics Gender Bias in Particle Physics?

[SetTheory]

Hello,

I'm not sure if there's a post for this already, but I'm in high school and I would like to go into the physics (or mathematics) field. I am especially interested in particle physics at the moment. My mother has her masters in math, and she's told me some tales about her experiences with the gender ratio in her classes (especially grad.). I've read about the fact (according to statistics) that women on average have to work nearly 2.5 times harder for the same opportunities as men and find it a bit intimidating.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me whether these statistics are true?
Also, what are your experiences with the gender ratio?
What can I expect when I eventually take more advanced math or physics classes in regards to this?

I am female and although this isn't one of the deciding factors for my future I would like to be more aware of the reality.

 

[nuclear85]

There are some posts about this already. I can't be bothered to do the search for you though...

My answer is yes and no. Yes, I was often the only female, or one of just a few, in some of my science and engineering classes. No, that didn't lead to it being "2.5 times harder" that it would be. I got the same grading as everyone else...

Beyond undergrad, there is still sometimes an imbalance of gender. But if you have confidence, you will not be treated any differently that your male counterparts by 99% of the scientists out there.

I am skeptical of that statistic. What does it even mean? But, it probably is meant to include things like childbirth (if a woman takes a few years off her career to raise a kid, she may get behind career-wise). And in fact, when applying for things like scholarships, women and minorities often have an (unfair) advantage, because committees like to avoid the appearance that they are giving all the awards to white males.

 

[damabo]

Christina Hoff Sommers, a woman with some common sense, exposes such a study.
In May 1997, the distinguished British jour¬nal Nature published a provocative article titled, “Nepotism and Sexism in Peer-Review.” The authors, Christine Wenneras and Agnes Wold, two Swedish scientists from the University of Goteborg, claimed to have found blatant gender bias in the peer-review system of the Swedish Medical Research Council. After reviewing the relevant data, they concluded that to win a postgraduate science fellowship, a female applicant had to be at least twice as good as a male applicant.
The Wenneras-Wold article caused a sensa¬tion both in Europe and the United States and is now a staple in the gender-equity literature. A recent article in Scientific American referred to it as the one and only “thorough study of the real-world peer-review process” and judged its findings “shocking.” When the NSF polled 19 institutions that had received gen¬der-equity ADVANCE grants, it asked which materials “had proved the most effective in their institutional transformation projects?” The Wenneras-Wold study made it to the NSF short list of four must-read “top research arti¬cles.” The Shalala/NAS “Beyond Bias” report describes the piece as a “powerful” tool for edu-cating provosts, department chairs, and search committees about bias. The charter for the October 17 House subcommittee hearing gave particular prominence to the Swedish study.
'At bias-awareness workshops, physicists and engineers watch skits where overbearing male faculty ride roughshod over hapless but intellectually superior female colleagues.
But what does the article actually show? Wenneras and Wold investigated the peer-reviewing practices of the Medical Research Council in 1994 after they had both been denied postgraduate fellowships. When they sought to review the data on which the council’s decisions were based, the Council refused to grant them access, insisting the information was confiden¬tial. But the two researchers went to court and won the right to see the data.
The Swedish study, unlike the MIT report, was actually published, and it presents data and describes its methodology. But there are serious grounds for skepticism: once again, it was a case of women investigating their own complaints; furthermore, what they concluded seemed a lit¬tle improbable. According to their calculations, to score as well as a man, a woman had to have the equivalent of three extra papers in world-class science journals such as Science or Nature or 20 extra papers in leading specialty journals such as Radiology or Neuroscience.
I sent the Swedish study to two research psychologists, Jerre Levy (professor emerita, of Chicago) and James Steiger (pro¬fessor and director, Quantitative Methods and Evaluation, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt) for their review. They both immediately zeroed in on a troubling methodological anomaly: Wenneras and Wold had run separate regressions for only one productivity variable at a time. Since it is unlikely that any single variable adequately characterizes academic productivity, the obvi¬ous approach would have been to enter several of the productivity variables into a single regres¬sion equation. In any event, the dramatic results of the factor-by-factor approach that Wenneras and Wold used should have been tested against the more inclusive, realistic approach.
Certainly, researchers lose data. But these were pretty special data: The researchers had invested the substantial time and expense of a lawsuit to obtain them, and they were the basis of a highly celebrated study with singu¬lar findings.
But even assuming that the research held up, it is odd that a single study of postgraduate fellow-ships at a Swedish university should play such a prominent role in a campaign to eliminate “hid¬den bias” in American universities. Is it twice as hard for women to receive postgraduate fel¬lowships in the science departments of Berkeley or the University of Miami? If it is, would it not be straightforward to demonstrate the prob¬lem through at least one good study—one that followed customary statistical procedures and could stand up to peer review?


the feminism movement goes far enough to grant quota's (which are simply unfair: one shouldn't choose anyone for a certain job, just 'because there should be at least 40% women' - unfair both if there are more male applicants, and unfair that one chooses just for the sake of gender).
It even goes as far as the following:

In today’s Science Times, Gina Kolata explores the fascinating public reaction to the case of Amy Bishop, the university neuroscientist accused of going on a shooting rampage after failing to win tenure.
Internet postings have offered some surprising conclusions about the reasons behind the shooting and whether Ms. Bishop has more to offer to science. Ms. Kolata writes:
Many posted comments like this: “I do not approve of what Dr. Bishop did, but I understand her frustration.” Being denied tenure “in spite of her contributions past and future,” the writer added, “is sufficient to provoke a murderous rage against the chairman and the university.”
Another popular sentiment: “I can’t help but observe that this was a woman in a male-dominated institution in a male-dominated field in a conservative part of the country.”
And on a forum devoted to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a person wrote: “I hope they turn her loose again. Sounds like she knew what she was doing in A.L.S. That’s more than we have now.”
To learn more about the unusual debate surrounding Ms. Bishop, read the full story, “Debating an Accused Professor’s Worth to Science,” and then please join the discussion below.
Murderers cannot be excused, in any case. Furthermore, Gina Kolata points out her research did not even qualify for tenure.
In fact, scientists who have looked at Dr. Bishop’s résumé said they saw no evidence of genius, no evidence of a cure for diseases like A.L.S., no evidence that she even could have gotten tenure at a major university.
Most of her work was on nitric oxide, a gas that can transmit signals between nerves. High levels of nitric oxide, she proposed, might set off degenerative diseases like A.L.S., and cells treated with low levels of the gas might build resistance. But that is far from proven, scientists said, and the idea was not original with Dr. Bishop.
R. Douglas Fields, chief of the nervous system development and plasticity section at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said of Dr. Bishop’s work, “I don’t think it was groundbreaking — quite the opposite.”
She had nothing published in 2007 and 2008, and during her six years at the university in Huntsville she published three papers that appeared to be original research articles, none of them in major journals — often a requirement for tenure.

 

[jtbell]

In May 1997, the distinguished British journal Nature published a provocative article titled, “Nepotism and Sexism in Peer-Review.”

This was fifteen years ago. I'm not saying that problems have been eliminated now, but things have surely changed at least a little bit since then.

 

[ParticleGrl]

The gender disparity IS very large. In my graduate school department, across both high energy theory and experiment there were two women out of about 25 students. I don't think this required me to work 2.5 times as hard to get the phd.

However, sexism is still alive and well- I was told on a postdoc interview by the person doing the hiring that if I planned to have a kid in the next 3 years I was wasting both of our time. And I know a woman who was fired for her pregnancy. In these cases it doesn't matter how hard you work- if you are unlucky enough to be in the wrong postdoc and decide to have a kid before 35, your career is simply over.

 

[SetTheory]

Okay, thanks for the added insight. All I knew for certain was that there was sure to be less women in more advanced math classes than men, not necessarily that they weren't treated as well. I'm a bit curious as to why this is? Anyway, I've not actually met much opposition from guys my own age nor my women math teachers (especially not them) or men teachers for that matter. I have just been hearing things from the news and magazines and thought I should ask people with more experience.

Is the media just trying to blow this into something bigger that it truly is?

Is the gender ratio similar in the higher math classes as it is in the higher physics classes? (I mean in PDEs and Topology in comparison to QM/CM/EM)

 

[damabo]

the thing is, there is a much lower stream of girls in these fields. if no girl is able to apply for a PhD, it is easy to say that discrimination is taking place - while in fact the probability that a girl would be able to apply would be very small compared to that of boys, who form the majority.
Of course, if you let your postdocs know that you will be having a child, which means you will be less able to work hard for a few years, there are going to be some 'negative' side-effects - at least on the academic side of the equation. well, it depends on the situation. I would expect maternity leave for up to 12 weeks. additionally, being pregnant in the early phases might be confusing and such, and having too much stress will be bad for the baby- I'm guessing that being Phd or professor qualifies for stress in some cases. taking care of the child may usurp some time and may keep you awake having restless nights; but this would be the case for fathers as well (however, females are usually the better caregiver). I suspect this is one of the reasons why females are seen less in the STEM fields and in the billionaire league: pregnancy makes it more difficult to keep up with highly competitive jobs, since (near) absense for only a year might be difficult to recover. perhaps employers, in some cases, may anticipate this.
I'm not sure of any statistics on math vs physics. In my case, there are more females in the mathematics class than in the physics class; since there are much female teachers, it is not unreasonable to speculate that some of them will be math teachers (which are highly demanded these days).

 

[twofish-quant]

There certainly is a skewed gender ratio in the sciences. Why there is a skewed gender ratio is something that people can and do argue about, I'd put it down to partly because there is an extremely "macho" culture in the sciences. By this I mean that you have to be very aggressive and confrontational or else you get knocked down. If someone screams that "you are an idiot", it's much more socially accepted for males to "fight back" than it is for females. One way to see this is that there are some nasty terms for women that are extremely assertive (i.e. female dog), whereas I can't think of a nasty term for a male that does the same thing.

The other issue is that there can be a lack of support structures. There is very much an "old boy's network" and in areas where women have done well, there happens to be an "old girl's network."

while in fact the probability that a girl would be able to apply would be very small compared to that of boys, who form the majority.

But then you have to ask why the entry is low. Also this gets into the general problem with physics. With few jobs available, there isn't much pressure to make it easier for people that haven't been physicists in the past to become physicists.

