ean017 ‘Scientism, familsm and women scientists: V Syjatha -KAFILA 10 years ofa common journey
KAFILA — 10 years of a common journey
DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE
Scientism, familism and women
scientists: V Sujatha
ON 10/04/201711/04/2017_ / BY NIVEDITAMENON / IN
EDUCATION, FEMINISM, GENDERS,
Guest Post by V. SUJATHA
‘That the first woman to win the Fields Medal for mathematics in 2014
was an Iranian is important to note. Not only because Maryam
Mirzakhani is the first woman to make it in the field of mathematics
which is considered to be a male bastion[1], but also because her
Persian background deserves some attention. There are certain enabling
factors in Eastern cultures that facilitate women excel in the hard
sciences, in spite of entrenched patriarchy. The point is not that
everything is great in the East versus the West, but that cultural
stereotypes about women are not homogenous; they vary from culture
to culture and produce gender asymmetries with different effects. This
is a sociologist’s
delight; let me explain
During a literature survey in sociology of science, I was pleasantly
surprised to see that the figures on women’s entry and achievements in
science and technology education (S&T) in the global south were not
only not bad, but were better than the countries in the Anglo-Saxon
world that offered better civil liberties for women (Sujatha 2015). While
there were fewer women in apex positions in the S&T sector and even
lesser numbers to receive prestigious awards everywhere in the world,
it is a fact that women from erstwhile socialist countries and from Asian
and Latin American societies enrolled in larger numbers in science and
technology courses and also made it higher in the career ladder in S&T
than their counterparts in western Europe and North America. The
literature on women in science however, attributed everything to the
‘glass ceiling effect’ i.e,, soft variables like gender bias in the
organisational processes. I do not deny it, but it seems to me that this,
does not explain why the glass ceiling worked differently in some
countries.
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The entry of women in science and technology fields and subsequent
upward mobility in their career to reach tenured positions is higher in
Brazil, in the Catholic countries of Europe and Asian countries like
India. The old socialist nations of East Europe also have a good record
in this count. According to the UNESCO statistical handbook (1983),
there was larger percentage of women in science and math in Muslim
majority Malaysia than in the UK as early as the eighties. In Germany,
for instance, the academic community is said to be the most male-
dominated among the European nations and the percentage of women
full professors even in a women-friendly field like medicine was 6%
(Fuchs et al 2001) and women’s enrolments in S&T was stagnant from
1960-90s. In France, the proportion of women researchers in the 1300
laboratories run by CNRS since its inception in 1946 has been constant
at 31.2% were till 2004 (de Cheveigne 2009). In countries like India, the
trend is opposite: rapid increases in women completing doctoral
degrees in the last three decades. Hargittai (2015) finds that 36% PhDs
in science and technology are earned by women in India. In engineé
degrees the enrolment in engineering Masters is almost same for men
and women and the male-female student ratio is 1.96 in India and in the
US the proportion of female students to male is 4.96,
8
It is common knowledge that a host of organisational factors like access
to funding for laboratory research and networking with peers do
determine achievements in the laboratory sciences and women often
get excluded from these networks. But the question as to why women
in the Anglo-Saxon world did not fare well in fields like theoretical
physics and math in which funding is not the critical factor, becomes
important if we compare the figures with Asian women in the same
fields. If we take math and theoretical physics as a test case for
women’s participation in science and compare figures round the world,
the countries in the global south show better results. In fact the
countries with an excellent track record for liberties and rights of
women, like Sweden, Germany, UK and the US have the poorest record
of women in math and physics, lower than the EU average (SHE
Figures 2010) and that of Turkey, Spain and Italy (Table- 2 below). In
Asia, especially in India, greater numbers of women enrol for math and
physics courses and also complete their research degrees in these
subjects and the proportion of women full professors in math is equal
or better than Sweden and Germany. If we consider the highest award
for scientific research in India, namely the Bhatnagar award, two
women have won the Bhatnagar award for math as early as 1987
followed by another in 2004 though the percentage of women who were
