Simone Peterson Hruda: Reflections on Black Women in Engineering

This past March Rutgers University hosted the Black Women Academics in the Ivory Tower Conference. Dr. Simone Peterson Hruda, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Florida A&M and Florida State gave a lecture on "Reflections on black women in engineering":



Some of the issues Hruda talks about:

• Of 65,000 bachelors degrees awarded in engineering, 3000 are to black students, and only 1000 or 1.6% go to black women students. Only 0.4% of engineering PhDs are awarded to black women.
  
• She points out that she is only one of about 350 black women who have gotten PhDs in engineering in the US, which is fewer than the number of engineering schools.
  
• When she was a graduate student, the white women students were upset that there weren't more women role models on the faculty. She didn't have the same expectation to find black women role models or mentors because she went in knowing there wouldn't be any.
  
• She has found that there are graduate students who prefer not to work for black women professors.

And there's a lot more about mentoring and teaching and how engineering is for anyone who is curious about how things work.

The Q & A session after the lecture:




Watch video of all the presentations and panel discussions on YouTube.

(via Prometheus 6)

Tags: women in engineering, black women in engineering, Simone Peterson Hruda

Encouraging the Participation of Female Students in STEM fields - the Congressional Hearings

Yesterday the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education held hearings on encouraging the interest of girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in primary and secondary schools. The subcommittee Chairman Daniel Lipinski noted that skilled scientists and engineers play an important role in keeping the United States competitive for the 21st century:

We have heard time and time again that, as a nation, we are not producing enough scientists and engineers for the increasing number of technical jobs of the future. We need to make sure that we have the scientific and technical workforce we need if we are to remain a leader in the global economy, and it is not possible to do this without developing and encouraging all the talent in our nation. We must have women engineers, computer scientists, and physicists. By broadening the STEM pipeline to include more women and other under-represented groups, we can strengthen our workforce.

Some of the testimony highlights:

Dr. Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) testified that K-12 science education standards are too low for all students and expectations are low for students from groups that are underrepresented in STEM fields. He also pointed out that the is a wide difference in percentage of women participating in different fields of science and engineering, and notes that the participation of women drops significantly at the faculty level.

Although the story of women in STEM fields is one of tremendous gains over the past 40 years, it is a bittersweet story that is coupled with uneven progress and sometimes loss of ground—a discipline-specific program here, a department there, but seldom an institution-wide effort

But he didn't just point out the problems - he discussed a number of AAAS programs and made some suggestions for what the federal could do:

Many researchers and program managers believe that STEM fields are not being “marketed” appropriately to girls and young women. While President Obama has articulated specific challenges where science and engineering must play a role, it is also important to provide materials (and opportunities for engagement) that demonstrate how STEM connects to addressing the real world problems we face as a nation and as a world. Consider, for example, the areas of engineering where the distribution of bachelor’s degrees in environmental and biomedical engineering awarded to women approaches that of men.

Many believe that a new call to serve for both young men and young women needs to link the critical role of education in STEM fields with the opportunity to address global concerns such as food security, clean water, climate change, clean sources of energy, and infectious diseases and other health issues. Students need examples of people who are doing this work today as well as access to opportunities for experiential learning. It is important in such efforts to prominently include women as well as men.

The "marketing" of science can be a controversial issue*, since it conjures up images of tricky advertising tactics that value "sales" more than accuracy. It's not clear to me that the gendered assumption that girls and women would be more interested in science if they understood it's role in taking care of people and the planet is an accurate one. It certainly doesn't explain why women who are interested enough in science to obtain their Ph.D.s seem to be dropping out of academia.

---

Next up was Dr. Marcia Brumit Kropf, COO of Girls Incorporated**. In her testimony, Kropf points out that the gap between girls and boys in math and physical sciences has closed significantly over the past 30 years. Her suggestion (and the approach of Girls Incorporated) is informal science education:

Girls Inc. Eureka! is a four-week summer STEM and sports camp program for girls 12-15 held on a college campus. In Alameda County, CA, girls in Eureka!, who were predominantly urban, minority girls, increased their math course-taking plans, while control group girls’ plans to take math decreased. Second-year Eureka! girls’ math and science course‐taking plans almost doubled. Their interest in science careers increased, and the percentage of girls whose wish for the following school year was “to do well/be on the honor roll,” increased from 38 percent to 66 percent.

Alarmingly, however, this study also seemed to indicate that being away from school had a positive impact on girls—both Eureka! and control girls—in terms of wanting to do math and science. For most, being back in school tended to decrease that interest.

Part of the problem is, not surprisingly, sexism:

Girls Inc. sponsors eight FIRST Robotics Lego League teams, with support from Motorola. The Girls Inc. teams often find themselves the only all-girl teams in the competitions (except of course when there are teams sponsored by the Girl Scouts). But on the co-ed teams, staff observed that it was always the boys who were operating the robots. In fact, on one occasion when I had the pleasure of speaking with some members of Robot Chicks Union, a group of female FIRST Robotics competitors, they complained that on co-ed teams they were actually assigned roles such as marketing and bringing the snacks for their team. This phenomenon plays out in classrooms as well, where girls are too often relegated to supporting roles, such as recording notes, as they watch boys perform the experiments and work with equipment.

I don't think it's surprising that girls with such experiences wouldn't end up being particularly interested in pursuing science as a career.

---

The testimony continued with Dr. Sandra Hanson, Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America whose most recent book is Swimming Against the Tide: African American Girls and Science Education. She testified that her research has shown that girls start out with similar interest and abilities in science as boys, but as they get older - especially during the high school years - enrollment of girls in STEM classes drops and their attitude towards science becomes more negative. Girls do better in single-sex classrooms, it turns out, and she agreed with Dr. Kropf as to the value of out-of-school informal science learning experiences. She recommended the use of the National Center for Education Research's practice guide "Encouraging Girls in Math and Science" in developing classroom programs.

Hanson also pointed out that STEM isn't just a male culture, but a predominantly white male culture, and that girls and women of different races and ethnic backgrounds can have very different experiences pursuing science and mathematics.

---

Barbara Bogue is director of the Penn State Women in Engineering Program and co-founder and co-director of the Society of Women Engineers' Assessing Women and Men in Engineering Project (SWE-AWE). She pointed out in her testimony that science and engineering have different challenges. There is also a lot of variation in the representation of women in engineering from field to field.

