Fewer women than men are succesful in science. Is this because of biologically determined, or social, factors?
I believe: largely social factors, unless it’s true that women’s brains function differently (that old unproved chestnut). It’s true that men’s brains are usually physically larger in adulthood that yer average lady, but we all know that brain size is not a measure of intelligence. And as far as I know, there’s never been a study that conclusively proves that there are any differences in left and right cerebral hemispheres between the sexes.
Men may be more ‘spatial’ in practice but there’s little or no evidence to prove it’s anything other than conditioning (perhaps nurture is a nicer word there).
The world of scientific endeavor is very much an old boy’s club. At least in America. It is yet another arena where who you know carries far more weight that what you know.
Research funding depends on grants and grants depend on connections. Likewise publication. If you know a friend of the publisher then you have much greater chance of seeing your papers in print.
A friend of mine is a medical researcher with his doctorate in physics. Most of his success comes from the influence of his mentor. My friend was recently sweating over a grant proposal. His mentor told him that he could get him funding even if he had blown his nose on a piece of paper and handed that to him as the proposal.
The meritocracy is kind of the first step to getting into the field but after that it matters very little.
That’s my point, though, are they? There is no solid scientific evidence to prove this, it’s largely an observation. Therefore, couldn’t the perception of the difference between the way men and women thing just be down to social factors/conditioning?
Women might not think that way because they don’t try or don’t need to.
I often get accused of ‘thinking like a man’. Does that mean my brain is biologically closer to a man’s, or is it more likely that my upbringing encouraged analytical thinking?
As for men being more interested in exact sciences, I’m convinced that that is a fault of the education system rather than natural inclination. Girls aren’t encouraged to cultivate an interest in traditionally male-dominated careers.
Aren’t the planum temporale and corpus callosum larger on average in women?
As for the question, I imagine it’s simply that more men do science to begin with, for whatever other reasons. I don’t have any figures for this, however.
mmmm… i don’t know about the solid scientific evidence, but i have observed this many times…
i don’t know if conditioning would change ‘how’ people think as much as ‘what’ people think…
if i have to solve a problem i instinctively choose the way that is best for me, (i’m a pattern-seeker, visual mathematician)
also, why men are at top positions may be their ‘will to power’, their desire to show strong and powerfull…
which i doubt to be only a social issue, i think this is a social thing that is caused by our nature…
There are plenty of women in science, but many do not progress due to lifestyle factors - they have families and cant put the hours in. The women that do tend to be very focused and driven - to succeed in whatever they do.
Regading biological factors, women can do good science - they tend to be more thorough in their work, but men seem better at directing research groups and leading science. There may be inferiority factors at play, in that women tend to be more cautious about publication, but whether that it biological or due to male peer-pressure is hard to dissect.
This question stems from a very narrow (…and sad, I might add) view of what is Science.
If you accept the restricted view of Science as only what is carried out in official university or corporate labs and to what is published in Nature, then women, clearly, are less apt that most men. Why?.. Simply because this “Science” is an old-boy system based on performance, competition, money, fame, etc… and this type of activities are areas where, in general, men are more comfortable than women. Women, being more intelligent than men, do not find any interest in running after the largest research grants or publishing the largest number of papers in a year.
However, there is an alternate view of science, happily enough: if you start to think, for exemple, that you can find more science and wisdom in a single tree that in piles of Nature journals, and if you start to rather equate science with the ability to understand and act accordingly to true holistic nature of the world, then you may start to find areas where women simply outshines men.
Cheers!
Elvis
P.S. I am an avid Nature reader, by the way By these comments, I do not mean to throw them away!
well, duh. and the earth’s core iis an iron/nickel lump the size of the moon. That doesn’t mean we can mine it.
What i beleive you are trying to say, is that in any social system women make better branches, and men make better nodes.
Studies have shown that women are far better multitaskers than men. This contributes to a woman’s (seemingly) innate ability to understand relationships. In a university structure, a man would be better to put to work at a lab station researching one thing. a woman would be a better lab amanger, in that she could see cpnnections in the gathered data better than a man.
Of course, i’d be willing to bet that the variation among men and the variation among women far outwieghs any consistent difference between the two.
I have heard, and I don’t know how correct this is, that while men and women center around the same average IQ, men have greater variance, thus there are both more stupid men and more intelligent men than women in either category.
Sadly, the reference is lost. I believe it was passed on to me from the mensa site.
You also have to buy into the view that IQ tests do something other than test performance on IQ tests.
so what your saying is, if you girls had sex with more geeks more often, then you’d be evening the gap. Can I be first? I’d love to provide a valuable contribution to the noble cause of Feminism.
You are all hillarious, and i hope it is on purpose. What a bunch of brilliant explanations for why we think there are more recognized men in science than women. The original idea was the closest to a reasonable answer that has been posted, and that wasn’t much, it was more of a question. Who you know, not what you know, was also a better response, but if you look in areas other than science, especially higher prestige positions across the board, there are more men recognized than women by a longshot. Women have slowly been moving towards equality with men, but they obviously arent there yet. A “glass ceiling” still remains for women’s pay, and for womens advancement in companies/institutions. Many men are still being promoted above women no matter how much more qualified a woman may be. We live in a mans world, just listen to James Brown, he can even tell you that. Actually, forget everything i said, i just read the brilliant idea about women getting pregnant so they arent able to spend as much time, oh wait, no womens homelife, thats a good one, the family, the traditional female housewife, and the male breadwinner, i think thats the answer to this query. Sorry for the sarcasm. Thanks for your time and opinions.
By these comments, I do not mean to throw them away!