One other thing, issues of family don't impact just women. Men that care more about family than career also get hit by these sorts of issues.

 

[Zarqon]

One thing to keep in mind is that gender attitudes also vary a lot from country to country and even between universities and departments, depending on attitudes of local prominent people. As an example, I can mention that at my old department (in sweden), not only is pregnancy during for example your PhD considered no problem, they also allow extra time to complete your PhD if you were home with your child for a time, so that you would have the same effective working time as otherwise.

Also, I'm not sure if the statement "working 2.5 times as hard" makes much sense, considering that male scientist already work as much as is possible due to the competition. Before an actual science career however, when just taking courses for a masters or similar, I'm not sure if I see gender bias playing any role. I mean grades are usually set from test score results, something which is not biased.

 

[ZapperZ]

Until she retired recently, last time I checked, Persis Drell was a woman, and she was the head of SLAC and a particle physicist.

This discussion is going in many different directions. The OP asked for a very specific situation (particle physics/high energy physics track). Unfortunately, damabo, for some reason, decided not only to drag in ALL of the academic world, but also on this "peer-review system" in other parts of the world! I'm surprised we're also not tackling world hunger and the Mideast conflict on one shot! This dilutes the issue and also turns this into a meaningless rambling that will often go nowhere.

I'd rather hear more what ParticleGrl and nuclear85 have to say.

Zz.

 

[damabo]

coming up next... world hunger.

ok I'll shut my mouth

 

[Vanadium 50]

And the spokesperson of ATLAS is Fabiola Gianotti.

 

[StatGuy2000]

The gender disparity IS very large. In my graduate school department, across both high energy theory and experiment there were two women out of about 25 students. I don't think this required me to work 2.5 times as hard to get the phd.

However, sexism is still alive and well- I was told on a postdoc interview by the person doing the hiring that if I planned to have a kid in the next 3 years I was wasting both of our time. And I know a woman who was fired for her pregnancy. In these cases it doesn't matter how hard you work- if you are unlucky enough to be in the wrong postdoc and decide to have a kid before 35, your career is simply over.

ParticleGrl, I find it frankly shocking the a woman could be fired for her pregnancy, especially given the potential this could set up for lawsuits. Here in Canada where I live, women are guaranteed 1 year of maternity leave (there is also an equivalent paternity leave for fathers) and those taking the leave are guaranteed by law to be able to return to their position or some equivalent position. Universities are not exempt from this, including for postdoc positions, and my understanding is that any such violations can result in pretty stiff penalties on the employers involved.

 

[ParticleGrl]

StatGuy2000- in the US there is no mandated maternity leave (or vacation time, etc). Now- firing someone because they are pregnant (even if they haven't requested leave) is probably against policies at lots of places, and might be illegal (I don't know) but it still happens. Asking someone if they plan on having a kid in an interview is also probably illegal, but also still happens.

A quick google search turned up this:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2012/02/university-of-c-1.html

The union also helped individual postdocs resolve issues involving back pay, vacation time, attempts to terminate postdoc appointments because of pregnancy, and other instances of unwarranted termination

The issue I'm thinking of happened in a university in the north east, so she wasn't covered by a union. Maybe the postdoc union is improving things (although my suspicion is that the woman who got the union involved had trouble continuing in academia because I doubt her letter was very good).

 

[StatGuy2000]

StatGuy2000- in the US there is no mandated maternity leave (or vacation time, etc). Now- firing someone because they are pregnant (even if they haven't requested leave) is probably against policies at lots of places, and might be illegal (I don't know) but it still happens. Asking someone if they plan on having a kid in an interview is also probably illegal, but also still happens.

A quick google search turned up this:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2012/02/university-of-c-1.html



The issue I'm thinking of happened in a university in the north east, so she wasn't covered by a union. Maybe the postdoc union is improving things (although my suspicion is that the woman who got the union involved had trouble continuing in academia because I doubt her letter was very good).

Yes, I am well aware that in the US there is no mandated maternity leave or vacation time, at least at the federal level, although I had heard somewhere that certain individual states do have such mandates.

That being said, I would think that firing someone because they are pregnant is definitely illegal (just like you can't fire someone by their racial or ethnic origins -- it most certainly is illegal in Canada). Of course, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it can't happen -- the question would be how frequently these events occur (was the incident you had quoted an isolated incident, or is widespread).

The other question I have is whether the gender gap and sexism is worse in physics than in the other sciences.

 

[TMFKAN64]

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/pregnancy.cfm says that firing due to pregnancy is definitely illegal in the US.

The difficulty is that only a complete idiot would come out and say "We're firing you because you are pregnant." I'm sure that women are fired because they are pregnant, but I'd wager that the official cause is always given as something else. As a result, any lawsuit would have to prove that the employer is lying about the true cause.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Of course, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it can't happen -- the question would be how frequently these events occur (was the incident you had quoted an isolated incident, or is widespread).

Thats hard to answer. I only know the experiences I have had, or others I've known. I think events as ridiculous as this are probably (hopefully) rare, but little events (asked if you are planning to have a kid in an interview, not invited out-with-the-guys,etc) happen all the time.

The other question I have is whether the gender gap and sexism is worse in physics than in the other sciences.

