Tag Archives: gendered assumptions

“There comes a time when you have to run out of patience.”

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In this post, I’m sharing an excellent short film called “A Chemical Imbalance,” which includes a number of brief interviews with chemists (most of them women, most at the University of Edinburgh) about the current situation for women in chemistry (and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, more generally) in the UK. Here’s the film:


A Chemical Imbalance
(I’m including my transcription of the film below.)

Some of the things I really appreciate about this film:

  • We get personal impressions, from women of different generations, about what it’s been like for them to be in chemistry in the UK.
  • We get numbers to quantify the gender disparity in academic chemistry in the UK, as well as to identify where in the career pipeline the disparity becomes worse. We also get numbers about how women chemists are paid relative to their male counterparts, and about relative rates of tenure that can’t be blamed on choices about childbearing and/or childrearing. There’s not just the perception of gender disparities in academic chemistry — the numbers demonstrate that the disparities are real.
  • Lurking beneath the surface is a conversation the interviewees might have had (but didn’t in the final cut) about what they count as compromises with respect to parenting and with respect to careers. My sense is that they would not all agree, and that they might not be as accepting of their colleagues’ alternative ways of striking a balance as we might hope.
  • Interviewees in the film also discuss research on unconscious gender bias, which provides a possible causal mechanism for the disparities other than people consciously discriminating against women. If people aren’t consciously discriminating, our intuition is that people aren’t culpable (because they can’t help what their unconscious is up to). However, whether due to conscious choices or unconscious bias, the effects are demonstrably real, which raises the question: what do we do about it?
  • The interviewees seem pretty hesitant about “positive discrimination” in favor of women as a good way to address the gender disparity — one said she wouldn’t want to think she got her career achievements because she’s a woman, rather than because she’s very good at what she does. And yet, they seem to realize that we may have to do something beyond hoping that people’s individual evaluations become less biased. The bias is there (to the extent that, unconsciously, males are being judged as better because they’re men). It’s a systemic problem. How can we put the burden on individuals to somehow magically overcome systemic problems?
  • We see a range of opinions from very smart women who have been describing inequalities and voicing the importance of making things in STEM more equitable about whether they’d describe themselves as feminists. (One of them says, near the end, that if people don’t like the word, we need to find another one so we don’t get sidetracked from actually pursuing equality.)
  • We see a sense of urgency. Despite how much has gotten better, there are plenty of elements that still need to improve. The interviewees give the impression that we ought to be able to find effective ways to address the systemic problems, if only we can find the will to do so within the scientific community.

How important is it to find more effective ways to address gender disparities in STEM? The statistic in the film that hit me hardest is that, at our present rate of progress, it will take another 70 years to achieve gender parity. I don’t have that kind of time, and I don’t think my daughters ought to wait that long, either. To quote Prof. Lesley Yellowlees,

I’ve often heard myself say we have to be patient, but there comes a time when you have to run out of patience, because if we don’t run out of patience and we don’t start demanding more from the system, demanding that culture change to happen faster than it’s happening at present, then I think we not only do ourselves a disservice, but we do the generations both past and the ones to come a huge disservice as well.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen 13 minutes packed so effectively with so much to think about.

* * * * *
Transcript of “A Chemical Imbalance”:

Dr. Perdita Barran, Reader in Biophysical Chemistry, University of Edinburgh: I’m not sure why it is Edinburgh has such a high number of female faculty, and indeed, female postdoctoral researchers and female research fellows. One of the greatest things about this department is, because they’re are such a high proportion of female faculty — it ranges between 20 and even up to 30 percent at a few times — it becomes less important and we are less prone to the gender bias, because you don’t need to do it. You just think of scientists as scientists, you don’t think of them in terms of their gender.

Prof. Eleanor Campbell FRSC FRS, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Head of School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh: It’s very difficult to put your finger on it, but I do feel a different atmosphere in a place where you have a significant percentage of women. That’s not to say that women can’t be confrontational and egoistical, of course they can. But on the whole, there is a difference in atmosphere.

Text on screen: 1892 Women are finally allowed to attend The University of Edinburgh as undergraduates.

Text on screen: By 1914, over 1000 women hold degrees.

Prof. Steve Chapman FRSE FRSC, Principal & Vice Chancellor, Heriot-Watt University: There’s still not enough women representation in STEM at all levels, but it gets worse the higher you go up, and when you go to management levels, I think, there is a serious disparity.

Prof. Eleanor Campbell: Yeah, the leaky pipeline is a sort of worrying tendency to lose women at various stages on the career path. [Graph on the screen about “Women in STEM, UK average”.] Here we [discussing the chemistry line on the graph] have roughly 50-50 in terms of male/female numbers at the undergraduate level. It [the proportion of women] drops a little bit at postgraduate level, and then it dives going to postdocs and onward, and that is extremely worrying. We’re losing a lot of very, very talented people.

Text on screen: Women in STEM, UK average
Undergraduate 33%
Professor 9%
(2011 UKRC & HESA)

Dr. Elaine Murray MSP, Shadow Minister for Housing & Transport, Scottish Parliament: I feel that I did — 25 years ago I made the choice between remaining in science and my family. You know, 52% of women who’ve been trained in STEM come out of it. I’m one of them.

Prof. Anita Jones, Professor of Molecular Photophysics, University of Edinburgh: On the whole, women still do take more responsibility for the looking after children and so on. But again, I think there are things that can be put in place, improved child care facilities and so on, that can help with that, and can help to achieve an acceptable compromise between the two.

Dr. Marjorie Harding, Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh: The division of responsibilities between husband and wife has changed a lot over the years. When I first had children, it was quite clear that it was my responsibility to cope with the home, everything that was happening there, and the children’s things, and not to expect him to have time available for that sort of thing.

Dr. Carole Morrison, Senior Lecturer in Structural Chemistry, University of Edinburgh: When the children were small, because I was working part time, I felt that I was incredibly fortunate. I was able to witness all of their little milestones. But it’s meant that my career has progressed much slower than it would have done otherwise. But, you know, life is all about compromises. I wasn’t prepared to compromise on raising my children.

Dr. Alison Hulme, Senior Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, University of Edinburgh: I don’t go out of my way to let people know that I only work at 80%, for the very fact that I don’t want them to view me as any less serious about my intentions in research.

Dr. Perdita Barran: I really understood feminism when I had children and also wanted to work. Then it really hits you how hard it is actually to be a female in science.

Text on screen: 1928 Dr. Christina Miller produces the first ever sample of pure phosphorus trioxide.
In the same year British women achieve suffrage.

Text on screen: 1949 Dr. Miller becomes the first female chemist elected to The Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Prof. Steve Chapman: Do I consider myself to be a feminist?

Prof. Anita Jones: Well, that’s an interesting question.

Dr. Perdita Barran: Uh, yeah!

Dr. Marjorie Harding: No.

Dr. Carole Morrison: No, definitely not.

Prof. Eleanor Campbell: No, I’ve never thought of myself as a feminist.

Dr. Alison Hulme: I think that people don’t want to be labeled with the tag of being a feminist because it has certain connotations associated with it that are not necessarily very positive.

Dr. Elaine Murray: I’m of an age when women were considered to be feminists, you know, most of us in the 1970s. There are battles still to be fought, but I think we had a greater consciousness of the need to define ourselves as feminists, and I would still do so. But, there’s been progress, but I think the young women still need to be aware that there’s a lot to be done. All the battles weren’t won.

Text on screen: 1970 The UK Parliament passes The Equal Pay Act.
Over 40 years later, women still earn on average 14.9% less that their male counterparts, and they get promoted less.

Prof. Polly Arnold FRSE FRSC, Crum Brown Chair of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh: The Yale study on subconscious bias was a real shocker. I realized that it was an American study, so the subjects were all American, but I don’t feel that it’s necessarily any different in the UK.

Prof. Steve Chapman: It was a very simple study, but a very telling study. They sent out CVs to people in North American institutions and the only difference in the CV was the name at the top — a male name or a female name. The contents of the CVs were identical. And when the people were asked to comment on the CVs, there was something like a 40% preference for the CV if it had a male name associated with it. Now those people I don’t think were actively trying to discriminate against women, but they were, and they were doing it subconsciously. It scared me, because of course I would go around saying, ‘I’m not prejudiced at all,’ but I read that and I thought, if I saw those CVs, would I react differently?

Dr. Janet Lovett, Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh: You hear the kind of results from the Yale study and unfortunately you’re not that surprised by them. And I think … I think it’s hard to explain why you’re not that surprised by them. There is an endemic sexism to most high-powered careers, I would say.

Prof. Polly Arnold: When I was a junior academic in a previous job, I was given the opportunity to go on a course to help women get promoted. The senior management at the university had looked at the data, and they’d realized that the female academics were winning lots of international prizes, being very successful internationally, but they weren’t getting promoted internally, so what we needed was a course to help us do this. And to this day, I still don’t understand how they didn’t realize that it was them that needed the course.

Dr. Elaine Murray: I think a lot of it isn’t really about legislation or regulation, it’s actually cultural change, which is more difficult to affect. And, you know, the recognition that this is part of an equality agenda, really, that we need to have that conversation which is not just about individuals, its about the experience of women in general.