given the Bhatnagar award is not very high
Table -1 Women Ph.Ds in the sciences to full professors (SHE figures
2010)
Country PhD Full professors
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EU 40% 13.7%
UK 38% 9%
Sweden 41% 14.3%
Germany 38%. 9.8%
Italy 42% 19.8%
Portugal 58% 33.2%
Turkey 49% 25.7%
Table -2 Women full professors in mathematics in Europe (2005)
https://womenandmath.wordpress.com/past-activities/statistics-on-
women-in-mathematics (https://womenandmath.wordpress.com/past-
/https://womenandmath. wordpress,com/past-activities/statistics-on-
women-in-mathematics/)
Pe f full profi i
Country ercentage of full professors in
Math
Germany 6.8%
France 10.3%
UK 2.8%
Sweden 4.2%
Portugal 32.1%
Italy 15.1%
Spain 12.9%
Percentage of full professors in science and math in India (Inter-
Academy Panel Report 2016)
Institution Percentage
IISc Bangalore 8.3%
Hyderabad 8%
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JNU
10%
DU
10% (18.2% in Math)
TIFR, IITs
10-12%,
In3 out of 8 national science laboratories in India, women constituted
34, 37 and 56% of lecturers and readers however, the percentage of
women receiving the Bhatnagar award and directorship of institutes is,
low.
Table -3 Women scientists in the public sector
Organisation Percentage of women
CSIR 16.5%
DSE 20.8%
DAE
DBT 27.4%
ICMR 29.0%
DRDO 14.0%
ICAR 14.3%
Organisational factors and women’s career mobility
Itis true that organisational factors like fixed and standard criterion for
recruitment and promotion in the Indian universities make a positive
difference for women, SC and ST candidates in the science and
technology sector, compared to settings like the US where the judgment
of the selection committees play a greater role in fixing tenure and
salary. Yet the levels and patterns of upward mobility of women in S&T
fields across diverse organisational settings in the global south
consistently shows better achievement than in the global north,
Besides it is found that Asian engineers draw better salaries and get
higher positions in the US than American women engineers
(Gchiebinger 1999). Maryam’s example in the case of winning the
coveted Fields Medal in math is yet another instance of Asian women
achieving something in the North American context that was not
possible for the American women. The National Science Board in
America found that, ‘31 percent of Asian American and 16 percent of
tephafa.nine2017904 Osc fams-and- women-siertst--sathal
anexzanow ‘Scetsm, fanilsm and women scientists: V Sj. -KAFILA10yers oa commeanjaurey
white high school graduates completed calculus, compared with 6
percent and 7 percent of African American and Hispanic high school
graduates, respectively. Further, one-quarter of Asian American and
one-tenth of white high school graduates took either the AP or
International Baccalaureate exam in calculus, compared with just 3.2
percent of African American and 5.6 percent of Hispanic graduates
(National Science Board, 2008)[2J’. Besides, the same study found that a
lower percentage of white women’s ( 2.2%) showed intent to pursue
math than all other ethnic groups, while Asian women had the highest
percentage (4.6%) with intent to pursue math.
Itis not that there are no setbacks for women in the global south, but
my argument is that the pattern is different. Unlike a leaky pipeline in
which there are barriers to entry and retention of women in the career
ladder at every level leading to dropouts at school final, post
graduation, doctoral degree, post doc, until a miniscule percentage of
women become full professors, in India the drop put rate for women
scientists is nearly zero. But there is a ‘post doctoral out flux’ or
stagnation mid-career for women who have reached tenured positions,
in the words of the physicist Rohini Godbole (Chandra and Godbole
2009); women seem to give up careers for motherhood duties in their
mid-forties. All the different data bases reflect this trend. So my
argument is that patterns of asymmetry vary and cannot all be lumped
together as leaky pipeline as the glass ceiling also has a cultural
dynami
While the women in premier institutions in India are generally mostly
from the upper castes, the women from the socially disadvantaged
sections are entering science and technology sector in a big way as
enrolments in engineering colleges show. In Kerala, Tamil Nadu and
Punjab, women constitute 45-65% of the strength of engineering
courses. While the need for stable jobs among upwardly mobile sections
is a reason for women’s entry in engineering and they are concentrated
in fewer technological specialisations, it is still important to note that
the first generation learners do not feel any barrier in entering a
technological field because in Sweden, Germany and UK, even
enrolment of women in engineering is quite low and it is not showing
much improvement despite favourable state policies and quotas.
