As a student coming from a purely humanities background, the idea that gender discrimination could occur in the field of science as a concept was completely alien to me. However it has come to light that gender discrimination in the field of science is not a myth but in fact a harsh reality for which the reasons remain skewed.
As according to Linda S. Dix, it is not an easy matter to assess the magnitude of gender discrimination and how that affects the careers of scientists, both men and women, positively and negatively. Discrimination is often subtle and thus difficult to identify or locate. Due to its subtleness, it makes it difficult to measure since it can be entwined with other forms of particularism like age. As a result researchers have come to rely on indirect rather than direct measures of discrimination which was also propounded by Harriet Zuckerman. Most researchers have come to agree that differences in career attainments between men and women occur as an outcome of gender discrimination.
As per research ‘gender’ provides a perspective from which one could examine the biases that exist in the larger society. Some believe that to arrive at a more eloquent understanding of the problems of women in science , one should begin by asking what is the nature of science space that leads to under-representation and marginalisation of women rather than questioning the situation of a woman’s life that makes it difficult for her to pursue science.
Thus, that gender
Miller, Alice H. Eagly, and Marcia C. Linn, it measured gender-science stereotype, “” (2). which is defined as associations that connects science with men more than women. This is believed to come from a lack of representation of women in the relative field. The study notes that putting women in science related fields in media, or having more women in the field, lessons that stereotype. They conducted the experiment by measuring 66 nations, which consisted of 350,000 participants’ explicit and implicit gender-science stereotypes. They found a relationship “between women's representation in science and national gender-science stereotype” (Eagly, Linn, Miller 8). The results of the study concluded that “implicit and explicit measures indicated strong association of science with man” (Eagly, Linn, Miller
In Reflections on Gender and Science by Evelyn Fox Keller, Keller writes about the presence of masculinity, rather than femininity, in science. Keller begins makes it clear that, although there are significantly more men than women in the field, the issue at hand is not the lack of women working in science, but the “attribution of masculinity to science as an intellectual domain” (76). This means the language, tone, and overall dominance. Keller states that this stems from the myth that masculinity is associated with objectivity and neutrality, whereas femininity is associated with subjectivity and emotions. Therefore, because of these two associations, it is believed that men are better suited to be scientists than women, which is why the
Throughout Gender and Race in the Physical Sciences, I have been struck by how rarely in STEM we shed a light on the women of color that already exist and thrive in the sciences. Often, when we discuss diversity in the sciences, we only discuss it in the frame of a problem. More specifically, we tend to focus on the problem of there not being enough of these women in the field. As a result of the lack of attention paid to pioneering women in STEM, many young people of all backgrounds are inclined to believe that there are no women of color doing great things in the field- that there are no role models. With this paper, and an on-campus event to be held in the spring, I hope to challenge people’s assumptions about what a scientist looks like, and inspire people through a discussion of innovative women of color.
The opposing side views that first of all, there’s lack of diversity in certain career fields and that’s why the government is encouraging minorities to join these career fields.. In “Minorities in science”, Daniel Koshland has stated the importance for diversity in the science field. “ If a minority is underrepresented in a category (i), there may be a pipeline problem where the solution requires encouragement of those individuals who have the talent to enter the profession and the message that discrimination is no longer tolerated” (2).
Women were blocked from nearly any form of scientific experiment or inquiry. Margaret Cavendish, an English natural philosopher and the first woman to visit a meeting of the Royal Society, illustrates the “disregard of the female sex” in sciences (Doc. 9). Unsurprisingly, men continued to oppress women and block any and all paths to gaining social standing. Science, like almost all other domains, continued to be controlled by
Women have always been at the forefronts of science, even though they have not always taken the credit for it. One of the defining marks of humanity is our ability to affect and predict our environment. Science - the creation of structure for our world - technology - the use of structure in our world - and mathematics - the common
51 percent of the United States is female but only 34.4 percent of doctors are women. While 90.4 percent of nurses are female (“Women in Medicine”; “Male Nurses Becoming”), the women who do become doctors earn an astounding 25 percent less than their male counterparts (Groves). These staggering figures are only a single piece in the larger overall lack of women in STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which has remained prevalent since the beginning of these fields. Although women are underrepresented in these STEM fields, this is not due to ineptitude, but instead it is a result of the force of societal stereotypes coupled with their wider range of abilities. The recent increase in women’s association with STEM seems
Women have been in science for as long as anyone else, but more often than not, their work in the field is discredited because they're female.
