Kimberly Tanner's Science Club
Kimberly Tanner once founded a co-educational Science Club. What she saw took her breath away. In our earlier discussion about More Thoughts on Naturally Obsessed, I mentioned Tanner's 2009 article on Looking for Inequity in Science. In it, she talked about her Science Club. She founded it to counteract the conclusion about women's scientific ability from the existing Girls' Science Club. She worried that, "as an unintended consequence, girls would think something was wrong with them, that the existence of a special girls' science club would imply that they needed extra remedial help."
So, in the early 1990's she started this co-educational Science Club, while simultaneously delving into the literature on women's success and failure in science. She says that in her unisex science club, she saw, "differential treatment of girls and boys that mirrored what I had been reading." And she also discovered in herself some inconsistent behavior - she told boys how to focus a microscope, but she showed girls. Why? She had lots of hard thinking to do!
She found that even women in science who wanted to encourage more girls to go into the field still treated boys and girls differently. It was important to see the inequity, the different treatment of women that she had felt was negligible for so long, before she could address it successfully.
What do you think?
A. Inequity between women/girls and men/boys in science is pretty much a thing of the past.
B. I've always seen and fought against unfairness to women/girls in science.
C. I had a moment like Kimberly when I became aware of unfairness to women/girls in science.
Has anyone found that she herself was unconsciously expressing bias against women science students? That was one of the most telling points in Kimberly's experience, I thought. Maybe people will be too embarassed to say, but you can post anonymously! I'm sure the women who reviewed male and female applicants in those tests of gender bias in hiring were embarassed to find that they, as women, still demanded more of applicants with female names.
I see the last poster's point about wanting the best in your lab, but I still think that a lab should be functional as a team. They are individuals who have to work together. And one bad apple, male or female can spoil the lot. I spent my first two years in my company getting rid of the problem makers (2/3 were women). My manager kept sending them my way after it was clear I could make them leave faster than anyone else...
Now I screen for people who have excellent people skills as well as brains to work in my group. It's not worth the extra time to work with people who don't respect or value the time it takes to train, manage and mentor them.
In my lab, I want the most brilliant, creative minds I can find. Never mind nice. I wouldn't rule out someone who can cooperate, but that's not one of my top criteria. Isn't it settling for less than the best to want people who are "nice?"
I guess you have a mixture of types of both men and women students, Lillian, as I do. Not all of the men are pushy jerks, some of them are cooperative and thoughtful in both senses of the word. Others, well, it's nice to see their backs.
The women are also varied, but I still think more of them are interested in how their work fitst together with others' and more interested in a pleasant and cooperative lab atmosphere, which makes me happier to lead the group when there are a lot of women around. (I can hear Gloria Steinem's simulacrum yelling, That's a putdown!) Okay, I myself like to be an enjoyable companion too. Nice applies to both men and women and I value it in both.
cheers,
Laura
I have given up on male undergraduates. Too arrogant and they refuse to finish their work. They refuse to even write a good personal statement for graduate school and wonder why they don't get in anywhere! The female undergraduates are much better and I have sent several off to graduate school in the last two years. They are doing great. My only graduate student is a male. He is as good as any female student I have had. smile I have given up on male software engineers too. My current engineer is a single mother of three and a true colleague. Her name goes on all publications. I have been accused of being biased against white men, because the women in my group out perform the men. My bottom line is "hey guys" you are free to write your own grants but when you are in my group on my dime you work on my projects. If you think you know better than I do after 25yrs of funding, please go do your own thing, and get the hell out of my lab! No male Faculty would put up with what I have had to deal with from men of all ages who think they know better than any woman on the face of the earth! And I have no trouble telling little boys that perhaps they should find another interest.
I fully admit that when training grad students I was always more patient with the women than the men. I think women also asked more questions and asked for help more often. Is this enabling them to feel less adequate, like special needs kids or something? I wondered. My one grad student who was probaly the most gifted was a man, and we had a great mentor-mentee dynamic. When I reflect on it i think that he may have been more "feminine" than most men I have encounter. Or maybe he was just the least arrogant. I am definitely biased. One thing I can't stand is the blowhard male scientist who gets up in a seminar presentation and blathers on and on, and no one understands him, and he expects only praise afterwards - and gets it! Sometimes men can say the stupidest things, and get something completely wrong, but it doesn't matter, doesn't impact people's opinion of him. I guess I have some issues with this.
Thanks to Laura for sharing my story. I'm wondering if others have had similar epiphanies of recognizing inequity at work in their own institutions... Please do share!
I think what cheers me up is that no matter how poorly those young men do working with me as undergraduates, I know they will more than compensate for it with opportunities later on. I doubt the same is true for the women. But any type of bias does concern me now that I'm the mother of a little boy:) I doubt I'd appreciate some woman telling my son that he just doesn't have what it takes.
C for me. Lots of things happened to me that make me laugh to think how impervious I was to them at the time. I finally saw a difference when I was leaving graduate school and saw how Yale directed the men versus the women who graduated. In those days, men went right to faculty jobs and women went to the first of interminable postdocs/research associate positions. Now, of course, everyone goes to postdocs. Hmm.
And Helen, I think you are right on target. High expectations are the best way to get highly successful results in my experience too.
cheers,
Laura
C. But I will say that it goes in the reverse where I expect more from the girls. After all, they are there to learn, not horse around and have better abilities to multi-task and focus even at a young age, right? Right...I've had the chance to mentor some terrific young women and men and have always had better success in getting the women to perform better than the young men. And part of that is certainly my expectation going into it for good or for bad.
I think the general point of this was to point out that even *women* can perpetuate the stereotypes about women through their own teaching and not even realize it. we all need to be more self aware.
A. No one ever says to a girl today, "This field is not for you, consider Home Ec." We have little things to worry about but it's nowhere near as bad as it was back when DNA was first discovered. FBP
