Men vs. Women in Physics Careers

[gravenewworld]

You are born with intelligence. Abilities in math, science, language,verbal skills have no correlation with race or gender. Individuals are good at math or science etc. because that is just the way it is. Why someone or a group of people tend to show "more intelligence" needs no explanation. Schools should only take applications with qualifications only. There should be no section where you must mark what race you are and what sex. After completing the application you are given a code number. The school should then post the code numbers of accepted and non accepted applicants on their website. That would be totally fair. If everyone that was accepted were white males or all black females then so be it. They were the most qualified. There should be no consideration for social factors. For example, just because a kid grows up in the projects and went to school in a horrible public schooling system is no excuse for that kid to be excepted to harvard etc. because of their situation if they can't even do simple algebra or read at an 8th grade level. Minorities, women, and other "underrepresented groups" should be given no free breaks because of history or "social circumstances" if they can't cut it.

 

[hitssquad]

Assumed criterions for improvement

Thanks Moonbear for posting some ways to improve the situation.

What was the criterion for improvement?

I don't know what you mean.

That means, "If the situation changed, what things about that change would mark improvement?" In other words, what is unsatisfactory about the current situation that it could be said that Moonbear had posted some ways to improve the situation? The original post asked "why," not "how can it be changed."

 

[honestrosewater]

That means, "If the situation changed, what things about that change would mark improvement?" In other words, what is unsatisfactory about the current situation that it could be said that Moonbear had posted some ways to improve the situation? The original post asked "why," not "how can it be changed."

The discussion was a while ago, and I don't remember exactly what I was referrring to. I imagine it would have been to the three reasons she listed in post #21 and the links she gave in #22.
I don't think having few women in physics is necessarily a bad thing. If it just happens that way coincidentally, whatever. But if, as MB and others have suggested, there are women or girls who want, or would want, to enter the field but don't have the opportunity to, I'd like to see them given that opportunity.

 

[hitssquad]

So a lifting of special oppression would be a mark of improvement?

 

[honestrosewater]

So a lifting of special oppression would be a mark of improvement?

Sure, if that's what's currently happening.

 

[hitssquad]

So a lifting of special oppression would be a mark of improvement?

Sure, if that's what's currently happening.

That seems to be off topic.

 

[hitssquad]

Nyborg's 'Sex differences in g'

As far as general intelligence, no significant differences have been found between men and women.

In his chapter contribution to the 2003 book http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/ARJtribute.htm, Helmuth Nyborg found a difference in the male and female g distribution means of .37 standard deviations, with male distribution being higher. For a typical SD of 15, that translates into a difference of 5.55 IQ points. Considering that and a difference in SD where the male SD factor is 1.06 (a wider distribution) and the female SD factor is 0.74 (a narrower distribution), Nyborg calculated that at a threshold of 3 SD above the mean (145 IQ points and not traditionally atypical for scientists), females would be outnumbered by males by 120 to 1.

Here is a pre-publication version of Nyborg's chapter:
google.com/search?q=%22Helmuth+Nyborg%22+%22Draft%3A+Do+neither+cite+nor+circulate+without+written+permission+from+the+author%22

Also, the book is available at Amazon.com where the full text is searchable and up to 50 scanned pages (all of the book is scanned and available; Amazon has a viewing limit of 50 pages) can be viewed by anyone Amazon.com account holder.
amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0080437931

Attached is the graphic from Nyborg's chapter showing how the male and female g distributions compare when the above numbers are plugged in.

 

[honestrosewater]

Okay, I was just passing on what I had read; I don't study this.
So how many people would that affect- what percentage of the population has an IQ 2, 3, or 4 SD (of 15) above the mean?

 

[Stingray]

Although I didn't read any of those links, it isn't correct to assume that the distribution is Gaussian (which is what appears to have been done). When talking about scientists, only the upper tail is relevant. This probably can not be estimated by a Gaussian extrapolation of results obtained from mostly normal people. Anecdotal evidence seems to support this as well.

Error bars on those graphs would also be nice. Even without taking into account what I wrote above, I bet they'd be huge at 3 SD.

 

[Curious3141]

Okay, I was just passing on what I had read; I don't study this.
So how many people would that affect- what percentage of the population has an IQ 2, 3, or 4 SD (of 15) above the mean?

