TRENDS IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE
A Lab of Her Own
by Marguerite Holloway, staÝ writer
T
here is no one story to tell about wom-
en in science. C. Dominique Toran-Al-
lerand just received tenureÑafter 20
years at Columbia University, after watching
male peers enjoy promotion, after listening
to colleagues laugh when she requested rec-
ommendations. ÒThey thought I was joking,Ó
explains the neuroscientist, who studies the
role of hormones in brain development, with
light bitterness in her voice. ÒPeople general-
ly did not believe I did not have tenure.Ó
Cheryl Ann Butman, a tenured biological
oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceano-
graphic Institution, moves clothes at mid-
night from a backpack, unemptied since her
return from a Gordon Conference, into a can-
vas bag. In four hours she will leave on a
cruise to place research equipment on the
94 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1993
ocean ßoor. Downstairs, Bradford Butman,
branch chief of the U.S. Geological Survey in
Woods Hole, washes dishes. He is just back
from a meeting. The race against time is inter-
rupted when Dylan, their two-year-old, has a
nightmare. The evening is remarkable only in
that both scientists are home. ÒOnce Brad met
me at the airport, handed Dylan to me and
then got on a plane himself,Ó Butman recalls.
Kay RedÞeld Jamison, a psychiatrist at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
who studies creativity and manic-depressive
illness, would rather not talk about problems
that women may encounter. ÒThe system is
a harsh one, but it is for men as well,Ó she as-
serts. ÒIn the end, you just have to get your
work done. How many women really spend
much time thinking about these things?Ó
Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.
 Despite decades of struggle,
women remain a small minority
in the scientific community

Some Þnd it hard to avoid doing so. A re-
searcher at a prestigious womenÕs college de-
scribes being told to Ògo knit or do whatever
it is you women doÓ when she asked for
comments on her grant application to the Na-
tional Institutes of Health.
The experiences of these scientists and the
challenges they face are as varied as the wom-
en themselves and as the research they do.
Which is perhaps why the Þght that women
wage so that they and their daughters can
practice science remains unÞnished. Although
their struggle to enter and to advance in this
overwhelmingly male-dominated Þeld paral-
lels the struggles of women in other profes-
sions, science seems a uniquely well fortiÞed
bastion of sexism. ÒHow shocking it is that
there are any women in science at all,Ó re-
marks Sandra Harding, a philosopher at the
University of Delaware.
Despite speeches, panels and other eÝorts
at consciousness-raising, women remain dra-
matically absent from the membership of the
informal communities and clubs that consti-
tute the scientiÞc establishment. Only 16
percent of the employed scientists and engi-
neers in this country are female. At a Þner
level of detail, the numbers of women in dif-
A FACE IN A CROWD characterizes the situation of
many female scientists. Ellen Swallow Richards was the
first woman on the faculty of the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology (opposite page). She is shown in 1900
with her chemistry department colleagues. Today there
are more women in science, as these students on the
steps of the M.I.T. library illustrate (this page ). But they
make up only 16 percent of U.S. working scientists.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1993 95


Biological oceanographer
at the Woods Hole Ocean-
ographic Institution in Mas-
sachusetts. Butman studies
the physical dynamics of
organisms—such as exam-
ining how the formation of
stacks of mussels improves
their ability to feed.
CHERYL ANN BUTMAN
Biochemist at Burroughs
Wellcome Company. Elion
won the 1988 Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine
Pediatrician who recently with her colleague George
became U.S. surgeon H. Hitchings for their work
general. Elders was for- on compounds that led to
merly the director of the the development of drugs
Arkansas Department of to treat leukemia, organ
Health. transplant rejection, malar-
ia, gout and herpesvirus
JOYCELYN ELDERS infection.

