An Insightful Message in an Old, Outdated, Leaky Bottle in the Middle of Nowhere

     Sheri A. Berenbaum and Susan Resnick start their essay, “The Seeds of Career Choices: Prenatal Sex Hormone Effects on Psychological Sex Differences,” in Why Aren’t More Women in Science? with an essential acknowledgement that not many others recognize when asked this difficult question. The answer has been plaguing scientists for years, and yet it seems that they’ve been going about it the entirely wrong way. The majority of researchers delve into studying sex differences in cognition, the origins of these differences, and how these differences affect the career paths of women; however, as Berenbaum and Resnick put it, “this focus is unsatisfying because no psychological characteristic is determined by a single factor,” (147).

As they develop their argument, their initial message gets somewhat lost, however. The authors spend almost the entirety of the piece explaining how heightened prenatal androgens affect the interests and abilities of women with CAH, arguing that this hormone has a lot to do with the underrepresentation of women in science (which should have been expected, judging from the title of their chapter). They couple the unbalanced hormone levels in these women that influence ‘masculine’ interests with social factors and environments that encourage these specific ‘masculine’ interests; and this cycle increases the likelihood that these women will be talented in and inclined to participate in the socially-defined ‘masculine’ job areas. Technically, their claim is that hormones as well as social environments influence this imbalance of women in science…however, when you take a step back, what they’re saying is that these hormones actually initially determine the social environment, and then we’re back to square one. They directly contradict the glorious statement made in their introduction.

And when they use the evidence to support the claims of CAH women being more interested in ‘masculine’ job interests, they list male typical careers as engineer, architect, and airline pilot…while female typical careers are categorized as X-ray technician, ice skater, and hairstylist. They also state that females with CAH are more interested in male typical activities like electronics and sports, while unaffected females are caught up in fashion and crafts.

…I mean, honestly? Ice skater? Where did that even come from? It seems that what is apparent here is not a biologically determined lack of androgen hormones causing the problem; its the gender schemas and stereotypes that inhibit women and girls from even dreaming of becoming anything more substantial than a hairstylist, while men and boys are free to realize their dreams of becoming influential architects and engineers. The fact that this study made a distinction between what girls ‘do’ and what boys ‘do’ only reinforces the stereotypes and social stigmas put in place in our world.