Tag Archives: women in science

 
Several recent articles and interviews have covered research by Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci on the choices women in science make and how it is these choices, rather than discrimination, that affects their careers.

Quoted in Social scientist sees bias within, New York Times, February 7, 2011.

BBC Science in Action Series interview with Williams for a segment on Women in Science, March 11, 2011.

The myth of gender discrimination, interview by Ceci and Williams for New Hampshire Public Radio, February 15, 2011.

Universities need to do more for women in math fields, interview by Williams and Ceci for The Innovation Trail, March 22, 2011.

Family Planning Issues Siphon Women From Sciences, interview by Williams for WNED-AM 970 NEWS, April 11, 2011.

 

Wendy Williams

Williams

Stephen Ceci

Ceci

It’s an incendiary topic in academia – the pervasive belief that women are underrepresented in science, math and engineering fields because they face sex discrimination in the interviewing, hiring, and grant and manuscript review processes. In a study published online Feb. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cornell social scientists say it’s just not true.

It’s not discrimination in these areas, but rather, differences in resources attributable to career and family-related choices that set women back in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, say Stephen J. Ceci, the H.L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, and Wendy M. Williams, professor of human development and director of the Cornell Institute for Women in Science, both in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology.

The data show that women scientists are confronted with choices, beginning at or before adolescence, which influence their career trajectories and success. Read the full story

female mathematicianWhy aren't there more women math professors? Or engineering professors, or physics professors, or professors of computer science or economics? Why aren't there more women tech entrepreneurs? If a field involves lots of numbers, why does it seem to involve so few women? Some people say it's discrimination, others say socialization and few, including a former Harvard university president, have said ability has something to do with it. (That's largely why he's "former.")

Now a husband and wife team, both academics (with three daughters), have analyzed the cognitive data and decided it's not really any of these. It's mostly about female preference and motherhood. Read the full article

The Mathematics of Sex: How Biology and Society Conspire to Limit Talented Women and Girls, by Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams, has shifted the debate on the dearth of women in math-intensive fields. Published last September by Oxford University Press, it reaches a surprising conclusion: the reason why so few women hold tenure-track positions in engineering, physics, and mathematics departments is simply because they choose not to enter those fields—and if they do, they tend to leave them in large numbers.  Read more

By Susan Lang
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle October 27, 2009

Almost half of all recent M.D.s and Ph.D.s in biology are women, and so are the majority of new psychologists (67 percent), veterinarians (75 percent) and dentists (70 percent). But why the lack of women mathematicians, engineers, chemists and physicists?

Book cover

In the top 100 U.S. universities, only 9-15 percent of tenure-track academic positions (and less than 10 percent of full professors) in math-intensive fields are held by women, report Cornell professors Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams.

Yet, more than one-third of the professors in the social sciences and humanities (except in economics with 16 percent) are women.

In their new book, "The Mathematics of Sex: How Biology and Society Conspire to Limit Talented Women and Girls" (Oxford University Press), Ceci and Williams examine evidence from around the world in endocrinology, economics, sociology, education, genetics and psychology about why such fields as mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering and chemistry are so lopsidedly male. They examine three classes of explanations: ability differences in mathematics and spatial ability, biases and barriers, and career/lifestyle preferences.

Their general conclusion: The imbalance in mathematically oriented careers is not due to the sex differences in mathematical and spatial ability that have been reported, or to current biases.

"Though past cohort discrepancies may be explained in such terms, because women are hired for tenure-track positions at rates roughly comparable to their proportions in the Ph.D. pools -- and more often than not, slightly above their proportions," said Ceci, the Helen L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology at Cornell.

Rather, he added, the single biggest reason why so few women work in these fields is because they opt out of such careers at a fairly young age.

"In surveys," Ceci said, "very few adolescent girls say they desire to be an engineer or physicist, preferring instead to be medical doctors, veterinarians and lawyers."

Although females earn a large portion of bachelor's degrees in all fields of science, including math-intensive fields (46 percent of mathematics majors are females), disproportionately fewer women enter graduate school in these fields, and fewer women who earn Ph.D.s apply for academic jobs.

Women want some job flexibility to raise children, and "the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted," Ceci said.

For the same reasons, women drop out of scientific fields after entering them -- especially math and physical sciences -- at significantly higher rates than men, particularly as they advance, added co-author Williams, professor of human development.

Even in such fields as medicine, where women now make up half of graduating classes, those entering academic medicine drop out at higher rates than do their male counterparts.

"The tenure structure in academe demands that women who have children make their greatest intellectual achievements contemporaneously with their greatest physical and emotional achievements -- a feat fathers are never expected to accomplish," Williams said. "When women opt out of careers -- or segue to part-time work in them -- to have children, this is a choice men are not required to make."