The gender gap is worse in physics than in biology. I don't know about sexism because the only science I've ever worked in is particle physics.

I can say that sexism is much worse in particle physics than it is in data-mining/insurance.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Thats hard to answer. I only know the experiences I have had, or others I've known. I think events as ridiculous as this are probably (hopefully) rare, but little events (asked if you are planning to have a kid in an interview, not invited out-with-the-guys,etc) happen all the time.



The gender gap is worse in physics than in biology. I don't know about sexism because the only science I've ever worked in is particle physics.

I can say that sexism is much worse in particle physics than it is in data-mining/insurance.

I would probably agree that not being invited out-with-the-guys probably happens if not all the time, but enough that it is not too unusual. I have never heard of any female applicant, either in private industry or in academia, being asked if she was planning on starting a family in an interview, however (perhaps a difference between Canada and the US?)

With respect to the gender gap, I would have figured that the situation is worse in physics than in biology (for various reasons, women were well-represented in biology for years). I was wondering how physics would compare to say, computer science, math, or the various engineering subdisciplines (fields that are cognate to physics in certain respects) in terms of the gender gap.

I would think that the gender gap is worse in computer science than in particle physics (I have seen a number of statistics in the past indicating that women are highly under-represented in computer science). I'm also curious as to whether there are differences in the gender gap between the different sub-specialties of physics (say, between particle physics vs condensed matter physics, optics, or complex systems).

 

[ParticleGrl]

I have never heard of any female applicant, either in private industry or in academia, being asked if she was planning on starting a family in an interview, however (perhaps a difference between Canada and the US?)

This has only happened to me within academia, and it has happened with a few people I know. None of the private sector interviews have asked.

Honestly, my experience at my current job has been a breath of fresh air in this regard- I would suggest that private sector insurance jobs are far easier to navigate as a woman than academic particle physics.

I would think that the gender gap is worse in computer science than in particle physics (I have seen a number of statistics in the past indicating that women are highly under-represented in computer science). I'm also curious as to whether there are differences in the gender gap between the different sub-specialties of physics (say, between particle physics vs condensed matter physics, optics, or complex systems).

I don't think I have any good way to assess these sorts of questions. There were so few women in physics at my university that very few subfields had two or more women. Because I only attended conferences in my subfield, I really only have a large personal sample of particle physicists so its hard for me to make cross-comparisons. The only one that's really easy to make is biology, because the difference is so striking.

The SWE chapter at my university was dominated by people from CS, but that's most likely because they had a much larger department.

 

[TMFKAN64]

This has only happened to me within academia, and it has happened with a few people I know. None of the private sector interviews have asked.

This is, of course, also illegal to ask.

I would guess that what this really means is that the private sector does a better job of familiarizing interviewers with the law than academia.

 

[jk]

I have heard of several instances of discriminatory behavior that would have gotten the perpetrator fired (or at least reprimanded) had it occurred in industry.

The institution of tenure can provide cover for those inclined to abuse power.

 

[twofish-quant]

There's also a big difference between being fired and not being hired (or not having your contract renewed). If you get pregnant, and suddenly you end up without a job, then that's a sure lawsuit, and these sorts of lawsuits are extremely easy to win (I've seen it happen).

Not getting hired or not getting your contract renewed is a different issue. It gets worse in situations were there are few jobs. If say 50% of the people who apply get jobs, it's rather easy to show discrimination. If 5% of the people who apply get jobs, it's rather difficult, since in the latter case you can argue (and truthfully argue) that X isn't going to get a job anyway. Also, when jobs are tight, people are much more worried about making noise, since if the job market is tight, then you worry about being blacklisted for making noise.

 

[twofish-quant]

I have heard of several instances of discriminatory behavior that would have gotten the perpetrator fired (or at least reprimanded) had it occurred in industry.

Conversely one reason I like my job is that Wall Street is (surprisingly) family friendly. I'd assume that there isn't a problem being pregnant since my boss was pregnant at one point while working for the company (and so was her boss's boss's boss).

If you have 200 applicants for one job, you can do all sorts of annoying things.

 

[jk]

Conversely one reason I like my job is that Wall Street is (surprisingly) family friendly. I'd assume that there isn't a problem being pregnant since my boss was pregnant at one point while working for the company (and so was her boss's boss's boss).

If you have 200 applicants for one job, you can do all sorts of annoying things.

Up to a degree. I have worked for one of the largest investment banks. They had generous maternity leave options (in part because it made them more competitive in attracting talented people) but you also had to put in horrendous hours if you wanted to advance (i.e VP track). Workers with young children missed out on a lot of their kids' activities.

 

[daveyrocket]

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2012/02/university-of-c-1.html

The issue I'm thinking of happened in a university in the north east, so she wasn't covered by a union. Maybe the postdoc union is improving things (although my suspicion is that the woman who got the union involved had trouble continuing in academia because I doubt her letter was very good).

Yes, I remember right after the postdoc union at UC's was formed, they sent out a letter about a woman who had been fired when pregnant, and they were trying to hard to get the university to rehire her, but in the end her visa expired and she had to leave the country. And that pretty much ended it.

