It’s Not Us, It’s Biology – Well-behaved women rarely make (scientific) history

Biology may be the culprit of the gender differences in the certain career fields. In Doreen Kimura’s essay “’Underrepresentation’ or Misrepresentation?” she addresses the theory that women are not suffering from gender schemas in the workforce; they simply do not have the same innate characteristics as men due to hormonal differences.

A few years ago, my dad asked me to work for his home remodeling company. I was elated that he would think I was capable enough to hang with the guys, if you will. However, it wasn’t until later on that I was informed I would be working as a secretary at his office. It really bothered me because he allowed my brother to work for him on the job sites and I felt offended that he thought I would be of more help to him at the office. Now that I reflect on this experience, however, I realize that he had true intentions as I have noticed his poor typing and computer skills. I may have certain skills that neither my dad nor my brother could match and I believe my dad was trying to recruit me for the extra help where he needed it most.

Kimura brings up an essential discussion point that people often complain about the lack of women in certain fields, but fail to acknowledge the fact that there are fields that are predominately women, especially nursing. Nurses must exhibit caring and nurturing attributes, which tend to be innate in women as we are genetically predisposed to care for babies and children. Although men are just as capable of having the same characteristics, women are more likely to have the urge to pursue nursing as a career.

Both men and women outperform the opposite sex in certain areas on average. For instance, women tend to be more effective in object location memory-related situations. This skill set reminds me of my mom because whenever someone in our family loses something, she always ends up finding it before anyone else. On the other hand, males are inclined to have higher throwing accuracy which could explain why there are much fewer female athletes in sports than involve throwing such as baseball, softball, and basketball. According to Kimura, studies suggest that male hormones may be the cause of “superior spatial abilit[ies]” (Kimura 41). Therefore, many of the percentage differences of gender representation in certain careers are likely caused by biological differences between males and females, not solely because of gender schemas.

However, gender discrimination does occur in the workforce. Kimura claims that recently, more women are hired because the employer is able to pay the woman less and still receive the same work ethic as if he hired the man. I have to disagree with this assertion because I believe that women are not hired because they are thought to be not as competent as men. Of course these gender schemas are internal and often unintentional in nature. The scales might not be meant to be balanced as biology attempts to differentiate the characteristics of men and women.

Works Cited:

Brian Comic. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.nationalturk.com>.

Ceci, Stephen J., and Wendy M. Williams. “”Underrepresentation” or Misrepresentation?” Why

Aren’t More Women in Science?: Top Researchers Debate the Evidence. Washington, DC:

American Psychological Association, 2007. 39-46. Print.

Ying Wu says:

September 2, 2015 at 11:44 am

Rachel, I think you find a point that I don’t think about before! Just as you said, although we have some kinds of shortage compared with men in science, we have other advantages in some fields that men don’t have. And this is because of biology. And you use your own example which is very good to prove the statement in the passage. But what I want to add is if we use effort, this biology situation may be changed, just from the Chapter One, we can see that the ratios of women and men who get good grades in difficult math are increasing annually. Biology is a reason, but is not a excuse. That we have more advantage in doing something doesn’t mean we can’t do other things well.

Lillie Mucha says:

September 2, 2015 at 2:28 pm

Good post! I was wondering what you thought about the data related to throwing ability. Doesn’t it seem totally biased? Young girls usually aren’t expected to be in the yard with their parents learning how to throw and catch a baseball, but boys are. I though that specific “cognitive ability” was a poor example in the essay because it actually highlighted how our social constructs give men an advantage that people might think is purely biological.

Shannon Laughlin says:

September 4, 2015 at 1:50 am

Your secretary story reminds me of the time my little brother got mad when my dad asked him to mow the lawn and not me. My dad didn’t know what to say, because the notion of men mowing the lawn has just always been accepted since it’s physical work. Except this time, I don’t think there was a cognitive ability that made my brother a better candidate to mow the lawn because he was using a riding mower, which requires much less work. It really made me question how much validity there is to the social and gender norms of today.

You mentioned how women are more likely to pursue nursing because of their generally more nurturing attributes, despite men being capable of the same characteristics. But if men ARE fully capable, then why do women still pursue it? The question I have for you is- how much of this urge to pursue a certain career comes from biology and cognitive ability, and how much comes from tradition and social norms? Do you think it’s about equal, or is one more important that the other?

Yang Yang says:

September 6, 2015 at 5:33 pm

Hi, Rachel! I agree with you that men and women have some biological differences. As a theory shows, these differences may developed through social roles of different genders in ancient era in which men need to hunt and women need to nurture and collect fruit. But now that we are in a modern society, it is time for us to decrease such difference and acquire equality in workplace. I believe that through intensive training just as school offers today, women’s ability in spatial rotation and mathematics will develop slowly and tend to be equal to men’s.