The Past, Present, and Future of Women in STEM fields

Predisposed does not mean Permanent

By: Shannon Laughlin

As a girl with two brothers, I spent most of my time growing up playing computer games, building with Legos, and making tracks for my Hot Wheels. At the time, I didn’t understand that these were stereotypically “boyish” toys, and my parents never discouraged me from playing with them. These early interests later led to an interest in science, mathematics, and all things technology. Loving STEM subjects was such a normality for me that I was quite shocked to discover the minority of women entering this career, and it was even more of a shock to encounter scientists claiming that women are predisposed by their genes to chose other careers instead. An example of these scientists are David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow, who claim that “although the sexes do not differ in general intelligence, they do differ in their specific ability patterns, interests, and number of hours willing to devote to their careers (80).” However, my childhood experience and a bounty of opposing research conveys that culture plays a larger role than predisposed attributes in impacting women’s career choices, particularly in the STEM fields. In fact, these “predisposed” differences may not even exist.

The main characteristic that Lubinski and Benbow claim differs in men and women is cognitive ability. They pull out a few studies showing boys excelling and girls falling behind in cognitive abilities such as math. Also, studies stating that girls excel in verbal areas are tied in, with the claim that people choose their career from the area they are better at, and that high-achieving girls in cognitive abilities are likely better in verbal skills, and thus, prefer a verbally-focused career. Even though Lubinski and Benbow used many studies, including their own, to prove their position, they did not mention the other side of the argument and all the opposing data. In the “Why so Few?” PowerPoint released by the AAUW, it is shown that cognitive abilities are malleable and can be improved with training. Thus, any data collected testing cognitive abilities cannot assume that the tested ability is “innate:” some subjects may score higher because they use cognitive abilities more than others, not because it is “natural.” Even bigger evidence contradicting this stance comes from a 2011 study published in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Mertz and Kane collected math score data from 86 countries and found that the scores were influenced by culture, not biology. Middle Eastern countries showed girls outperforming boys. Both genders overall performed better in countries with more gender equality. Thus, differences in cognitive ability are affected by the culture and vary place-to-place, not by sex.

Next, Lubinski and Benbow tackle the claim that women are simply never as interested as men in STEM fields. It is hard to determine the validity of the studies they included, but it can be concluded that phenomenon is undoubtedly shaped by culture. Women are not “predisposed” to like STEM less. A survey compiled by Cambridge Occupational Analysts detailed men and women’s interests in STEM subjects over the past seven years. Women’s interest in general engineering rose 16%, while boys’ only rose 5%. Similar trends are shown, with the number of females showing interest in STEM having a large increase across the board. This indicates that recent movements to boost women’s excitement towards STEM fields may be working, and thus, a group’s interest in something is subject to change and based on environment. Similar data is shown from the AAUW report “Why So Few?”. The study shows that when mentors tell girls that their intelligence can expand with practice, they will score higher on math tests and are more likely to show desire to continue studying math. This type of belief is called an “incremental mindset,” and is discussed in further detail by Virginia Valian in Chapter 1. The findings of this study show that a girl’s mindset can also affect her interest towards a subject, and one’s mindset is determined by environment/culture, not gender. Interest in an occupation is influenced by one’s own mindset and culturally prescribed values.

The remaining cause discussed, conative factors, is shown to differ in men and women according to the studies they examine. In the argument that women are willing to work less and thus, do not achieve highly in STEM positions, Lubinski and Benbow draw many questionable conclusions. They only provide one study showing women choosing to work less hours than men, and from that study they assume that men are being more productive and are, consequently, promoted. However, this cannot be assumed because there are studies that show women being more productive than men in general. A research consultancy called the Ponemon Institute found that while being monitored, women worked 4.9 minutes during a ten-minute trial while men worked 4.3. While not aware of observation, women worked 2.5 minutes out of ten and men worked 2.1. So a possibility is that women choose to work less hours because it takes them less time to complete a task. Or, perhaps women choose to work less due to culturally pressured beliefs that they should spend more time raising their families. And even this does not mean they will be less productive, as a study by Matthias Krapf, Heinrich Ursprung, and Christian Zimmerson shows that women with more children are more productive than those with less or none. Overall, the data showing women choosing to work less is shaky and definitely not a “prescribed attribute”, and even if they do choose to work less, it will not affect their productivity.

In sum, culture is the main sculptor in the disparity of women in STEM careers. Going back to my personal childhood story, I believe that it is crucial to not discourage girls from participating in stereotypically boyish activities. As shown above, the causes for women not choosing sciences are not permanent, and Lubinski and Benbow fail to recognize the malleability of the traits they point out. Preventing girls from feeling culturally prescribed pressures will allow for a more unbiased career choice, and will aid in the enhancement of women in STEM fields.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/72/bb/6d/72bb6d3382e9057aaf939407d0fd6e28.jpg

Comparative Essay 2- Shannon Laughlin

Cocktail Tall Tale?