 

[ParticleGrl]

This seems relevant

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109.full.pdf

 

[twofish-quant]

This has only happened to me within academia, and it has happened with a few people I know. None of the private sector interviews have asked.

It's because human resources forbids interviewers from asking about marital or family status. Other questions that are forbidden in an interview are ethnic origins, sexual orientation, and religion. Things like criminal records and financial status (i.e. bankruptcies) will be taken into account, but there are so many legal landmines that the interviewer never asks about them. HR will do that review. Things like citizenship and work status are also things that HR handles since they know the rules. (For example, in the United States it happens to be illegal to discriminate on the basis of citizenship status.)

"Are you having kids?" is not likely to come up as a direct interview question. However, this does come up when people are innocently making small talk. For example, if someone mentions that they just got back from their honeymoon, then you should change the subject, and forget that they mentioned that they just got married.

One other no-no is to include a picture in your resume. HR very strongly prefers that you don't, because the less information you provide on things that are irrelevant for job performance, the better.

If you remove all of the questions about a persons background, then the only thing left are (gasp) technical questions about a person's ability.

 

[X89codered89X]

This seems like it would need to be hogwash. Some dudes like myself work themselves to the bone to get good grades. working "2.5 times as hard" would equate to working 200 hours / week on studying/doing homework/class. nonsense. Sure, maybe the average girl in the class will probably work a bit harder in the class than the average guy, but the factor of 2.5 is completely arbitrary. I'd guess more around 1.2 times as hard.

 

[jk]

This seems like it would need to be hogwash. Some dudes like myself work themselves to the bone to get good grades. working "2.5 times as hard" would equate to working 200 hours / week on studying/doing homework/class. nonsense. Sure, maybe the average girl in the class will probably work a bit harder in the class than the average guy, but the factor of 2.5 is completely arbitrary. I'd guess more around 1.2 times as hard.

Assuming that you could quantify "working twice as hard", I think your 1.2 is as baseless as the 2.5 figure that the OP mentioned. I think the intent was to convey that women have in general to work harder to get to the same place as men and not to convey the precise amount of hard work. It's kind of like saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" to indicate that you are hungry.

 

[Geezer]

The gender disparity IS very large. In my graduate school department, across both high energy theory and experiment there were two women out of about 25 students. I don't think this required me to work 2.5 times as hard to get the phd.

However, sexism is still alive and well- I was told on a postdoc interview by the person doing the hiring that if I planned to have a kid in the next 3 years I was wasting both of our time. And I know a woman who was fired for her pregnancy. In these cases it doesn't matter how hard you work- if you are unlucky enough to be in the wrong postdoc and decide to have a kid before 35, your career is simply over.

I'm a grad student doing condensed matter physics, but this has been my experience as well. There's a lot of sexism, especially by older males---the younger profs seem less sexist, in my experience---and the suspicion that a female might get pregnant is regarded as a legitimate excuse to avoid hiring women, even though it's technically illegal to do so.

Oh, and yes, it's often been the case that I'm the only female in my classes. I've gotten so used to being the only woman around that I don't even notice it anymore.

As far as children go, I actually have a young child, though practically no one in my department knows. I don't dare mention it to professors for a whole host of reasons. And since I know that I'm not going to have another child, I'm hoping I can circumvent many of the issues women in physics have to face when trying to start a career and have a family.

 

[Geezer]

(however, females are usually the better caregiver).

Let me just say that this statement is bogus. For example, my husband is most definitely the better parent to our child. I may have breastfed her for nearly two years, but he's still the primary parent and the one our child is closest to. He's a better dad than I am a mom.

 

[f95toli]

I'm a grad student doing condensed matter physics, but this has been my experience as well. There's a lot of sexism, especially by older males---the younger profs seem less sexist, in my experience---and the suspicion that a female might get pregnant is regarded as a legitimate excuse to avoid hiring women, even though it's technically illegal to do so.

Part of the problem is the way the funding works. If you get funding for a three year project and some of the money is allocated to hiring a post-doc you HAVE to use the money during those three years, if the post-doc goes on maternity leave (or is absent for any other reason) for a while that can cause serious problems for the project as a whole. AFAIK the rules are more or less the same all over the world.

The only long-term solution to this problem is if the funding rules are changed AND men start taking more responsibility for raising children (meaning they ALSO stay at home, at least some of the time). This is happening in e.g. Sweden which has legislated paternity leave (time which can't be used by the mother).
However, one consequence of this has -it is rumoured- been that some professors now avoid hiring people -men and women- who they think might be planning to have children, i.e. anyone who is in a long term relationship.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Part of the problem is the way the funding works. If you get funding for a three year project and some of the money is allocated to hiring a post-doc you HAVE to use the money during those three years, if the post-doc goes on maternity leave

This is less a problem in the US because there is no maternity leave, so other then the time spent actually having the kid, you don't take time off work (barring pregnancy complications). I've known women scientists who had kids and taken < 2 weeks off total across their pregnancy (which was within their 'sick time').

And either way- its illegal to inquire about whether a family is planning to have kids- and its becoming less likely that the woman will be the care giving family (I know 3 phds (1 physics) who went the stay-at-home-dad route because their earning potential was so much less than their wives)

 

[f95toli]

This is less a problem in the US because there is no maternity leave, so other then the time spent actually having the kid, you don't take time off work (barring pregnancy complications). I've known women scientists who had kids and taken < 2 weeks off total across their pregnancy (which was within their 'sick time').

