Update on women in the sciences…
This article in Insidehighered does a good job laying out some of the subtleties involved in the challenge of encouraging more women to take on science/engineering academic studies and careers (a necessity, given the diminished interest in higher education shown by men, who have traditionally taken on those major and careers).
The key player here is Harvard economist Claudia Goldin (pictured here):
Among the characteristics she is finding among the career paths that are both attracting and retaining women: flexibility in schedules, “transparent career paths,” and “predictable milestones” on the path to a career. The latter is important, she said, because the research shows that women are quite willing to study for long years (as in medicine) to be trained, but they want a clear path.
A comparison of medical and academic training isn’t favorable to academe. Medical school “is difficult, but it takes four years,” Goldin said, and medical internships have known durations. In graduate school for a Ph.D., students take some courses and prepare for some tests of their knowledge, but the process of completing a dissertation is mysterious to many and takes widely differing periods of time. “We say to take some exams and then we will give you a parachute and throw you out of a plane,” she said of Ph.D. training.
This is an issue that is likely to take years to sort out. In the end, I suspect the solution will involve scores of minor adjustments in both academic programs and science/engineering jobs. In the interim, the key is resisting silly political solutions, such as using Title IX to root out “sexism” in college physics and engineering departments. If only life were that simple.
Tags: women in science