Some of the Women in Science Today GERTRUDE BELLE ELION

ferent disciplines and positions are so low that a recitation
of the statistics sounds like a warped version of ÒThe Twelve
Days of ChristmasÓ: 1 percent of working environmental sci-
entists, 2 percent of mechanical engineers, 3 percent of elec-
trical engineers, 4 percent of medical school department di-
rectors, 5 percent of physics Ph.D.Õs, 6 of close to 300 ten-
ured professors in the countryÕs top 10 mathematics depart-
ments, and so on.
ÒThere is still so much to be done,Ó rues Jane Z. Daniels,
director of womenÕs programs at the National Science Foun-
dation (NSF). ÒThe traditional areas of science for women are
still those areas where there is the most growth. There is not
a lot of change in physics, geology and engineering. Those
are the ones where the stereotypes have been preserved.Ó
Other Þelds are not quite so male heavy. Forty-one percent
of working biologists and life scientists are women. Nearly
half of all psychology and neuroscience graduate students
are female. According to the American Chemical Society,
women constituted 17 percent of their members in 1991, up
from 8 percent in 1975.
Regardless of their Þeld, women scientists typically earn
salaries that are about 25 percent lower than those paid to
men in the same positions, they are twice as likely to be un-
employed and they are rarely promoted to high positions (in
1989, 7 percent of tenured faculty in the sciences were fe-
male). Women report less encouragement from their peers
and supervisors, less mentoring and help with professional
advancement as well as greater isolation and harassment.
These conditions persist despite more than two decades
of eÝorts to redress an imbalance that was brought to light
in large part by the womenÕs movement. In the past 20 years
an array of federal and other educational programs have
sought to attract women into science. These attempts gained
some momentum in 1988, when a congressional study an-
nounced that the U.S. would need more than half a million
scientists and engineers by the year 2010. As men were drop-
ping out of science, women and members of minority groups
were seen as possible replacements.
The cumulative attention has brought about some gains.
In 1989 women received 27.8 percent of the doctorates in
science and engineering, whereas in 1966 only 8 percent of
such degrees were awarded to women. The NSF recently
found that diÝerences in science scores between girls and
boys on some standardized tests had decreased. The U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has also docu-
mented an increase in the number of female full professors.
ÒI have never seen a period in history where they are try-
ing to encourage women so much,Ó notes Londa Schiebinger,
a historian of science at Pennsylvania State University. ÒBut
I think what is extremely interesting is that there is all this
funding and this goodwill, and they are still dropping like
ßies.Ó Attrition has increasingly led many observers to exam-
ine the culture of science for clues about why so few women
stay in the Þeld. What, if anything, ask the researchers, is it
about science that continues to exclude or deter women
from remaining in research?
ÒThey have been attempting to get more women into sci-
ence, trying to Þx the women, give them enough science
courses, prevent them from falling behind,Ó Schiebinger, who
wrote The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern
Science. ÒBut we canÕt Þx the girls, we have to Þx science, get it
to be something they want to do. We have to look deeply into
the culture of science and see what is turning women oÝ.Ó
Peering into the scientiÞc establishment to pinpoint the
origins of the problemÑwhy so few women?Ñreveals both
the mysterious and the obvious. Throughout the centuries,
for no cogent reason, women have been excluded from most
aspects of professional and political life. And the majority of
Þelds have until recently remained male. Within this larger
tradition of sexism, there are some clear explanations for the
absence of women in science. From the moment they begin
to be socialized, most girls are directed away from science.
This subtle and overt deterrence can been seen in the educa-
tional system and is fortiÞed by the perceptions of many
male scientists that women simply should not be scientists.
It is not that there have historically been no women in sci-
ence. Only nine women may have been awarded a Nobel Prize
as opposed to more than 300 men, but there are many un-
sung women who have made vital contributions in all Þelds.
In the past decade or so, historians have increasingly begun
to describe these mostly invisible participants. In 1982 Mar-
garet W. Rossiter, a historian of science at Cornell University,
published a lengthy account of American women who did
science before 1940. ÒPeople said the book would not be very
long, because there were no women of consequence. They
were wrong,Ó says Rossiter, who is working on her next tome:
women in science from 1945 to 1972. Although many work-
ers were tucked away as assistants and technicians, their

Some of the Women in the History of Science SOPHIE GERMAIN

HYPATIA
Circa 370–415
Egyptian mathematician,
teacher and philosopher
who was murdered by a
group of monks. One legend
has it that these holy men
resented the fact that a
woman was lecturing.
Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.
MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN
1647–1717
German biologist who ex-
tended the field of entomol-
ogy through her observa-
tions and illustrations of the
life cycle of caterpillars and
butterflies. She supported
herself by publishing books
and by designing fabrics.
1776–1831
Self-taught French mathe-
matician and physicist who
produced original work in
number theory and the the-
ory of elasticity. Germain
was excluded from the male
scientific community and re-
ceived recognition for her
work only late in life.

Professor of biology and
medicine at Brown
University and feminist
scholar. Fausto-Sterling
has written extensively
about the biology of sex
differences and is currently
doing research on Planaria.
Entomologist at Stanford
Astronomer at the Harvard- University. Gordon, who
Smithsonian Center for does research on ants, is
Astrophysics. Geller and one of the few women
her colleague John P. studying social insects.
Huchra discovered the She is currently observing
Great Wall of galaxies, a how information is passed
structure that runs for three from generation to gen-
billion trillion miles and eration in harvester ant
contains 1,700 galaxies. colonies in Arizona.

ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING MARGARET GELLER DEBORAH M. GORDON

