Women, science, and gender bias
THE DEBATE over women's place in science, which proved to be the downfall of Harvard President Lawrence Summers after he suggested that male preeminence in the field could be due at least partly to biological traits and personal choices, remains a lightning rod for controversy. Earlier this month, the subject was tackled in two different symposiums - one at Harvard, the other at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based right-of-center think tank.
Both events focused on the National Academy of Sciences report issued last fall by an almost all-female NAS committee. The report takes the position that any existing cognitive gender differences are irrelevant to success in science and engineering, and that women in these fields continue to be held back by pervasive gender biases and institutional barriers. This viewpoint was summed up at the Harvard symposium by one of the report's coauthors, Maria Zuber, professor of geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Zuber asserted that the committee had extensively reviewed the literature on gender differences. But the review in the report itself is strikingly tendentious, glossing over or dismissing unfavorable findings while emphasizing studies in tune with the report's focus on "bias and barriers."
Some of Zuber's assertions at the symposium raised obvious questions. Thus, she suggested that the small pool of people who can succeed at high-level scientific work is so different in mental traits from the general population that gender differences pale in comparison. Then is it possible that in this pool, males outnumber females by a large margin (as they do, for instance, among people with autism)? It is well known that while sex differences in performance on math tests are very small on average, males cluster disproportionately at the top.
Discussing the male advantage in spatial analysis, Zuber noted that, compared with boys, girls tend to do better when tested on things they have learned in class rather than new things they have to think their way through. Maybe, she quipped, "males are better guessers." Yet could the ability to think one's way through unfamiliar problems be related to scientific aptitude?
As critics at the American Enterprise Institute event pointed out, the report's review of the evidence of gender bias is tendentious as well. Thus, it trumpets a 1997 study from Sweden showing that women need to be more productive than men to do equally well in seeking science research grants and jobs - but overlooks other studies, including a 2005 RAND Corp. paper, that found no such bias.
The discussion of gender and science is not mere theory. It has to do with practical plans to remake the scientific establishment in a woman-friendly image. Many proposals are innocuous enough, and some are being implemented at many schools: extending the tenure clock for new parents and other measures to help combine scientific careers with family responsibilities. But there is also talk of programs to eradicate subtle and unconscious biases (which sounds like a prescription for politically correct witch hunts) and of invoking Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to bring down the wrath of the federal government on institutions that are purportedly too slow to correct inequalities in science.
Zuber suggested that the mere threat of federal action could "do wonders." This is not empty talk. A week after the Harvard symposium, speakers at a congressional hearing on women in science urged lawmakers to use Title IX to promote equality in academic fields.
Equal opportunity, most of us agree, should be the law. But what does combating discrimination mean when definitions of bias are expanded to include the "stereotype" that success in science requires single-minded devotion? And what if some gender disparities in scientific careers are indeed related to innate differences in ability and personality? Will institutions be penalized for failing to meet impossible goals?
The American Enterprise Institute symposium took a fairly critical view of the NAS report; but, unlike the Harvard panel, it did not come down on one side of the biology vs. bias debate, offering instead a nuanced look at the research and the arguments.
While several speakers focused on evidence for innate sex differences in cognition, everyone stressed that much about the interaction of nature and nurture remains unknown - and that differences between men and women as a group do not reflect on the abilities or potential of any individual woman.
Promoting opportunities for women in science is a commendable goal. But a heavy-handed approach based on flawed and overconfident assumptions could be bad for science and for the women. It's unfortunate that, in tackling this issue, the NAS committee, the Harvard symposium, and the congressional hearing showed so little regard for balance and restraint.
Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
