Talk:Women in science

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[edit] Welcome

This is the discussion page for Women in science. If you're new to Wikipedia and want to help with this collaboration, just jump right in. If you have suggestions, leave a message here. If you want to change the article, go ahead! Be bold. If you add information, include inline citations if you have references handy. Don't worry about formatting; other editors can clean things up.

This article will probably split of eventually into a separate historical article, but for now, both historical and modern sociological and demographic content is appropriate.--ragesoss 02:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People to include

I've added Marie Curie, but I must admit after that I feel a bit stumped, I'm sure there are lots more.

Rosalind Franklin who worked on DNA with Watson and Crick, I'll have to find out her involvement, so I can add her in.

I'm assuming we don't want it to simply be a who's who, but also a discussion about how the involvement of women in science evolved.

Terri G 18:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added Caroline Herschel, Mary Somerville, Ada Lovelace & Barbara McClintock, who all seemed well enough known to rate a separate mention, plus some 19thC Europeans gleaned from http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/timelist.shtml which has a lot of (largely unreferenced) biographical material.

I'm not sure the current divisions are optimal; I'd suggest a separate division for early 19thC with US & Europe together.Espresso Addict 00:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree the current division into US and Europe is largely artificial, shows a bias (undeliberate I'm sure) and makes it difficult to add women from outside these areas (for example I can think of several Australian and Isralei women who may warrant inclusion). I think a good way to proceed with this article would be to compile a separate chronological list (or a list by subject area) of women scientists and use it to help build this article, since ideally this article wouldn't be a disjointed collection of facts about women who have excelled, but a discussion of how women have contributed to science in more general terms.--Peta 00:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
    • On an additional note, if this article is going to largely be a chronology - it may be better at History of women in science.--Peta 02:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I think a good format for this article might be ~1/3rd dedicated to history, with a link to History of women in science as the main article (where most of the current content could go), and 2/3rds discussing more-or-less the present, with information on breakdown across different fields and different nations, rates of career advancement, and the common barriers faced by women scientists, cultural attitudes regarding gender and science, and controversy over biologically-based reasons for differential success.--ragesoss 02:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I came to it via the History of Science portal, so I didn't remark the focus, but I think you're right that splitting out much of the historical facts under the title you suggest would be useful. On your other point, I think data are scanty on women's involvement in science pre-late 19th C, so it's hard to make realistic generalisations. Espresso Addict 03:59, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Mabye we should just move this article to History of... (I will delete the redirect) and when someone wants to write a more general and topical article on women in science they can do so at that name.--Peta 04:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the month

What subject areas are we considering 'science'? What about maths? Medicine? Nursing?

I don't know what the policy of Wikipedia on categories based on gender is, but setting up a category for women scientists, divided by nationality/subject, would certainly make finding this information easier. On the other hand, it might perhaps feel insulting to those tagged in this way. Thoughts, anyone? Espresso Addict 10:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Ah, I see there already is one. Perhaps the article should link to this? Espresso Addict 14:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Nina Byers notes Émilie du Châtelet, Sofia Kovalevskya, and Mary Somerville from before the 20th c. and lists 83 women physicists from before 1976. See her UCLA cwp page. --Ancheta Wis 00:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC) Her list includes

I'd be tempted to go easy on those whose major contributions fall after WW2, on grounds of the large numbers, though I agree that underrepresentation in physics is still a fact (at least in the UK). Can anyone source published stats on nos of women per subject at various levels? Espresso Addict 04:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I've created some new sections to handle contributions pre-16thC, with some stub information. Hopefully someone else knows more than I do... I've also added a conclusions section with some collected thoughts as a starting point for discussion. Espresso Addict 05:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

I think the article would be more interesting to read - and more useful for someone looking for activity within a specific field - if it was arranged thematically rather than chronologically, my suggestion would be

  1. Lead
  2. Section on women's participation in science over time, which would incorporate the info currently in conclusions
  3. Natural sciences
  4. Medicine
  5. Math (and computer science)
  6. Astronomy
  7. Physics
  8. Chemistry