Text on screen: Women without children are still 23% less likely to achieve tenure than men with children.

Prof. Anita Jones: I’m not really in favor of positive discrimination. I don’t think, as a women, I would have wanted to feel that I got a job, or a fellowship, or a grant, or whatever, because I was a woman rather than because I was very good at what I do.

Prof. Steve Chapman: I think we have to be careful. I was looking at the ratio of women in some of the things that we’re doing in my own institution, and accidentally you can heavily dominate things with males without actually thinking about it. Does that mean we have to have quotas for women? No. But does it mean we have to be pro-active in making sure we’re bringing it to the attention of women that they should be involved, and that they add value? Yes.

Dr. Elaine Murray: I was always an advocator of positive discrimination in politics, in order to address the issue of the underrepresentation of women. Now, a lot of younger women now don’t see that as important, and yet if you present them some of the issues that women face to get on, they do realize things aren’t quite as easy.

Text on screen: 2012 The School of Chemistry receives the Athena Swan Gold Award, recognising a significant progression and achievement in promoting gender equality.

Prof. Steve Chapman: We shouldn’t underestimate the signal that Athena Gold sends out. It sends out the message that this school is committed to the Athena Agenda, which isn’t actually just about women. It’s about creating an environment in which all people can thrive.

Prof. Eleanor Campbell: I think it is extremely important that the men in the department have a similar view when it comes to supporting young academics, graduate students, postdocs, regardless of their gender. I think that’s extremely important. And, I mean, certainly here, our champion for our Athena Swan activities is a male, and I deliberately wanted to have a younger male doing that job, to make it clear that it wasn’t just about women, that it was about really improving conditions for everybody.

Dr. Elaine Murray: I know, for example, in the Scottish government, equalities is somehow lumped in with health, but it’s not. You know, health is such a big portfolio that equalities is going to get pretty much lost in the end, and I think probably there’s a need for equalities issues to take a higher profile at a governmental level. And I think also it’s still about challenging the media, about the sort of stereotypes which surround women more generally, and still in science.

Text on screen: 2012 Prof. Lesley Yellowlees becomes the first female President of The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Prof. Lesley Yellowlees MBE FRSE FRSC, Professor of Inorganic Electrochemistry, Vice Principal & Head of the College of Science & Engineering, University of Edinburgh, President of The Royal Society of Chemistry: I’ve often heard myself say we have to be patient, but there comes a time when you have to run out of patience, because if we don’t run out of patience and we don’t start demanding more from the system, demanding that culture change to happen faster than it’s happening at present, then I think we not only do ourselves a disservice, but we do the generations both past and the ones to come a huge disservice as well.

Text on screen: At our current rate of progress it will take 70 years before we achieve parity between the sexes.

Prof. Polly Arnold: If we’re unwilling to define ourselves as feminists, we need to replace the word with something more palatable. The concept of equality is no less relevant today.

Addressing (unintended) disrespect in your professional community.

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I am a believer in the power of the professional conference. Getting people in the same room to share ideas, experiences, and challenges is one of the best ways to build a sense of community, to break down geographical and generational barriers, to energize people and remind them what they love about what they’re doing.

Sometimes, though, interactions flowing from a professional conference have a way of reinforcing barriers. Sometimes a member of the community makes an attempt to express appreciation of colleagues that actually has the effect of treating those colleagues like they’re not really part of the community after all.

Last week, the 8th World Conference of Science Journalists met in Helsinki, Finland. Upon his return from the conference, journalist Nicolás Luco posted a column reflecting on his experience there. (Here’s an English translation of the column by Wladimir Labeikovsky.) Luco’s piece suggests some of the excitement of finding connections with science journalists from other countries, as well as finding common ground with journalists entering the profession in a very different decade with a panoply of different technological tools:

If I hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have had that experience. I have submerged into an atmosphere where what I had seen as the future is already taken for granted. And yet, the fundamentals [e.g., that the story is what matters] remain.

It is, without a doubt, a description of a very positive personal experience.

However, Luco’s column is also a description of his experience of female colleagues at this conference framed primarily in terms of their physical attributes: shining blonde hair, limpid blue eyes, translucent complexions, apparent youth. His description of the panel of journalists using the tools of new media to practice the fundamentals of good journalism describes them as

four Americans: Rose, Lena, Kathleen and Erin (blonde), none older than 25

All of the other conference-goers who are identified by name are identified with surnames as well as given names. We do learn of the two women identified by their full names in the column that they are not blonde. It is left to the reader to imagine the hair color of Philip J. Hilts, the only male attendee mentioned by name.

I understand that Nicolás Luco was aiming to give a vivid visual description to draw his readers into his experience of being in Helsinki for this conference, and that this description was meant to convey a positive, optimistic mood about the future of science journalism.

But I also understand that these stylistic choices carry baggage that make it harder for Rose Eveleth, and Lena Groeger, and Kathleen Raven, and Erin Podolak, the journalists on the panel, to be taken seriously within this international community of science journalists.

Their surnames matter. In a field where they want their work to be recognized, disconnecting their bylines from the valuable insights they shared as part of a conference panel is not helpful.

Moreover, I am told that the journalistic convention is to identify adults by full name, and to identify people by first name alone only when those people are children.

Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak are not children. They may seem relatively young to a journalist who came into the profession in the age of linotype (indeed, to the extent that he underestimated their ages, which range from 25 to 30), but they are professionals. Their ages should not be a barrier to treating them as if they are full members of the professional community of science journalists, but focusing unduly on their ages could well present such a barrier.

And, needless to say, their hair color should have no relevance at all in assessing whether they are skilled journalists with valuable insights to share.

As it happens, only days before the 8th World Conference of Science Journalists, Podolak wrote a blog post describing why she needs feminism. In that post, she wrote:

I’m a feminist for myself because yes, I want a fair shake, I want to be recognized for the value of my work and not whether or not my hair looks shiny that day. But, adding my voice to the other feminist voices out there is about more than just me. I’ve got it pretty good. I’m not trying to argue that I don’t. But I can support the women out there who are dealing with overt sexism, who are being attacked. I can try to be an ally. That to me is the real value of feminism, of standing together.

It is profoundly disheartening to take yourself to be accepted by your professional community, valued for the skills and ideas you bring to the table, only to discover that this is not how your presumptive colleagues actually see you. You would think that other journalists should be the ones most likely to appreciate the value of using new technologies to tell compelling stories. What a disappointment to find that their focus gets stuck on the surface. Who can tell whether the work has value if the hair of the journalist is shiny?

You will likely not be surprised that Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak were frustrated at Nicolás Luco’s description of their panel, despite understanding that Luco was trying to be flattering. In an email to Luco the four sent in response to the column, they wrote:

Leading your story with a note about your attraction to blondes and then noting Erin’s hair color, is both inappropriate and, frankly, sexist. We were not there for anyone to ogle, and our physical appearance is completely irrelevant to the point of our panel. It is important for you to understand why were are upset about your tone in this piece. Women are constantly appraised for their looks, rather than their thoughts and skills, and in writing your story the way you did you are contributing to that sexism.

And, in a postscript to that email, Kathleen Raven noted:

I was under the impression that you wrote your article using hair color as a narrative tool to tie together your meetings with journalists. I appreciate this creativity, but I am worried that American women can perceive — as we have — the article as not fully respecting us as journalists in our own right.

What Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak are up against is a larger society that values women more for their aesthetic appeal than their professional skills. That their own professional community repeats this pattern — presenting them as first young and pretty and only secondarily as good journalists — is a source of frustration. As Eveleth wrote to me:

Last I checked, being pretty has nothing to do with your skills at any kind of journalism. Having long blonde hair is not going to get Erin the story. Erin is going to get the story because she’s good at her job, because she’s got experience and passion, because she’s talented and tough and hard working. The same goes for Kathleen and Lena. 

The idea that it is not just okay, but actually complimentary to focus on a young woman’s (or really any aged woman’s) looks as leading part of her professional identity is wrong. The idea that it’s flattering to call out Erin’s hair and age before her skills is wrong. The idea that a woman’s professional skill set is made better if she is blonde and pretty is wrong. And the idea that someone who writes something like this should just be able to pass it off as “tongue in cheek” or “a cultural difference” is also wrong.

I should pause here to take note of another dimension of professional communities in this story. There is a strong pressure to get along with one’s professional colleagues, to get along rather than raising a fuss. Arguably this pressure is stronger on newer members of a professional community, and on members of that community with characteristics (e.g., of gender, race, disability, etc.) that are not well represented in the more established members of that professional community.

Practically, this pressure manifests itself as an inclination to let things go, to refrain from pointing out the little instances which devalue one’s professional identity or status as a valued member of the community. Most of the time it seems easier to sigh and say to oneself, “Well, he meant well,” or, “What can you expect from someone of that generation/cultural background?” than to point out the ways that the comments hurt. It feels like a tradeoff where you should swallow some individual hurt for the good of the community.