contributions were invaluable. She found many of them hid- and illustrating childrenÕs books. The 1880 oÛcial minutes
den in footnotes in books about male scientists. from Ò The Misogynist Dinner of the American Chemical So-
Other researchers have traced the roots of the scientiÞc ciety,Ó unearthed by Rossiter, are part of the same tradition.
establishmentÕs attitude toward women. Each period of his- It is the vestiges of these attitudes and the impenetrability
tory and each culture are, of course, characterized by a dif- of the elite social institutions that most frustrate female sci-
ferent prevailing view, but there is no shortage of Òdocumen- entists still. The National Academy of Sciences currently has
tationÓ by males of the physical and mental inferiority of only 70 female members, out of 1,750 living scientists. ÒThere
women. In the late 1880s, following a series of studies on is still resentment between the old guard and women,Ó says
the small size of womenÕs brainsÑand, not insigniÞcantly, Betty M. Vetter, executive director of the Commission on
their enormous pelvic bones, all the better to bear children Professionals in Science and Technology. She adds bluntly,
withÑa friend of Charles DarwinÕs summed up that illustri- Ò It will change when they die.Ó
ous scientistÕs view of womenÕs intellectual powers: ÒIt must By maintaining a male majority, many institutions perpet-
take many centuries for heredity to produce the missing Þve uate the status quo, preventing women from participating
ounces of the female brain.Ó in forums where important con-
The emergence of the modern Academic Rank tacts are made. Women ÒdonÕt
scientiÞc establishment appears get invited to write as many book
to have institutionalized many
of Doctoral Scientists 1990 chapters, and they donÕt get a
of these perceptions. Historian chance to network as much. It is
TENURE TRACK
David F. Noble of York University not a question of a more or less
in Toronto argues that the Þrst TENURED collaborative style,Ó comments
universities were monastic, orga- Christina L. Williams, a neurosci-
NONTENURE
nized by the Christian church, TRACK
entist at Barnard College. ÒYou
and thus excluded women. In his do what you can do. You canÕt
FULL
book A World without Women: PROFESSOR get yourself invited to things if
The Christian Clerical Culture of ASSOCIATE you donÕt get invited.Ó
Western Science, he discusses how PROFESSOR Studies have found that meet-
this segregation persisted in the 0 20 40 60 80 100 ings organized by men usually
academies and institutions that PERCENT have a male majorityÑno matter
arose with modern science. The PH.D. FEMALE SCIENTISTS PH.D. MALE SCIENTISTS what the percentage of women in
Royal Society was established in PH.D. FEMALE ENGINEERS PH.D. MALE ENGINEERS the Þeld. Only 24 percent of the
1662 and did not admit women SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. speakers at past meetings of the
until 1945. Before then, as Schie- American Society for Cell Biology,
binger notes, the only woman in the Royal Society was a which is roughly 50 percent female, were women, even when
skeleton in the anatomy collection. Today 2.9 percent of the the conferences were organized by women, notes Susan Ger-
ÒfellowsÓ are female. bi, president of the society. When men organized the confer-
Some institutions have better records, but by and large, ences, less than 10 percent were female. ÒIt is not men sit-
women were not made to feel at home in the inner sanctum ting around saying, ÔDonÕt invite women,ÕÓ Williams explains.
of science and were denied access to traditional training. Be- Ò It is done blindly, and it is just that there is no concerted
atrix Potter, for instance, was an accomplished mycologistÑ eÝort. A lot of the people in power in science are still men.Ó
in fact, she was the Þrst person to report on the symbiotic Another place where similar discrimination may occur is
aspects of lichen and to catalogue the fungi of the British on editorial boards. StaÝ at many scientiÞc publications re-
Isles. But Potter was not allowed to join any professional sci- mains mostly male and has shown a tendency to accept more
entiÞc societies because of her sex. So, fortunately for English- male-authored papers or to invite men to do review articles.
speaking children and their parents, she turned to writing It is not clear, however, that selection of papers would change

MARIA MITCHELL MARY EDWARDS WALKER ELLEN SWALLOW RICHARDS

1818–1889
Established the Vassar Col-
lege Observatory in the
U.S., one of the earliest and
most important astronomy
programs for women. In
1847 Mitchell, who learned
astronomy from her father
and her own reading, re-
ceived widespread acclaim
for the discovery of a comet.
1832–1919
Surgeon and feminist who
worked as a nurse and, lat-
er, as the first female assis-
tant surgeon in the Ameri-
can Civil War. Walker adopt-
ed male dress for her work
in the field.
1842–1911
Engineer lauded as the
“woman who founded ecol-
ogy.” Richards, denied a de-
served Ph.D. in chemistry at
the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, was the first
woman to be elected to the
American Institute of Mining
and Metallurgical Engineers.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.

 Professor of computer sci-
ence at Harvard University. Chairperson of the depart-
A pioneer in the subdisci- ment of anatomy at Har-
pline of artificial intelligence vard Medical School. Hay
known as natural language studies the regeneration of
processing, Grosz works cells and tissues. She
on ways to make computers made some of the first
easier for people to use by electron micrograph Microbiologist at Harvard
incorporating features of autoradiographs, a University. Huang studies
human dialogue into com- substantial contribution to the replication of RNA ani-
puter systems. the study mal viruses.