The book builds on a study that Ceci, Williams and colleague Susan Barnett published earlier this year in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin (135:2), which analyzed more than 400 articles and book chapters published over 35 years on sex differences in math.

Ceci and Williams, a couple with three daughters, including one with a graduate degree in engineering, both teach in Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

Chronicle OnLine May 10, 2007

Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci are Cornell professors of human development and the editors of "Why Aren't More Women in Science? Top Researchers Debate the Evidence" (2007). This article was excerpted from the authors' previously published article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Submissions are invited for the Chronicle's regular column of ideas and opinion.

Universities save money by offering tenure to fewer professors: Today less than 40 percent of U.S. faculty members are on tenure track. In all the research and debate, one unexamined aspect of tenure is whether it fulfills its original justification, espoused by the American Association of University Professors since 1915, which is to ensure academic freedom -- professors' freedom to teach, conduct research and perform other duties without fear of job loss or censure. But does it?

One assistant professor was afraid to study a topic because senior colleagues with a contrasting view of the field did not want to see rival positions bolstered. Even now, as a tenured associate professor, she does not feel comfortable undertaking the research. She reasons that once promoted to full professor, she will finally pursue the topic without fear. Whatever happened to tenure's ensuring academic freedom -- wasn't tenure supposed to liberate professors to pursue controversial ideas?

Empirical data were absent, so we conducted a survey (with Katrin Mueller-Johnson, published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences). After e-mailing a random sample of 2,700 professors of all ranks and varied disciplines from top-rated colleges and universities across the country, 36 percent (961) agreed to participate. We also telephoned a random sample of 48 nonresponders; 43 responded, and their attitudes matched the original 961 responders.

We asked these 1,004 professors to react to real-world dilemmas involving colleagues wishing to teach courses unpopular with their peers, investigate unpopular topics and publish controversial findings; e.g., "Assistant Professor B is considering teaching a new course that several of B's senior colleagues frown upon. What would the typical assistant professor in B's position do?" For one-third of the professors, the question referred to an assistant professor; for another third, an associate professor; and for the final third, a full professor. Equal numbers of assistant, associate and full professors got each version of the question.

We compared how professors of a given rank believed colleagues of their own versus other ranks would behave. Our large sample enabled us to see how actual full professors said their peers would behave, for example, compared with how people at that rank were perceived as behaving by more junior colleagues.

Because we wondered if the lure of tenure and promotion impeded ethical behavior, we also asked our participants how colleagues act when confronted with such dilemmas as a colleague misappropriating grant funds or having a sexual relationship with an undergraduate.

Academic freedom should mean that professors with tenure act without fear of reprisal in these real-life situations, pursuing research that interests them, reporting unethical conduct by colleagues, etc. Sadly, tenure does not appear to confer such freedom.

Professors in our study were more timid than we expected, rarely confronting departmental colleagues who disagreed with the content of their research and teaching. Interestingly, everyone thought that everyone else would behave more boldly than they themselves would.

Having tenure was not associated with a greater willingness to speak one's mind or publish controversial findings. Comparing tenured associate professors with untenured assistant professors and tenured full professors revealed that the associates behaved more like their junior colleagues than like their senior ones.

The biggest increase in the tendency to engage in the academic freedoms mentioned above came upon promotion to full professor. That point usually comes 12-20 years after the Ph.D., during which time academic freedom is stifled, or at least muted.

One happy finding was that the idea of the renegade tenured professor -- often invoked during tenure reviews to block a candidate by instilling fear of the person's future selfish or irresponsible behavior -- turned out to be a myth. Most professors lack the moxie or desire to become renegades.

All the professors in our sample assumed that the colleague down the hall would be more likely than they themselves were to report another professor for misappropriating grant funds or having an inappropriate relationship with a student. (Interestingly, our survey revealed few disciplinary or gender differences.) In fact, some professors appear more concerned with remaining in their colleagues' good graces than they are with maintaining ethical standards.

One could argue that tenure helps attract a talented workforce, results in higher graduation rates at colleges and universities with higher proportions of tenure-track faculty members, and protects the few who most need it. But is tenure the most efficient way to achieve those goals? Some nations that do not offer tenure still protect academic freedom, through legislation or union contracts (e.g., Britain and New Zealand).

We conclude that tenure is not living up to its original promise: It does not liberate professors to exercise the freedoms of speech, writing and action. The muzzling effect of the current system of promotion in higher education must be weighed against tenure's virtues, such as higher graduation rates and the recruitment of a talented workforce.

The truth is, most of us walk on eggshells until we become full professors. To quote one 45-year-old friend, newly promoted to that rank, "It's great to finally be able to speak my mind at work."