But accepting this tradeoff is accepting that your full membership in the community (and that of others like you) is less important. To the extent that you believe that you make a real contribution to the community, swallowing your individual hurt is dancing on the edge of accepting what is arguably a harm to the professional community as a whole by letting the hurtful behaviors pass unexamined.

Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak had more respect than that for their professional community, and for Nicolás Luco as a professional colleague. They did not just sigh and roll their eyes. Rather, they emailed Luco to explain what the problem was.

In his reply to them (which I quote with his permission), Luco makes it clear that he did not intend to do harm to anyone, especially not to Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak, with his column. Still, he also makes it clear that he may not fully grasp just what the problem is:

I write as a known voice who can write tongue in cheek and get away with it because I am willing to laugh at myself. 

I strive to make what I write entertaining. And maybe sneak in the more serious arguments.

Sorry about my misjudgment on your ages.  But the point is: you are generations apart.

I did not include your last names because they would interrupt the flow of reading and clog the line with surnames, an obstacle.

Finally, it is so much in U.S. culture to discard the looks vis a vis the brains when the looks, as President Clinton knows so well, can be a good hook into the brains.  And since this is a personal column, in the first person singular, I can tell how I personally react at good looks.  For example, Ms. Anne Glover, was extraordinarily beautiful and charming besides being bright and political, which helps, in front of the probable mean thoughts of envious uglier looking colleagues.

Thank you, I still prize the panel as the best and most important in the Conference.

Is there a way Nicolás Luco could have described his personal experience of the conference, and of this panel within the conference that he found particular valuable, in a way that was entertaining, even tongue-in-cheek, while avoiding the pitfalls of describing his female colleagues in terms that undercut their status in the professional community? I think so.

He might, for example, have talked about his own expectations that journalists who are generations apart would agree upon what makes good journalism good journalism. The way that these expectations were thwarted would surely be a good opportunity to laugh at oneself.

He might even have written about his own surprise that a young women he finds attractive contributed a valuable insight — using this as an opportunity to examine this expectation and whether it’s one he ought to be carrying around with him in his professional interactions. There’s even a line in his column that seems like it might provide a hook for this bit of self-examination:

Erin, the youngest and a cancer specialist, insists that decorations don’t matter: good journalism is good journalism, period. Makes me happy.

(Bold emphasis added.)

Extending the lesson about the content of the story mattering more than the packaging to a further lesson about the professional capabilities of the storyteller mattering more than one’s reaction to her superficial appearance — that could drive home some of the value of a conference like this.

Nicolás Luco wrote the column he wrote. Eveleth, Groeger, Raven, and Podolak took him seriously as a professional colleague who is presumptively concerned to strengthen their shared community. They asked him to consider the effect of his description on members of the professional community who stand where they do, to take responsibility as a writer for even the effects of his words that he had not intended or foreseen.

Engaging with colleagues when they hurt us without meaning to is not easy work, but it’s absolutely essential to the health of a professional community. I am hopeful that this engagement will continue productively.

Reading the writing on the (Facebook) wall: a community responds to Dario Maestripieri.

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Imagine an academic scientist goes to a big professional meeting in his field. For whatever reason, he then decides to share the following “impression” of that meeting with his Facebook friends:

My impression of the Conference of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. There are thousands of people at the conference and an unusually high concentration of unattractive women. The super model types are completely absent. What is going on? Are unattractive women particularly attracted to neuroscience? Are beautiful women particularly uninterested in the brain? No offense to anyone..

Maybe this is a lapse in judgment, but it’s no big thing, right?

I would venture, from the selection of links collected below discussing Dario Maestripieri and his recent social media foible, this is very much A Thing. Read on to get a sense of how the discussion is unfolding within the scientific community and the higher education community:

Drugmonkey, SfN 2012: Professors behaving badly:

There is a very simple response here. Don’t do this. It’s sexist, juvenile, offensive and stupid. For a senior scientist it is yet another contribution to the othering of women in science. In his lab, in his subfield, in his University and in his academic societies. We should not tolerate this crap.

Professor Maestripieri needs to apologize for this in a very public way and take responsibility for his actions. You know, not with a nonpology of “I’m sorry you were offended” but with an “I shouldn’t have done that” type of response.

Me, at Adventures in Ethics and Science, The point of calling out bad behavior:

It’s almost like people have something invested in denying the existence of gender bias among scientists, the phenomenon of a chilly climate in scientific professions, or even the possibility that Dario Maestripieri’s Facebook post was maybe not the first observable piece of sexism a working scientist put out there for the world to see.

The thing is, that denial is also the denial of the actual lived experience of a hell of a lot of women in science

Isis the Scientist, at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess, What We Learn When Professorly d00ds Take to Facebook:

Dr. Maestripieri’s comments will certainly come as no great shock to the women who read them.  That’s because those of us who have been around the conference scene for a while know that this is pretty par for the course.  There’s not just sekrit, hidden sexism in academia.  A lot of it is pretty overt.  And many of us know about the pockets of perv-fest that can occur at scientific meetings.  We know which events to generally avoid.  Many of us know who to not have cocktails with or be alone with, who the ass grabbers are, and we share our lists with other female colleagues.  We know to look out for the more junior women scientists who travel with us.  I am in no way shocked that Dr. Maestripieri would be so brazen as to post his thoughts on Facebook because I know that there are some who wouldn’t hesistate to say the same sorts of things aloud. …

The real question is whether the ability to evaluate Dr. Maestripieri’s asshattery in all of its screenshot-captured glory will actually actually change hearts and minds.

Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel, University of Chicago Professor Very Disappointed that Female Neuroscientists Aren’t Sexier:

Professor Maestripieri is a multiple-award winning academic working at the University of Chicago, which basically means he is Nerd Royalty. And, judging by his impressive resume, which includes a Ph.D in Psychobiology, the 2000 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, and several committees at the U of C, he’s well aware of how hard someone in his position has had to work in order to rise to the top of an extremely competitive and demanding field. So it’s confusing to me that he would fail to grasp the fact that women in his field had to perform similar work and exhibit similar levels of dedication that he did.

Women: also people! Just like men, but with different genitals!

Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing, Why casual sexism in science matters:

I’ve got a daughter who, at four and a half, wants to be a scientist. Every time she says this, it makes me swell up with so much pride, I almost bust. If she grows up to be a scientist, I want her to be judged on the reproducibility of her results, the elegance of her experimental design, and the insight in her hypotheses, not on her ability to live up to someone’s douchey standard of “super model” looks.

(Also, do check out the conversation in the comments; it’s very smart and very funny.)

Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Education, (Mis)Judging Female Scientists:

Pity the attendees at last week’s annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience who thought they needed to focus on their papers and the research breakthroughs being discussed. It turns out they were also being judged — at least by one prominent scientist — on their looks. At least the female attendees were. …

Maestripieri did not respond to e-mail messages or phone calls over the past two days. A spokesman for the University of Chicago said that he had decided not to comment.

Pat Campbell at Fairer Science, No offense to anyone:

I’m glad the story hit Inside Higher Ed; I find it really telling that only women are quoted … Inside Higher Ed makes this a woman’s problem not a science problem and that is a much more important issue than Dario Maestripieri’s stupid comments.

Beryl Benderly at the Science Careers Blog, A Facebook Furor:

There’s another unpleasant implication embedded in Maestripieri’s post. He apparently assumed that some of his Facebook readers would find his observations interesting or amusing. This indicates that, in at least some circles, women scientists are still not evaluated on their work but rather on qualities irrelevant to their science. …

[T]he point of the story is not one faculty member’s egregious slip.  It is the apparently more widespread attitudes that this slip reveals

Dana Smith at Brain Study, More sexism in science:

However, others still think his behavior was acceptable, writing it off as a joke and telling people to not take it so seriously. This is particularly problematic given the underlying gender bias we know to still exist in science. If we accept overt and covert discrimination against women in science we all lose out, not just women who are dissuaded from the field because of it, but also everyone who might have benefited from their future work.

Minerva Cheevy at Research Centered (Chronicle of Higher Education Blog Network), Where’s the use of looking nice?:

There’s just no winning for women in academia – if you’re unattractive, then you’re a bad female. But if you’re attractive, you’re a bad academic.

The Maroon Editorial Board at The Chicago Maroon, Changing the conversation:

[T]his incident offers the University community an opportunity to reexamine our culture of “self-deprecation”—especially in relation to the physical attractiveness of students—and how that culture can condone assumptions which are just as baseless and offensive. …

Associating the depth of intellectual interests with a perceived lack of physical beauty fosters a culture of permissiveness towards derogatory comments. Negative remarks about peers’ appearances make blanket statements about their social lives and demeanors more acceptable. Though recently the popular sentiment among students is that the U of C gets more attractive the further away it gets from its last Uncommon App class, such comments stem from the same type of confused associations—that “normal” is “attractive” and that “weird” is not. It’s about time that we distance ourselves from these kinds of normative assumptions. While not as outrageous as Maestripieri’s comments, the belief that intelligence should be related to any other trait—be it attractiveness, normalcy, or social skills—is just as unproductive and illogical.