BARBARA GROSZ ELIZABETH DEXTER HAY ALICE S. HUANG

if editorial boards were more sexually balanced. A study special attention as women in scienceÑthey just desperately
conducted in the early 1980s asked 180 men and 180 wom- wanted to do their science.
en to rate comparable papers. One third of the papers was Toran-Allerand, who was the only woman in both her
supposedly written by John T. McKay, another third by Joan medical school class and residency, attributes some of this
T. McKay and the Þnal series by J. T. McKay. Both the women to a double standard for women. ÒIn the past, women were
and men gave the ÒJohn T.Ó papers the highest score. What- really an intellectual elite. You had to be slightly crazy if you
ever the cause, Harriet Zuckerman of the Andrew W. Mellon wanted to go do that in that kind of environment,Ó she com-
Foundation and Jonathan R. Cole of ments. A woman Òwho interviewed me
Columbia have found that women tend at Yale said I had to realize that the
to publish 30 percent fewer papers
Doctorates Awarded women had to be perfect. There were
than do their male colleagues in the to Women, by Field in 1989 so few women; they could not tolerate
Þrst 12 or so years of their careers. any imperfection. The imperfections
PSYCHOLOGY
The disparity increases over time. in the men would be accepted because
One controversial solution to making SOCIOLOGY there were so many of them that they
meetings more reßective of the work would even out over the population.Ó
force, thereby spreading the wealth of BIOLOGY With more women in science, such
information and contacts, is aÛrmative pressures have been alleviatedÑto a
action. Last year the NSF announced it CHEMISTRY point. Many scientists and educators
would not fund conferences unless a have noted that scientiÞc institutions
OCEANOGRAPHY
number of women proportionate to are not the only source of discourage-
the number in the Þeld were invited. AGRICULTURE ment for women: the educational sys-
ÒYou hope it is not going to lead to tem does not foster a love of science
less qualiÞed women being asked,Ó GEOSCIENCE in girls (for that matter, however, it has
Williams says. ÒBut there is no reason not been wildly successful in recent
that it should. There are plenty of MATHEMATICS years with boys either ). Most teachers
good women out there in all Þelds.Ó of kindergarten through eighth grade
Opinions about aÛrmative action COMPUTER SCIENCE are women, and many are not well
are, inevitably, mixed. An editorial in versed in science. They do not serve as
ASTRONOMY
Nature bemoaned the NSFÕs new Òquo- eÝective role models for young girls
taÓ policy. ÒThere is no evidence that ENGINEERING interested in science. In addition, many
sex is related to success in scientiÞc stereotypesÑof scientists as nerds, as
research,Ó the editors wrote, Òand no in- PHYSICS mad and as maleÑpersist. ÒThe basic
herent justiÞcation for holding wom- idea is that if you are a woman inter-
en out for special treatment as part of 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 ested in science, you are gender con-
a formal policy carrying the bludgeon PERCENT fused,Ó notes Catherine J. Didion, ex-
of budgets.Ó Many female scientists SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. ecutive director of the Association for
also view legislative remedies with Women in Science.
some skepticism. ÒI personally do not want any favors be- Research by the American Association of University Wom-
cause I am a woman. I want to be competitive on a gender- en has found that at all educational levels, boys receive more
free basis,Ó Toran-Allerand says. Her view echoes that of many attention than do girls in the classroom. The eÝect is inde-
female scientists, in particular those who struggled through pendent of the teacherÕs sex. Adults also encourage boys to
the system before it was subjected to feminist scrutiny. be assertive in answering questions and expressing opin-
Many of those who succeeded, including Nobel laureates ions. Therefore, a young woman who pursues a career in sci-
Gertrude Belle Elion and Rita Levi-Montalcini, did not want ence needs a particularly strong endowment of mettle.

SOFIA KOVALEVSKAIA MARIE S. CURIE FLORENCE RENA SABIN

1850–1891 1867–1934 1871–1953
Russian mathematician French scientist who dis- Medical researcher who
who did work on partial dif- covered radium and poloni- studied the development of
ferential equations. She is um. She shared the 1903 the lymphatic system and,
thought to be the first wom- Nobel Prize in Physics with later, tuberculosis. She
an to receive a doctorate in her husband, Pierre Curie, fought to modernize public
mathematics, from the Uni- and Henri Becquerel. In health laws in the U.S.
versity of Göttingen in 1874. 1911 she won the Nobel Sabin was the first woman
Prize in Chemistry. to be elected to the National
Academy of Sciences.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.

 Professor emerita of biolo- Neuroscientist who won the
gy at Harvard University. Nobel Prize in Physiology
Hubbard did research on or Medicine in 1986 for her
the photochemistry of vIsion Paleoanthropologist who, work on nerve growth fac-
early in her career and, with her late husband, tor. Levi-Montalcini teaches
more recently, has written Louis Leakey, unearthed and continues her research
extensively about women and analyzed fossil hom- at the Institute of Neurobi-
in science, women’s health inids in Africa. Leakey now ology at the National Re-
issues and genetics. lives in Nairobi, Kenya. search Council in Rome.

