Bias Persists for Women of Science

Chang, Kenneth. "Bias Persists Against Women of Science, a Study Says." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Sept. 2012. Web. 28 Sept. 2012.

 <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?_r=0>

                In this article “Bias Persists for Women of Science,” written by Kenneth Chang, the author argues that recent studies show despite the elevated status of women in fields that were traditionally dominated by men, such as mathematics and science, they still suffer some degree of discrimination. This was discovered by researchers at Yale University, who designed a simple experiment. They created fake applications and sent them to biology, physics, and chemistry professors at six major universities. Half of these applications, which showed a decent but not a stalling student, were under the name John and the other half Jennifer. John received an average score of 4 out of 7 for competence, while Jennifer received 3.3. John was also seen more favorable for the possibility of mentoring. Finally, the greatest starting salary for John was $3,820 dollars more than the one for Jennifer. To make matters worse, this pattern was something that was prevalent in chemistry, biology, and physics. For physics professors, who teach a largely male-dominated student population, perhaps the bias against women can be understood; they simply have not taught as many female students. However, the result was consistent in biology, where more than half of the undergraduate students are female. Also, the female professors were just as biased as their male counterparts. When asked to comment on how they felt about this result, the researchers said that they did not believe the professors were discriminating deliberately. Rather, it is the psychological and cultural preconception that women are not as good in science or mathematics as men. 

                This article has some personal significance to me, because my sister Ellian suffered from similar bias in Dartmouth. She originally planned to become an architect. Thus, she had to take make engineering and physics classes. There, she felt that her professors held a bias against her because of her gender. In classes that involved actual construction of model buildings, Ellian suffered from health issues because the dust created during the process triggered asthma fits. She was sent to the emergency room on more than one occasion. However, again her professors were not very considerate; although they probably did not mean to discriminate against her deliberately, they just could not grasp the fact that she was not capable of the same physical labor as her male peers, especially taking into account her asthma. She eventually changed her major. I also felt that other students in the class would find this article interesting if they are seriously considering majoring in mathematics or science; I obviously do not mean to discourage any female student from it, but it is probably wise to be aware of this bias before entering the field. 

                To a larger degree, I enjoyed the style of writing. It was concise and easy to understand. However, I was a little baffled that the author did not include the names of the researchers who performed the experiment involving fake applications. (They are merely mentioned as a team of researchers at Yale. I can’t tell if that means undergraduate students, graduate students, or professors.) Also, since she mentioned affirmative action and the inherent difference between men and women as possible factors leading people to believe that females are not as good as males in science and mathematics, I would have liked to see some mention of research done on those two topics. 

posted for E. Choi