It’s quite possible that I’ve missed other good discussions of this situation and its broader implications. If so, please feel free to share links to them in the comments.

Gender bias: ethical implications of an empirical finding.

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By now, you may have seen the recently published study by Ross-Macusin et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students”, or the nice discussion by Ilana Yurkiewicz of why these findings matter.

Briefly, the study involved having science faculty from research-focused universities rate materials from potential student candidates for a lab manager position. The researchers attached names to the application materials — some of them male names, some of them female names — at random, and examined how the ratings of the materials correlated with the names that were attached to them. What they found was that the same application materials got a higher ranking (i.e., a judgment that the applicant would be more qualified for the job) when the attached name was male than when it was female. Moreover, both male and female faculty ranked the same application more highly when attached to a male name.

It strikes me that there are some ethical implications that flow from this study to which scientists (among others) should attend:

  1. Confidence that your judgments are objective is not a guarantee that your judgments are objective, and your intent to be unbiased may not be enough. The results of this study show a pattern of difference in ratings for which the only plausible explanation is the presence of a male name or a female name for the applicant. The faculty members treated the task they were doing as an objective evaluation of candidates based on prior research experience, faculty recommendations, the applicant’s statement, GRE scores, and so forth — that they were sorting out the well-qualified from the less-well-qualified — but they didn’t do that sorting solely on the basis of the actual experience and qualifications described in the application materials. If they had, the rankings wouldn’t have displayed the gendered split they did. The faculty in the study undoubtedly did not mean to bring gender bias to the evaluative task, but the results show that they did, whether they intended to or not.
  2. If you want to build reliable knowledge about the world, it’s helpful to identify your biases so they don’t end up getting mistaken for objective findings. As I’ve mentioned before, objectivity is hard. One of the hardest things about being objective is that fact that so many of our biases are unconscious — we don’t realize that we have them. If you don’t realize that you have a bias, it’s much harder to keep that bias from creeping in to your knowledge-building, from the way you frame the question you’re exploring to how you interpret data and draw conclusions from them. The biases you know about are easier to keep on a short leash.
  3. If a methodologically sound study finds that science faculty have a particular kind of bias, and if you are science faculty, you probably should assume that you might also have that bias. If you happen to have good independent evidence that you do not display the particular bias in question, that’s great — one less unconscious bias that might be messing with your objectivity. However, in the absence of such good independent evidence, the safest assumption to make is that you’re vulnerable to the bias too — even if you don’t feel like you are.
  4. If you doubt the methodologically soundness of a study finding that science faculty have a particular kind of bias, it is your responsibility to identify the methodological flaws. Ideally, you’d also want to communicate with the authors of the study, and with other researchers in the field, about the flaws you’ve identified in the study methodology. This is how scientific communities work together to build a reliable body of knowledge we all can use. And, a responsible scientist doesn’t reject the conclusions of a study just because they don’t match one’s hunches about how things are. The evidence is how scientists know anything.
  5. If there’s reason to believe you have a particular kind of bias, there’s reason to examine what kinds of judgments of yours it might influence beyond the narrow scope of the experimental study. Could gender bias influence whose data in your lab you trust the most? Which researchers in your field you take most seriously? Which theories or discoveries are taken to be important, and which others are taken to be not-so-important? If so, you have to be honest with yourself and recognize the potential for this bias to interfere with your interaction with the phenomena, and with your interaction with other scientists to tackle scientific questions and build knowledge. If you’re committed to building reliable knowledge, you need to find ways to expose the operation of this bias, or to counteract its effects. (Also, to the extent that this bias might play a role in the distribution of rewards like jobs or grants in scientific careers, being honest with yourself probably means acknowledging that the scientific community does not operate as a perfect meritocracy.)

Each of these acknowledgments looks small on its own, but I will not pretend that that makes them easy. I trust that this won’t be a deal-breaker. Scientists do lots of hard things, and people committed to building reliable knowledge about the world should be ready to take on pieces of self-knowledge relevant to that knowledge-building. Even when they hurt.

I am science … or am I?

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Kevin Zelnio kicked it off on Twitter with a hashtag, and then wrote a blog post that shared the details of his personal journey with science. Lots of folks have followed suit and shared their stories, too — so many that I can’t even begin to link them without leaving something wonderful out. (Search the blogs and Twitter for #iamscience and you’ll find them.)

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to tell my own “I am science” story, but it’s complicated. Thus, I’m preemptively declaring this my first pass, and reserving the right to come back at it from a different angle (or two, or three) later.

One of the things I mentioned in my story at the ScienceOnline 2012 banquet is that I have always loved science. As far back as I can remember, I have wanted to understand how the pieces of my world work. I have thrilled at utility (and fun) of the problem-solving strategies that are part of a scientific approach to the world. I have contemplated the different observational, experimental, and conceptual tools different scientific disciplines bring to the table (and the ways that directing these different toolboxes to the same phenomena can give us starkly different understandings of just what is going on).

I wanted to learn science. I wanted to do science. But I lived in a culture that took pains to make it clear that girls and women were not supposed to be into science, so I should just cut it out.

Luckily for my love of science, well-behaved was not really a tool in my personal toolbox, at least when it came to edicts that got in the way of goals that mattered to me.

I probably got by with the normal ration of sexist crap. For example, I had the junior high math teacher who was convinced (and did not hide this conviction from his students) that Girls Just Cannot Do Math. Finishing geometry in one quarter so I could get the hell out of his classroom (for the matrix algebra class at the high school) was not just liberatory, but it let me give him a metaphorical poke in the eye. It did not, however, change his conviction about girls and math. I had the guidance counselor who was concerned that I was overloading with “hard” (i.e., math and science) courses when maybe it would be better if I took some home ec., or even a study hall.


As I went to a women’s college, I actually skipped the bulk of the classroom sexism I heard about from peers at other universities. None of my chemistry or physics professors started with the assumption that it was weird to have women in the classroom or the lab, which was nice. I did find out later that at least one of the professors had made offhand comments that chemistry majors at my alma mater probably weren’t “up to” graduate programs like the one I went to. Unless this professor was thinking that the graduate school experience should be all margaritas and hot stone massages, I have no idea what this impression was based on; in my graduating class, I was a fair to middling chemistry major (as some of the comments in my lab notebooks attest) — not one of the stars by any stretch of the imagination — and I was sufficiently “up to” the graduate program that I earned my Ph.D. in just over four years.


Of course, I got to bask in the sexism provided by students of a nearby technical school, which my boyfriend at the time happened to attend. Said boyfriend had taken to posting photocopies of each of my grad school acceptance letters on his door, proclaiming to the world (or at least to the frat) what a glorious geek his girlfriend was. After acceptance number 5 (out of 5 applications, to top-10 schools) was posted, a frat-brother said, “Wow, she must have applied to a lot of schools.” When told that the number of acceptances equalled the number of applications, he replied, “Ohh — affirmative action.”


Because clearly, how else could a chick (from a women’s college, no less) get into top graduate programs in chemistry?


And you know, that view was shared by at least some of the men in the graduate program I attended. Because nearly a quarter of our incoming class was female, it was clear to them that affirmative action had been in high gear during the admissions process. (Meanwhile, I was looking at the numbers and thinking, “Where the hell are the rest of the women?”) Women who did very good research, who got publishable results (and publications), and who got their Ph.D.s in four or five years (rather than six or seven or eight) were frequently looked upon with suspicion. They must be getting extra breaks from the system. Or maybe it was that their research focus was not very … significant. (There were never any reasoned arguments to back up the claims that a particular research focus was trivial; it just must be, because … well, she’s doing it.)

Meanwhile, of course, female TAs (in classes like thermodynamics) were treated with contempt by undergraduates. In instances where problem sets and solution sets disagreed about an answer, the fact that the solution set was prepared by a female was treated as reason enough to question its correctness.

Because women don’t really understand physical chemistry as well as men do (even, apparently, men who have not yet taken physical chemistry).


The fact that all of this garbage was clearly recognizable as garbage at the time didn’t make dealing with it any less tiresome. Some days there was barely enough energy just to do my own homework, grade the stacks of problem sets, and try to get things in the lab to function as they should. Keeping myself from punching the noses of the people who treated me as an interloper in science because I was a woman took up energy I could have used for other things.


Sexist crap not withstanding, I made it through. I got my Ph.D. in physical chemistry.

And then, things took an unexpected turn.

I was trying to write an NSF proposal to get funding for a post-doc I had lined up. I was very interested in the research in the lab in which I was planning to work. Indeed, I had been pretty enthuisiastic about the whole thing while I put together an NIH proposal to fund postdoctoral research in that lab. I could definitely imagine three years worth of learning about systems and measurment techniques that were new to me, and I could see it building on (and drawing upon) the things I had learned in my doctoral program in interesting ways.


But the NSF proposal I was writing was such that I could not describe the research project I was planning to undertake as a post-doc. Rather, the task was to describe the first project I envisioned undertaking as a principal investigator. In other words, tell us what you’ll contribute when you are officially a grown up scientist.