RUTH HUBBARD MARY LEAKEY RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

Girls are told in myriad ways that they are not as good at meeting it is framed as a collaboration rather than a compe-
mathematics as boys are. This social myth has no founda- tition. ÒMen, in general, Þnd that a technological Þx in and
tion in reality. Researchers have found that girls often do as of itself is enough,Ó she explains. Rosser and many others
well as boys in math in elementary and junior high school. have designed successful teaching methods that harness
Yet girls hear Òquite early that higher math is for boys,Ó Vetter these insights. Re-forming questions and experiments ap-
notes. ÒGirls are not taught to put themselves forward to get pears to have an unexpected boon: it captures the imagina-
into that group of precocious math kids. You have to push tion of male students as well.
yourself forward, but girls are not encouraged to do that.Ó An NSF study of questions for National Assessment of Ed-
Exploiting this perception of feminine math anxiety, the ucational Progress tests reached the same conclusion. When
toy manufacturer Mattel last year made a Barbie doll that math problems have some social implication, girls do better.
said, ÒMath class is tough.Ó The company deleted the state- On the other hand, boysÕ scores on tests of verbal ability,
ment from the dollÕs voice track after several womenÕs groups which are traditionally lower than those of girls, improve if
protested. ( The NSFÕs Daniels points out that the pink Lego the excerpts describe sports or science. Ellen Spertus, a grad-
building blocks designed for girls do uate student in computer science at
not send the right message either.) Science Ph.DÕs, M.I.T., observes that computer games
A distinct irony surrounds the issue in which the objective is, say, to pre-
of women and mathematics. Mathe- by Employment Sector vent a meteor from hitting the planet
matics was at times considered a wom- ACADEMIA WOMEN MEN are often more likely to interest girls
anÕs subject. Schiebinger describes the 1973 than are games in which the players
English LadiesÕ Diary, published be- 1989 are supposed to slaughter invading
tween 1704 and 1841, which encour- INDUSTRY aliens.
aged women to perfect their ÒArith- 1973 Changes in testing and in school cur-
metick, Geometry, Trigonometry . . . 1989 riculums, however, may not be suÝi-
Algebra . . . and all other Mathematical GOVERNMENT
cient to hold women in science. Some-
Sciences.Ó It goes to show that Òwhen 1973 times as many as half of the Þrst-year
the rules of society change, the girls 1989 female college students are interested
perform just as well as the boys,Ó re- in science and engineering, yet at some
marks Mildred S. Dresselhaus, profes- 0 20 40 60 80 100 point in their academic careers, their
sor of electrical engineering and phys- PERCENT attrition rate exceeds that of the male
ics at the Massachusetts Institute of SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. students. Certain universities and col-
Technology. ÒIf they act as though leges as well as the Association for
they are interested, they get very discouraging signals. I got Women in Science have sought to combat this tendency by
my share of those, too, I suppose. But I went to an all-girls establishing mentoring programs.
school, and there I did not know that girls were not sup- In 1990, for instance, Dartmouth College set up intern-
posed to study math.Ó ships to give as many as 75 female students experience in a
In addition to discouragement, women cite boredom as laboratory, to demystify science and to introduce them to
the reason that they stopped studying science. Many experts scientists. ÒThey get to see what is going on in science Þrst-
are trying to Þnd new ways of teaching girls and women to hand, that scientists are not all geeky, that they are very reg-
maintain interest. Sue V. Rosser, director of womenÕs studies ular people who make mistakes and have to do things over
and professor of family and preventive medicine at the Uni- again,Ó according to Mary Pavone, director of the women in
versity of South Carolina, has found that women tend to be science project.
interested in a problem or a question if it has some context Initially, many of the participants do not think the program
or social relevance or the solution produces some beneÞt. is necessary. ÒThey come here freshman year and see that the
They also respond to a challenge better if the process of numbers of men and women in introductory science courses

LISE MEITNER MARGARET SANGER ETHEL BROWNE HARVEY

1878–1968
Austrian-Swedish physicist
and mathematician who
studied the decay of radio-
active elements. She was
the first person to calculate
the energy released during
nuclear fission and thereby
contributed to the develop-
ment of the atomic bomb.
1883–1966
Nurse who became the
leader of the campaign for
family planning and birth
control in the U.S. Her ef-
forts to establish birth-con-
trol clinics and to dissemi-
nate information were the
subject of great controversy.
1885–1965
American biologist and em-
bryologist whose studies of
induction preceded those of
Nobel laureate Hans Spe-
mann and Hilde Mangold by
more than 10 years. An in-
vestigator at Princeton Uni-
versity for 25 years, she
was never made a full pro-
fessor.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.

 Behavioral ecologist with
NYZS The Wildlife Conser-
vation Society. Moehlman, First director of the Office of
who works mostly in the Research on Women’s Astronomer at the Car-
field in Africa, has studied Health at the National negie Institution of
and filmed free-roaming Institutes of Health. Pinn is Terrestrial Magnetism.
wild animals for over two a renal pathologist and was Rubin has worked for more
decades. In recent years, professor and chairperson than 25 years with collab-
she has turned her attention of the department of pathol- orator W. Kent Ford on the
increasingly to advising ogy at Howard University existence of dark matter
about wildlife management. before she joined the NIH. and galactic rotation.

