The Glass Ceiling: Holding Women Back Since 1984

            The term “glass ceiling” has been around since Gay Bryant put a name to it in 1984, but since then we may have forgotten that it’s just a word.  Before that time and ever since that time women strive to overcome this “barrier.”  But what is this barrier really other than a word? Does this gap exist because men are more capable of moving up then women, or is it something society has pushed on each gender?  More specifically, women have a hard time excelling in STEM jobs – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  I recently came across two explanations that support my ambiguous inquiry: 1) Society is shaping women to think that they can’t pursue STEM careers, despite encouraging scores on standardized tests, and, 2) Women have more career options than men, and therefore choose jobs that truly interest them instead of just getting what they can.

            A New York Times article by Natalie Angier (2013) reviews a presentation that she believes encompass this gender gap problem in STEM careers.  Doctoral student Anthony Derriso presented information concerning a study that he has been working on since 2009.  The data comes from self-report surveys given to ninth graders concerning a range of topics that aim to reveal gender disparities.  An example question is: “are you likely to pursue a scientific career?”  Sixty-one percent of the students who responded “yes” (11%) were male even though self-report surveys showed no differences in aptitude across gender (how they view their own math and verbal skills; how engaged and supported they feel by teachers, family, and peers).  So the question we are left with at the end of this article is “why the humungous difference in intent…when given the choice, why do so many girls walk away from science and math?”

            In her book Pink Brain, Blue Brain, Lise Eliot explores similar issues of gender inequality, taking the reader on a trip from the womb to adolescence.  Particularly relevant to the article by Angier is a chapter that looks at the development of math and science skills in young children, and how boys and girls progress differently.  She speculates an answer to the questions posed by Angier and Derriso.  Eliot proposes that these gender gaps in math and science are “both innate and cultural…Without question, parents and educators can do much more to raise girls’ interest and achievement in these important fields” (207).  Similar to Derriso’s self-report task among ninth graders, Eliot notes that girls and boy do in fact begin their academic career with comparable math and science skills, and also that boys usually end up on top.  Here, it is suggested that the academic gender gap beings when girls enter college.  Eliot has found that girls’ and boys’ math and science scores are comparable up until college (yes, the boys are a bit ahead in test scores by now, but nothing significant).  Here, is where we need to implement the change in these young girls.  Referencing author Steve Olsen: “The paucity of girls at the highest levels of competition is much worse in the United States than in other countries…cultural factors keep girls from math” (214).  Eliot believes that girls are just as mentally apt in STEM fields/careers as boys, but that they are not socially accepted. 

            In March of 2013, Ming-Te Wang, Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and Sarah Kenny published a study on individual and gender differences in STEM careers.  They obtained findings along the same line as the data Derriso had for his presentation, but their deduction rivals Eliot's.  The present longitudinal study looked at 1,490 individuals when they were in twelfth grade and again at thirty-three years old.  They wanted to know if students with high verbal and mathematical abilities would be more or less likely to engage in a STEM career when compared to someone who had high mathematics skills, but only moderate verbal skills.  It turns out that the former group was less likely to obtain a STEM career, while the latter excelled in STEM involvement.  More interesting yet, a majority of the participants in the high-high group were female.  The researchers’ conclusion took a different direction than previous studies: “The pattern of gender differences in math and verbal ability may result in females having a wider choice of careers, in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM fields, compared with males.”  Wang et al. also note that individuals are compelled to gravitate to what they are good at, so it makes sense that women are in non-STEM jobs because of how many options they have that are more desirable.

            There is a lot of debate about the gender gaps that occur – nature or nurture?  Is it a matter of aptitude or intention?  Can we overcome the stigma of STEM careers or are women disinterested in these fields?  There is a lot of conflicting evidence out there, with more data being gathered every day. 

           

_________________________________________________________________________

Angier, Natalie. “Mystery of the Missing Women in Science.” The New York Times. 2 September, 2013. Web. 24 February 2014.

Eliot, Lise. Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps - and What We Can Do About It. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009. Print.