By: Shannon Laughlin

One of the fondest memories from my childhood was playing a “card deck” format workbook of brain teasers, called “Brain Quest.” The questions would often ask you to answer a riddle or move an object in your mind, and I felt such pride when I finished a deck. Little did I know then, but this sort of “workbook” was helping me practice my spatial reasoning and abilities, something that some research shows boys are significantly better at than girls. According to John’s Hopkins researchers, spatial abilities are “the capability to understand and remember the spatial relations among objects.” An example of a problem that tests spatial skills is below. Could a discrepancy between sexes in these skills lead to a discrepancy between the sexes in STEM field job representation? Nora Newcombe tries to answer this question in her essay, featured in the book Why Aren’t More Women in Science?. Despite the fact that I agree with Newcombe’s mentality on fixing the issue, I cannot agree with her main points due to overarching assumptions.

The title of Newcombe’s essay, “Straight Thinking about Spatial Sex Differences,” is misleading because most of her explanations are not straightforward at all: the very nature of this topic is complex, and her views are no exception. She begins by referring to sex differences in spatial function as a “cocktail party conversation” which petty chitchat revolves around, but admits that there is truth to this information. She brings up the controversial remarks of Larry Summers and agrees with his point of view, only with a twist. Like Summers, she believes the evidence that men are better than women at spatial reasoning, but specifies that these differences are not unchangeable. Essentially, Newcombe’s opinions are an incremental adaptation of Larry Summers’.

Newcombe’s first section was focused on explaining the reason why men have better spatial skills than women. From the start, Newcombe assumes that her audience is “on board” with the idea that men outperform women in spatial ability. She provided minimal evidence in the first paragraph and expected the readers to be familiar with the studies Larry Summers referred to in his hotly-debated comments. This can be seen as a flaw in her argument. Through taking this FYS course, I have seen several studies stating the opposite of what Newcombe refers to. An example of this is a study by Jennifer Lachance, where over 200 elementary-aged kids were tested for spatial abilities, and no considerable difference was found between the two sexes. Because of my exposure to articles such as this, Newcombe provides me no reason to believe that men have better spatial abilities than women. As for the reasons why she believes men outshine their female peers, Newcombe states many possibilities (X-linked genes, timing of puberty, a more lateralized brain, different sex hormones) but never really comes to a definite conclusion because of unclear data.

The next concentration of Newcombe’s essay is evolution. She wishes to provide an evolutionary based reason for why men would need better spatially abilities than women. All of the scenarios she provides are not backed up by research or data because it is hard to have concrete “data” when it comes to evolutionary reasoning. We can only make educated hypotheses by connecting observable aspects of our world to the past world. Newcombe does this by defining the sexes’ duties as “Man the Hunter” and “Woman the Gatherer,” but finds that both of these positions would require spatial skills equally. Next, she draws on a study with meadow voles suggesting that men need spatial skills to “get around” and have children with as many women as possible, but quickly refutes it because, well, humans are not meadow voles. Our structure of society and living is not the same. Thus, Newcombe does not reach an evolutionary explanation.

By this point in the essay, I wasn’t sure exactly where Newcombe was going with her ideas. Thus far, she’s only mentioned theories and no concrete justification from studies or data. And in places, she’s made assertions but had no data to back it up. For example, to explain that sex hormone levels and spatial skills are “accidentally” linked, she states that acne is also “accidentally” linked to males. I took this by surprise because I had never heard of a sex difference in acne, and Newcombe did not provide a citation to tell where she got that assumption. Upon further research, I even found studies which show that women are more affected by acne than men. For me, this made Newcombe lose significant credibility as an author.

After going through the main body of “evidence” (not really evidence, just theories), Newcombe’s essay improved for me. She uses her own research to explain that spatial skills can be improved, which is aligned with the data from the AAUW PowerPoint “Why So Few?.” This attitude makes me think she is an incremental theorist, just like essayist Virginia Valian, believing that knowledge can be expanded and is not fixed. Thus, Newcombe believes that this issue may be fixable with future methods of training and practice. She finishes off her essay by stating that it shouldn’t matter why the differences in spatial abilities exist, but that we should instead focus on educating to decrease the gap. Although I’m still not sold on the fact that there are significant differences, this conclusion explains why Newcombe never fully committed to one reason for them in her essay. She purposefully did not emphasis any real data because she believes our priorities should be elsewhere: education.

Despite the defects in Newcombe’s argument and the fact that she did not mention societal factors like gender schemas, I support her belief that education can improve one’s abilities and her drive to advance women’s involvement in STEM careers. I have to remember that as a woman interested in science myself, I probably carry significant bias relating to biological factors affecting the issue. Even if biological differences were the sole reason for the discrepancy, it would be hard to admit because it would degrade my status as a prospective scientist compared to my male peers, and make the issue something out of society’s control. Overall, this essay has not convinced me of the spatial differences between the sexes, but of the effectiveness in educating abilities to make the STEM careers feel accessible to everyone, whether male of female.