True, although I suspect that there are plenty of PIs out there who's ideal candidate for a post-doc is someone who can work at least a 60 hour week, late evenings and most weekends, and you are less likely to get that from someone who has a newborn baby at home.

Hence, I don't think the system in the US necessarily makes it less of a problem (not to mention the fact that universities and institutes in the UK have "gender equality" programs, so we are more or less actively encouraged to hire women).
Choosing a suitable candidate is not an exact science and formal qualifications are never enough at this level, and if there are more than one applicant (and there always are) it is often very hard to prove that someone was not choosen because of his/her gender.
Laws can never really fully solve that problem (which does not mean that one shouldn't try).

I hope that it is obvious that I am no way defending this system. I am just passing on what I've heard from some of my older collegues (male AND female), both in Sweden and in the UK.

 

[Locrian]

There is no mandatory maternity leave in the US, but plenty of companies have maternity leave. The company I work at has both maternity and paternity leave.

 

[ParticleGrl]

There is no mandatory maternity leave in the US, but plenty of companies have maternity leave. The company I work at has both maternity and paternity leave.

I think companies generally have maternity leave and place, as do many universities. However, postdocs seem to rarely come with any benefits besides maybe health insurance. I would suspect the generosity of benefits correlates with the strength of the labor market.

 

[Locrian]

Oh yea, I must have misunderstood. Postdocs have it bad. From what I can tell, there two downsides to being a postdoc - the money, and everything else that isn't money.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Oh yea, I must have misunderstood. Postdocs have it bad. From what I can tell, there two downsides to being a postdoc - the money, and everything else that isn't money.

From what I understand, there is basically no upside whatsoever to being a postdoc besides having the ability to conduct research in your chosen area.

 

[Locrian]

And the autonomy postdocs sometimes have to do so is sometimes very nice. Many I worked around didn't have the administrative and teaching issues that new instructors had.

So maybe I was being a little hyperbolic. . .

(But not much)

 

[X89codered89X]

Assuming that you could quantify "working twice as hard", I think your 1.2 is as baseless as the 2.5 figure that the OP mentioned. I think the intent was to convey that women have in general to work harder to get to the same place as men and not to convey the precise amount of hard work. It's kind of like saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" to indicate that you are hungry.

I completely agree that it's just a saying. And yes I did pull the 1.2 basically out of nowhere. But my point was that there are a limited number of hours in the week, and working 80 hours /week doesn't leave much more time for anything but sleep, hygiene, and domestic chores, etc. Using this .. I'd say a max might be closer to 100 hours/week this is roughly a 25% percent increase on how much time i was putting in on average.

 

[twofish-quant]

The only long-term solution to this problem is if the funding rules are changed AND men start taking more responsibility for raising children (meaning they ALSO stay at home, at least some of the time).

That's not a solution at all, because you'll get knocked out of the market if you are male and you want to spent lots of time with kids.

The point that Wall Street requires lots of hours that takes time from family is well taken, but I'd have to say that investment banks are more family friendly than academia even if you take into account work hours. Something else that matters is money. If you have large sums of money, you can do things like hire a maid service or buy a car that doesn't break down every three months.

Choosing a suitable candidate is not an exact science and formal qualifications are never enough at this level, and if there are more than one applicant (and there always are) it is often very hard to prove that someone was not chosen because of his/her gender.

If you are hiring large numbers of people, it's not that hard. If you are hiring 20 or 30 people (or firing 20 or 30 people), then you can run statistics if something seems "odd" then people can do things about it. This is why the companies that I have worked in hire and fire in "batches" because if you hire/fire people in groups you can prove that there isn't any funny business.

If you are hiring one person at a time, it becomes difficult.

Laws can never really fully solve that problem (which does not mean that one shouldn't try).

It's a matter of laws and tight labor markets and managers that can't be fired. When there are lots of jobs available, then there is lots of pressure to comply with the law. The other thing is that in most industrial companies, HR is extremely powerful (i.e. they can order you to hire/fire someone), whereas HR is extremely weak in most academic settings.

The other problem is that if you have X jobs and 5X applicants, it becomes difficult to do anything because if you give person Y a job, that means that person Z doesn't get it, and person Z will get annoyed.

 

[Feodalherren]

Swedish

That's the key word. Sweden is one of the most radically leftists countries in the world. I've always thought that most of these crazy feminists are full of it... There's no reason why you should expect to be treated differently in the United States.

From my experience there are many times more men than women in science and math classes. I don't know why men tend to gravitate toward these fields more often, that's another question. I've never heard of any of the women in my classes claiming to be treated differently. It's just leftist propaganda where they want to erase the fact that there are two sexes within the human species.

By the way, wasn't it in Sweden that they were just trying to make up a new word to replace "he" and "she"?

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

However, one consequence of this has -it is rumoured- been that some professors now avoid hiring people -men and women- who they think might be planning to have children, i.e. anyone who is in a long term relationship.

What's the basis for this rumour?

 

[Zarqon]

The only long-term solution to this problem is if the funding rules are changed AND men start taking more responsibility for raising children (meaning they ALSO stay at home, at least some of the time).