Off the top of my head, in a normal distribution :

> 2 sigma = top 1/50 = 2 %

> 3 sigma = top 1/1000 = 0.1 %

> 4 sigma = top 1/30,000 = 0.003 %

 

[hitssquad]

Fat tails and the normal curves that love them

So how many people would that affect- what percentage of the population has an IQ 2, 3, or 4 SD (of 15) above the mean?

Click on the attachment. It says in the caption: "2.15% of the population obtains a g score ≥ 2 SDs, and only 0.13% a g score ≥ 3 SDs (from Nyborg 2002)." Jensen says that the distribution of g tends to be normal within 2 SD of the mean but that the tails tend to be fat. The presence of fat tails reduces the extremeness of population differences between any two given distributions.

If a curve of a given sample set were to be perfectly normal, 15.87% of the items fall would above +1 SD, 2.28% would fall above +2 SD, 0.135% would fall above +3 SD, and 0.0031686035% would fall above +4 SD.
members.shaw.ca/delajara/IQtable.html

In the American population of 290 million persons, a normal g curve would predict that 391,500 would have gs of 3 or above and 9,189 would have gs of 4 or above. Various sources posit that the presence of 4g+ mental ability in America is probably ~10 times as common as that.

 

[honestrosewater]

Okay, I'm not sure how to interpret the rest. Would you call that a significant difference?

 

[Astronuc]

"The 21st century will be the century of female management thanks to the flexibility and improvisational ability women have in solving problems. Women are naturally more creative than men." - U.S. management guru Tom Peters

That by the way, implies a certain type of superior intelligence.

And we probably need a woman as President in US since the current crop of males seem to offer dismal prospects. We certainly need the most creative minds to solve the various problems facing the US and world.

 

[alias25]

I love physics, and rearranging equations! don't know why i seem to get captivated by physics sometimes its like I am on a rollercoaster get a high from it in a way. when i get something its amazing and then i can see how things link and i even get ahead of my teacher lol i think he gets annoyed by that.and i ask too many questions. o noo I am starting to think like a man. i don't really like maths on its own just booooooooring with physics you can apply it so is kwl. I am a girrrlly girl. i need to slow down sometimes i think i go too fast for myself.
soooooorry if i babbled too muucchh
belle
*

 

[alias25]

sorry if i sounded a bit off. I am feeling ill today, headache, heartache and sore throat.

 

[Sir_Deenicus]

IQ but measures how good one is at thinking like everyone else.

Dont forget Emmy Noether, a woman who much of modern physics owes much to.

 

[Andre]

About the original question about were the women are in physics. Most likely a cultural thing. Perhaps we need a lot more of them to dilute the testosterone level a bit and the associated I’m-right-and-you-are-wrong-because-mine-is-bigger-attitude.

 

[RufusDawes]

Women are too smart to waste time trying to become physicists. They're too busy become HR specialists and making kiler $$$.

.

 

[f95toli]

About the original question about were the women are in physics. Most likely a cultural thing. Perhaps we need a lot more of them to dilute the testosterone level a bit and the associated I’m-right-and-you-are-wrong-because-mine-is-bigger-attitude.

I would agree with that. I have been lucky in that I have mostly worked in groups (or at least sub-groups) with many women (not quite 50-50, but perhaps 30-70) and it definitely makes a positive difference to the working environment.
I would NOT want to go back to working in an all-male environment.

Also, it is certainly possible that there are biological differences between men and women when it comes to how we solve problems, but I find it very hard to believe that it has anything to do with the current gender imbalance; the differences between individuals are defiantly much bigger than any "generic" difference between men and women.

What is considered typical "male" and "female" professions tend to vary from country to country and it also varies over time. Nowadays there are e.g. plenty of women in biology and chemistry (at my old university there were something like 60% women in bio- and chemistry programs) but that was not the case just a few decades ago.

There are of course one "biological" problems specific for women in all branches of academia. Specifically that it tends to be very difficult to find a permanent position before you are 35 or so, not an ideal situation if you want to start a family and for women there are good reasons not to wait until they are in their late thirties before they have their first child . I have friend that have left academia for this reason.
Men can safely wait a bit longer and then, to put it bluntly, start a family with a younger woman.

 

[TMFKAN64]

If you gave these girls and boys similar mathematics and physics training, and by the time they were in high school, asked them to take the Mathematical Olympiad or Physics Olympiad (the ultimate challenge!), the boys would surely be on top. Perhaps naive, but it does illustrate a point.

I'll agree, it *does* illustrate a point. Just not the one you think it does...