For example, 2006 National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics show that women received almost 50 percent of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2005- 06.

Taken on face value, these statistics make it look like there is no problem. If we break out engineering, however, the percentage of women receiving degrees is a very low 18 percent. And even within engineering, there are great variations. Environmental, bio and chemical engineering—all fields related to biological sciences—have high percentages of women at 40 percent, 37 percent and 34 percent respectively. Unfortunately, these are relatively small disciplines in terms of numbers enrolled. Mechanical and electrical engineering, on the other hand, are disciplines that traditionally have the largest populations of students, but have very low percentages of women at 11 percent and 12 percent respectively. Computer engineering, another field critical to national competitiveness, has only 11 percent.

She notes that differences between fields need to be taken into account when developing programs to attract women to those fields.

One of the findings of the SWE AWE is that women do not pursue engineering because they are turned off by the culture of engineering education, not because they lack interest or talent.

Much research shares common findings that women who are equally prepared academically as men when they enter engineering leave engineering or science with higher GPAs than their male counterparts who leave, having found less of a sense of community and citing that they have encountered poor teaching. Surveys of students leaving engineering or science, including surveys developed and implemented by SWE AWE, find that students who leave are less involved in discipline-related activities and fail to develop a sense of community.

AWE results and other findings belie the postulation that women do not pursue engineering because they are just not interested or don’t have the talent. Rather, they indicate that women who have the talent and interest are being turned off by how the discipline is presented. Women’s high school preparation and GPAs once in college are comparable to men’s. In fact, in our recent research females show significantly higher intentions to persist in engineering than their male counterparts. These results show that we don’t need to fix the women; we need to fix environments in which they fail to thrive.

Increasing the participation of women in engineering fields will require changes in the education system to make it more welcoming - or at least less off-putting.

---

Finally, Cherryl T. Thomas, president and founder of engineering consulting firm Ardmore Associates, spoke about her own path to a career in science and engineering. Unlike most of the other witnesses, she hasn't studied women in STEM, rather she based her suggestions on her own experiences starting out as one of the few women working for the City of Chicago's Department of Water and Sewers in the early 1970s.

---

Read all the hearing witness statements, which have attached statistics and citations to support their discussions.

Watch the hearings (requires Real Player)

* see, for example, the discussion of the proposed selling of science to the public in Unscientific America (which I blogged about elsewhere)

** Girls Incorporated has published fact sheets on "Girls and Science, Math, and Engineering" (pdf) and "Girls and Information Technology" (pdf), among other topics.

(via Fairer Science)

Image (left to right): Alan Leshner, Marcia Brumit Kropf, Sandra Hanson, Barbara Bogue, Cherryl Thomas.

Tags: women in science, women in engineering, education

Women and European Research Funding

The European Union recently released a report about gender and research funding in Europe with interesting results. Not surprisingly, they found a lot of variation from country to country and field to field:

No very systematic patterns appear in the data obtained. No clear relation could be observed between the proportion of women in a field and their chances of success in obtaining funding. For instance, in some funding schemes and organisations women had higher success rates than men in engineering and technology or in natural sciences, the most male-dominated fields across Europe, and in others lower. Nor was any large and universal imbalance observed in favour of men. However, some cases of imbalance can be observed, with various degrees of statistical significance. In a number of cases, on the contrary, women have significantly higher success rates than men. An example is the Dutch NWO, where, because of low representation of women in research, particular attention is paid to the quality of evaluation, and where promotion of women in research is an important policy goal.

But the funding story is more complicated than just whether there is bias against women applicants in evaluating grant proposals. It turns out that women generally ask for less funding. As the report sums it up:

The gendered patterns in application behaviour are a very serious problem: women are less likely to apply for funding than men and they request smaller amounts of money.

And

Women apply or re-apply less, apply to less prestigious sources, requesting less funding, and for shorter duration.

There are a number of possible reasons for that difference: a higher fraction of women are fixed-term or part-time positions where they are ineligible to apply for many grants, women may be less integrated into scientific networks, and may have less social support. In that light, it seems particularly unfair that women who do get grant funding may find themselves burdened with non-research tasks that reduce their productivity. As the report explains:

A new finding however was that receiving funding can have deleterious effects: according to the authors, ‘women may suffer an ‘inverse Matthew Effect’ where their initial success leads to demands on their time as high profile members of an under-represented group which make it harder to sustain previous levels of research activity.’

And why does it matter? Well, for one, there is the loss of potential women colleagues who find themselves unfunded or underfunded. And the report noted that when looking at prestigious awards there is a significant difference between men and women:

Very strong gender imbalances were noted among the awardees of highly prestigious grants, positions or prizes in many countries.

So what can be done? The report's recommendations include:

• Monitor and encourage research on gender equality, especially with regards to funding statistics.
  
• Increase the number of applications from women researchers by encouraging and training women to apply for more funding and offering measures to improve work-life balance.
  
• Improve the gender balance among the "gatekeepers of research funding"
  

While I think the suggestions are reasonable, I don't think it's an easy task. In particular, the application rate of women for research grants seems to be affected by a number of issues of varying complexity. I don't think there's necessarily an easy way, for example, to improve the involvement of women in informal science networks heavily dominated by men, particularly those that combine social and professional interactions. If a woman doesn't feel comfortable (or is excluded from) heading to the pub with her lab mates she may very well be missing out on advice and inside knowledge that gets bandied about in those situations. There's no way to create rules to change such social interactions, although social networks for women scientists may help. Putting measures into place now meant to improve the situation is a step in the right direction.

(via an editorial in Nature about the report )

Download the European Commission report: The Gender Challenge in Research Funding: Assessing the European national scenes (pdf)

Download the related European Commission report: Women in science and technology: Creating sustainable careers (pdf)

Tags: women in science, gender gap, grant funding

Women in Science Link Roundup: January 12 Edition

Between the holidays, getting ready for ScienceOnline09, and reading Anathem (which will probably result in a post) I've really gotten behind in posting here. I've also been spending a lot of time reading other people's posts. I don't know if it's because people had a bit of vacation, or have been thinking about the past year, or just chance, but there seem to have been a lot of interesting discussions over the past few weeks.