Wang, M., Eccles J.S., & Kenny, S. (2013). Not Ability but More Choice: Individual and Gender Differences in Choice of Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Psychological Science, 24(5). doi: 10.1177/0956797612458937

Autism's mechanistic nature

Research suggests that there are significant changes at the molecular level in a fetus that cause boys to be more susceptible to autism than girls. The article I’ve chosen is Why men are more likely to have autism: Their brains are more prone to genetic flaws, study finds. Scientists analyzed both the “individual variations in the number of copies of a particular gene and DNA sequence variations.” This article explains that boys tend to need less genetic variations to occur in order for them to develop autism vs. girls. It also explains that compared to boys, girls with autism tend to have more harmful DNA variations than boys with autism. Therefore, the genetic difference between girl and boy autism are seen more across DNA than they are on the male X chromosome. This findings of this study can help lead to gender specific approaches for the screening of neuro-developmental disorders.

Now on to exciting part! Connecting this article to what I’ve learned in Pink Brain, Blue Brain, one thing I’ve realized is that not only are girls and boys physically and mentally different (yet similar), but they also develop disorders differently as well. One thing Lise Eliot introduced to us right of the bat is that boys and girls must have complex molecular differences within them to make them act a certain way without telling them to do so (i.e. her daughter drawing fairies while her sons were obsessing over cars). This study certainly backs up her reasoning using autism as an example. Another thing that intrigued me was Lise Eliot mentioned that exposure to prenatal testosterone didn’t exactly mean that boys would develop autism (pg 81). This is interesting because the article above also begins to prove her point that it may not be external factors (like the level of prenatal testosterone), rather internal factors (at the molecular level) that cause autism. This makes sense because the Baren Cohen study mentioned by Lise Eliot stated the autistic boys tend to have larger brains (larger than normal boy brains), or as Lise Eliot put it: “overgrowth of the brain in the first year of life.” It could be very much possible that the genes causing such an overgrowth could also be responsible for the development of autism within boys.

It is interesting to see that many of Lise Eliot’s conclusions or insights into other’s research is beginning to be proven by researchers worldwide. This means the Eliot has been able to make rational conclusions from research conducted and can significantly contribute to the science behind gender based differences neurologically. It was intriguing to read about (both in the book and the news article) that much of what we contribute to external factors for neurological disorders may in fact be beyond control due to molecular mechanisms.

To Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2570106/Why-men-likely-autism-Their-brains-prone-genetic-flaws-study-finds.html#ixzz2ugWwoIAa

Lise, Eliot. Pink Brain, Blue Brain.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Nida Ahmad

Societies' Anchor on Plasticity

Lise Eliot, who is associate professor of neuroscience at Chicago medical school - Rosalind Franklin University has quite some interesting observations about gender based neuroscience in her book titled Pink Brain, Blue Brain, chiefly focusing on brain plasticity. As she would explain, it's much like taking petroleum based plastic and molding and forming it into the countless uses our society has for it: grocery bags, equipment, etc. Plasticity is the grounds for all learning and is essentially the formation and redirection of signaling in our brains, which takes place during learning, our early childhood, and even when recovering from brain injury (it's practically our only hope for recovery). A great example is the computer you're working on right now, I might lose you a bit since I've worked with electrical engineering, but all of our computers have a processor which is arguably the most important part of a computer; different processors have different micro-circuitry fused onto their silicon chips. Depending on what you do with your computer might suggest which circuitry is best for your processor. The micro-circuitry in the processor of a high end server versus a gaming computer versus a cheap computer will all be radically different; not only in performance but also in responding to errors. In the same way, different learning methods, nurture elements, and how we expose/use our brains along with how it recovers during injury vary due to neuro-plasticity. 

It's no surprise then when Dr. Eliot references epigenetic interactions with regards to the environment shaping our genes to an extent and furthermore our brains becoming what we expose them to. Sure, there are physiological differences with our bodies with regards to gender (even though they appear androgynous early on), but gender with regards to our brains isn't an anchor once you're out of the womb, rather it's the way an individual is raised depending on a variety of environmental factors. There have been many studies outside of the scope Dr. Eliot mentions that focus on gender-based differences in plasticity and how aside from the obvious methods of parenting, things like geology are a factor as well. Where you are born can have minor or radical differences with regards to culture and quality of life in how you're raised. A child born in Chicago will be subjected to a good educational system and gender specific raising, such as the toys they play with, the colors they are exposed to (think clothing, room paint), the way they are talked to and cared for. A child born in Zimbabwe however is more than likely subjected to a poor educational system, with a tribe-based raising where family status matters more than gender, and regardless of your gender you are chosen to hunt, cook, sew, build based on skills that are observed from early on in your childhood. Obviously when comparing children from the two areas, difference plasticity is more based on location than it is gender.

