Solving the gender bias in the sciences

"You're the best girls in Integrated!" shouted an animated male student as two aspiring scientists left the room. My fellow first-year Integrated Science sequence students, of whom only three of 19 are female, had organized a casual party to celebrate our completion of the sequence's first semester. The party was drawing to a close when the departure of the remaining female students provoked this statement, consequently reminding me of the gender bias in the sciences.

The bias lies in the fact that female mathematicians, scientists and engineers are often judged by a different standard than their male counterparts. It has been well-documented at the higher levels of academia and received significant attention two years ago following controversial comments by then-Harvard president Larry Summers. Before the party, I had thought that the days of gender bias were numbered — surely, having grown up in an environment that enforces gender distinctions far less than did the environment in which current academics grew up in did, our generation would not maintain the bias of our predecessors. I can only hope that the incident I witnessed is not representative of the sentiments of most young scientists, or else we may be in for another generation of unfairness.

All efforts must be made to make math, science and engineering more accessible to interested women. At the university level, one issue that often prevents women from becoming tenured professors is that tenure decisions usually occur around the same time that women begin to have children. Taken at face value, the tenure process seems just because men and women technically face the same process. Since women are typically the primary caregivers for their children, however, they frequently do not have as much time to work as their male counterparts. Mothers are thus judged on a different standard because they have less time to fulfill the same requirements. Thankfully, the University instituted a policy in 2005 that automatically grants new parents of both sexes an extra year before the tenure decision. This marked one step toward reducing the number of significant barriers that discouraging women from pursuing a career in the sciences.

There remain certain gender biases that are widely accepted by some who seek to increase the number of women in the sciences. If you'll remember, gender bias is defined as being judged by a different standard because of sex. There is also bias present, therefore, in aspects of the academic system that are easier for women than for men.

There is evidence that university admissions in math, science and engineering have become biased in this way; making the system fairer for women might have been confused with giving them an unfair advantage. For example, in 2006, Princeton's acceptance rate for women in graduate-level science and engineering was 2.4 percent higher than the rate for their male counterparts. At MIT, the discrepancy is much greater. Women applying for undergraduate admission in 2005 were 16 percent more likely to be accepted than men. If we operate from the assumption that the male and female applicants were on average equally qualified, then the reverse bias becomes clear. More data must be analyzed before any conclusions can be drawn, but this data nonetheless hints at a disturbing trend.

These examples of disproportionate admission for women in the sciences resemble affirmative action; the traditionally underrepresented group is accepted at an unexpectedly high rate. Though I do not have room in this column to argue for or against race-based affirmative action, I will point out that one of the crucial arguments for keeping affirmative action does not apply to the case of women in the sciences. The argument is that race-based affirmative action brings together different cultures, fostering cross-cultural growth. Unless you are of the opinion that men and women belong to separate cultures, this argument carries no weight in the debate over disproportionate admission for women in the sciences.

Ultimately, the best way to solve the gender bias in the sciences is to maintain equality of opportunity for both sexes by assuring that neither is ever judged by a different standard. I can only hope that it is not long before professors in the midst of the tenure process, first year Integrated Science students and all scientists in between feel no effects of gender bias. Michael Medeiros is a freshman from Bethesda, MD. He may be reached at mmedeiro@princeton.edu.