I've included brief excerpts below to give you the sense of posts, but I really recommend following the links to read both the posts and the comments.

Blue Lab Coats: Is it unfair to have women's faculty groups?

Many of us women don’t have a female science next door neighbor, or even another female TT department-mate, who might understand our unique issues and teach us how to function effectively in a male-dominated environment. If we did, having a group where we could get the support and mentoring we need from people with like experiences to help us climb the academic ladder successfully, wouldn’t be such a pressing issue.

A Blog Around the Clock: The Shock Value of Science Blogs

Academic science is a very hierarchical structure in which one climbs up the ladder by following some very exact steps. Yes, you can come into it from the outside, class-wise, but you have to start from the bottom and follow those steps "to the T" if you are to succeed. But those formal steps were designed by Victorian gentlemen scientists, thus following those steps turns one into a present-time Victorian gentleman scientist. But not everyone can or wants to do this, yet some people who refuse are just as good as scientists as the folks inside the club. If you refuse to dance the kabuki, you will be forever kept outside the Gate. The importance of mastery of kabuki in one's rise through the hierarchy also means that some people get to the top due to their skills at glad-handling the superiors and putting down the competitors with formalized language, not the quality of their research or creativity of their thought.

And there's a lot more food for thought on his post.

Not Exactly Rocket Science: Why are there so few female chess grandmasters?
You should read the whole post, but here's Ed's conclusion:

So why are there so few female chess grandmasters? Because fewer women play chess. It's that simple. This overlooked fact accounts for so much of the observable differences that other possible explanations, be they biological, cultural or environmental, are just fighting for scraps at the table. In science and engineering, where men dominate the top ranks but also have an advantage in numbers, it's likely that the same explanation applies, rather than the innate differences cited by Summers and Irwing.

Dr. Isis: "On Motherhood and Maintaining Your Identity..."

I felt like I was living a double life and constantly denying one half of my identity -- turning parts of myself on and off and disguising the others so that people only saw what I allowed them to see -- was emotionally draining and it left me feeling isolated in every sphere I interacted in. It left me feeling guilty when I let one part of my life creep into the other and it left me feeling depressed that I could not recognize my full identity for fear of being shunned in either sphere. I realized that I would not be able continue to function this way and be successful in either sphere. And with that, I opened the dam between the two spheres and have allowed them to blend together.

Greg Laden: The natural basis for gender inequality
This is a thought-provoking look at naturalism, primate behavior, and how it might relate to gender inequality in humans. The comments get a bit heated - or at least one dude does.

Courtney at Feministing points to a piece about Caroline Kennedy and the definition of "experience" in the New York Times.

She goes on to talk about how work "experience" used to be defined, visually speaking, as a ladder. Just keep on climbing and hope for the rewards on your way up. But a new paradigm is taking over, one that looks less like a ladder and more like a "lattice"--a shape that allows for stepping off and stepping back on, caretaking for children and aging parents, working non-traditional hours, taking detours into various fields, developing various skills etc. In this paradigm, success would be less defined by one's years of experience or status within a particular linear framework, but the quality of one's work, the breadth of one's experience, one's capacity for reinvention and adaptation.

Lee Kottner @ Cocktail Party Physics: by invitation only
This is quite a rant that compares the sexism in Christianity with the sexism in science, then takes on Dawkins' selection of writers for the Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. I can't do it justice by taking a snippet, so just go read her post.

DN Lee @ Urban Science Adventures: Increasing Diversity in the Sciences With Mentorship and Conference Attendance

Scientific meetings offer tremendous learning and networking opportunities for students. This is especially true for students who are members of traditionally under-represented groups. Though you may be one of a few brown or young or feminine faces at the conference, many societies are working hard to get you at that meeting and to keep you coming back.

Female Science Professor: Just Call Me F
As a PhD and/or an academic, how do you like to be addressed?
Dr. Isis (who has been blogging up a storm the past few weeks) also weighs in: That's "Dr. Little Missy to You!

Young Female Scientist: science vs. street smarts in academia

Supposedly, your level of street smarts has more to do with your upbringing than almost any other single factor. People who know how to come in and play the system usually learned those skills early on, from their parents. Or maybe if they did certain activities after school.

This is a critical skill, but you don't learn these things in class.

However, here's where things get really interesting for women in particular.From what I can tell, street knowledge is really hard for women to get.

Christina Pikas posted the slides from her presentation at the IEEE Fourth International Conference on eScience. She looked at how science blogs were interconnected, and was able to identify subgroups in different scientific specialities and was even able to pick out a troll. She also found a high level of connectedness between women's science blogs:

What was interesting - and most definitely worthy of further investigation - is this cluster of blogs written mostly by women, discussing the scientific life, etc. The degree distribution was much closer to uniform within the cluster, and there were many comment links between all of the nodes. This, to me, indicates other uses for the blogs and perhaps a real community (or Blanchard's virtual settlement).

Juniper Shoemaker lays bare her long journey from English to genetics: part 1, part 2, part 3. English majors can indeed make great scientists.

Astarte's Circus: At Ease With Her Age
Most of Octogalore's post isn't about women in science directly, but discusses women and aging and appearance. And this part is directly relevant:

My aunt, who got into Harvard Med, wanted to be a doctor. My father, who also did, wanted to be a teacher. She was told “don’t BE a doctor. Marry a doctor.” He was told that literature was effete and that he would not continue to get love and admiration if he didn’t pursue the medical route. When he fainted at a gory video and had to be taken from the room, of course, it was clear things were a bit off.

He is now still teaching at 73, and still making much less than a first-year lawyer, but loves what he does. My aunt never did enjoy humanities and ultimately stopped working. When her kids left the home, she found herself at loose ends, with the fields she was most interested in having high entrance costs for a middle-aged woman who’d been out of the work force for twenty years.

GirlPostDoc wrote about "Marginalization and the fight for even less funding"

So should you be "extra careful of to avoid being marginalized?" No. Because that will happen anyway. If being the department's "Black or Brown Female Scientist" means that you have the chance to be present and give others a chance to see themselves where you are - I say go for it. Be that "Scientist." Be strong, take lots of deep breaths, and always be humble. And know that you are not alone.