How do we explain this? My contention is that the barriers to women’s
-vement in the scientifically most advanced countries stems from
science itself. That is, the findings of biology and genetics about the
cognitive inability of women to think rationally and to engage in
abstract mathematical thinking lie at the bottom of the entrenched bias
amongst scientists in organisations and is also very much part of the
self-perception of women. Numerous studies on the size of women’s
brain, their hormonal set up, reproductive processes and the effect on
‘emotional make up of women and their cognitive performance have
been conducted in the biological sciences over the years and findings
act
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are often articulated by Nobel laureates and university heads like Larry
Summers with confidence (and countered by feminists). In the US,
thousands of psychometric tests for mathematical inclination among
school children and youngsters indicate lower aptitude among women.
Excessive reliance on positivistic and numerical measurement of
aptitude is common in the public discourses and popular writings in
countries like the US and the UK creating and sustaining an ethos of
what I refer to as ‘entrenched scientism,’ that is also internalised by
women very early in their life culminating self ejection in their career.
In short, motherhood and reproductive functions are seen as.
determining women’s innate ability and aptitude for the hard sciences,
As biology is the only scientific paradigm for understanding gender
differences, criticisms have to either propose an alternate hypothesis for
biological basis of gender performance that is not misogynist or show
how socialisation causes the differences in aptitude. Either way there is
no escape from the biological determinism and the biological basis of
life looms large in western public discourses on gender. This is the trap
of scientism. Feminist science studies in the west have over the years
tried to counter biologism examining every aspect of women’s
performance in S&T and showing how context matters. But white
feminist theories are also characterised by an intensive focus on the
body and sexuality to the point of using metaphors of anatomical
difference between man and woman in their title, that also draw upon
biologism. It seems that the critique of biological determinism is unable
to go far from it.
By contrast, studies on women scientists and technologists in India over
the years show that bias against their cognitive ability to do math or
science was not the problem. Godbole observes that, ‘we dont seem to
have our Larry Summers’ and explains that ‘atleast in the Indian
academia women are not perceived as being incapable of intellectual
attainment in mathematics or science (many university prize winners in
science are women)’. But the problem lies elsewhere.
As early as the colonial period, the concern about British women
pursuing medical education was whether their hormonal system will
allow them to understand anatomy, whereas the corresponding,
concern in India was whether the common classroom in colleges will
lead women students to breach caste and pollution rules. Indian
women scientists do not report adverse experiences or bullying in
school or college about aptitude or cognitive capability. Rather the
worry was that the women could outwit men if given a chance and
hence have to be contained to attend to familial roles. Abha Sur talks
about Sunanda, the woman physicist under the supervision of the
Nobel Laureate C.V.Raman whose suicide was shrouded in mystery
and silence. After completion of her PhD and successful admission into
a post doc programme in Sweden, Sunanda seems to have faced
censure for transgression of caste or familial rules the details of which
are not available. Several studies on women scientists repeatedly point
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to the fact that a greater proportion of women scientists in India are
married and have children and they are married to men who are
equally or more qualified than themselves and in their interviews do
not fail to mention support from spouse and parents-in law in their
career pursuits (Krishnaraj 1991). In fact, in her biographical collection
of 40 women scientists around the world, Hargittai (2015) highlights
how the family was so central a theme in India to women scientist’s
perception of themselves. Higher education and intellectual
achievements of upper caste women bring greater prestige to the family
and this is true of all family centred societies in Asia (with the exception
of Japan) and Europe. While family protects women professionals from
the vagaries of the labour market and provides childcare for women
professionals, loyalty to family and the need to attend to grown up
children persuades them to slow down mid career. So itis what I
would like to call, ‘familism,’ ~ a value stemming from the centrality of
the family as an institution in tiding through the global economy, that is
the barrier here. Even in the case of women in sports who made it to the
Olympics from Haryana, we find that the honour of the
family /village/caste is a crucial factor in motivating women to
participate in the race.
