Blog 7 : Let’s Stop Arguing
Chelsea Eareckson
Blog on Chapter 9
Diane F. Halpern writes the essay, “Science, Sex, and Good Sense: Why Women Are Underrepresented in Some Areas of Science and Math,” attempting to deal with the psychosocial factors that influence how women are perceived and treated in the math and science fields. Halpern examines whether women are actually under represented in the math and science fields along with sex differences in cognitive abilities and hormones to reach the conclusion that the absence of women in many of the math and science fields is not caused by a difference in cognitive abilities. She also suggests that because women are portrayed as caretakers in society, they feel an increased pressure to dedicate their time to familial responsibilities and cannot make the necessary time required to succeed in the upper ends of the math and science fields.
Halpern’s deconstruction of the factors that could contribute to the underrepresentation of women in the math and science fields made me take a step back from all of the arguments I’ve read so far and re-evaluate what the essays were trying to accomplish. Why do we combine the question of women’s intelligence with the question to why aren’t more women in math and science? Almost every single essay in Ceci and Hine’s collection Why Aren’t More Women in Science? has attempted to argue that women are equal to men in intelligence. But what has this got to do with the underrepresentation of women in the sciences? Halpern cites both science and logic when explaining how the female cognitive ability is not what is keeping women out of math and science. However, the mere presence of any women in the top of the math and science fields proves that women are not biologically incapable of succeeding in science. The real question, at least for me, is why are people expending all this energy trying to prove females are good enough, when we know we are? We should be using our energy and resources on investigating how to help more women to succeed.
Reading Halpern’s essay caused me to re-evaluate the questions being asked about the underrepresentation of women in science. It is clear that there is a gender gap, especially in physics and mathematics. I think there needs to be a separation between the ideas of intelligence and the gender gap in math and science fields. By continually talking and fighting about the differences in biology and how that relates to success, we keep the idea that biology could be a factor that impedes women in their successes alive and well. Changing the discussion to how to help women get their foot in the door would help eliminate this idea. Actively working to a solution could only bring positive results. Experiments need to start focusing on how to encourage young girls and women to become more integrated into these fields. Essays should be focused on how to reverse and repair the damage done to women because of society and gender schemas. Studies should work to find how to encourage men to be more active in familial duties, freeing up both women and men to focus on both their family and their career. The playing field needs to be leveled. Who better to do it than women?