There were also posts about stereotypical feminine gender roles and being a scientist or engineer by Green Gabro, Dr. Isis, Leslie Madsen Brooks, Sheril Kirshenbaum ....

Last, but not least, is this old post of Zuska's: "Explaining (Away) Women Geeks". Of particular note is this comment by Mark Chu-Carroll about affirmative action. (Thanks to commenter SKM in this discussion of affirmative action and gender at Shakesville)

Tags: women in science, stereotypes, gender gap

Women in Science Link Roundup: December 21 Edition

Some of women in science-related blog posts and articles I've been reading the past few weeks, but never got around to blogging:

Life as a Woman Scientist

There have been a bunch of interesting posts at the Praxis "academic life" blog carnival. Both Praxis #4 at The Lay Scientist and Praxis #5 at Effortless Incitement include links discussing women in science.

Several recent posts at Inside Higher Ed's Mama, PhD blog have generated a lively blog discussion.

• Libby Gruner @ Mama PhD: Mothering at Mid-Career: Climbing the Lattice
  
• Tedra Osell @ Mama PhD: Career Coach: Riding the Waves
  
• Geeky Mom: Ladders, lattices, mothering and all that shit
• 11D: Professor Mom
• Professing Mama: Only the Lonely
• Profgrrrrl: perfect timing for motherhood?
• Libby Gruner @ Mama PhD: Mothering at Mid-Career: More work on weaving the lattice
  

Ambivalent Academic brings up a usually taboo subject: the role of our hormonal cycles in the way we work and lead. There are a lot of personal stories and other discussion in the comments.

Bios and Awards

FGJ at the Feministing Community lists women in math and science she looks up to, and asks commenters to talk about their own favorite women scientists.

Ellen Kullman was named CEO of chemical giant DuPont. She is the first woman to lead a major public US chemical firm (via Jenn at Fairer Science).

The November HHMI Bulletin profiles biochemist Judith Kimble

The New York Times interviewed Renee Reijo Pera, professor of obstetrics and gynechology and director of Stanford's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education


Stereotypes

Draw-A-Scientist Test: from seventh graders visiting Fermilab to adults in New York City's Madison Square Park, scientists are white and male.

Vince LiCata: "When Britney Spears Comes to My Lab"

In case you missed last month's discussion about women scientists, femininity and the double standard, you should read these posts and their comments:

• Dr. Isis at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess: On the need for women to defend women
• Zuska at Thus Spake Zuska: The Proper Way to Be a Woman in Science
• Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science: Women, scientists, and ordinary human beings

Sadie at Jezebel found a picture of a good old-fashioned "Lab Technician Set For Girls"

Gender Gap

ScienceWoman has a list of ways to recruit women and minorities in a faculty search, and opens the comments to suggestions.

DrugMonkey rounds up the posts on the latest lack-of-gender-diversity-in-science discussion to make the blog rounds. There are also comments on those post, lots and lots of comments.

New York Times: What has driven women out of computer science?

Jenn @ FairerScience: Women and the Video Game Industry

FemaleScienceProfessor: Scientifiques avec Quelques Frontiéres (conference literature translated from French that states scientists are men), More Diverse Award Issues,

Mind Hacks: Shaking the foundations of the hidden bias test

Ilyka at Off Our Pedestals: Gosh, you ladies sure are touchy about Larry Summers! Or: Still assy after all these years

Feministing: The under-representation of female cardiologists

Fictional Women in STEM

The LA Times looked at the appeal of the characters on NCIS, including Pauley Perrette as forensic specialist Abby Sciuto. Perrett was working on her master's degree in criminal science when she decided to become a full-time actor.

Jessica Alba is currently filming An Invisible Sign of My Own:The film is a coming-of-age drama based on Aimee Bender's quirky novel about a 20-year-old loner named Mona Gray (Alba) who as a child turned to math for salvation after her father became ill. As an adult, Gray now teaches the subject and must help her students through their own crises.

In Frank Miller's movie adaptation of The Spirit, the character of Silken Floss has been "demoted" from nuclear physicist/surgeon to secretary. The original version too threatening perhaps? Hopefully she won't spend the whole movie pining for her boss.

Tags: women in science

The Women That Stay: What are your suggestions

The Scientist is asking for comments from its readers about programs that help women stay in science:

We want to hear from readers about the programs that have made a difference in women's careers in science. From mentors to creative day care solutions to government grants that made going back to lab easier, we want to know about the things that have had the biggest impact in women's lives. We'll use your suggestions in a Careers article for women in science.

There aren't many comments as yet, so go add your thoughts.

Tags: women in science, gender gap

You Didn't Think You Could Win, Did You?

There was a press release today about a new study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly that points out the difficulty women have in effectively presenting themselves during a job interview - in the case of this study, for a position as a computer lab manager.

• women who presented themselves as confident and ambitious were viewed as highly competent, but lacking social skills
• women who present themselves as modest and cooperative, were well liked but perceived as having low competence
• confident and ambitious men were perceived as both competent and likable and were more likely to be hired
  

I haven't read the actual study, so I can't comment on the methodology the study used or the statistical significance of the numbers their conclusions are based on. However, their results certainly ring true*. This election season certainly seemed to play out along those lines. On the one hand Hillary Clinton has often been characterized as a ball-busting bitch for her aggressive politicking - until she choked up a bit before the New Hampshire primary and that was obviously a sign she was too weak and emotional to be president.**

The effect is that I feel that, as a woman, I have to dance the line between being confidently assertive and self-effacingly modest. And it doesn't help that the line moves, requiring a shift from the self-deprecation that's expected in many social situations to the confident self-promotion required when asking for recognition or a raise - or applying for a grant. It makes me wonder what role this might play in the "leak" of women from the academic pipeline.

In the December 5 issue of Science, Ley and Hamilton look at the differences between NIH grant application and success rates between men and women. They found a striking drop in applications by women for basic research grants for independent facutly positions as compared to grant application for postdocs. They concluded that this is likely due to women leaving the academic pipeline :

Although some female career attrition could be due to cohort effects (i.e., smaller numbers of female graduate students in the past, leading to smaller numbers at advanced career stages at this time) the effects that we describe here occur in a very narrow time frame and are far too large to be totally explained by this phenomenon. Instead, the data strongly suggest that a large fraction of women are choosing to leave the NIH-funded career pipeline at the transition to independence (i.e., in the late postdoctoral and early faculty years). Female physician-scientists make this decision earlier and more often, perhaps because more attractive and/or flexible career options (e.g., clinical practice) are available to them. Men and women have near-equal NIH funding success at all stages of their careers, which makes it very unlikely that female attrition is due to negative selection from NIH grant-funding decisions.

