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<p>Those purchased titles, plus $30 will get you a fine cup of NYC coffee served from a pot which has been sitting around for 12+ hours. :)</p>
<p>As much as I appreciate xiggiâs contributions to CC, it seems to me that the gender imbalance in mathematics in top university departments deserves at least as much attention as xiggiâs title of nobility.</p>
<p>I admire Meg Urryâs work to expose the challenges that still face women in STEM fields. I would imagine that these challenges are general, and not limited to academia. However, I think that the articles she links and that she posts should be taken in small doses, to avoid discouragement.</p>
<p>For undergraduate women, there are still plenty of women at the next stage up, to serve as role models. For those going into academia, that would be grad students. At a rough estimate, about 25-35% of grad students in the sciences and mathematics are women (maybe more in biologyâin fact, parity among the grad students may have been achieved thereâpossibly fewer in some areas). In engineering, I think the %s are lower, but there are still women grad students around. There tends to be a bit of a drop-off at the post-doctoral level, so that women graduate students have fewer available role models the next stage upâthis is where they may need to look outside their own universities. </p>
<p>When it comes to women Assistant Professors to serve as role models for grad students and post-docs, I recommend that the women Assistant Professors not be sought out. It takes a great deal of concentrated work to set up an experimental lab, or get a completely independent research program going in mathematics. There are so few women Assistant Professors in STEM fields that they are very busy helping undergrads at their own universities and helping their own grad students and post-docs. They are also called to serve on all of the committees that need young women representatives. If you must have an Assistant Professor as a role model, ask a man.</p>
<p>In most universities, Associate Professors are tenured, so while they will be quite busy (though no doubt no busier than PG), they will be slightly more relaxed. In other universities, the Associate Professors are not tenured and they are facing an impending time crunch of finding another position while keeping the research group running.</p>
<p>Full Professors and Professors Emeritae are likely to be helpful in terms of offering advice, but the circumstances that most of them have faced are different from the circumstances facing young women now. This is not to say that it is easier now. Many of the systemic obstacles have been removed; but in my personal opinion, the attitudinal obstacles, when averaged over the population that creates them [mostly male], are worse for a young woman today than they were when I was entering the field. Of course, there are plenty of men who will encourage young women in scienceâbut there are more who are likely to block them than there used to be. Again, just my opinion.</p>
<p>This is where the stories of the ânon-currentâ women in STEM can be really helpful, because they faced difficulties as stiff as todayâs.</p>
<p>So far in my career trajectory, the only thing that has really affected me is some of the inappropriate comments Iâve received from grad students and undergrads, not faculty members. Comments relating to women as sex objects in front of me, claiming that women receive unfair advantages and are not criticized as harshly as men. One grad student told me that for a man to get into Harvard, he had to be significantly more qualified that a woman. Not true at all! When I went to the open houses at top ten physics schools, the women were just as impressive as the men in terms of their research experience and knowledge and in their academic performance. The only small difference was that the women were more likely to have lower physics GRE scores, but everyone acknowledges that it is a biased test and barely reveals anything about oneâs ability. The Chicago department chair said when the plotted professor rankings of applications against gre scores they saw no correlation. At Harvard they explicitly told us that all the admits in my subfield were women just because they had been the best applicants.</p>
<p>The faculty members in my department have all been very supportive of me. I also agree with an earlier poster that those with daughters are especially attuned to the struggles women may face.</p>
<p>There have been times where I was the only woman in a class but once I got used to it I was fine. I fit in like everyone else.</p>
<p>QM,Mathematics, Physics, and engineering departments are still top heavy with men. This does not seem to be surprising or news to any of us. Glad that women like you and Poeme are making inroads in that and , like anything, will take time for more shift in the gender imbalance. If you look at other departments, like languages, art history,etc. , you are less likely to see the major gender imbalances you see in the fields that have traditionally been predominantly male.</p>
<p>But xiggi wanting to be a Baron. Now thatâs surprising!
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<p>If you look at other departments, like languages, art history,etc. , you are less likely to see the major gender imbalances you see in the fields that have traditionally been predominantly male.</p>
<p>At what point are we satisfied with the balance? If you look up âlanguages, art history,etc.â at your kidsâ colleges what is the female/male ratio with regard to full professors? What about tenured associate professors. It might be an eye opener.</p>
<p>Obviously Iâm not trying to redirect from the math/science discussion.
; )</p>
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<p>âBiasedâ? Do you mean flawed instead? Surely you donât think that the physics GRE is somehow inherently biased against women. How would that even be possible?</p>
<p>Grad school is taken seriously by professors as it directly supports their research. I am not positive they have gender-based affirmative action at all for it.</p>
<p>Just one more thought. My generation is now full professor age. When there arenât an equal number of female full professors⊠big problem imho. I am not going to be swayed by the argument perhaps the majority chose some kind of mommy tract.</p>
<p>My SIL is a full professor and Department Chair (but in a humanities field) at a top 20 university. She does have children but waited until her late 30âs to have her first child. Her husband (my BIL) is tenured but only an associate professor at the same school! But this thread is , in my opinion, already overly focused on academia so hope we donât go off on another tangent about the inequities in academia. . </p>
<p>^okay. I wonât post my results of full profs in art history at HYP : )</p>
<p>I do think gender imbalances among faculty impact students who arenât considering academic careers.</p>
<p>I couldnât resist looking, alh! Here is the faculty at Harvard for History of Art: <a href=âhttp://www.haa.fas.harvard.edu/people-terms/facultyâ>http://www.haa.fas.harvard.edu/people-terms/faculty</a></p>
<p>To take it off of academia, how about role models in the toy world. Legoâs women scientists flew off the shelves, but there are no plans to make more of them? 
