Dear All:
[If this article has been mentioned in an earlier listing, my apologies.]
This month Discover Magazine has two articles on women scientists written
to address a question that the editors have asked their staffer, Kathy A.
Svitil, to address: How do women fare in science? The first article, "50
Women Scientists," begins:
"Three percent of tenured professors of physic in this country are women.
Nonetheless, a woman physicist stopped light in her lab at Harvard.
Another woman runs the linear accelerator at Stanford. A woman discovered
the first evidence for dark matter..."
The article goes on to give small (but very impressive) profiles of each
woman and notes..."To read their stories is to understand how important it
is that the barriers facing women in science be broken down as quickly and
entirely as possible....Even the women who have stuck with it, even those
who have succeeded spectacularly, still report that being a women in this
intensely male world is, at best, challenging and, at worst, downright
disheartening."
The second article, "Why Science Must Adapt to Women," by
Peggy Orenstein covers more of the overall numbers, noting the
disappearance of women as they move up the science education ladder.
Issues of bias combined with the tenure process push many women to the
sidelines.
But, I don't want to spoil all the reading fun. The article
also discusses what happened when 230 identical CVs were sent out to
randomly selected professors, asking them to evaluate the fitness of the
candidates as a job applicant. Half were sent by "Karen Miller" and half
were sent by "Brian Miller." Hummmmmm. Brian was endorsed by two-thirds
(but the article doesn't say anything about Karen so it's hard to know what
that statement means).
It goes on with good news and bad news but...that's better
than no news, I think.
Cynthia Zafft
Postsecondary Educational Specialist
College to Career Networks
Institute for Community Inclusion -- Boston
<Cynthia.Zafft@umb.edu>
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