It's worth noting that the "near-equal" funding success the mention is actually a small but statistically significant difference in favor of male applicants. The long-term result is that women principal investigators are significantly less likely to have funded NIH Research Project Grants than their male colleagues.

There's an interesting discussion of the article going on over at Blue Lab Coats. One of the commenters there points out that the statistics show the average NIH award size is less for women than men (pdf. See Table 3.4 p.28). That likely has to do with women asking for less money than male applicants, and I believe part of the reason why is that there are negative social consequences for women who are perceived as overly aggressive in asking for what they want.

Of course that is only one of many possible reasons for the gender gap in academic science. There is the issue of women being expected to take the bulk of responsibilities for child care and housework. And, of course, everyday sexism. See the discussion going on at DrugMonkey's blog and Dr. Isis's response for more.

References:
Ley TJ and Hamilton BH. "The Gender Gap in NIH Grant Applications" Science 5 December 2008: Vol. 322 no. 5907 pp.1472-1474. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165878

Hosek SD et al. "Technical Report: Gender Differences in Major Federal External Grant Programs." (2005)

* which I know isn't a good way to judge a study, but it's all I've got since I don't have access to the actual data.

** And I'm not forgetting the more stereotypically feminine Sarah Palin, who was given the sexy-but-dumb treatment. There were many reasons to criticize Palin as a VP candidate, but I think the sexist commentary was uncalled for.

Tags: gender gap, women in science

Open Laboratory 2008 Submissions

Bora at A Blog Around the Clock has links to all the submissions for the Open Laboratory 2008 science blogging anthology. The post entries will be judged and the top 50 will make it into the published anthology.

There are a number of women science bloggers who have entries, including:

• Samia at 49 percent
• Heather Etchevers at A Developing Passion
• Kate at A K8, A Cat, A Mission
• Mad Hatter at A Mad Tea-Party
• a poem by MissPrism at A Somewhat Old and Capacious Handbag
• Rebecca at Adventures in Applied Math
• Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science
• Tara Smith at Aetiology
• Kim Hannula at All of My Faults are Stress-Related
• Bee at Back Reaction
• Erika Cule at Blogging the PhD
• Corie Lok at Boston blog
• Bug Girl's Blog
• Heather McDougal at Cabinet of Wonders
• Jennifer Ouellette at Cocktail Party Physics
  
• Julie Craves at Coffee and Conservation
• Kristin Stephan at Coffee Talk
• Damn Good Technician's blog
• Dara Sosulski's blog
• Julianne Dalcanton at Cosmic Variance,
• chall at Dreams and hopes of a (post doc) scientist
• Dr. Jeckyll & Mrs. Hyde
• PhD Mom at Dr. Mom, My Adventures as a Mom my Scientist
• Dr. Petra Boynton
• Eva Amsen at Expression Patterns
• Pat at Fairer Science
  
• FemaleScienceProfessor
• Maria Brumm at Green Gabbro
• Barn Owl at Guadalupe Storm-Petrel
• Alethea at Humans in Science
• ilovebacteria.com
• Dr. Isis at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess (old blog and current home at scienceblogs.com)
  
• KH at Lecturer Notes
• Sheri at Life, Birds, and Everything
• GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
  
• Tuff Cookie at Magma Cum Laude
• Jennifer Rohn at Mind the Gap
• post-doc at Minor Revisions
• Scicurious at Neurotic Physiology
  
• Scicurious at Neurotopia v. 2.0
• Christie Lynn at Observations of a Nerd
• Shelley Batts at Of Two Minds
• Mary Jo Rhodes at Over Land, Under Sea
• El Fields at Panthera Studentessa
• PodBlack at PodBlack Cat
• Anne-Marie at pondering pikaia
• Mimi at Potspoon!
• SkookumChick at Rants of a feminist engineer
• Cath Ennis at rENNISance woman
• steffi suhr at Science behind he scenes
• ScienceWoman and Alice Pawley at Sciencewomen
• Jane at See Jane Compute
• Karen James at The Beagle Project Blog
• Bean-Mom at The Bean Chronicles
• Kristi Vogel at The Gulf Stream
• A Life Long Scholar at The Musings of a Life-Long Scholar
• Mary at The Open Helix Blog
• Miriam Goldstein at The Oyster's Garter
• Olivia Judson at The Wild Side
• AcmeGirl at Thesis - with Children
• Zuska at Thus Spake Zuska
• Pamela Ronald at Tomorrow's Table for Nature

Not only are there are lot of bloggers on the list, many bloggers submitted more than one post, so there are a huge number of entries. The judges have a tough job ahead of them.

Some of the entries relevant to women in STEM:

• 49 percent. : She said to no one in particular
• A Blog Around the Clock: The Future is Here and it is Bright: Interview with Anne-Marie Hodge
• A k8, a cat, a mission: Providing and Nurturing
  
• A Mad Tea-Party: Birds of a Feather?
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: Girls, boys, and math.
• Almost Diamonds: Diversity Now
• Coffee Talk: what motherhood has taught me
• Drug Monkey: It Doesn't Hurt a Bit to Be "That Guy"
• FemaleScienceProfessor: The Best Woman...
• Irene Suarez at Nano2Hybrids: Girly Girls in Science
• Neuroanthropology: Girls closing math gap?: Troubles with intelligence #1
• PodBlack Cat: She's Already Got Science - Women, Skepticism and the Need for More Research
• Rants of a feminist engineer: Stories of an academic panel discussion
• ScienceWoman at Sciencewomen: A reckless proposal, or "Scientists are people too, and it's time we started treating them that way"
• The Bean Chronicles: At home again
• Thesis-With Children: What is fair?
• Thus Spake Zuska: The Proper Way to Be a Woman in Science
• Zimblog: The gender gap in math has disappeared
  

Tags: women in science, blogs, The Open Laboratory

Women in Science Roundup: November 15

Some interesting links I've collected over the past month or so:

ScienceWoman chronicles a day in her life as a 2nd year assistant professor with "an almost 2 year old": Part 1 (midnight - 8:39am), Part 2 (9:10am-5pm), Part 3 (5:20pm-midnight). ScienceWoman does not get much sleep!