That's not a solution at all, because you'll get knocked out of the market if you are male and you want to spent lots of time with kids.

The point is that the funding rules have to be forgiving. If the rules state that your project ends after 3 years, then someone taking a 6-month maternity leave during that time is a huge hindrance. But if the rules state that the project ends at 3 years + X, where X is non-zero if someone has taken maternity/paternity leave, then at least you have removed some of the disadvantage the employer gets from hiring someone that goes on leave.

 

[twofish-quant]

But if the rules state that the project ends at 3 years + X, where X is non-zero if someone has taken maternity/paternity leave, then at least you have removed some of the disadvantage the employer gets from hiring someone that goes on leave.

The trouble is that is that budgeting happens like clockwork according to the fiscal year. Funding often depends on a legislature allocating money on a yearly budget and you aren't going to change that easily.

Also, budgeting rules are extremely rigid and are designed specifically to make it difficult or impossible to move money from year to year or from project to project. It's easier (note I didn't say easy, just easier) to move money in private companies.

But ultimately the problem is that we have such a supply/demand imbalance that no one is going to make it easier for you to do physics. If you leave the field because you want to have kids, then *GOOD*, that's one less person that's competing for jobs.

 

[StatGuy2000]

The trouble is that is that budgeting happens like clockwork according to the fiscal year. Funding often depends on a legislature allocating money on a yearly budget and you aren't going to change that easily.

Also, budgeting rules are extremely rigid and are designed specifically to make it difficult or impossible to move money from year to year or from project to project. It's easier (note I didn't say easy, just easier) to move money in private companies.

But ultimately the problem is that we have such a supply/demand imbalance that no one is going to make it easier for you to do physics. If you leave the field because you want to have kids, then *GOOD*, that's one less person that's competing for jobs.

The issue pointed out with funding is not unique to physics, but is endemic in all scientific endeavours in academia. I would also suspect that the supply/demand imbalance is a problem in all scientific disciplines (although I concede that the situation is probably worse in physics than in other fields).

On another note, one might conclude that there are two ways to reduce the imbalance between supply and demand in physics:

(1) Increase the demand for physics PhDs by putting more federal/state dollars in R&D (given the current budgetary situation, this is unlikely to occur in the short term),

or

(2) Reduce the supply (for example, by drastically reducing the number of PhDs granted in physics or by reducing the number of postdoc positions, or by actively discouraging students from applying to PhD programs in physics).

 

[twofish-quant]

The issue pointed out with funding is not unique to physics, but is endemic in all scientific endeavours in academia. I would also suspect that the supply/demand imbalance is a problem in all scientific disciplines (although I concede that the situation is probably worse in physics than in other fields).

I don't think it is worse. There is a lot of grousing about how awful things are here, but I know people in the humanities that are a *LOT* worse off.

Something to point out here is that no one really cares what happens to 1000 physics Ph.D.'s. However the issues with physics Ph.d.'s is I think a symptom of a much larger problem. The same sorts of issues that we have with physics Ph.D.'s is now happening with *every* degree.

On another note, one might conclude that there are two ways to reduce the imbalance between supply and demand in physics

I think that there more than two. Also, imbalances will self-adjust. One thing that people assume happens is that we disagree, we have a big meeting, we come to a consensus, and then we implement a plan. That's usually *NOT* how things work. Usually, we have meeting after meeting in which people can't agree on what to do, the system goes into auto-pilot, and then "stuff" happens based on the auto-pilot settings.

In the case of physics hiring what is happening is that people are being forced into industry. Also, the system requires people to incur more and more pain and sacrifice more and more to get the job which might not exist.

One reason I try to encourage younglings not to talk about "passion" is that a system in which people have to become monks in order to do physics is the logical result of the talk about passion and sacrifice to do science. I'm trying to get young people to realize that there are limits to passion and sacrifice.

(2) Reduce the supply (for example, by drastically reducing the number of PhDs granted in physics or by reducing the number of postdoc positions, or by actively discouraging students from applying to PhD programs in physics).

Which isn't going to happen either. The problem is that Ph.D.'s are the "grunt workers" of academia, and if you have fewer Ph.D. students, you are going to have fewer tenured faculty. If you drastically reduce the number of physics Ph.D.'s then you have to start shutting down departments. The trouble is that this will cause a negative spiral which will get us back to where we were before World War II before the age of big science.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Twofish is, once again, letting his bitterness get the best of him, to the point of his arguments becoming illogical.

The reason there is an "oversupply" of PhD's has nothing to do with universities and "grunt labor". If that were driving it, we'd see the same level of PhD production and funding for philosophers and art historians as physicists. The reason that external funding for producing physicists is orders of magnitude higher than for producing philosophers is because the citizens of the United States, through their elected representatives, have decided that it is worth the money to produce of stream of physicists who will enter industry and make better computers and cell phones, to improve searching for oil wells and developing alternative energy, strengthen the banking system, and maybe figure out how to keep our strategic deterrent forces working in a world where every twelve years half of our tritium decays away.

The 10% or so who become professors are a tax on this - an unavoidable loss in the system if you want to keep it working. Make no mistake, from the point of view of Washington, the reason that the creation of physics PhDs is funded is for the public interest.

