A little push

I love Physics, and it could have been ‘loved’. I remember there were over 20 boys and three girls in a Physics Olympiad training class in my 10th grade. I remember the excitement and rousing discussion among the boys when challenging problems were given while the girls worked in perfect quietness. At that time, I felt isolated and uninspired due to a lack of exchanges among the boys and the girls. I wanted to quit. I can imagine being a female in a male-dominant world, especially in the field of Math and natural sciences.

Hence, the article written by Virginia Valian resonated with me on many levels. As the author has discussed, it is not a matter of ability or a lack of professional ambition that few women are represented in the sciences. Many of my friends who are pursuing a college degree in the sciences are the most talented and driven ladies I have ever known and some even outperformed their male counterparts. More often, it is the gender schemas and accumulation of advantage that are driving more women away from the scientific pursuits and from high positions in any other fields. The author has pointed out that gender schemas cause erroneous judgements, and in some cases tempt us to substantiate our evaluation with false evidence. Instead of telling young girls that they are capable of achieving, gender schemas can lure them into believing the otherwise because they possess the female traits and behaviors undesirable for success in the fields of math and natural sciences. And to make things worse, accumulation of advantage does not favor the professional success of females over the long run.

At the end of the article, Virginia Valian has mentioned that education can eventually eradicate fallacious beliefs. I do not agree that education alone is effective in correcting our deeply rooted gender stereotypes. Firstly, education creates awareness by providing the audience with accurate evidence and scientific truth. In this case, there is no scientific support that females are less intellectually gifted than males in the sciences. However, awareness also means that more people know that there are many others who believe in similar things and that believing so is acceptable. For example, if you were a boss and had to choose between a female and a male candidates of comparable abilities for my team of managers, would you go for the male because he tends to be more task-oriented and forego the female because she tends to be more expressive? Some may, thinking that their biased decision is acceptable because there are others who probably do the same. But if I were to base my decision not on gender bias, but on other factors such as team dynamics, I would go for the female because I know from the results of a psychology research that smarter teams are those with more women. There are many sources of news and articles providing information on the prevalence of gender biases as well as gender discrimination in the work places, but there are little resource to suggest solutions to eradicate gender schemas, or at least control our psychological bias.

Knowing that bias exists is a good start, but what matters is where we can go from here. How do we invite more females into pursuing the sciences, and how do we- the aspiring young ladies, prepare ourselves mentally for the future challenges that are to come in the male-dominated professional world?

I would have quit the Olympiad class if it were not for a female mentor who made me believe I could do as well as my peers. That little push was all I needed.

References:

Valian, V., Ceci, S. J. (2007). “Women at the top in science – and elsewhere”. Why Aren’t More Women in Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Woolley, Anita, Thomas W. Malone, and Christopher F. Chabris. “Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Jan. 2015. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Https://www.pinterest.com/pin/553872454145044361/. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.