Thursday, August 09, 2007

What's Keeping Women Out of the Labs?

I've written several posts already on here regarding the issue on the shortage of women in science, and particular in physics. BBC news has another take on why this is so in a news report.

I suppose the issue of "nature versus nurture" won't go away anytime soon. I still think that this is not relevant. Having a different way of looking at things has never been a setback. In fact, in many cases, it has been an advantage. However, it requires people to be aware of that. So what if women are genetically programmed to have a different way of seeing things? The fact that there ARE women at the top of some fields of study in physics means that (i) they can do science/physics and (ii) their different way of looking at things CAN be to their advantage.

So even if it is "nature", it is Mother Nature's way of adding diversity to the gene pool.

Zz.

1 comment:

JP said...

Here is a nice discussion that sheds some light on the issue. Women are probably not victims of any conspiracy - they've simply found positions that are more rewarding for physics majors at the BS and PhD level than jobs as lab rats and post-docs who earn $35,000 per year.

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
women-in-science