 

[jhicks]

I'll agree, it *does* illustrate a point. Just not the one you think it does...

I hope that the fellow you quoted can read this from 3.5 years ago

 

[mhazelm]

As a woman, I can attest to the fact that my mind is just as capable of understanding physics and mathematics as yours.

I've done very well in both.

All the physics students at my school who have received the Goldwater (in the past 4-10ish years), Rhodes, and Fulbright awards have been women. For instance, my best friend i physics is a single mother and still has a perfect GPA, Goldwater, exceptional research experience, etc.

Maybe you would see more women if there were less men with your attitude. For hundreds of years, women weren't ALLOWED to do anything like physics; we've barely even had the vote, let alone careers (careers didn't really begin for us until WWII). MANY women have been DISCOURAGED from birth to do physics. MANY women have to give up their career to have children - men can't have babies, and sad as it is in the 21st century, most men are unwilling to make the sacrifice of leaving their job to care for children. I don't know of any men who would.

The inequalities continue, but these are social inequalities stemming from people who are arrogant and shovanistic. Fact is, we are just as good, and you'll just have to get used to it!

As time goes by and we begin to finally break past these cultural issues, you will see more women in physics. At least, you're not getting rid of me.

 

[RufusDawes]

They discourage women because they care about them. Lots of men would have had better lives if they'd been encouraged not to go into physics.

 

[mhazelm]

It depends on what you mean by "better". I can't imagine what is more exciting than being at the forefront of modern physics - it's not about fame, money, or glory. It's just cool. For me there's nothing better than learning about the fundamentals of the universe - everything else fails.

But then, some people do want fame, or money, or social change, or whatever, and there's nothing wrong with that. Frankly, I think we should encourage people to do whatever pleases them the most (that's legal ). Aren't people happiest, and therefore better off, when they're pursuing what they're passionate about?

 

[thewhills]

I do not agree with this because you are comparing one country to the rest of the world, and when you do this it is easy to see that the rest of the world will almost always dominate. If you were to compare the number of great scientists in one country to the number of great scientists in another it would probably be a little more even.



I am not sure about women in physics. Women seem to do well in other sciences (biology, chemistry) My only guess would be the math factor of physics, but then why are women not that good at math? Maybe we will see a big rise in women in physics and math over the next 50-100 years. Women just got the right to vote in what, 1917 or something, and there are still complaints about women not getting paid equally. As for women getting accepted into grad school because they are women, well I feel that is terrible. Whether you are white, black, brown, green, male, female, you should be accepted on your academic record, not your physical features.

DON'T say that.
The President of Harvard nearly got lynched out of Harvard for saying Woman weren't as good at Math.

 

[erin85]

The above posters have already listed numerous reasons why women have been held down socially, so I'm not going to repeat them... most are quite true. Given that women are less encouraged to go into physics as children, and physics classes are taught in a style that is non-optimal for many women, the result is fewer women total in physics.

So, it's not surprising that MOST very famous and successful physicists are men, because most physicists are indeed, men. There are certainly extremely accomplished and intelligent women in physics. You don't hear about them as often simply for statistics reasons... there aren't as many. It's not a lack of ability, it's a numbers game. In addition, physics has been a boys club, essentially since it was really discovered. Even in the last century, when women were finally allowed to study physics, their discoveries were often claimed by men.

For one, consider the discovery of the double stranded structure of DNA (biology, not physics, but the basic structure still holds). Rosalind Franklin was extremely instrumental in this discovery - her xray crystallography made it possible, and she worked out the structure herself. Watson & Crick, on the basis of Franklin's unpublished evidence, published the structure, and subsequently won a Nobel Prize for it. It was a women who was behind the discovery, but men who got the credit.

As another example, take EBR-I, at INL. It was the first nuclear reactor to generate power. The day it was successful, all the scientists in the building wrote their names on the wall to celebrate. They were all male, and would not allow the female cleaning staff present to also write their names on the wall. However, this was not a scientist vs cleaning staff decision, because the male member of the cleaning staff DID write his name on the wall...

So, it's clear that past discoveries by women could have been masked as discoveries by men, skewing our statistics on the number of really great male vs female physicists. I think the scenario described, in which females simply don't have the capacity to understand the intricacies of physics is completely bigoted... I think that poster just wanted to get a rise out of us girls on the board...