PATRICIA MOEHLMAN VIVIAN PINN VERA RUBIN

are fairly evenÑthey donÕt see what happens; they donÕt see women into science is not just being nicer to them at youn-
the Þlter. By junior year, they look around their classes, and ger ages, although that is important. But we really have to re-
all of a sudden a light goes on,Ó Pavone says. The number of think our whole notion of what science is and how it func-
women majoring in science at Dartmouth was up in 1993, tions,Ó says Fausto-Sterling, author of Myths of Gender: Bio-
but it is not clear that the project is responsible. logical Theories about Women and Men.
At the doctoral level the situation becomes more diÛcult. Fausto-Sterling and others are examining how scientiÞc
Women have a higher attrition rate than do men before they knowledge in the West has been shaped by social mores and
enter Ph.D. programs; they are about 15 percent less likely to by the white male culture that has directed it. The scrutiny is
Þnish their degrees. ÒYou have to have someone on the fac- not well received by many in the scientiÞc community. ÒSci-
ulty who wants you,Ó says C. Megan entists think this is not very important,Ó
Urry, chief of the research support Median Annual Salaries says Harding, who wrote Whose Science?
branch at the National Aeronautics Whose Knowledge? ÒBut our conceptions
and Space AdministrationÕs Space at the Doctoral Level, 1989 of how we think about the history of sci-
Telescope Science Institute. Science is WOMEN MEN ence shape how we are doing science
ultimately a guild, in which a master ENGINEERS now. We want to learn from the past. If
passes on skills and professional we have distorted views, we should un-
touch to apprentices. For reasons of COMPUTER SCIENTISTS derstand them.Ó
ancient tradition and contemporary Perhaps the most prickly issue that
culture, those apprentices are pre- PHYSICAL SCIENTISTS some of these thinkers have raised is
dominantly male. ÒNo one ever told whether women and men approach sci-
me what was going on. The men are ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTISTS ence diÝerently and, if they do, whether
getting a lot of help, and the male ad- diÝerences in style account for the low
visers are helping them write. The LIFE SCIENTISTS numbers of women attracted to science.
women donÕt get it much,Ó Urry says. Most of the discussion was initiated by
A combination of institutional MATHEMATICIANS Evelyn Fox KellerÕs 1983 book about No-
changes, including mentoring pro- bel laureate Barbara McClintock. In A
grams, educational reforms and aÛr- SOCIAL SCIENTISTS Feeling for the Organism: The Life and
mative action strategies, has tradi- Work of Barbara McClintock, Keller sug-
tionally been perceived as the means PSYCHOLOGISTS gests that McClintockÕs unusual insights
for bringing women into science and into genetics were shaped by intuition,
keeping them there. These approach- 0 20 50 70
by a more stereotypically ÒfemaleÓ ap-
10 30 40 60
es address the problem illustrated by proach. The Þres have been stoked by
THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS
the often strange metaphors that have other researchers, among them Doreen
been used to explain why there are so SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. Kimura, a psychologist at the University
few women in science or in any other of Western Ontario. Her work shows dis-
Þeld: the pipeline is leaking, the glass ceiling has not cracked, tinctly diÝerent patterns of male and female mentation with
women are stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder. respect to solving problems and framing intellectual chal-
But a growing number of observers are questioning the lenges [see ÒSex DiÝerences in the Brain,Ó by Doreen Kimu-
fundamental and long-term success of these eÝorts. Feminist ra; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, September 1992].
thinkers, including Schiebinger and Rosser as well as Brown Many scientists think this idea of diÝerence has some va-
University biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling and Harvard Uni- lidity in the biological sciences in particular. ÒThere is a
versity professor emerita Ruth Hubbard, take a more radical strong argument that when you bring women in, they look
position. They believe the whole ediÞceÑplumbing, ceiling at what the female [subjects] are doing,Ó Schiebinger notes.
and ladderÑhas to be reconstructed. ÒMy view is that getting ÒSo far we have found these examples only for sciences

GERTY RADNITZ CORI IRÈNE JOLIOT-CURIE BARBARA McCLINTOCK

1896–1957 1897–1956 1902–1992
Biochemist who won the Won the 1935 Nobel Prize Geneticist who revolution-
Nobel Prize in Physiology or in Chemistry with her hus- ized the field through her
Medicine in 1947 with her band, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, observations of jumping
husband, Carl Cori, for their for their synthesis of new ra- genes. McClintock’s novel
work on how cells use and dioactive elements. ideas were not accepted for
convert food into energy—a many years. In 1983, how-
process now called the Cori ever, she won the Nobel
cycle. Prize in Physiology or
Medicine.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.

 Mathematician at Rutgers Secretary of the Air Force.
University and the Universi- Widnall is on leave from Mathematician at Wesleyan
ty of Minnesota’s Geometry M.I.T., where she is associ- University in Connecticut,
Center. Taylor studies soap ate provost and professor who recently served as
bubbles and crystals and of aeronautics and astro- the president of the Asso-
simulates them on comput- nautics. She has served as ciation for Women in Math-
ers in order to understand president of the American ematics. She does work on
their underlying mathemati- Association for the Ad- logic, specifically model
cal properties. vancement of Science. algebraic theory.

JEAN E. TAYLOR SHEILA WIDNALL CAROL WOOD

where there is sex involved.Ó Perhaps the best example of of how I interact with people.Ó Ruth Ginzberg, a philosopher
this view is the work of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, has observed the same
Galdikas, anthropologists who revolutionized understanding phenomenon in other Þelds, such as business. ÒFor a long
of the primates by changing the way animals were observed, time, women were not thought of as good managers. Then
by following individuals. ÒThey looked at female-female in- somebody decided that perhaps women might have a diÝer-
teractions and saw new behaviors,Ó Rosser explains. ent management style. Women were not rising in the ranks,
Rosser has her own example. She recalls that when she because they were doing things diÝerentlyÑnot because they
Þrst taught animal behavior she asked the class to examine were doing it less well.Ó
Siamese Þghting Þsh: What were the reactions of males to Other diÝerences have also been found. Studies of men
males, to self and to females? The exercise never included and women interacting in groups suggest that women are in-
female reactions to females or to males. Sandra Steingraber, terrupted more frequently, that their contributions are more
a Bunting Fellow at RadcliÝe and Harvard, studied dioramas often attributed to men in the group and that they are less
of white-tailed deer in natural histo- comfortable with antagonistic dis-
ry museums and found that the
males were always depicted in a
BachelorÕs Degree: 1966Ð1990 cussions. ÒThe problem is that wom-
en are being judged by men in a sys-
warriorlike stance, about to defend 600 tem set up by men that basically re-
ALL FIELDS
a doe and fawn. In reality, Steingra- MEN ßects their standards and criteria,Ó
ber says, does and bucks unite only 500 Urry maintains. ÒSome of that has
WOMEN
to mate. Does and fawns stay to- not to do with excellence in science
gether only until they begin to com- 400 but with style.Ó
THOUSANDS