There's a discussion at Dr. Isis's blog about whether (and how) women scientists should be allowed to "express their femininity". There are lots of comments (including mine), representing a wide range of opinions, from "I can't take feminine women seriously" to "I love being a girly girl" and lots in-between. And there is more discussion at ScientistMother, Candid Engineer, Professor Chaos, and Zuska's.

Asparagirl has a nice post at Metafilter about the women of ENIAC

James at The Island of Doubt writes about Alexandra Morton, who has made significant contributions to marine biology without a PhD.

Jane Goodall was one of two winners of the Leakey Prize in human evolutionary science. She was also named a Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year.

Alice of Sciencewomen reported back from a day long Association of Women in Science workshop on "what works"

Nancy Jane Moore at Ambling Along the Aqueduct points to an essay in Bitch Magazine aon women and ambition.

ScienceWoman writes about pseudonymity in the "women in science" blogging community:

Also, the I think issue of trust is different in our community than in other parts of the science blog universe. Most of us are not using women-in-science blogs as a way of increasing our scientific knowledge. They are certainly no substitute for reading journal articles or time at the bench, field, or model. We are using women-in-science blogs to to learn from others, get tips on career development, cooking, paper-writing, and child-rearing. We are using women-in-science blogs to participate in a community of people who work in scientific/engineering fields and are interested in combining our demanding career with *some* sort of life outside the lab. And in this sort of community, it seems to be less important whether the blogger is Ariel, an astronomer in Arizona, than whether the blogger can provide insight into how to reach for the stars while keeping your feet on the ground. (And commenters too have such an important role in this community when you provide support, constructive criticism, sympathy, and encouragement).

Janet Stemwedel (aka Dr. Free-Ride) has some good reasons to blog under a pseudonym.

An article in Salon about "the momification" of Michelle Obama has inspired a great post by Kate about how family friendly workplaces are not only a woman's issue:

But here's the thing: making a workplace more family friendly is a fight that cannot be one by women alone. Women cannot be the only ones making a ruckus in the workplace and fighting with themselves, their peers and their bosses to effect change. If we make a nurturant woman's workplace more friendly but not her partner's, it means the woman is always being flexible, always ceding her own wishes, because it is more permissive in her workplace.

There's also discussion of the article at Geeky Mom.

A study of western anatomy textbooks used at European, American, and Canadian universities has shown - not surprisingly - that the "universal model" is a white male.

The researcher also points out that using female bodies to illustrate body parts that are identical in both sexes is a recent development. “Up until virtually the 1990s, male Caucasians were used exclusively to represent anatomical bodies, with female bodies appearing only in fragments to represent their sexual organs.”

Barral points out that these biased views persist, with an image appearing in the popular science magazine Mente y Cerebro as late as 2003 that made the female brain appear to come between that of a child and an adult male in the evolutionary process.

Lisa at Sociological Images shows a set of books for kids for sale at the NASA John Glenn Research Center that imply that "women scientists" are a separate category from simply "scientists". Would you buy a book for your daughter titled You Can Be a Woman Zoologist?

Valleywag notes that a recently touted milestone - more than half of Silicon Valley companies have at least one woman on the their board of directors - isn't really so great. That's actually still far less than the 89% of S&P 500 companies include at least one woman on their boards.

Tags: women in science, gender gap, stereotypes

Physics, Religion and Gender

This may be old news to some of you, but I recently stumbled onto this interesting podcast about Margaret Wertheim's 1997 book Pythagoras' Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars. Her central premise is that physics has been linked to religion since Pythagoras' time in ancient Greece, and the historical exclusion of women from physics has a similar basis as the exclusion of women from the priesthood. Very interesting!

Read the transcript or listen to the program.

Also check out the interview with Wertheim at Inkling Magazine for more about her recent projects.

Tags: Margaret Wertheim, Pythagoras Trousers, physics

Who's Afraid of Marie Curie?

The ASU School of Life Sciences podcast has a episode that talks about
women, girls and science:

Author and freelance writer Linley Hall takes us on a journey through the classrooms and hallways of American in search of what nurtures or hobbles the genius in children, particularly girls, and women as they pursue their interests and careers in math, science, and technology. How can men and women help themselves to advance and get the mentorship they need or become the mentors they need to be? Listen in and discover some of the stumbling blocks in academia and business that can hold you back or your students, associates, partners and faculty?

Listen to the podcast "Who's Afraid of Marie Curie?"

Tags: women in science, gender gap

Women in Science Link Roundup: October 19 Edition

Here are some links I've been saving in my bookmarks, which explains why some are blog posts from a year ago. Yep, way behind in my reading.

About Women Scientists

The 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics was awarded to Deborah S. Jin

There is a great post on MetaFilter about the women who worked as "computers" for Edward Pickering at the Havard Collge Observatory.

Martin Griffiths wrote for LabLit about 17th century natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish: The feminism, fiction, science and philosophy of Margaret Cavendish

Hsien-Hsien Lei at Eye on DNA lists the most powerful women in biotechnology and healthcare

Wired writes that South Korean astronaut Yi Soyeon is "crazy, sexy, cool"

As a counterpoint to Newsweek's "10 hottest nerds" - who all happen to be male and mostly in the field of genomics - Jonathan Eisen listed a bunch of women in genomics who they could have included on their list.

Life in College

Samia at 49 percent writes about networking as a science undergrad

Marina at Objectify This explained how the depiction of the female reproductive system in one of her classes helped her decide to stop being a biology major:
- I Was A Teenage Feminist
- Fly Sex... and I was a Twentysomething Feminist

ScienceWoman comments on an article by Linda Sax on how men and women experience college differently

The Gender Gap

Pat at Fairer Science has the scoop on the ultimate study on the effct of gender on wages: it looked at what happens to men who changes their gender to women and women who change their gender to men. They found "women who become men (known as FTMs) do significantly better than men who become women (MTFs). MTFs in the study earned, on average, 32% less after they transitioned from male to female, even after the authors controlled for factors like education levels. FTMs earned an average of 1.5% more."