There are many barriers facing underrepresented scientist, some are explicit while others are implicit and subtle. Some explicit examples would be a girl being told that math and science is for boys and that they should focus on a different subject instead. Another explicit example is when Universities would not allow women or African American’s into their schools. Explicit discrimination is very harmful, but implicit or subtle forms of discrimination can be much more harmful. That is because implicit or subtle forms of discrimination are harder to see and to prevent. Even when they are shown to be true, you will always have those people who say, “that is not true because look at this token person in this field”. Some examples of implicit discrimination
The most drastically noticed is usually in the place of education and work. Often boys and girls are separated because a boy is better at a girl in one thing and visa versa. A study done in November of 2016 found that, “A big part of the reason that girls stay away from STEM isn't about test results. It's down to self-confidence and the weight of public perceptions; girls and young women seem to absorb societal beliefs that "girls can't do math" and rate their own abilities lower as a result, while boys often have an inflated view of their skills. Parents in the study tended to hold higher opinions of sons' mathematical abilities, which probably added an extra layer of discouragement” (Thorpe). Although it may not be apparent, girls and boys are often steered into a specific educational choices by the older generation and educators based on their gender. A gender should not affect how a person is taught in school and what they want to do in life. As boys are girls are given different types of encouragement growing up, it often reflects on their career path. Often men and women are separated by which jobs are “gender appropriate”, but if women and men do get the same job they are also often separated. Noback and others said, “A wide range of empirical evidence suggests that women face more obstacles that hinder career advancement than men do. Based on a review, Tharenou found that the barriers
Science, along with the talents of those indulged with science, is shown to excel tremendously regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. Men are not the only ones to fuel the multiple fields of science. There are many women- Rosalind Franklin, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and Mary-Claire- who have made impacting discoveries, receiving little to no recognition. Just as the women listed, there are also minority groups who have impacted science and the discoveries that have been made. Having diversity in gender, race, and ethnicity allow people to be more open-minded, more industrious, and more preserving.
Sitting in my general biology class today, learning about amazing biological discoveries, my male teacher jokingly said “Did you know there are women in science?” then went on to joke about how these women who had just made an amazing biological discovery even had PhD’s. As he went on to talk about the amazing things these women did, he talked about the discovery like he had for the other ones made by men. If women can make biological discoveries like men can why are they looked at differently in their graduate fields of study. In this essay I will explore the gender issue in education through the lens of feminism by evidence shown in past decades and today. Education was primarily for men while women were not even allowed in some classrooms, while over time this has changed.
In today’s society, there are more men engaged in the science fields than women. With that being said, this could cause the commonness of gender stereotypes. For instance, science is there for men and not women. Besides the social life of others, these stereotypes can also be shown in during the education process. Stereotypes are mainly visible by the use of language, the methods of teaching, gender and the attitude that is given. The main goal of this article was to tell whether the science education contained gender biased. This analysis thoroughly explains men are more into science profession and women are more likely to become teachers. In this article, men and women shows a stereotypical representation in online science education
Marie Curie is famously known to be one of the first women known to make very large contributions to science, and known as a distinguishable woman for receiving two Nobel Peace Prizes. However, looking past, her gender, her achievements as a scientist, not a female scientist, were remarkable. Today radium is most commonly known for its use to treat specific types of cancer. This remarkable treatment can be attributed to Marie Curie, yet still she known to be the “accomplished female scientist”. Gender bias signifantly affects the scientific perception Marie Curie. This investigation will analyze how society undermined and ignored Curie’s distinguishable scientific discoveries and will in depth investigate To what extent did gender bias
The second half of the semester we focus on science and values, there are several very good readings that help explain the theme. The readings about feminism stood out to me as I am interested on how women force impact the field of scientific research. The term “feminism” describes the fight for women’s right and equality based on equality of sexes. The women around the world are facing so many problems like inequality from political issues, work force, scientific research to even in their house. Feminism helps to amplify the women roles, power and their contribution to the community. Feminism also refers to the fairness between men and women. They must have equal rights and responsibility towards the society and community. Out of several very good readings, I choose Fox Keller, “Feminism and Science” and Harding, “Strong Objectivity” as a discussing topic for my essay. I believed that these two readings emphasized the value of women in scientific inquiry.