pete for food. The dioramas, an ed- Whereas many female scientists
ucational tool, were shaped by the 300 agree that women and men may act
anthrocentric and anthropomorphic SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING diÝerently, the idea that this varia-
social vision of the men who de- 200 tion translates into a diÝerent way of
signed them. doing science remains sticky. ÒI Þnd
If it is true that women can bring 100 this topic a bit diÛcult,Ó Dresselhaus
a diÝerent perspective, feminist admits. ÒSpending a lot of time on
scholars argue, that is all the more 0 this doesnÕt do credit to women in
reason to encourage women, minor- 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 Þelds with few women. In medicine,
ities and people from diverse cul- say, gynecology, women may have a
tures to practice science. ÒI think SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. diÝerent approach. But if you are
there is a lot of validity to the idea solving a ßow equation, there is not
that women do things diÝerently, not from a biological basis a womanÕs way or a manÕs way: there is the way the air ßows
but from a sociological perspective. There is a clash between around an airplane wingÑit just ßows around the wing.Ó
womenÕs and menÕs cultures,Ó Schiebinger says. ÒWomen and There is a lack of very solid evidence for the proposition,
men are not interchangeable parts. They act in very diÝerent Zuckerman concurs. In an unpublished study the sociologist
ways, and it seems to me that that carries over into the pro- and her colleagues found that sex diÝerences were minor
fessional world. It brings an enriching perspective.Ó with respect to how scientists think about and describe their
Anecdotal reports suggest that many women organize work. The criteria were how they chose their research topics
their laboratories diÝerently, in a less hierarchical fashion, and the signiÞcance of the research they were doing. ÒGen-
than do their male colleagues. ÒI donÕt think I think diÝerent- der is not a good predictor of diÝerence,Ó Zuckerman says.
ly in terms of questions, because I have been trained,Ó says ÒScience is supposed to be attentive to evidence, and there
Kathie L. Olsen, a program director at the NSF. ÒThe diÝer- is a lack of it here. These are matters about which people
ence is in the daily operation in the laboratory and in terms feel very strongly.Ó

MARIA GOEPPERT MAYER RACHEL LOUISE CARSON ROSALIND ELSIE FRANKLIN

1906–1972 1907–1964 1920–1958
Mathematical physicist Marine biologist and author X-ray crystallographer.
from Germany who won of several books, including Franklin studied the struc-
the 1963 Nobel Prize in Silent Spring. Carson’s work ture of DNA and provided
Physics for her discovery alerted the scientific com- information needed by
of nuclear shells—the dis- munity and the public to the James Watson and Francis
crete energy levels that dangers of pesticides and to Crick, who later won a No-
neutrons occupy— which potentially destructive inter- bel Prize, to describe the
Mayer described as similar actions between people and molecule as a double helix.
to layers of onion skin. the environment.

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.

 Female Scientists in Astronomy and Physics, 1992
ASTRONOMERS PHYSICISTS
SOUTH KOREA
KOREA PHYSICS FACULTY
NEW ZEALAND RECENT PH.D.’s
U.S.
JAPAN RECENT B.S.’s
SWITZERLAND U.K.
ISRAEL
JAPAN
SOUTH AFRICA
INDIA NETHERLANDS

GERMANY NEW ZEALAND

IRELAND
IRELAND
SWEDEN
NORWAY EAST GERMANY

AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA

EGYPT
INDIA
PORTUGAL
NORTH KOREA BELGIUM

CANADA SPAIN
U.K.
POLAND
FINLAND
AUSTRIA BRAZIL
NETHERLANDS
TURKEY
DENMARK
FRANCE
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
U.S. ITALY
ESTONIA
U.S.S.R.
CHINA
CHILE PHILIPPINES

YUGOSLAVIA HUNGARY
ARMENIA
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
GREECE
PERCENT
BELGIUM SOURCE: Physics Today

TURKEY
POLAND
BRAZIL
SPAIN
HUNGARY
ITALY
UKRAINE
RUSSIA
MEXICO
FRANCE
BULGARIA
ARGENTINA
GEORGIA

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
PERCENT
SOURCE: International Astronomical Union Information Bulletin