Images: http://www.psychometric-success.com/images/clip_image001_0048.gif

https://canadianbudgetbinder.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/brain-quest-kids.jpg

Other references: http://web.jhu.edu/cty/STBguide.pdf

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019155627.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2867482/

http://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/

The Right Rebuttal

By: Shannon Laughlin

Before taking this class, I had heard of Larry Summers, former President of Harvard, but did not know much about him. After all, I was only in third grade when he triggered an uproar in the math and science community. Now, I am aware of the magnitude of controversy typically associated with his name. In January of 2005, Larry Summers, then-President of Harvard, made remarks at a conference stating why he thought less women were represented in top math and science positions. His remarks were extremely controversial, and caused him to step down from his position shortly after. We read these remarks a few weeks ago in class and they left me perplexed. How could someone say such things? How valid is his evidence? I questioned most of the points he made, but couldn’t quite articulate a differing opinion because I had no data to support any assertions, due to the fact that my initial reaction was almost entirely emotionally-based. However, after reading experts Elizabeth Spelke and Ariel D. Grace’s essay, I now feel justified to oppose Summer’s comments. Their article was entirely dedicated to exploring and/or dispelling the views of Larry Summers. It was compelling and research-filled, and for the most part, left me agreeing with their claims.

I found the format of this essay to be tremendously different from the others. It was extremely formulaic, and immediately laid out its three main topics: women and men’s sex differences in motivation for STEM careers, differences in cognitive function, and sex discrimination in the workplace. Spelke and Grace, sticking to the formulaic format, then described the three main arguments for differences in cognition between males and females. They included the tendency of boys to favor objects while girls favor people, the increased aptitude of math in boys, and the increased variability of boy’s abilities. All three of these were refuted with research, coming to the conclusion that there is not a difference in cognition between the sexes, at least not until later adulthood. That section reminded me of parts of the Why So Few? PowerPoint, where it was also stated that cognitive abilities can be taught and are not innate. It also seemed like a direct refutation of Kimura’s argument in Ch. 2, and when comparing them side-by-side, I support Spelke and Grace’s argument. As I talked about two blogs ago, Kimura’s essay seemed to jump to conclusions quickly, while Spelke and Grace did a good job of walking through each point. One part of it I especially liked was their challenging of the SAT-M scores I’ve seen so many authors write about. I’ve always questioned the validity of those SAT scores relating to boy’s supposed superiority in math, and Spelke and Grace articulated research on the matter. They state that most research on this agrees the SAT-M performances cannot assess a gender difference because it doesn’t provide an understanding of “the nature of mathematical aptitude and its distribution across the sexes (60).”

To tackle the subject of discrimination, Spelke and Grace referred to two studies about the innate discrimination parents show against their daughters and the discrimination shown in the hiring process. Similar to Valian’s argument in Ch. 1, they discussed the impact gender schemas make on the overestimation of males and underestimation of females, although they did not refer to them as “gender schemas”. I do agree that gender schemas affect society’s perceptions of the sexes and women’s lives in the workplace because of the evidence Spelke and Grace provide, but also because of Valian’s evidence (a computer program that simulated even the smallest amounts of bias piling up). Also, the study on babies mentioned by Spelke and Grace completely blew me away. It is troubling to think that my parents could have been more confident in the abilities of my brothers than me, even before we were old enough to reasonably show a difference. Spelke and Grace finished this section with the comment that these perceptions are malleable, so there is hope for future generations.

Lastly, Spelke and Grace handled the point of motivation for women and men to choose a STEM career, specifically centered on family life as a factor. This point, however, was decided to be inconclusive because of the lack of research comprehensive enough to come to a consensus. Despite this, I did find an interesting article pertaining to women and family life. It is titled “Rethink what you know about high-achieving women,” and it discusses truth and falsity in common beliefs people have about the working woman. This article also talked about family life pertaining to women’s choice of careers. While it also came to a somewhat inconclusive solution, they stated that “the conventional wisdom doesn’t tell the full story,” implying that the common misconception of women not being able to have families is not accurate. And similarly, Valian pulls in data that women’s family lives do not affect their work success at all.

Despite the fact that I agree with almost everything Spekle and Grace stated, there were a few aspects of the essay that were dissatisfying. The layout was so mechanical that there wasn’t any room left for Spelke and Grace’s personal assertions: the entire essay was basically a rebuttal. This was somewhat of a letdown, because I am genuinely interested to know what Spelke and Grace think about the other parts of this issue, such as the incremental and entity theories of learning and intelligence.  Another place where I believe it fell flat was the conclusion. After finishing covering all the points, Spelke and Grace didn’t really conclude their final thoughts. It bothered me a bit, because they didn’t have a place to prescribe remedies to the issues they stated, besides the small call-to-action in the discrimination section.

Although Spelke and Grace didn’t necessarily present any new ideas to me, all of their evidence helped me maintain a belief that the lack of women in STEM careers is mostly because of societal discrimination and misconceptions, coupled with closed (entity) mindsets on these matters (discussed three blogs ago). As they stated, education will be a key factor in changing society’s attitude towards women in STEM careers, and highly successful women in general. I believe if we teach the consequences of negative gender schemas, society will take a turn for the better and women will be able to excel in any field they choose.

Article: https://hbr.org/2014/12/rethink-what-you-know-about-high-achieving-women

PowerPoint: http://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/

Image: http://www.projectation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/rebuttal.png