 

[_Eternity_]

Hey, this is a great topic. I am a woman myself see why most women "avoid" physics. I'm listing several reasons as to why this is the case (my opinion):

1. Social brainwashing. Have you watched TV lately? Any show portrays women as"desperate HOUSEWIVES" *cough*, so from early childhood, girls "dream" of meeting a perfect husband, who will sweep them off their feet.

2. Women are more caring and tend to go into "caring" careers such as K-12 teachers, nursing, customer service, human resources and decorating

3. Different ways of approaching problems. As mentioned before, men see the BIG picture, women focus on DETAIL. I think you need both to be an engineer and depending on the type of engineering.

I can't think of anymore reasons. I love philosophy and I run into the same problem when it comes to logic. Only old males like discussing these things, and I'm a young female?

 

[thewhills]

Science and Engineering in the media is terrible in general.
The Media give kids a good look into the world of business,but not into science or engineering or math,

 

[mal4mac]

I do not agree with this because you are comparing one country to the rest of the world, and when you do this it is easy to see that the rest of the world will almost always dominate. If you were to compare the number of great scientists in one country to the number of great scientists in another it would probably be a little more even.

In a recent thread I compared Fields medallists between USA, UK,and France. USA was WAY behind, per head of population.

 

[mal4mac]

It depends on what you mean by "better". I can't imagine what is more exciting than being at the forefront of modern physics - it's not about fame, money, or glory. It's just cool. For me there's nothing better than learning about the fundamentals of the universe - everything else fails.

Even if you are highly motivated to do fundamental physics, they aren't going to pay you to do that. Unless you are amongst the lucky few. Having a mindset that "everything else fails" is a recipe for personal disaster if (as is likely) you get kicked out of the "fundamental physics research" career path. Better find something else that *doesn't* fail. Fortunately, there *are* plenty of other things that don't fail, if you have a realistic attitude.

 

[Count Iblis]

I think that the reason why you have less women in physics in the top position in almost all of the world's countries is partially due to (hidden) discrimination and partially due to the fact that physics and math education in primary and secondary school is abominable (all over the world).

The fact that math and physics education is relevant because there is a difference in how girls and boys on average interact with the educational system. There are minor differences in what girls and boys find interesting. Also there are minor difference in how serous they learn in school. There is some evidence that girls tend to be more serious about studying, they finish their university studies a bit earlier on average than boys. They attend classes better and study more serious for exams.

This would seem to give girls an advantage above boys. But in case of physics you get the opposite effect. What happens is that those students who excell at university tend to be the people who at high school studied physics and math on their own. So, the question is, if you are doing well and you are way ahead, are you then going to the university library and study quantum mechanics and relativity on your own?

I think that more boys than girls tend to do that. Not because boys are inherently better than girls in math or physics, but because boys have slightly different preferences on what to do in their free time.


Another related thing is that you have more boys who decide to study physics than girls in the first place. If you stick to the high school curriculum you wouldn't have a clue what physics or math at university is all about, so looking into this in your free time while at high school is also an important factor here.

Then, while studying at univesity, it helps a lot not to stick to the curriculum and do more than is strictly necessary. More boys tend to do that than girls. In case of physics such an attitude is likely to give you a much bigger advantage compared to other subjects.


I can give an anecdotal examples about my own experience on how important studying physics/math at high school is. When I was 15, I mastered the theory of complex functions. I was very good at solving complicated contour integration problems. When I was at university in second year I followed a math course in this suject. Most of the students were math students, I was the only physics student of the course (physics students are required to follow a certain number of optional math courses).

The exam was quite easy for me. I made one minor mistake and scored 98%. Out of the about 30 students there was only one other student who passed the test, he scored 70%. Everyone else failed the test (i.e. they scored less than 60%, which in our system is a "fail").

Clearly being able to perform like that at university is a big help.
Some of my friends who were also doing well at university told me that they also studied on their own in high school. Then it was no surprise that almost all of these friends went on to do a Ph.D., while of the others only a few decied to do a Ph.D. The ratio boys/girls went up even further at this stage.


I think that in case of literature, you can see the opposite effect, but it isn't as big as in physics, because language education is not as bad as math education in high school. Girls read more novels in their free time than boys. Also, there are more girls who will learn foreign languages on their own in high school than boys. This then leads to mor girls deciding to study foreign languages/literature than boys and outperforming them on average.