At The Intersection Sheril Kirshenbaum talks about the gender gap in response to emailer "Gabe"

Geeky Mom writes about housework and the gender gap

The Boston Globe reports on a recent study that shows the effect of culture on girls' and womens' math achievement:

The study, to be published in next month's Notices of the American Mathematical Society, identifies women of extraordinary math ability by sifting through the winners of the world's most elite math competitions. It found that small nations that nurtured female mathematicians often produced more top competitors than far larger and wealthier nations.

Lise Eliot and Susan McGee Baily had an opinion piece in USA Today about the (lack of ) gender differences in kids' brains: "Gender segregation in schools isn't the answer" (via Fairer Science)

A study from UNM looked at why many girls avoid math:

Overall, however, parent support and expectations emerged as the top support in both subjects and genders for middle- and high-school students. Also powerful for younger girls were engaging teachers and positive experiences with them.

The study confirmed that old stereotypes die slowly. Both boys and girls perceived that teachers thought boys were stronger at math and science. For boys this represented a support, while for girls it acted as a barrier.

Cognitive Daily had an excellent three part post about recent studies from the journal Psychological Science in the Publish Interest on the "science of sex differences in science and mathematics"

• Why aren't there more women in science and math? Part 1
• Why aren't there more women in science and math? Part 2
• Why aren't there more women in science and math? Part 3
  

Chris at Mixing Memory reviews a paper that looked at wstereotype threat and women in math, science and engineering

Last October Dr. Confused, who has a doctorate in aerospace engineering, had a series of guest posts on Feministe about her experiences in science, the leaky pipeline, gender roles, sexism in everyday professional lives, and being a mom.

Miscellaneous Other Posts

Life v. 3.0 hosted the September Praxis Carnival on "scientific life". The October carnival was hosted by The Other 95%.

Elle, PhD. spots more gendered science kits for kids.

Virginia Gewin writes for NatureJobs about a possible upside to the "two-body problem" of academic couples

Sylvia Ann Hewlett in the Harvard Business Publishing blog: The Glass Cliff : Are women leaders often set up to fail?

In the The Independent's Career Planning section: "Women in science and engineering: Two successful women in science give their views on how to best break the glass ceiling". The two women are Emma Sanderson, director of "value added services" at BT and Anne Miller, "one of the world's most successful female inventors"

The BDPA Foundation writes about a recent survey of Fortune 1000 STEM executives that found "women, African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and that the result could hurt the nation as a whole." (via The Urban Scientist)

Omaha Science Examiner blogger Meg Marquardt writes about her own experience as a girl interested in science, and science communication.

A father was making a wild attempt to placate a gaggle of second grade girls. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" he asked. There was a litany of typical answers: a teacher, a mom, etc. But I stood up and proudly announced that I was going to be a scientist. The man gave me a stern look over his glasses and very firmly said, "Women ain't scientists." This was my first introduction to ignorance in science communication.

As part of the NatureJobs Podcast series:

The Source Event Part 7
Jan Bogg, Director of the Breaking Barriers Programme at the University of Liverpool, offers advice for women considering a career break, including how to stay in the loop while on maternity leave.

There's also an (old) discussion on the Naturejobs forum about the following questions:

1) Is the tendency for women to prefer people-oriented careers over science inherent or shaped by society?

2) Does anyone think “Title Nining” science is a good idea? Is it fair to punish research institutions if women just aren’t as interested in science as men are? Are there better ways of discouraging sexual discrimination, without discriminating against other successful scientists, both male and female?

Derek Low at In the Pipeline looks at a recent report in Science that followed up on the 1991 members of Yale's Molecular Biology and Biophysics PhD program. Out of 26 PhDs that year, only one of them currently has a tenured academic position.

DrugMonkey on self-perpetuating GoldOldBoys.

Green Gabbro hosted the Carnival of Feminists, and rounded up the science blog discussion about women, sexiness and the workplace.

And speaking of sexiness, Sociological Images posted a commercial featuring a woman scientist who makes a wonderful discovery - a fabulous bra!


Tags: women in science

Women in Chemistry @ Chemical Heritage Foundation

This week's episode of the Chemical Heritage Foundation podcast focuses on women in chemistry:

Breaking through the glass ceiling can be tough, especially when you are a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field. This week’s episode takes a look at women in chemistry. First, we learn about the brave physicist after whom meitnerium is named. Then we talk with Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor and spokeswoman for women in the sciences. Finally, producer Catherine Girardeau shares an interview with her grandmother, a dietary researcher credited with changing the eating habits of Americans in the mid-20th century. Element of the Week: Meitnerium.

A bit more background information for those of you who don't mind spoilers:

• Meitnerium is named after Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, who worked out the theoretical basis for nuclear fission of uranium.
• Donna Nelson is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma. In 2007 Nelson published "A National Analysis of Minorities in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities", a survey of the race, ethnicity, gender and rank of faculty in the top 50 US departments for chemistry, physics and other sciences. Read more about Nelson in her profile in The Scientist.
• Catherine Girardeau's grandmother is Helen B. Brown, a research nutritionist at the Cleveland Clicnic, whose studies of atherosclerosis lead to the discovery that a diet in which saturated animal fats were replaced with vegetable oils lead to a drop in blood cholesterol levels.

Image: Dr. Donna J. Nelson
Tags: women in chemistry, Liese Meitner, Donna Nelson, Helen B Brown

Are you a woman who has left the academic science pipeline?

Shelly Heller, Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Mt. Vernon Campus of The George Washington University, has a request for participants in a study about women scientists who have left the academic career pipeline:

In an effort to understand the pipeline of women professors in science and Engineering we are conducting a NSF-sponsored survey on women in career breaks (voluntary or not). We are starting to interview such women to help us determine better ways for such people to be reintegrated into the pipeline. Of course, replies will be aggregated and no names will be attached to specific replies.

We are trying to reach as many women as we can. Are you such a woman? Do you know of any such women (must have PhD in science/engineering/ math/social science)?
We have a few criteria:

• PhD attained: yes or no ( we are seeking those who have completed their degrees)
• Interest in academic employment: yes or no
• Any employment post-PhD: yes or no -
• Years in career break: less than 5

Please contact Shelly Heller at wlp (at) gwu (dot) edu

Read more about FORWARD to Professorship.