I suspect that a Congressman's reaction to "I wanted to be a professor and couldn't get a job doing that" would be along the lines of "So you didn't get your first choice of jobs. Well boo freaking hoo. Welcome to the real world, kiddo." What is a personal tragedy to you is exactly how the system is supposed to work.

This is not the only place this happens. Annapolis admits about 1100 students a year. Pretty much all of them want to be admirals some day, but there are only 220 admirals in the entire navy. Should they therefore admit only 25 or 30 a year? The US government doesn't care that 97% of them will never make admiral, so long as they get some utility out of them.

Now, onto the topic at hand. I see a lot more "everyone knows" and "rumor has it" and "I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend" and even "this is the way I think the world should be" but precious few actual facts. A fact would be nice, I think.

 

[twofish-quant]

Twofish is, once again, letting his bitterness get the best of him, to the point of his arguments becoming illogical.

Funny thing. I'm a lot less bitter than most other people in the field.

Also, I didn't invent this.. There are two particularly influential papers in this field

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1991PASP..103...90T (The Production of Astronomers: A Model for Future Surpluses)

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/528878 (The Production Rate and Employment of Ph.D. Astronomers)

The reason there is an "oversupply" of PhD's has nothing to do with universities and "grunt labor". If that were driving it, we'd see the same level of PhD production and funding for philosophers and art historians as physicists

US produces about 150 or so art history Ph.D.'s each year. That's roughly the same number as the number of particle physics Ph.D.'s.

http://cnx.org/content/m13978/latest/?collection=col10377/latest

Also you can use the Thronson model to model things other than astrophysics production. What ends up happening is that if you adjust the level of funding then it saturates at a different level. In the case of art historians and philosophy, you end up with an oversupply at a much lower level of funding. In other fields like CS and finance, you don't get an oversupply because students don't become "breeders."

The reason that external funding for producing physicists is orders of magnitude higher than for producing philosophers is because the citizens of the United States, through their elected representatives, have decided that it is worth the money to produce of stream of physicists who will enter industry and make better computers and cell phones, to improve searching for oil wells and developing alternative energy, strengthen the banking system, and maybe figure out how to keep our strategic deterrent forces working in a world where every twelve years half of our tritium decays away.

And that's a good thing. The trouble is that there is no reason to think that this funding shouldn't be taken for granted. Funding for physics is highly variable, and if people in the United States start thinking that physics Ph.D.'s aren't doing anything useful, then funding is going to get cut. Personally I think that would be a bad thing.

We've already seen this happen in one situation. Personally, I think it's a *very* bad thing that the Higgs Particle was found at CERN rather than in Texas, and that was because Congress was not convinced that it was worth spending several tens of billions of dollars on the SSC.

Also, if the purpose of the physics Ph.d. is to do improve industry (and I think it would be), then there are a lot of things that could be done to improve things. Listening to people that have moved from academia to industry rather than dismissing their opinions would be a start.

One problem with "more funding" is that it changes the equilibrium, but it doesn't prevent saturation. If you increase the amount of funding but don't change the way that Ph.D.'s are trained then you change the equilibrium level, but you still end up with a lot more people looking for work than getting it.

I suspect that a Congressman's reaction to "I wanted to be a professor and couldn't get a job doing that" would be along the lines of "So you didn't get your first choice of jobs. Well boo freaking hoo. Welcome to the real world, kiddo." What is a personal tragedy to you is exactly how the system is supposed to work.

If an auto worker said that or an investment banker, they wouldn't have the same reaction. The difference is that there are maybe 1000 or so disgruntled physicists whereas we are looking at a million or so auto workers or investment bankers. Politicians can count. If you have enough votes, they aren't going to *think* "get a life."

If you watch auto makers talk to congress people, it's "give us jobs or we'll find someone that will." Personally, I think it would be a better world if particle physicists and adjunct faculty had that sort of clout. Part of this is that I've seen first hand how banks formulate the rules to stay in business, and I think it would be good if scientists had that sort of political power.

One other thing is that it feels *good* to talk to a politician. Politicians know what to say to make you feel good, and every Congressperson I've ever met up close has this "feel good" aura. They might be thinking "get a life, you worthless bum", but as long as you are a registered voter they won't say anything like that.

Now, onto the topic at hand. I see a lot more "everyone knows" and "rumor has it" and "I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend" and even "this is the way I think the world should be" but precious few actual facts. A fact would be nice, I think.

One problem with facts is that the system deliberately is structured to hide facts. You can't *prove* anything.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's really weird that I get accused of being bitter since I'm more or less satisfied with the ways things turned out. The big question (and someone asked me this over private e-mail) is whether or not I would encourage people to go into science.

The answer is HELL YES!

The trouble is that ethically, I can't encourage someone to go into theoretical physics without warning them ahead of time about the problems that they are likely to face. But at the end of the day, I think that society would be a lot better with more physicists and mathematicians, and if our economic and social system isn't set up to handle this, then that's a problem with our economic and social system.

I'm amazed that people have a problem with this. Yes, I'm bitter, but I'm probably one of the less bitter people you'd find. I still believe in the system, and most of the people that I know have just given up on that.