A source I have also includes women in archeology and female inventors, should they also get sections in this article? Any opinions? --Peta 04:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be mildly opposed to this restructuring, though I can see it has some advantages.
The current historical approach allows the highlighting of different threads such as the importance of education, rank/class, family of male scientists, learned societies &c&c. In a subject-based structure, it would be easy either to lose these important threads, or, worse, to duplicate the information across each section. If the subject-based approach is decided on, then it would be important to extract this information and include it somewhere upfront.
The historical approach also allows for the fact that the divisions of science over history aren't the same as modern ones, and that until the late 19thC, scientists commonly worked across several fields.
If the decision is to divide into subject sections then you should note "natural sciences", in UK English use at least, traditionally includes all non-applied sciences. Do you mean biology or biological sciences? Some of the sections you suggest are going to prove very difficult to separate, broader sections would help in overcoming the problem I mentioned above. A section on engineering and technology might be a good addition.
Either way, one thing we could really do with in the article is a more international coverage. The present article is very biased towards Europe and America.
Re your other questions, I'd definitely suggest excluding archeology, it isn't usually counted as a science. There may be a case for including inventors, perhaps in the section on engineering and technology I suggest above. Espresso Addict 14:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] small addition to 20th century

I've added Inge Lehmann to the Women in science#1900 through World War II: Europe, The paper refernce for the discovery is: Lehmann, I. (1936) Inner Earth, Bur. Cent. Seismol. Int. 14, 3-31, but I haven't figured references out yet; furthermore I'm not sure if adding one here would be helpful. Inner Earth 15:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it's very useful to have a record of the source. We've been tending so far to use secondary rather than primary sources for this article, but I think the references could do with an overhaul. There are several reference schemes, but the one in this article uses the [ref] tag (replace [] with <>)...
At the site of reference: [ref]Reference details[/ref]
In the references list: [references /]
If you want to reuse the same reference: [ref name="blah"]Reference details[/ref] ...then simply [ref name="blah" /] repeats the same citation. The label is case sensitive.
Espresso Addict 17:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about other places?

Did women outside Europe and the Mediterranean do any science before 1900?--T. Anthony 12:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism section

I've removed the following text, which is unsourced & PoV, as well as being largely irrelevant to this article, which is about women's contributions in various fields of scientific study, not feminism.

"Advancement of women into scientific fields has been slow. However, it could be argued that this is not necessarily a problem anymore than it is a problem that there are fewer men nurses than women nurses. Due to offshore outsourcing and the increase in skilled visa workers from lower-wage countries, science and technology careers have grown less stable. If the goal is to increase the earning power and career choices for women, then focusing on management and business positions perhaps may be more fruitful."

Espresso Addict 15:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

But, the article gets into political issues here:

"Women have made diverse contributions to science, technology and medicine, from antiquity to the present day. However, the exclusion of women from most formal education, particularly from around 1600 until the latter part of the nineteenth century, has severely restricted women's ability to contribute in these areas......However, women remain greatly underrepresented in some areas, such as physical sciences, computing and engineering."

This is also "unsourced & PoV". If we are going to delete one political POV, then delete them all. Is the purpose of the article to only document women in science OR promote it? If the 2nd, then the globalization issue is as legitimate as any other promotional statement that is currently in the article.

--Tablizer 04:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I'd support the removal of all the POV commentary and moving the page to History of women in science (as has been discussed before). The article tries to do to much as is.--Peta 06:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd agree with moving most of the present article to History of women in science. Did anyone object to the proposal when it was discussed before? I added some stubby stats sections from UK & US education data (now amalgamated) which might remain under Women in science. Espresso Addict 16:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The question of whether women are underrepresented is a simply factual one. The question of its base cause is open to more interpretation but the quoted text only really addresses from the 17th-late-19th century, and I think most historians would agree that the major reason there was exclusion from education (this was not, of course, limited to women — all people who were excluded from education had a very hard time of being involved in science, whether they were excluded because of their class, their race, or their sex). The section on management of off-sourcing is pure speculation about the future; it is a very different type of claim for the latter. --Fastfission 12:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Do you have an authorative reference or two for the education point? I'm limited in this area by what's freely available online. Espresso Addict 16:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The conclusions section (which I believe I wrote the first draft of) was intended to summarise what's said in the article, and as such is sourced by the article itself. On a re-read this seems pretty clear. However, the essay in Ref 2 is also applicable to the sentence following the one it's cited in; I'll add this citation for clarity. Espresso Addict 15:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] preference?