Needless to say, Dr. Eliot still has more to say in an article from this month in the Huffington Post titled, "Women's Hockey and Hardwiring". In this article Dr. Eliot makes much of the same argument with an interesting twist: referencing sports. While she claims that physiologically men are obviously different than women (which they are), due to obvious increased muscle mass and general taller heights, we fall into the issue of nurtured perspectives again. Is this really what defines sports? In the past 40 years the amount of women participating in professional sports has increased by ten-fold, and it's obviously not because of some overnight evolutionary change, but a change in societies prospective; this being that a Winter Olympics hockey match amid Canada and the US is just as intense, fair a game, and enjoyable to watch regardless of the gender of the players. While Dr. Eliot does reference statistics of how women tend to not participate in sports, claim lower paying jobs, and achieve less rigorous academic degrees she uses these findings in her aid to establish the truth: societies' nurture-anchor is responsible for this. This can be said because just like professional sports, in the last 40-50 years we have also seen women claiming higher paying jobs and pursuing more rigorous degrees increase by ten-fold as well; after all 57% of all college students in the US are women. At the end of the day, we might point out traditional differences amid men and women and the state of their minds, but as Dr. Eliot points out: at the end of the day an intense Olympic skiing race is just as competitive, fast, and fierce regardless of the genders participating and the recorded times even exist to prove it. Maybe when society lifts it's anchor up a bit more, we can allow men to compete with women in sporting events and we might realize the differences are little to none, because not all individuals are prone to the mindset and plasticity society presumes of them.


By: George Stathopoulos

Eliot, Lise. Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps--and What We Can Do About It. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lise-eliot/womens-hockey-and-hardwiring_b_4834418.html

Society’s Influence over the Lack of Women in Science

Why are there so few women in science? Is it due to differences in brain structure between males and females? Or is it because of the environments and cultural influences that girls grow up with? Despite early success in math and science during elementary school and younger ages, something begins to turn girls away from these more difficult subjects in school as they get older. Eventually, this leads to young women picking majors in college that are not related to physics, math, or computer science. Unfortunately our society is partially at fault because it projects cultural stereotypes through media and other sources which portray science and math as not feminine. As a result, many girls feel this stereotype threat and become convinced that they will do worse than boys in math and science.

In Jogalekar’s article, “On the lack of women in science: numbers do matter,” he ponders the reasons for the lack of women in science. He attributes one cause to the low self-esteem that girls hold about their capability to excel in science. Furthermore, Jogalekar argues that this low self-esteem is caused by the cultural stereotypes held by the parents, male peers, and society that girls grow up with. From being encouraged to play with dolls when girls are young to being discouraged from applying to graduate school by professors, it seems that throughout a girl’s life, she receives several influences and pressures from society which turn her away from the field of science. In school, many girls are discouraged by their peers’ perspective of science as a subject matter for “nerds”. In response to this outlook, very few girls continue down this science path throughout college. Jogalekar argues that the few young women who do pursue a major in a hard science often experience “imposter syndrome” because they feel that their success is not attributed to their own merit. Despite individual success that girls experience in their college-level science classes, often the phenomenon of the “leaky pipeline” occurs in which many girls are both intentionally and unintentionally swayed away from science by male peers and male professors. This unfortunately results to the problem we face today of very few women pursuing a career in science, especially the fields of math and engineering.

Similar to Jogalekar, in her book “Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and What We Can Do About It,” Eliot also discusses this idea of the “leaky pipeline” and what she believes the causes to be. According to Eliot, in about middle school, girls begin to disidentify with science and math as areas of self-worth and this was encouraged by the boys in their class. At this age, girls are afraid to be unpopular with the boys by being seen as a “science nerd” and therefore, they shy away from these difficult subject areas. Later in life, young women in college begin to question whether they can balance their family life with a demanding science-related career. Most of the time, these barriers are often not faced by men of the same age. Even if girls are not pushed away from the sciences because of their own internal reflections, often the media provides an even stronger influence on the minds of girls. For instance, in Eliot’s book, she discusses how Mattel made a Barbie that chirped a series of phrases including, “Math class is tough,” “let’s go shopping,” and “will we have enough clothes”. This toy stirred a great deal of controversy to the point that the math-related phrase was taken out of the product. Toys like this Barbie hinder the development of girls by placing gender stereotypes in the minds of children. The extent to which the media creates stereotypes for girls was depicted in a study which Eliot discussed in her book. During the study, male and female undergraduates were shown three minutes of television commercials and then given questionnaires about career choices. One group of students was shown gender stereotyping commercials which depicted scenarios such as a woman drooling over a new brownie recipe she wanted to try. In contrast, the second group of students was shown gender neutral commercials. The result was that the women in the first group expressed a dislike for quantitative careers such as engineering and instead they preferred verbal careers such as journalism. On the other hand, the women in the second group expressed more of desire to pursue a quantitative career.