Tags: academic pipeline, women in science

Women in Science at Big Think

Annelle Sheline at Big Think wrote to let me know that they have a series of interviews with women scientists. The interviewee list is very heavy on bioscientists, which is unfortunate, I think, since women are already relatively well represented in those fields. Anyway, I've linked to most of these before, but here they are collected in one handy post:


Dr. Shelley Ann des Etages is a senior principal scientist at Pfizer. She talks about being inspired by strong women, and hopes that other women will follow her into science.


Dr. Bonnie Bassler, professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, who discovered "Quorum Sensing" - a way of collaborating - in bacteria. She talks about the challenged associated with being a woman in science.

Bassler also talks about becoming a scientist.

Dr. Shirley Tilghman is President of Princeton University and a professor of molecular biology. She talks about her own experiences and women in science.


Dr. Paris Sabeti, human genome researcher and Assistant Professor at Harvard University talks about women in science


Other women in science and technology featured at the Big Think:

• Dr. Sarah Schlesinger, associate professor at The Rockefeller University who works on HIV vaccine research talks about working in a lab as a young person.
• Harvard particle physicist Lisa Randall talks about her research and science in general
• Chairman of EDventure Holdings talks about why there are so few women in technology, and explains what she thinks it takes for a woman to be a leader in technology
• Pfizer scientist Sonia Patel talks about her first science experiment
• Mary Lou Jepsen, a founder of One Laptop Per Child and Pixel Qi talks about computer design, children and science.

Related Posts:

• Think Science Now and Supporting Science Education
• Big Think: Shirley Tilghman on Women in Science
• Follow Up: Pardis Sabeti on ScienceNOW tomorrow
  

Tags: women in science, Big Think, video

Joining the Boys' Club and Womens' Spaces

Apologists for the gender gap in science and engineering often seem to focus on the actions of women, particularly whether they "choose" to enter (and remain) in those professions. They point to recruitment drives and official departmental policies that, at least on the surface, appear woman friendly. What gets ignored is that the social atmosphere in those fields can be unwelcoming - even hostile - to women.

That issue came to mind when I read amberella's post at .51 about her experience at the The Last HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference last month. She notes that most of her interactions on a professional level with male attendees were pretty comfortable. It was the social interactions that made clear that the conference was a boys' club:

HOPE set aside part of the mezzanine for lounging in hammocks and watching video streamed from the talks for those who wanted a break or who were overflow from packed conference rooms. Across the bottom of this video was a scrolling marquee of comments pulled from a specially rigged up internal URL. This meant the crowd could watch and participate in a real-time chat, anonymously, with other people in the room. I happened to walk into the rest area looking to take a much needed nap during Steven Rambam’s presentation, glanced at the screen, and saw the message trolling news-ticker style:

“Rambam sucks. I want three hours of my life back“. …Funny.
Then: “Who’s the new girl in the red shirt?“ Look down at self: I was wearing a red shirt.
A few seconds later: “I like her more than the other girl in the red shirt.“ Uh, what?

Then: “I’m faithful to Red Shirt Girl #1 … I’ll take you on long walks on the beach and……” You get the picture.

I laughed and brushed it off and found a hammock. After failing to elicit a response from the women in the room (there was also “Gray Tank Top Girl” and later “Necktie Girl” in addition to me and my other red shirt counterpart) the intensity of the messages increased. I’ll spare you the details of the ensuing message thread, most of which was LOL-worthy in a purely adolescent and self deprecating way, but I will say that some of it was downright vulgar. I’m not one to flinch at vulgarity or abstain from [frequent] obscenity, but when still no women took the bait, there was an eventual message of “You won’t say anything until I rape you and then you will cry.“ I assume it was meant as a joke or incitement, but I think we all know that making rape funny is right up there with making Hitler funny: Imminent Fail.

She ignored the comment and continued participating in the conversation. And that's how she copes in her male-dominated profession: by ignoring the vilest comments and joining in the joking.

As demonstrated on a very small scale by my eventual acceptance into the “scrolling message quip makers club” at HOPE, it’s possible to muscle into the boys’ club with tenacity, spunk, and a heavy dose of ignore-the-troll. Women who seek out these communities, though, have to be prepared to fight for the chance to “prove their mettle,” as my grandmother would say. The women at HOPE have already jumped the largest hurdles to inclusion and the majority of male attendees respect them for it, regardless of childish message board antics.

But what can you do if you're a woman who wants to stay in the field, but isn't interested in being "one of the boys"? The atmosphere isn't likely to change if no one is calling out the trolls and telling them their behavior is unacceptable. Amberella points out that women-only events can make at least a small difference.

I can think of no quick fix, only that a growing number of tech communities geared towards women offer some refuge and an estuary environment to grow one’s confidence before trying to conquer the “real world,” and that historically, female creep into male dominated realms has been steady, unrelenting, and eventually accepted. In the short term, this offers little consolation.

But even having such spaces can offer a respite from an environment that isn't particularly friendly to women.

The frustrating thing, however, is that some men see such get-togethers and feel excluded or even discriminated against. See, for example, Jenny F. Scientist's post about women in her lab who lunch together. Zuska points out that the men should be more concerned about making the women the work with feel comfortable than worrying about being invited along.

Jenny and her friends are getting together without the guys precisely because science is unable to welcome them on equal footing with those guys. If the guys feel excluded from the conversation with the women, they shouldn't whine about how bad they feel. They should instead think about how they can work to make their neck of the science woods a more welcoming home for all women, to redefine in-group membership in a manner that includes women. Then women's safe spaces will be the same as men's, and the men needn't worry about feeling left out anymore.

Hopefully there are men planning to attend The Next HOPE (and other tech-related conferences) who are willing to do that.

Related:

• The recent report "Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering and Technology" noted that 63% of women in STEM have experienced sexual harassment
• TechHer writes about the treatment of Diane Greene when fired as CEO from VMWare
• Annalee Newitz's 2001 article "Not Your Girlfriend/ The next generation of women hackers are doing it for themselves"
  

Tags: women in computer science, H.O.P.E, gender gap