A Difference of Opinion – Well-behaved women rarely make (scientific) history

By: Shannon Laughlin

What if I told you that the lack of women’s representation in science and mathematics wasn’t a cause for concern? That the strange drop-off between girls’ interest in science between high school and college shouldn’t be a surprise? Well, a lot of things would change. First of all, we wouldn’t be writing these blog posts, because our FYS wouldn’t exist. Perhaps we would instead be enrolled in a class focused on verbal fluency, where women truly excel, according to Doreen Kimura, the author of this week’s reading assignment. As you can probably tell, her essay left me a little taken-aback. Granted, her essay provides convincing points and is generally well-written. I simply believe that Kimura was too hasty and made far too many assumptions.

The first few paragraphs are focused on Kimura calling into question the entire basis of the argument. She asks why having less women than men in a certain field is even a problem, reasoning that there are less men than women in quite a few fields, like nursing and education, and no one seems concerned. She then calls upon many studies to show that women and men have different strengths, and implies that each sex has innate characteristics decided from birth. Men, for example, excel in spatial skills, while women excel in verbal memory. These characteristics come from prenatal and present sex hormones, and can help determine which field one chooses.

I have seen studies like these before and used to accept the differences between the two sex’s strengths. However, after seeing studies in the “Why So Few?” PowerPoint (slide 29) that state “spatial skills are not innate and can be improved with training,” I’m not sure which side to believe. What I am sure of, however, is that if these differences do exist, they are not a reason women should not choose STEM fields. In fact, I believe the very diversity in our perspectives is a reason women SHOULD become more involved. It is a known fact that diversity is beneficial in problem-solving, because more perspectives lead to additional and enhanced solutions. Whether or not men and women’s brains are different, it would be beneficial to have more women participating in STEM careers. Similarly, I’m sure there is a benefit to having men in women-dominated fields as well.

Kimura then decides to tangent off and explain the contradiction of girls’ overall higher STEM grades and boys’ surpassing test scores. She claims that this proves boys’ superior aptitude, despite girls having better general achievement. Here is where, in my opinion, Kimura’s argument takes a slippery slope. Just because men test better does not prove that they are better at math and science. In the first few weeks of this course, we have explored a host of reasons girls may not test as well, including gender bias and the incremental and entity theories mentioned in my last blog post. Kimura completely disregarded the overwhelming amount of research I have seen concerning this issue, which made her argument much less credible.

By-far, the most striking language Kimura uses in her essay comes in the last few paragraphs. She brings up the tendency of women being in secretarial positions and ties this into their supposed strengths over men in finger dexterity and verbal memory. She says that while tradition may have an impact in this trend, “traditions have to arise somehow.” She also finds scholarships specifically for women a “flagrant injustice” to men because they are just as qualified. It seems to me that Kimura has forgotten the struggle-filled and progressive history of women in the workplace, especially in the past century. She doesn’t consider that maybe women traditionally became secretaries because anything more involved was considered “men’s work,” and because women were expected to focus on raising their families.

I feel that Kimura has succeeded in demeaning a very relevant and important issue of today: the lack of women in STEM fields. It is usually beneficial to see the opposing side of topics, but some of Kimura’s questionable conclusions make it extremely difficult to concede.

Image: https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/2/005/02e/057/1fb1835.jpg

PowerPoint: http://www.aauw.org/resource/why-so-few-women-in-stem-ppt-long/

Olivia Choe says:

September 3, 2015 at 11:11 pm

We have the same gut response towards Kimura! I honestly felt that the evidence she used was not enough. Valian from chapter 1 used a lot of data to back up her points and I think that some of her data kind of “debunks” some of Kimura’s statements. The whole quote about traditions did not make any sense to me at all. I actually disagreed with her statement as well. I think that a woman’s current cognitive abilities are a result of the traditional roles instead of vice versa. Because women were limited to holding only certain jobs, they probably developed the so called “cognitive” abilities.