The most exciting development is that lately there are more and more
women team leaders in technology missions of government science
institutes in India who have reached great heights mid-career. About
30% project heads in DRDO, ISRO and DOS are women
engineers/technologists[3]. In 2011, the launch and deployment of the
GSAT-12 a communication satellite, was carried out by
‘women scientists at ISRO with project director T.K. Anuradha, mission
director Pramodha Hegde and operations director Anuradha
Prakasham. In 2012, N. Valarmathi headed the launch of RISAT-1, a
radar imaging satellite in a small Tamil Nadu town of Ariyalur, where
she spent her childhood. Tessy Thomas, scientist who headed the Agni-
V Programme, an intercontinental ballistic missile is among the
recognized women scientists in the country.
Women technologists in reputed missions like Mass Orbiter Mission
(MOM) and other satellite and rocket missions report that they are
deeply involved because it is a national cause they are contributing to,
We have enough feminist writing in Asia to show that nationalism as
movement and as a social value has been a crucial moving factor for
women to enter the public sphere in a way that is not true of the Anglo-
Saxon world. Interviews of mission leader women are even more
insightful for they invoke family values and more often than not liken
launching a satellite to delivering a baby. So it seems that in India,
reproductive functions are not only not a barrier to a technological
career as it would be in the US, UK, or Sweden, but a positive metaphor
for hard core technology projects that we could say that they are
‘mothering a satellite’. Viewing the nation as an extension of the family
is understandable in this culture. Hence familism and its variant
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nationalism could be motivating forces for achievement in the upper
rungs though they could also produce adverse effects that we are only
too aware of.
The most remarkable thing in this regard is yet to be noticed.
Biographies and narratives of women scientists for the past two
centuries show that everywhere in the world women scientists who
make it into modem science are mostly from urban background and
from educated families. While there are several first generation learners
among men, women seem to need a higher starting point than men to
even enter S&T fields. This trend has not reversed much in the past
decades; in Brazil and in some formerly socialist countries of Eastern
Europe, it is possible to find a few women scientists and technologists
from the working classes. It is important also to note that the team
members that worked on the acclaimed the Mass Orbiter Mission in
India were mostly from state universities and institutions.
In the light of these facts, the entry of SC, ST women in engineering and
science education in India as revealed by statistics in many states is an
important development. It is one thing that these women who flock
engineering colleges are not able continue their education, instead have
to take up jobs to earn for their family. Yet the fact that they see no
problem in taking up a career in technology as first generation learners
is notable. Unlike women from well placed families, the first generation
women engineers may not always have the advantage of cultural
capital or familial and spousal support unless they marry other
professionals. Honour killings over love marriages indicate that the
support may not always be available. It is high time that the figures
about scheduled caste and tribe candidates in S&T sector went beyond
the studies on reservation in the higher education sector. It warrants
serious attention from feminist science studies in India, to see how the women
engineers from the rural hinterland are dealing with the hard sciences and
what will interest them if they have an opportunity to go into higher education
and research, because it is very rare to find first generation learners from rural
background among women scientists and technologists anywhere in the world.
‘Coming back to the Fields Medal in math that we began with, is anyone
surprised that the first woman to win a field medal in math is an
American citizen from Iran?
V, Sujatha is Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU.
Notes
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/13/interview-
maryam-mirzakhani-fields-medal-winner-mathematician
s 7 i 3 4 -
mirzakhani-fields-medal-winner-mathematician
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[2] https://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/Why-So-Few-Women-in-
‘Science-Technology-Engineering-and-Mathematics.pdf
files/2013/02/Why-So-Few-Women-in-Science-
‘Technology-Engineering-and-Mathematics.pdf) accessed on 9 April
2017
AASSA India.pdf
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