Now, I could think of lots of projects I would be qualified to pursue. I could even work out interesting projects in my general area of expertise that would be fundable. But, I was having trouble putting my heart into any of them. Imagining myself setting up a lab of my own to pursue any of these lines of research made me … sad.


I tried to ignore the sad feeling. I tried to put it down to slothful avoidance of the thinking and writing involved in the NSF proposal. But then, every time I’d try to make myself think past the few years of the impending post-doc, I got the same sad, empty feeling.


I knew I was still fascinated by science and its workings, still moved by the elegant model or the clever experiment. But it was becoming clear to me that in my heart I didn’t want to do science for the rest of my life. Serious reflection got me to the reasons: Doing science (i.e., being able to get funding to do science) would require that I focus my attention on the minutiae of a particular system or a particular problem; this is the approach that seems most effective in yielding the data and insight that solves scientific problems. But, the questions that kept me up at night were much broader questions about how, more generally, experiments tell us anything about the deep structure of the universe, how different methodological assumptions make the same phenomena tractable in different ways, what balance of hard-headed skepticism and willingness to entertain speculative hypotheses scientists needed to get the job done …


These were questions, clearly, that I would get into trouble for making the focus of my research were I working in a chemistry department. They had the smell of philosophy all over them. So I had to choose between being kept up at night by questions I couldn’t pursue professionally and pursuing questions I was not so interested in for a living, or admitting that my interest in science was primarily driven by an interest in philosophical questions and get myself the necessary training as a philosopher to pursue them. In some ways living a lie would have been the path of least resistance, but given how little I enjoyed being with me as I contemplated a loveless marriage to a scientific career, I figured I’d probably me cutting myself off from fellowship with other humans as well. So, I made the entirely selfish decision to do what I thought would make me happy.

Here, believe me when I tell you that it felt like a selfish decision in the time — not like a luxurious self-indulgence, but out and out selfishness. I leaked out of the pipeline. I could have improved the gender balance in science by one, and I didn’t. Instead of helping the sisters, I pursued my own individual happiness.


This is the thing I hate most about pervasive sexism. It makes your personal choices important to others in a way that they wouldn’t be if you were just an ordinary human being. It’s hard not to feel that I have let down people I have never even met by leaving the sparse ranks of women scientists, or that I have handed myself over to the pundits: one more example of a woman who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hack it in science.


None of which is to say that my relationship with science is over.

My professional life as an academic philosopher is tied up with understanding how science, and the community that does science, works. If anything, I feel more connected to the intellectual enterprise as a whole, and its connection to other aspects of human flourishing, than I did when I was in the trenches working as a chemist. As an educator, I have an opportunity I might not have had if I were teaching primarily chemistry majors to help folks who fear science understand it better. As it happens, I also have the opportunity to teach lots of science majors (in my “Ethics in Science” course) how ethics matter to scientific knowledge-building, and to the project of sharing a world with non-scientists. Since I’m tickled to be paid to think about the questions that keep me up at night, I have enthusiasm and energy I might not be able to muster otherwise to call shenanigans on misrepresentations of the scientific enterprise, whether by policy makers or science teachers.

Science has my devotion as a philosopher; as a chemist, chances are I would have just been going through the motions.

I may have left the lab bench, but I haven’t left the conversation.

Occasionally, though, I have to grapple with the question of whether I’m in the conversation as an insider or an outsider. Do I really count in the tribe of science? If I don’t do science anymore, how can it make sense to claim that science is part of who I am?

I don’t know what I can say to that except that my love for science, my inclination towards scientific ways of navigating through my world, the formation of myself as a competent scientist as I was figuring out how to become an adult — these are things I cannot separate from my identity. These are features of myself I cannot turn off. If you deal with me, these are some of the facets you are likely to encounter.

Am I science? It sure feels that way to me.

My story from the ScienceOnline 2012 banquet.

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This year at ScienceOnline, the conference banquet featured storytelling organized by The Monti, a North Carolina non-profit organization dedicated to building community by getting people to share their true stories with each other. Conference goers were asked to share stories on the theme of “connections”. The stories had to be true, and storytellers had to tell them without notes.

The seven stories told at the banquet provided a kaleidoscopic view of what “connections” might mean to a bunch of people involved in doing science, or teaching science, or communicating science, or trying to negotiate their own relationship with science in their personal and professional lives.

I feel honored that I got to tell my story as part of this event. My narrative was about connections between what things were like for me as a kid and how I’d like things to be different for my own kids, between online discussions and outcomes in the three-dimensional world, between my comfort zone and situations where I know I am out of my depth.

You can listen to the audio of me actually telling my story here. (It’s #3 in the list; I haven’t been able to figure out a way to grab just my story and embed it here, and you probably want to listen to the other stories, too, because they’re all really good.)

Here’s a photo of me telling the story (taken by official ScienceOnline 2012 photographer Maggie Pingolt.

Partway through the story, it will become relevant.

And, here’s a transcript-like text version of the story. I’ve taken out umm-like things.

So, like a lot of people in the room, I guess, I have always known that I loved science, but I grew up in a culture that told me that I shouldn’t, because I’m a girl.

And, between the TV, and the toy commercials, and my peers, and the teachers, the message was: “Look, science is not girls’ stuff. Science is not something girls are supposed to like. You are supposed to spend your time figuring out how to be like girls are, which is pretty, and pink, and neat, and well-behaved.” I did not want to be any of those things. I did not know how to be any of those things. I did not see how being any of those things was going to get my hands on the science-y stuff I wanted to do. So what was the point?

So, as you can imagine, school was not a lot of fun, because on the one hand, I had my peers making life crap because I could not perform femininity. And, I had teachers making my life crap, saying: “Look, no, I don’t care that you can do the math and do the science. It’s impossible that you can do the math and do the science because you’re a girl. So, stop that!”

And, one gets through this. And, I kind of figured by the time I was a grown-up, and had kids that I was raising of my own, we were going to be past all of this in our culture — that we would have fixed this particular blind spot we have. But the first time we cracked open the educational toy catalog, when our kids were old enough for those: hit in the face with the heavily gendered science kits.

And they come in two flavors: they come in the science kits, and the science kits for girls. And the science kits for girls of course come in a pink box, and they are science that concerns what girls are supposed to want to do, which is make lip gloss, or make bubble bath, or maybe grow pretty crystals. And the pictures on the box have cartoon girls with eye shadow and off-the-shoulder blouses, as if to say: “Look, dear, there’s nothing about doing this activity that is going to get in the way of your really important task of figuring out how to be conforming to our gendered expectations of you.”

The boys’ kits, meanwhile, had cool stuff — I mean, you got to take things apart. You got to blow things up. You got to examine the world on a really small scale. This is stuff I wanted to do — and got to do, luckily, when I was a kid, but only because my mother was as much of a rebel against this as I was.

What the girls are offered is the pink microscopes that don’t magnify as well as the blue microscopes do. Instead of getting kits where you get to blow stuff up, you get to make bath bombs, and as it turns out, bath bombs do not actually explode. Which is kind of a rip off.

So, of course, when I started blogging, this was one of the things I blogged about — because a good rant is what keeps a blogger going in the morning. And this was like five years ago. So I got my rant on. And of course, this November, those of you who watch the Twitters knew that Ed Yong tweeted about the WILD! Science* website selling extremely gendered science kits.

So it’s still going on! And people were like, “Yeah, we should blog about this some more!”

I’ll be honest: I was tired. I did not feel like blogging about this again. I said, I have been banging my head against this particular wall with this culture, and, you know, maybe I’d like to bang my head against a different wall that might move a little. But, I took a breath. I said, OK, everyone’s doing it, so I’ll try to explain again what it is about these kits that I find problematic — that they’re not really trying to interest kids in science so much as saying the only hook we’ve got with girls is their femininity. And, they’re not actually cultivating an interest in science so much as reminding girls: even in science, you are expected to do this femininity thing or you will get crap.

So, I blogged about it, and then a really exciting thing happened in December. In December, Edmund Scientific announced on their blog that they had noticed these blog posts, and letters they had gotten, emails they had gotten from customers, and they understood the criticism, and they recognized that they were sending out a message that they did not want to send out as they were selling science kits. And they said, we’re going to stop. They said, we are going to no longer sell boys’ science kits and girls’ science kits; they’re now all science kits for whatever kind of kid wants to do it.

And I was really, really excited. You know, all of us sort of being cranky eventually, I guess … every now and then we get this incremental piece of change.

I was so excited that afternoon, and I had to tell my kids, because, you know, you’ve got to share your excitement and your tweeps get tired of it so your kids have to listen to the overflow.

I should tell you something about my kids, something I sort of keep on the down-low on blogs ’cause of creepy internet stalker types. My kids are daughters.

The oldest one’s in seventh grade, the youngest one’s in fifth grade. So, they’re twelve and ten. The older one … I think maybe there was a six month stretch in kindergarten where she experimented with officially sanctioned femininity as recognized by our culture and then decided it just was not worth the trouble, and hasn’t really bothered with it since.

The ten-year-old is a pretty pink princess.