102 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1993 Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc.
 Some female scientists also see Employed Female Ph.D. Scientists al life in general, has been orga-
such perceptions of diÝerence as nized around the assumption that
potentially dangerous. ÒWe would
and Engineers by Racial Group, 1989 society need not reproduce itselfÑ
all be better oÝ if we could forget PHYSICAL SCIENCES or that scientists are not among
about gender altogether,Ó says WHITE those involved in reproduction,Ó
Deborah M. Gordon, an animal be- BLACK Schiebinger notes wryly. The
haviorist at Stanford University NATIVE AMERICAN American Chemical Society, for ex-
ASIAN
and one of very few women study- ample, found that 37 percent of
HISPANIC
ing social insects. ÒIt is hard for female chemists older than 50
young women starting out to hear MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES years had no children; only 9 per-
that they are diÝerent. They should WHITE cent of the men older than 50
BLACK
hear that everyone will have to were childless.
NATIVE AMERICAN
work hard to be a good scientist. ASIAN
Moreover, 43 percent of women
They should be thinking about HISPANIC had relocated because of a change
how to do their work as best they LIFE SCIENCES in the employment of a spouse.
can, not how their work is chan- WHITE Only 7 percent of the men had relo-
neled by gender.Ó BLACK cated. For that reason, many female
Many scientists believe individu- NATIVE AMERICAN and male scientistsÑand people in
al variations are so great that they ASIAN all ÞeldsÑsupport more ßexible
outweigh those between men and HISPANIC work time, family leave and child
women. ÒI am an adamant femi- ENGINEERING care legislation.
nist about a lot of these issues, but WHITE ÒThese professions have evolved
this one I get sort of riled by,Ó Wil- BLACK around the lives of men who could
liams states. ÒPeople approach sci- NATIVE AMERICAN be professionals around the clock
ence diÝerently, so to categorize a ASIAN and spend little time on anything
womanÕs versus a manÕs approach HISPANIC else,Ó Hubbard says. ÒIn science, it
would be diÛcult. It is not that it 0 5 10 15 20 25 is certainly ridiculous to the extent
does not exist, it is just that there PERCENT that there is this notion that if you
are many styles of doing science.Ó SOURCE: National Science Foundation; the statistics are for U.S. donÕt work 24 hours a day, nature
Yet by questioning the culture is going to run away. It wonÕt. It will
of science, many feminist scientists and scholars claim to be still be there next year, unless we louse it up.Ó
broadening this repertoire of styles. In their view, such enrich- Gordon of Stanford would like to see universities organized
ment will ultimately lead to a more thorough science and a in such a way that they could provide jobs to both partners
better society. Some such thinkers have suggested that re- of a married couple. ÒThey are set up for men whose wives
search priorities may shift as a consequence. ÒA lot of physics went with them, but the world is not like that anymore,Ó
has been defense related, and many women left it for that Gordon observes.
reason,Ó Didion explains. ÒAt the minimum, the way that sci- All these considerations, from legislation to more subtle
ence would be communicated would be diÝerent, not neces- changes in the culture of science, will not ensure that more
sarily the science itself.Ó women or minorities will study or stay in science. Many sci-
Medicine has already changed in some ways as a result of entists describe the situation as a catch-22: more women will
the growing number of women researchers and practition- enter the Þeld only when there are more women in it. And,
ers. WomenÕs health is receiving more funding and attention. they say, the only way out of the conundrum is to change so-
Conclusions based on white male patients are no longer be- cietyÕs attitudes toward womenÑand men.
ing blindly applied to female or minority patients. A recent Such changes require continued vigilance, especially now
study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that that the anticipated job shortage has not materialized. To
female patients who have female doctors were twice as like- some, the existing economic malaise portends a loss of
ly to receive Pap smears and mammograms. ground that women and members of minorities have gained
ÒThese are not just womenÕs issues,Ó Didion declares. The in science. For others, it bodes well. ÒWe are being forced to
contemporary culture of science Òis not only not good for recognize that people do not have the money to throw at the
women, it is not good for many men.Ó In particular, raising a problems, but that may be a blessing in disguise because
family has been seen as incompatible with a successful scien- people are going to have to do something,Ó Didion asserts.
tiÞc career. Women are often perceived to be less committed As for the old guard, the best thing that could happen is
if they want to have childrenÑalthough Zuckerman and Cole Òthat they get terribly fond of a granddaughter who is very
found that married women and mothers publish as many interested in science,Ó Vetter says. ÒIt is possible to change
papers as single and childless women [see ÒMarriage, Mother- people for their granddaughters.Ó
hood and Research Performance in Science,Ó by J. R. Cole and
H. Zuckerman; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, February 1987].
Nevertheless, without support at the institution where FURTHER READING
they work or from their spouses, women are more likely to THE POLITICS OF WOMENÕS BIOLOGY. Ruth Hubbard. Rutgers Uni-
drop out of science to have children. ÒEarly career time is versity Press, 1990.
when women raise children, and organizations have to make THE OUTER CIRCLE: WOMEN IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY. Edit-
it doable,Ó Dresselhaus says. ÒI know in my own career it was ed by Harriet Zuckerman, Jonathan R. Cole and John T. Bruer.
awfully hard in those years. I had four children. I got help W. W. Norton, 1991.
from my husband and hired a baby-sitter. But many people BIOLOGY AND FEMINISM: A DYNAMIC INTERACTION. Sue V. Ros-
ser. Twayne Publishers (Macmillan), 1992.
made totally unreasonable demands on meÑit was almost
NOBEL PRIZE WOMEN IN SCIENCE: THEIR LIVES, STRUGGLES, AND
humanly impossible to do what I was being asked to do.Ó MOMENTOUS DISCOVERIES. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. Birch
DresselhausÕs success at maintaining her career and fami- Lane Press, 1993.
ly is unusual. ÒThe fact remains that science, like profession-

Copyright 1993 Scientific American, Inc. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1993 103