 

[Count Iblis]

Even if you are highly motivated to do fundamental physics, they aren't going to pay you to do that. Unless you are amongst the lucky few. Having a mindset that "everything else fails" is a recipe for personal disaster if (as is likely) you get kicked out of the "fundamental physics research" career path. Better find something else that *doesn't* fail. Fortunately, there *are* plenty of other things that don't fail, if you have a realistic attitude.

Well, you must focus on achieving certain goals. If you want to go into fundamental physics, you better make sure you start to achieve good results on your research. The sooner you start the better. With this focus in mind there is nothing wrong with an "everything else fails" mentality as that may keep you on the right track.

 

[Moonbear]

There is some evidence that girls tend to be more serious about studying, they finish their university studies a bit earlier on average than boys. They attend classes better and study more serious for exams.

Can you provide references for this? I'm not doubting your claims, I've just never seen such studies and would love to see them for myself.

Another related thing is that you have more boys who decide to study physics than girls in the first place. If you stick to the high school curriculum you wouldn't have a clue what physics or math at university is all about, so looking into this in your free time while at high school is also an important factor here.

Interesting point. Though, why do you think there's a gender difference in how this free time is utilized?

Then, while studying at univesity, it helps a lot not to stick to the curriculum and do more than is strictly necessary. More boys tend to do that than girls. In case of physics such an attitude is likely to give you a much bigger advantage compared to other subjects.

I'm not sure this is true. You're suggesting that men rather than women would seek further information outside the curriculum? I don't agree. Can you back up your claim with any published studies that provide such evidence?

I can give an anecdotal examples about my own experience on how important studying physics/math at high school is. When I was 15, I mastered the theory of complex functions. I was very good at solving complicated contour integration problems. When I was at university in second year I followed a math course in this suject. Most of the students were math students, I was the only physics student of the course (physics students are required to follow a certain number of optional math courses).

The exam was quite easy for me. I made one minor mistake and scored 98%. Out of the about 30 students there was only one other student who passed the test, he scored 70%. Everyone else failed the test (i.e. they scored less than 60%, which in our system is a "fail").

Clearly being able to perform like that at university is a big help.
Some of my friends who were also doing well at university told me that they also studied on their own in high school. Then it was no surprise that almost all of these friends went on to do a Ph.D., while of the others only a few decied to do a Ph.D. The ratio boys/girls went up even further at this stage.

And when I was in college, it was one of my female classmates who would score far ahead of everyone else on exams. Anectdotal evidence only provides one example, and doesn't explain overall trends.

Girls read more novels in their free time than boys. Also, there are more girls who will learn foreign languages on their own in high school than boys. This then leads to mor girls deciding to study foreign languages/literature than boys and outperforming them on average.

Again, I'm not sure where you're getting this information from. Can you provide sources? Much to my chagrin, it's my boyfriend who has read far more novels and literature than I have...and his major in college was civil engineering. So, if you're basing it on anecdotal evidence alone, my anecdotal evidence speaks to the contrary. I'd prefer to see proper studies to support any claims.

 

[Tiger99]

I'm a woman in physics (sort of - maybe in mathematics).

I think it helps to have a lot of confidence in one's own abilities when dealing with the competitive atmosphere. In my experience, men seem to have a lot more confidence (or at least pretend that they do?). They say things like "I was really good at doing contour integrals in high school" or "I really understand this now", etc. Several times a man/boy has told he was just really good at physics and mathematics. Even the ones who have failed exams in mathematics and physics.

I've never met a girl who told me she was good at mathematics or physics, even though I've known girls who were child prodigies and got their degrees before most people finished school. Even these kinds of people rate their mathematical/physics abilities as just average or maybe slightly above average.

Then in the mathematics/physics community a myth prevails that you need to be brilliant to succeed. Only really really smart people can contribute dazzling insights into how the world works. I think perhaps there are a lot of men who would happily identify themselves as "brilliant" but very few women. So the women give up perhaps without any external barrier. They get into graduate school, they score a good postdoc, but even if they do, they don't think they're really smart enough to be a physicist, and eventually they leave of their own accord.

I generalized a lot to make this easy to say... Does it ring true with anyone though?

Also, it's a bit hard to judge someone else's ability, so if someone tells people they are not good, then perhaps others believe them? and maybe this is why people think women aren't as good as men at mathematics and physics? just a little bit at least?

 

[RufusDawes]

cause male brain is larger and more powerful.. female brain focus on picking beries.

Sad but true. Women prefer neat linear compartments. Not to say a smart woman can't do what she pleases and shouldn't be encouraged to. Silly argument b.c answer is so obvious..