Which makes our relationship with each other complicated, because as I told you before, I don’t really do femininity. She actually tried to help me with my outfit for tonight, but in the end she said, “Please don’t tell them I was involved in this.” We’re different, she and I.

But, she was the one, when I told her this news about this company selling science kits that decided to drop the heavy gendering, she was the one who got really excited and gave me a hug and gave me a high five.

Because both of my kids — the tomboy and the pretty princess — both of them love science. The ten-year-old who loves to dress up, who loves to wear pantyhose, for God’s sake, who asked for a lint-roller for Christmas — she loves to do science. She is also a fierce goalie for her soccer team, and she can tell fart jokes with the best of them, and this is because, unlike what the marketers would have you believe, a pretty pink princess has facets.

So, as we’re celebrating this, I’m sort of keeping up with the discussion in the blogosphere. And there’s some discussion going on saying, “Well, OK, heavily gendered science kits: probably problematic. But, maybe we’re doing some pink-bashing here. Maybe we’ve got to make the world safe for pink microscopes, too.”

There was sort of this “click!” in my head when I remembered — oh wait, it’s not just that we live in a culture that says “Girls can’t do science,” and we’ve got to deal with that; or that girls need to be feminine, and we’ve got to deal with that. We live in a culture where we have this idea that scientists need to be a certain way.

So we’ve gone from where I was when I was in school, having teachers tell me, “You can’t do science ’cause you’re a girl,” to now maybe the teachers are saying , “Well, you’re probably not going to be into science because you’re a girly girl.” You can do science, but you’ve got to be one of those girls who thinks the whole femininity thing is not something you want to spend any kind of time with.

And that’s a problem, too.

And I thought back to my misspent scientific youth in a physical chemistry lab, where absolutely the smartest, the best scientist in that lab aside from my PI was a fourth year graduate student who graduated after her fourth year with a ton of publications in the Journal of Physical Chemistry. But people outside of our lab thought she had all kinds of help, or that her work must not be too significant, and the main reason they seemed to think that is ’cause she did her hair, and she wore make up, and she did her nails, and she was kind of a grown up pretty princess. If they had bothered to talk to her about her science, if they had bothered to look inside her notebooks — which, I grant, were kept in loopy script, sometimes in pink ink — they would have seen that she was fiercely intelligent and frighteningly organized in her attack on the research questions that she pursued. She was an astonishingly good scientist, and she was made to feel like an outsider in our scientific community simply because she did femininity.

And we’ve got to cut this out. We have to cut this out.

We not only have to, as a culture, get over the idea that boys have to be a certain way and girls have to be a certain way, and that the certain way girls have to be is not compatible with doing science. We also have to get over the idea that to be a good scientist you have to be a certain kind of person, and that’s not the kind of person who’s going to get his or her nails done.

Because ultimately, the world I want to be in, the world I want for my daughters — for the tomboy and the pretty princess — is one where they can be authentically who they are, and they can love science, and they can pursue science, and it doesn’t matter what else they like.

Thank you.
_____
*At the banquet, I erroneously said “Mad Science.” Ah, the dangers of telling a story without notes!

If you want to go back and relive the discussion of gendered science kits as it was happening last November and December, here are some links:

Science kits … for girls.
Some reasons gendered science kits may be counterproductive.
Gendered science kits aren’t so great for boys either.
How do we make room for pink microscopes? (More thoughts on gendered science kits.)

The WILD! Science selection of science kits for girls.
The Edmund Scientific blog post that filled my heart with joy.

How do we make room for pink microscopes? (More thoughts on gendered science kits.)

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As we’ve been considering the hazards of gendered science kits for kids, some have suggested that it is simplistic to paint pink microscopes as an unalloyed evil.

One response on the potential value of girls’ science kits comes from Meghan Groome at Pathways to Science:

As someone who studies the formation of science identity in middle school students, I see everyday how girls try to navigate acceptable girl identities with those teachers look for to identify science talent.  For many girls, upper elementary and middle school is a time where they are expected to lose both boisterous and intellectually curious elements of their external personalities.  Day in and day out, I observe teachers, boys, and other girls in the class act as “gatekeepers” for smart, vocal girls in science. It’s subtle but once you point it out, it’s unmistakable. …

Teachers look for somewhat specific characteristics to define a kid who is smart or good in science. Those include excelling on exams, participating in class, and showing an interest in the content.  Excelling on exams is a fairly private affair but class participation and curiosity become high-risk behavior for girls lead to them hiding their interest and talent.

All students have to make choices about who they are to the outside world, but for girls, there are fewer ways to be both a girl and someone who is outwardly interested and good at science.

So, when I originally read about girly science kits I balked at what appeared to be a gross exaggeration of girly identity.  I’ve had similar responses when I got to robotics competitions and see the all-girl teams decked out like princesses or cheerleaders.

But upon reflection, I wonder why we adults are so quick to shut down another way that a girl can navigate being a girl and being a scientist? Do I personally want to be a scientist who acts like a Barbie? No, but who am I to shut down someone who chooses Barbie Scientist over Tom Boy scientist?

I think this assessment is onto something — although my experience is that there are fewer acceptable ways to be a girl regardless of whether one is outwardly interested in and good at science. Still, it’s worth asking if the rejection of gendered science kits might function (whether intended to do so or not) as another kind of gender policing, insisting that girls who pursue science must foreswear femininity entirely.

Another response, which I take to be less a defense of gendered science kits and more an examination of the assumption built into negative reactions to them, comes from Lauren at teenskepchick:

I kind of felt like there has been a bit of pink-slagging going on.

Now, I’m not averse to pink. At one stage in my childhood I used to bemoan the colour and anything my parents chose out for me that happened to be pink. I didn’t want to be like those girls. With their pink and their cattiness and their girliness. Internalized misogyny is about valuing “masculinity” and male-ness over “femininity and female-ness, and that is exactly what I did with my dislike of pink. I got over that (for the most part) long ago, and now I’m more than happy to wear pink or stick pink things on my walls or (as my avatar would have you believe) in my hair (and if the blasted colour held well, it might still be in my hair). Which is cool! I like pink. It probably isn’t my favourite colour, but I like it and I see nothing wrong with anybody (of any gender identity) embracing the colour pink.

Except, apparently, when it came to physics. If there was any pink anywhere near my science, it could GTFO as far as I was concerned. I had become used to being incredibly outnumbered in my classes, and getting the reaction “Oh, but that’s a boy subject” when I told people what my majors were. I don’t even understand why people think that is a socially acceptable thing to say, but it happens more often than you’d think. I was tired of second-guessing my wardrobe choices for some classes, and I was tired of coming across stories about T-shirts with messages that implied girls suck at maths.

Enter the Science Babe, aka Deborah Berebichez. When I first started coming across some of her work in my journeys across the intertubes, I wasn’t a fan. The opposite. It was physics and it was pink and it was high heels and it was very gossip-y and I hated it. I’ve lately come to realise, though, that that’s okay! If that is what it takes to get more girls interested in physics, then that is awesome. Same deal with the pink science kits. The problem (well, one of them) is with how they are marketed to reinforce set gender roles, that girls need to be girly and boys… boy-y. The problem is not that pink and femininity and all of that are bad.

There are a bunch of related issues intertwined here.

There seems to be a strong societal presumption that science (and math, and related subject matter) are “naturally” of interest to boys (and men), but not to girls (and women).

There seems to be another strong societal presumption that girls are “naturally” inclined toward femininity — where femininity is described in a pretty narrow way connected to pink stuff, pretty clothes, interpersonal relationships, and the like — and boys are “naturally” inclined toward masculinity that is defined in similarly narrow terms.

Then there’s the presumption that science and math are more compatible with those masculine characteristics than with feminine ones.

Finally, there’s at least a tacit assumption that feminine characteristics and pursuits compatible with them are not as valuable as masculine characteristics and pursuits compatible with them — that the things that are linked to femininity are less than. (This is the internalized misogyny Lauren describes in her post.)

And these intertwined assumptions set up what can feel like a minefield for girls trying to negotiate the twin challenges of figuring out what pursuits interest them and of figuring out who they want to be.

On the one hand, a girl may be totally non-plussed by social pressure to be a certain kind of girl, compliant with a stereotypical version of femininity. But if this girl who resists the pressure to be “feminine” also decides she’s into science, maybe this runs the risk of reinforcing the assumption that science is not compatible with femininity — sure, here’s a girl who wants to do science, but she’s not actually a girly girl.

Indeed, if the girls one knows who are into science are uniformly those who depart from society’s picture of femininity, it may seem to the girls just working out whether to explore science that there is a forced choice between being feminine and pursuing science. And, if they’re OK with the bundle of qualities that is part of societally sanctioned femininity, they may conclude that they’re better off opting out of science (a conclusion peer-pressure may support).

Worse, the grown-ups mentoring girls, including the ones teaching them math and science, may believe that there is a forced choice between science and femininity. Among other things, they may pre-emptively decide that girly girls are not part of their target audience.

