So, what did you think of that NYT article about women in science you linked to? It seemed pretty well written and well sourced to me.
My observations about women in the sciences is that just about any woman with the mathematical ability to get into a doctoral program will get the doctorate if her life/family circumstances permit. But what happens to women after they've got the doctorates is ... disturbing. More women who get into tenure track jobs end up not getting tenure for all sorts of reasons, most of them having nothing to do with their actual abilities as scientists. Women who go into non-tenure track jobs stay on "soft money" for decades sometimes. Arguably the biggest single driver behind both of these is that the women are having children in the decade following their doctorates. They put off the whole marriage and family thing to get through grad school, but the biological clock keeps ticking and they're keenly aware of the risks associated with childbearing after age 40. So we end up with a fair sized population of women scientists in their 30s who are working part time in science while also doing mommy track stuff.
Anyhow, my point is that the reason we still end up with the top tier of the professoriate populated almost exclusively by men is *not* due to any especially high intelligence on the part of those men, but rather because the women with doctorates seldom devote themselves to a single-minded pursuit of advancement in academia during their 30s and 40s. In a perfect world the men wouldn't either, as they'd be as engaged and involved with their young families as the women are, but we don't live in that perfect world.
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Date: 2010-06-09 06:33 pm (UTC)My observations about women in the sciences is that just about any woman with the mathematical ability to get into a doctoral program will get the doctorate if her life/family circumstances permit. But what happens to women after they've got the doctorates is ... disturbing. More women who get into tenure track jobs end up not getting tenure for all sorts of reasons, most of them having nothing to do with their actual abilities as scientists. Women who go into non-tenure track jobs stay on "soft money" for decades sometimes. Arguably the biggest single driver behind both of these is that the women are having children in the decade following their doctorates. They put off the whole marriage and family thing to get through grad school, but the biological clock keeps ticking and they're keenly aware of the risks associated with childbearing after age 40. So we end up with a fair sized population of women scientists in their 30s who are working part time in science while also doing mommy track stuff.
Anyhow, my point is that the reason we still end up with the top tier of the professoriate populated almost exclusively by men is *not* due to any especially high intelligence on the part of those men, but rather because the women with doctorates seldom devote themselves to a single-minded pursuit of advancement in academia during their 30s and 40s. In a perfect world the men wouldn't either, as they'd be as engaged and involved with their young families as the women are, but we don't live in that perfect world.