So how can we as a society help increase the number of women in science? Both Eliot and Jogalekar recommend a simple solution of having more female role models in academia who encourage the younger generation to have an interest in math and science. Eliot further argues that mothers of these young girls can be role models simply by showing their own interest in math and science. She emphasizes that the fight against gender stereotyping can begin with parenting. Even if parents can’t control the media, they can still help their young girls develop math and science skills early such as spatial skills, building, technology, and hands-on science activities. By actively combatting these gender stereotypes, there should be no reason for young women to feel any less competent than men to pursue a career in science.

Jogalekar, A. (2013, October). On the lack of women in science: numbers do matter. Scientific American.

Eliot, L. (2009) Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and     What We Can Do About It. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Do All-Girls Schools Breed Feminists or Mean Girls?

Many recent studies have been conducted to determine the efficacy of single-gendered schools versus ones that feature both genders. A recent article from TIME magazine explores whether having only girls in a school generates a positive or negative within-gender attitude.

The article begins by reviewing surprising new studies that suggest girls in single-gendered schools base their own self-worth more on social standing than academic success (as opposed to coed schools, which weigh the opposite more heavily). These results contradict conventional wisdom which would say eliminating the distraction of boys (mainly romantic drama) would lead to greater academic success and less concern regarding social confidence. A lot of this can be explained by the social dosage hypothesis, which claims that when either gender is segregated, each will get an extra strong dose of what it is to be "that gender". 

Although past studies have shown that all-girls schools have empowered women academically, there are many reasons to believe that such an environment could be poisonous to gender equality. 
In her book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps - and What We Can Do About It, Lise Eliot spends a significant portion of a chapter discussing various reasons why single-gendered schools can be harmful. Many of Eliot's arguments are backed by research on "pilot" single-gendered schools. Although a strong positive of single-gendered schools is that each has strong, dedicated teachers of that gender serving as pro-academic role models, Eliot contrasts this with many negatives. In all of the research she has examined regarding the academic achievement of those in single sex schools versus those in coeducational schools, she has found no convincing evidence there is any difference. In addition, segregation tended to reinforce stereotypes, which led to the eventual closing of the pilot schools.  

An underlying theme in Eliot's book is that scientists have only uncovered small differences between the brains of boys and girls, so, naturally, she is against the argument that boys and girls need different educational experiences because their brains are different. Eliot even uses the idea of coed sports as a solution to evening up boys’ and girls’ social-emotional differences as an equal blend of boys and girls would help tone down extreme competitiveness that drives boys away from sports and help girls learn value and joy of team-based competition.

Ultimately, Eliot claims that the strongest argument against single-gender education lies in the reality of adulthood. She makes excellent points that girls and boys will eventually need to learn to work together, respect each other, and compete against each other. While single gender schools may be a good safety blanket for some students, they are never going to close the real gender gaps that Eliot spends her whole book discussing. One of her central points is that each gender has much to learn from the other. According to Eliot, in the past girls have benefited from emulating boys’ more assertive and ambitious ways, while boys have always gained from the studious example and calming influence of girls in classrooms. The article mentions that single-gendered education should not exist because it causes women to act more aggressively towards one another, but the stronger argument against it is that it allows the continuation of gender stereotypes. Coed classes are ultimately a better environment for destroying stereotypes of the opposite sex, just as any stereotype deflates when people get to know one another as individuals. "Single sex classrooms may be temporary fix, but risk of gender stereotyping and loss of mutual understanding makes such segregation a step in wrong direction." 


http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/18/do-all-girls-schools-breed-feminists-or-mean-girls/

Eliot, Lise. Pink Brain, Blue Brain: how small difference grow into troublesome gaps and what we can do about it.New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 2009. Print