And, falling in line with society’s judgments, the girls who pursue science may assume that the girls who hew closer to the “feminine” stereotypes are less interested in or able to do science. This attitude may leave the girly girls who actually pursue science feeling rather isolated even from other girls in science.

All of this strikes me as a pretty raw deal.

In a perfect world, a pink microscope would be just as valid a choice as a blue one (assuming both have the same magnifying power). But in the world we currently inhabit, the pressure on girls to fit the stereotype of femininity is enormous, and comes from multiple sources, including (but not limited to) family members, peers, and school.

A well-meaning attempt to suggest to girls that science can be compatible with the stereotype of femininity can end up being yet another reminder that you need to conform to that stereotype. Otherwise, why the heck would every science kit in the girls’ section come in a pink box?

And lest we forget, Krystal D’Costa reminds us that boys face a parallel pressure to avoid anything that might be officially recognized as feminine:

[G]irls have the option not to choose pink, but do boys ever have the option to choose pink? Will the little boy curious about scents be isolated by his siblings and extended family if they learn what science kit he wants? Because it comes in a pink box?

To get to the point where a pink microscope does not act as yet another tool to police gendered expectation on girls (and boys) — and when women who reject pink microscopes are not used to police gendered expectations on scientists (as not girly) either — we need to figure out how to change the societal presumption that femininity and masculinity have anything at all to do with inclination towards, or ability in, science. We need to recognize opting into, or out of, femininity or masculinity as a completely separate issue from opting into, or out of, math and science. And, decisions with respect to math and science need to be seen as counting neither for nor against your opting into or out of a particular package of gendered characteristics.

After all, as far as I can tell, whether one is interested in math and science, or displays an ability for them, is an empirical question. Why not drop the gendered assumptions about who will be “naturally” suited to them and see what happens?

It would also be great if we could let kids find out who they are and how they want to be without locking them into a rigid, binary choice. If there was no pressure to be a particular kind of boy or a particular kind of girl — if the full range of options was open to everyone — I suspect it might be easier not to judge one set of options as inherently less than.

Again, I think it’s an empirical question — so let’s roll up our sleeves and create the conditions where we can actually find out.

Gendered science kits aren’t so great for boys either.

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In response to my post about science kits for girls, a reader wrote to me:

I would be really interested to see an exploration of the kits for boys from the same company. They also appeal to stereotypes that are damaging by offering only destruction, gags, and grossouts as the appeal of learning about science.

As requested, here we go!

If the selection of science kits for girls was inescapably pink, the boys’ ones have to be blue. Otherwise, how would the adults doing the shopping know that they were on the right page to find appropriately gendered gifts for the kids on their shopping lists? Surely, these adults must be utterly baffled by a webpage layout like this one:

How do you tell which are the girls’ kits and which are the boys’ ones? What’s the big idea of making kits sortable by subject-matter categories, or price, or appropriate age range? There are just too many possibilities here for interesting the gift-recipient in science!

Although maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.

Anyway, back to the WILD! Science boys’ offerings. In contrast to the girls’ offerings, which included 13 different kits, there are only six kits targeted specifically to boys. It’s unclear what the thinking is behind this disparity. Perhaps it’s that science is a harder sell for girls, requiring a greater variety of kits to grab their interest, while boys are more “naturally” inclined toward scientific pursuits and thus need less of a prodding from a kit. Maybe it’s that girls are more acquisitive of consumer goods (especially those packaged in pink boxes), thus supporting a larger stable of girls’ kits than boys’ kits.

Or possibly it’s that boys’ interest in science are so narrow that these six kits include the only plausible points of entry.

(Recall, though, that the 13 girls’ kits included enough overlap — multiple kits on crystal growth, fragrances, and soap-making — that they don’t really constitute 13 possible points of entry to their interest in science.)

One of the boys’ kits is Weird Slime Science. Its product description is nearly identical to that of the corresponding girls’ kit, Beautiful Blob Slime. One difference is that the description of the girls’ kit emphasizes the safety of the chemicals used. Does this suggest that adults worry more about (or care more about) the safety of girls than of boys? Is implied danger a selling point of science where boys (but not girls) are concerned? Either way, the big difference between the two kits seems to be that one comes in a blue box and the other comes in a pink box.

The boys also get a soap-making kit, although theirs is described as “Practical Joke Soap”. In addition to making the soap, they get to “[e]xplore … multiple stage embedding and the art of welding with soap to create realistic and gruesome soap objects like brains and eyeballs.” The girls’ soap-making kits offer no such practical instruction on practical joking.

Let’s pause for a moment to examine an assumption that seems to be built into the gendering of these soap-making kits: that girls are interested in what is pretty and fragrant (and exfoliating) while boys are interested in the gruesome (or in the hilariously shocked reactions of people who come upon these gruesome soap specimens). Some girls may prefer the pretty and the fragrant, but other girls may prefer realistically gross stuff. (I am a parent to at least one such girl.) Some boys may enjoy the gross-out, but other boys don’t. And, science kits that police these gender stereotypes run the risk of alienating boys from science, too. If you’re a boy that doesn’t like gruesome stuff, this kind of kit will not encourage you to like science. As well, it may lead to the uneasy feeling that you’re not living up to societal expectations of masculinity.

That’s a pretty rotten gift to give a kid.

This is not to say that these heavily-gendered science kits are the only source a kid has about these expectations. When I was little, I was so fascinated by creepy crawlies that I routinely picked up any earthworm I could get my hands on. Despite some pretty consciously egalitarian parenting, my younger brother was (I am told) of the view that if a girl could pick up a worm, a boy should be able to do it too. (Maybe he got this message from kids at preschool, or other relatives, or TV.) However, he was so grossed out by actually doing so that he squeezed the life out of each of the poor worms he picked up.

In other words, gender stereotypes don’t just hurt boys and girls — they also hurt earthworms!

Other boys’ offerings include a Hyperlauncher Rocket Ball Factory (with which to make superballs and explore F=ma), Spooky Ice Planet (which seems to involve crystal growth, but it’s pretty hard to tell from the product description), Perils of the Deep (ditto), and a kit called Wild Physics and Cool Chemistry. As it happens, this last kit combines the boys’ Hyperlauncher Rocket Ball kit and Weird Slime kit, which is probably why it appears in the boys’ offerings. It’s pretty striking, though, that none of the girls’ kits is identified as a Physics and/or Chemistry kit. Is it more important that boys recognize these activities as connected to well-defined science subjects in school? Why exactly should that be? And, how is this consistent with the lack of clear descriptions as to what scientific principles boys might learn from “Spooky Ice Planet” or “Perils of the Deep”?

More generally, note that the boys’ kits seem to assume that boys are interested in: stuff that’s spooky or gross, stuff that bounces, and (maybe) stuff that’s dangerous. Unlike the product descriptions for the girls’ kits, none of the product descriptions for the boys’ kits pitch these activities as ways to make gifts for family and friends, which suggests that boys are assumed to be more self-centered and less giving.

Again, these are gendered stereotypes that will only fit some boys, while ignoring the complexities of most actual boys. To the extent that these kits send subtle and not-so-subtle messages to boys about how they ought to be, they police masculinity in a way that is bound to be limiting to boys and the men they grow up to be.

And, it’s not obvious that using these gender stereotypes is a good way to get boys interested in science.

Some reasons gendered science kits may be counterproductive.

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We want kids to explore science and get excited about learning (and doing) it. Given that kids learn so much through play, rather than just by trying to sit still at a desk and to pay attention to a teacher who may or may not convey enthusiasm about science, you’d think that science kits marketed as “play” would be a good thing.

Why, then, am I skeptical about the value of science kits for girls?

Packaging “science for girls” this way is likely to teach girls as much about societal expectations as about science.

There is, without a doubt, a lot of interesting chemistry involved in making soap, perfume, and make-up. However, defining that chemistry as of interest to girls — especially pre-teen girls — conveys a message that girls are (or should be) naturally interested in grooming and cosmetics. This, in turn, conveys a message that girls ought to be exfoliating and toning and moisturizing, mastering the smoky eye and the shiny lip, and discovering a signature scent.

Here, I see two messages being sent to girls by gendered science kits.

One is that science is not so cool in itself that a girl would appreciate it if it came in a box that wasn’t pink. Instead, science is presented as cool because it can be shown to be compatible with acceptable femininity, crammed into one of the narrow boxes that contain it.

Bath bombs, after all, do not actually explode on contact with bath water.

The other, more subtle, message is that cramming oneself into the narrow box of acceptable femininity is important. This box puts constraints on acceptable appearance (at least neat, if not pretty, fluffy, and glittery), and smell (like a flower rather than a young human), and behavior (interested in making stuff, especially as gifts for others, rather than in blowing stuff up or taking stuff apart to see how it works).

In tandem, the messages conveyed by these kits seem to be saying: you can like science without transgressing the boundaries of acceptable femininity — but those boundaries are very important, and you would do well to learn where they are and stay within them. Maybe they will convince some girls that science is cool, but if they also convince those girls that they have to perform femininity in such a narrow way, is this a net win?

