Women in Physics Links
Why should I have a page devoted to women in physics?
- Women are underrepresented at every level of the academic ladder, and they become scarcer the further up you go. This is often called the "leaky pipeline." Women make up 19% of undergrad physics degrees (NSF 1999), 13% of physics Ph.D.'s in the U.S., 10% of physics professors, and 5% of full physics professors (AIP).
- There are fewer women in more "fundamental" or "hard" areas of physics like high energy theory than in "soft" interdisciplinary areas like experimental biophysics (Schiebinger 1999).
- Women are paid less than men -- about 10% less at each level of academia (Chronicle of Higher Ed 2003), and the average of women in all fields of science and engineering is approximately 80% of what men earn (AAAS Observer 1989).
- Data on Women and Minorities in Physics from the AIP
- "Louts in the Lab" article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
Describes the horrible situation that women have faced in the Duke physics department.
- Women Without Tenure, Part 1 and Part 2: The Gender Sieve
Articles from Science's Nextwave that present data showing how women in academia are underrepresented and underpaid.
- Joan T. McKay vs. John T. McKay
Describes a 1983 study in which both male and female reviewers rate the same journal article more favorably when the author is John than when it is Joan.
- Summers' Remarks and a response
- Implicit Association Test
The Gender-Science test here often reveals a link between science and males, and between liberal arts and females.
Why do problems like this exist?
- Women Without Tenure, Part 3: Why They Leave
Article from Science's Nextwave that suggests that women disproportionately leave science for reasons such as: lingering stereotypes, gender bias in the classroom and in academia, a male-biased research model and reward structure, lack of mentoring/role-models, and inability to balance work and family life
- Introduction to "Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide"
Suggests that one cause of the gender gap is that women are less likely to ask for what they want.
- Gender threat or stereotype threat: College math majors were given a test above their ability; one group was told it was "just a trial," and women and men performed about the same; the other group was told that it "showed gender differences," and women did 3 times worse and men did 50% better than before (Steele 1997). Similar experiments have been done to show that if you put a sentence like "This test has been shown to be gender-neutral" at the top of a hard math test, women will do better and men will do worse than if it is not there. This effect helps explain why many people believe the myth that women can't do math.
- Pinker vs. Spelke Debate
Two Harvard Psychologists debate whether biology is a factor in gender disparities in the sciences. Both make interesting points, and both agree that bias and discrimination cause a large part of the disparity.
How can we fix them?