<a href=âhttp://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/legos-line-of-female-scientists-for-girls-is-a-sellout-but-its-short-lived/articleshow/40684168.cmsâ>http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/legos-line-of-female-scientists-for-girls-is-a-sellout-but-its-short-lived/articleshow/40684168.cms</a></p>
<p>sevmom: wonderful - right?
now look at P : (</p>
<p>Iâm googling English depts now, </p>
<p>mathmom, My boys LOVED Legoâs. I still have all of them , waiting for future grandchildren, boy or girl. The female scientist limited edition sounded like it was very popular. So, maybe (hopefully), they will bring out more of those types of sets down the line-maybe a physicist, engineer, and computer scientist next time!</p>
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<a href=âhttp://chronicle.com/article/The-Pyramid-Problem/126614/â>http://chronicle.com/article/The-Pyramid-Problem/126614/</a></p>
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<a href=âSalary Guide: Purdue department heads face gender inequality with salary, selectionâ>http://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_dbf8934d-be18-5bb7-b627-f5268b5bb8ce.html</a></p>
<p><a href=âWomen in science: A new study on how male professors discriminate against women in scientific labs.â>http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/06/women_in_science_a_new_study_on_how_male_professors_discriminate_against.html</a></p>
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<p>If those inappropriate comments from undergrad/grad students you experienced were like the ones I heard/saw among most male older engineering/CS managers/supervisors and a few colleagues in my age group in the IT field, it is a mix of âGurls not allowedâ mentality along with a toxic serving of unresolved nerd angst/anger at being bullied/belittled by peers, teachers/admins, and even parents for being nerdy.**** </p>
<p>One driving force is the feeling the safe haven they found where they can fully embrace their full nerdyness is being invaded by âfake nerdsââŠespecially the very âpopular/pretty peopleâ whose presence will overwhelm and destroy that very safe haven. </p>
<p>Women, especially those who conform to fashion norms or worse, embrace it and males who donât subscribe 100% to the nerdy customs/hobbies/norms* are viewed in the same light as the popular kidsâŠincluding jocks, âpretty boysâ**, and girls/women who ostracized or even bullied them back in a mainstream US high school where the nerds were at the very bottom of the HS social pyramid. </p>
<p>In a perverse way, this is their way of getting petty revenge by keeping the âfake nerdsâ out of âtheir clubhouseâ. </p>
<ul>
<li>Fanatical love of comic books, sci-fi, anime, sometimes RPGs like D & D, computers/technology, discussing advanced academic topics for hours at a timeâŠespecially STEM subjects. Added to that a strong disdain for mainstream fashion norms which sometimes extends to rejecting even basic hygienic norms***. My lack of interest in some of those things was held against me in some work groups I was placed in at past jobs.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>** Boys/men who are fashion clotheshorses and come from well-off families who can finance that lifestyle.</p>
<p>*** I.e. Some MIT CS students who were known on campus for living in the computer labs for days without showering with the expected odor/funk permeating those labs back in the late '90s/early '00s. Observed similar things at some past Sci-Fi/anime conventions Iâve attended/chaperoned. There was a reason why those running conventions had to place large posters encouraging some convention attendees to take showers daily during the hot muggy summers when those conventions were held. </p>
<p>**** Made more understandable by some disdainful anti-nerd attitudes I see here on CC from some parents. </p>
<p>No, @collegealum, I actually do mean it is biased against women. Several professors have said that. Women on average score 150 points lower. Howard Georgi said in an interview that of his best students, a few of the women had actually performed poorly on the physics GRE. I thinks itâs partially because the PGRE is about speed and memorization and women are disproportionately affected by anxiety in these areas. That was always my problem.</p>
<p>Iâm surprised that no one has mentioned the Grace Hopper conference. Itâs specifically aimed at encouraging female undergraduates in computer science, and it seems to really make a big difference in attracting and retaining women in CS. <a href=âhttp://gracehopper.org/â>http://gracehopper.org/</a></p>
<p>There was an article in todayâs New York Times about the Lego Research Institute toy with the female scientists. It has pictures of some âwomen scientistsâ in the set. If you want to purchase a set, they are still available on Amazon right now, though not directly from Amazon.</p>
<p>(I have no connection with Amazon, Lego, nor any of the sellers of these toys. But I did buy a set! This morning.)</p>
<p>@IJustDrive, Grace Hopper and this conference are also mentioned here: <a href=âBuilding a Sense of Belonging at Google and Beyondâ>Building a Sense of Belonging at Google and Beyond; There seem to be more conferences and events all the time that should help with getting more women into the tech pipeline. </p>
<p>On the general topic of role models: Granted that race is a construct, and it is not possible to deduce a personâs race from a picture, nevertheless Berkeleyâs Department of Mathematics appears to be very short on African-Americans. One person, Alexander Paulin, is not pictured, but I am not holding my breath about him.</p>
<p>(Yeah, never mindâI Googled him. If his picture had been included, it would have made no difference.)</p>