Here, I think it’s worth thinking in the longer term. Will buying into societal expectations about the right way to be a girl help girls succeed in science education and careers? Consider that “the right way to be a girl” has tended to be skewed against showing oneself to be good at math and science in middle school and high school. Consider as well that “the right way to be a woman” has tended to be loaded up with expectations about having and raising children, making meals, and keeping a beautiful house — duties that rather cut into one’s time in the lab or the field, if one wants to pursue a scientific career.

Plus, the phenomenon of stereotype threat suggests that girls and women recognize that society sees being female and being good at math or science as in opposition. To the extent that policing acceptable femininity strengthens this perception, whether on the individual level or the societal level, maybe we’re better off not feeding this pretty pink beast.

These kits won’t make girls who know that gendered expectations are a raw deal love science.

Amazingly, some of us weren’t pretty pink princesses when we were girls.

If we didn’t already know science was fun, packing it into a pink box and reassuring us of how feminine it could be would turn us off.

If we did already know science was fun, packing it into a pink box and reassuring us of how feminine it could be would insult us. Why would you think you’d need to give science this particular spin to make us want to do it? Why wouldn’t you give us the really good science kits — the ones they boys were getting as gifts?

Here, the folks marketing science kits for girls are making the assumption that all girls are the same. Assuming that young females are a monolithic group — especially one whose interests you perceive to be so narrow — means you are bound to alienate the girls who don’t fit your stereotype. And if it’s simply a matter of not getting their money because they aren’t buying your product, that’s one thing. However, if in the process of persuading a girl that your science kit is not for her you are also persuading her that science is not for her, that’s a harm it would be good to address.

Even girls who perform acceptable femininity without breaking a sweat may prefer a non-gendered science kit.

I have a confession to make: My youngest child, currently ten years old, is a pretty pink princess. She will wear make-up whenever she can get away with it, and embraces skirts and heels and pantyhose.

However, she would be insulted to get a “science for girls” kit rather than one with more intellectual heft. For at least a couple years, one of her favorite “toys” has been a big set of Snap Circuits, which come in a box that is blissfully ungendered. And, she does plenty of chemistry with us at home, regardless of the fact that to date exactly none of it has been aimed at creating cosmetics.

A pretty pink princess has facets.

Tying a girl’s interest in science to acceptable femininity may be a bad strategy if she outgrows acceptable femininity.

I reckon there are some girls whose pretty-pink-princess adherence to the norms of acceptable femininity is so strong that a “science for girls” kit might seem like the only way to get them to even give science a chance. And, in the process of getting groomed, perfumed, and made-up with the things they make with such a kit, they may build their understanding of some scientific principles.

However, if you’ve gotten such a girl to see science as of instrumental value (in achieving a particular sort of femininity), what happens to her interest in science if she decides that achieving that sort of femininity isn’t worth the time or effort? Can we count on that interest in science being robust?

My hunch is that tying science to a broader range of features of our world and of our everyday lives — features which are not necessarily of interest to just one gender — would be a better strategy for cultivating a robust interest in science.

Then again, I’m not trying to market thirteen different girls’ science kits this holiday shopping season, so what do I know?

Science kits … for girls.

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Via a tweet from Ed Yong, I discovered this weekend (not that I couldn’t have guessed) that purveyors of science kits for kids are still gendering the heck out of them. That is to say, there are science kits, and there are science kits for girls.

For all I know, putting science kits in pink boxes is an excellent strategy to get them to fly off the shelves, but I am not convinced that it is a good strategy when it comes to getting girls interested in science. Indeed, I worry that whatever interest in science kits like these might cultivate might come with baggage that could actually make it harder for girls (and the women they become) to pursue scientific education and careers.

I’ll try to spell out the shape of these worries in my next post. In this post, I offer for your consideration, three “science” kits targeted at girls that appeared in toy catalogues that crossed my desk five years ago. Then, I’ll take a quick look at this year’s offerings.

Archimedes got scientific insight from a bathtub, but he wasn't required to wear eye-makeup to do it.

Spa Science

The kit offers itself as a way “to cultivate a girl’s interest in science” through the making of “beauty products like an oatmeal mask, rose bath balm, and aromatherapy oils”. Besides the “natural and organic materials” to concoct said products, the kit includes “a booklet that explores how scents affect moods and memories.”

Don’t get me wrong — there is science worth discussing in this neighborhood.

But, the packaging here strikes me as selling the need for beauty product more emphatically than any underlying scientific explanations of how they work. Does a ten-year-old need an oatmeal mask? (If so, why only ten-year-old girls? Do not ten-year-old boys have pores and sebaceous glands?) Also, I’m nervous that the exploration of scents and “aromatherapy” may be setting kids up as easy marks for health food grocers and metaphysical bookstores who will sell them all manner of high-priced, over-hyped, essential-oil-containing stuff.

Maybe the Barbie-licious artwork is intended to convey that even very “girly” girls can find some element of science that is important to their concerns, but it seems also to convey that being overtly feminine is a concern that all girls have (or ought to have) — and, that such “girly” girls couldn’t possibly take an interest in science except as a way to cultivate their femininity.

Our exposed shoulders tell you that you can do these activities without being a tomboy!

Perfumery

Aimed at a slightly younger audience (of “young ladies-in-training”) than the last kit, this one promises to teach girls “the chemistry behind” perfumes. Setting aside my skepticism about how much real engagement with chemistry one is likely to get from a kit like this, notice that the catalogue blurb starts with the claim that “Everyone should have a ‘signature scent’!” (I beg to differ. My ten-year-old’s signature scent is soap, thank you very much.) Does the benefit of teaching a kid a little bit of chemistry outweigh the cost of convincing a little girl that she ought to smell like something other than a young human? Where might this lead?

And where are the boys here? Aren’t they supposed to be grooming boys to want to buy fragrances, too? Here’s a conjecture for the field operatives to explore further: Males are sold fragrances as a way to render females helpless to the males’ sexual magnetism, whereas females are sold fragrances as a way to smell acceptable. Plus, boys just naturally dig science, whereas girls just naturally dig laboring under the weight of gender roles.

Would these products make me feel as pretty without those little tubes and pots?

Creative Cosmetics

Here’s another — substantially pricier kit — aiming to teach a little science through the mixing and application of “customized skin care items”, although again the assumption seems to be that only girls have skin that requires care, or that only girls need to be suckered into caring about science. Cynic that I am, I cannot help but wonder how much of the “important skin care and wellness facts” included with the essential oils, packaging, and instructions is devoted to actual science as opposed to cultivating an unnecessary beauty regimen.

Given that this kit “teaches them to make shampoos and shower gels, makeup, creams and lotions from common household items” — which, presumably, one’s household may already have — what could explain the high price of this kit ($60)? My bet is on the little pots and tubes and squeeze bottles — which is to say, on the part that has nothing at all to do with the quality of the skin care product, and everything to do with making you want to buy it when you see it in the store.
But surely, this kit really is intended to cultivate an interest in science rather than train new generations of consumers, right?

Casting an eye to the recent crop of girls’ science kits, I get the feeling that consumerism is the intended goal.

We see thirteen distinct kits (collect them all!), four of which are centered on growing crystals. (To be fair, one of these is advertised as combining the experiments of two of the other three.) Three of the kits are focused on perfumes, although each involves different activities (making incense, or cards and “dazzling cloth hangings,” or scented gel crystals and perfumed slime). There is a “Luxury Soap Lab” kit as well as a “Beauty Spa Lab” kit with which you can make … fancy soaps. I’m guessing that these kits are separate not to keep the retail prices down, but to encourage kids (or the people purchasing gifts for them) to buy more of them.

Plus, the description of the “Beauty Spa Lab” notes that you can make “scrub soaps for dad, or exfoliating soaps for mum.” Which is to say, the gendering is pretty thoroughgoing here.

Perhaps it’s a tiny step in the right direction that one of the girls’ kits is “Beautiful Blob Slime”. Non-Newtonian semi-solids are cool and don’t in themselves cram gendered expectations down a girl’s throat. Still, the assumption is that a girl must be reassured of the beauty of the slime before she’ll play.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better way to make a girl in grade school question whether she’ll have any interest in or aptitude for science than to present her with a “science for girls” kit. The message seems to be, “Look, there’s a bit of science that will interest even you. (And go put on some lipstick!)” Heaven knows, we couldn’t even get girls interested in building Rube Goldberg machines, or launching water-rockets, or studying the growth of plants or the behaviors of animals, or blowing stuff up … except, these are just the sort of things that the girls I know would want to do, even the pretty pink princesses.

Moreover, it seems to me a kid could explore some of this same scientific territory without coughing up $60, or even $25.

As a place to start, check out the American Chemical Society’s kids’ website.

The hands-on activities include nine fun experiments with soap and detergent, three with crystals, six with polymers, and eleven with food, just for starters. These activities can be done with materials you probably already have in the house (or can find easily in a grocery store). And, as an added bonus, none of them are labeled as experiments for girls or experiments for boys. They are experiments for whatever kid (or grown-up) want to do them.

Up next, I’ll explain why I think bundling kids’ science kids with gendered stereotypes is a bad idea both in the short term and in the long run.