Shouldn't preference be explored a bit more? There are many fields of study where women (in general) are obviously just less interested. Trying to be politically correct (sp?) should not mask grossly evident trends in this respect... For example, in my university, total female medicine students are slightly more than male ones (probably not statistically significant), but students of some branches of engineering are 'almost only' male (while there are some branches of engineering where there is not so much difference). There are also branches of medicine specialization which men prefer to follow and some others preferred by women (for example around here, many women like studying pathology or forensics, and comparatively a little fraction prefer to be abdominal surgeons or gynecologists). I'm sure that such trends vary with different cultures, but i feel that differences in gender proportions within science students are too much blamed on unequality of opportunities, skipping the importance of plain preference. (Note: Of course, the history of unfairness between genders is an obviously important influence especially for women who already have finished their studies in this age.. for example we have a female president for the first time in the history of my country, but I'm sure she's the first because of recent improvement of the culture of gender equality, not because she's the only chilean woman in history to qualify as president) --Guruclef 16:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

What you describe -- gender disparities in particular fields -- are statistics, not reasons. "Preference" is a presumed reason. It's not much of a reason. Obviously, women "prefer" to go into other fields; the real question is why the preference. Sexism, lack of mentors, lack of role models, lack of support? Or some innate biological urge to study pathology versus gynecology? As it happens, despite centuries of speculation and belief, very little data supports the argument that women's career choices are based on such innate biological "preferences", and plenty of data to support the social causes. In biology, for instance, for 20 years women have made up half the phds, with the expectation and interest in doing academic faculty; but they fall out of the pipeline after the phd. If you're interested in the reasons for the discrepancies, start by reading Beyond Bias and Barriers, the recent report by the US National Academy of Sciences (the prepub is available for free at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11741.html ). Historically, this argument of "preference" (innate ability) is nothing new: people have argued that women have less preference or ability for learning, period; then argued this about science versus other fields of learning; then hard science versus soft science; then particular fields within hard science; and so on -- none of these innate preference/ability arguments have stood the test of time. So for now, such innate preference/ability arguments are simply a POV assertion, and one that has been historically linked with arguments we now recognize as sexist. If you want to talk about differences between the sexes in mental ability (Sex and intelligence), there is such an article; but as of yet there is little beyond speculation (such as Larry Sommers') to link such putative differences to career choices. --LQ 17:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I will check out more sources about this, as I find it an interesting subject. But still I want to discuss something a bit more: I don't understand why you think that "preference" means "innate ability" or a measure of intelligence. To continue my (not so good?) example, I think pathology is a much more "advanced" science than gynecology (the latter is more of an art than a science), so if women prefer pathology, it doesn't mean they are less intelligent; however this isn't the point I'm interested in (the difference in 'difficulty'). When I talk about preference, I mean just that: Personally liking more certain areas of science just because you find them more entertaining or interesting. It's true that many people like to study what comes 'easy' to them, but really, most people who have the liberty to study whatever they choose, will study what they find more entertaining or interesting, even if it's hard to learn. It is obvious that there is dimorphism in certain brain structures between both sexes (at least in their inner workings, if not their structure), and by that I'm not trying to say that men or women should be expected to have 'less' choices compared to the other; I just think (and I guess i'm not alone in this?? Or am I?) that both sexes may have different tendencies to like one "half" of science compared to other "half" (obviously with most of the areas of preference of both sexes intersecting themselves). As I mentioned before, I'm trying hard to express myself here in english, but what I mean is (very simplified): If men have more of hormone A, which via neuroendocrine pathways _will_ have impact on the way their brain is formed, one would suppose that it could form a brain that would stimulate the 'reward' stimulus more easily when studying a certain 'half' of science (to generalize), without having any relationship with the person's skill at it. The same with women, who have more of hormone B, could prefer some other areas of science, even if they can work in any of all the areas of science, and even if they are better than men in all of them. This tendency could be slight, or it could be a strong force (but as you suggested, one would need to rule out every other 'presumed cause' first). Obviously it would express itself in large population statistics, not in small groups.--Guruclef 08:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Now I read the article more carefully (or was it updated?) and I see that there is mention of this 'supposed preference' thing, but it also appears linked with 'intelligence' again.. I don't understand why. I'm more interested in this paragraph:

"In the UK, women occupied over half the places in science-related higher education courses (science, medicine, maths, computer science and engineering) in 2004/5. However, gender differences by individual subject were large: women substantially outnumbered men in biology and medicine, especially nursing, while men predominated in maths, physical sciences, computer science and engineering." So, if women study more medicine and biology, why would that mean that they are less intelligent, in any way? (Why not say that men are less intelligent, since less new doctors are male..) And even, in this case (of the UK), there were more total women in high education courses. The possibility that men could like computer science more than biology, and women like biology more than computer science (in large statistics) has to be something bad? I feel that there is some kind of philosophical reason for both sexes to distribute their career preference in an equal and uniform way, more than a 'scientific explanation'. Of course, it's only an idea.. --Guruclef 08:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I never said that "preference" equates to "less intelligence". I only said that "preference" is itself a vague term and needs to be defined. You are confusing "liking" or "preferring" something with the reasons why one might like or prefer something. You also seem to go back and forth between talking about "preference" and "tendency" as an individual, personal preference or tendency ("I prefer Coke to Pepsi") and using "preference" / "tendency" to suggest innate predispositions based on biological facts inextricably tied to sex, such as hormonal and physiological dimorphism.
So first you have to define what you mean by "preference". If we go with the "individual choice" meaning and not the "innate tendency" meaning, then it is completely meaningless to say that "In the 1990s, women prefer to go into pathology rather than gynecology in the United States"; that simply restates the statistics that there are, in fact, more women in pathology than in gynecology in the US in the 1990s. It doesn't say why such a thing exists. So it's meaningless to say "let's talk about preference" in the article if you simply mean "individual personal choice".
So you have to define the reasons for the statistics, and there are lots of possible reasons one might "prefer" field A over field B: encouragement as a child, genetic predisposition, hormonal floods, social pressure, etc. To tie individual preferences for particular professions to gender, you have to make a lot of assumptions: (A) there is obvious and unquestioned gender dimorphism; (B) physiological / biochemical differences are predictably related to mental skills and abilities; (C) mental skills and abilities are predictably related to career choices. That's a lot of assumptions, and you would have to make them and tie them into each and every field you're looking at, because each and every field you're looking at involves different sets of skills, etc. And I would point out that you have to control for the REALLY OBVIOUS variant that there is still, existing, very well-documented social factors at play. Changes over time and culture -- like the ones you listed in your first comment! -- strongly suggest that there are not innate "preferences" or "tendencies" but social factors at play.
WP:talk is not a discussion board so if you want to have a philosophical discussion this is not the place. If you're proposing specific, concrete, well-justified changes for the article, then please make specific suggestions and we can talk about those changes. There are certainly ways to talk about the questions you've raised in a way that is appropriate for the article, but to my mind, it's all baseless speculation that has been historically advanced with a sexist agenda of justifying, rather than explaining or understanding, differential treatment for people based on their sex. --LQ 14:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I guess this is not the place for this discussion. Perhaps somewhere else I will find an explanation on why just suggesting possible primary differences in taste between women and men is supposed to automatically 'justify differential treatment of people' or considering a sex to be more intelligent than the other. user:guruclef--164.77.84.43 04:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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