-
sponsorship
The good news in the study Meghan writes about is that both men and women reported feeling more comfortable in professional groups that included more women. Does this mean that men, too, find predominantly male groups more intimidating? Or less interesting? I was in one of the first co-ed classes at the University of Notre Dame and the reaction we got all the time was, “Five guys for every girl; that must be great!” I knew no one who looked at it that way, but it was not all that harrowing, either. We were feminists who wore knee socks and loved the Virgin Mary, and about the craziest it ever got was at football games, some people would sing, “as our loyal sons and daughters march on to victory.’’ And some not.
When Domers of more recent vintage ask what it was like being a pioneer, I know they want horror stories and maybe the recipe for hoecakes, but all I’ve got for them is that on rare occasions, some stressed-out defender of the old order would lash out—most memorably when one of the few men in my Women in the Bible class stormed out shouting, “Mary Magdalene was a whore, and that’s all there is to it!” A far bigger issue for me was that only a handful of our tenured professors were female. But that, too, has long since changed, and nearly half of all undergraduates are women these days. So what would I tell those aspiring young scientists who see no one like themselves at the conference? In the immortal words of Margaret Spellings, put on your big-girl panties. And go anyway.
-
sponsorship
More on women, science, and stereotype threat: A new study published by Psychological Science of undergraduate women majoring in math, science, and engineering found fresh evidence that cues of gender-imbalance negatively affect not only women's performance but their desire to perform. (The study was conducted by Claude Steele and others.) In the study, some women watched a gender-balanced video about an upcoming conference in their field, while others watched a similar video in which male speakers outnumbered female. The participants who watched the latter video "reported a lower sense of belonging and less desire to participate in the conference, than did women who viewed the gender-balanced video." (Men who watched the videos didn't report any differences in their sense of belonging--but those who watched the video with more women expressed more desire to participate in the conference.) Interestingly, the women experiencing stereotype threat also demonstrated more "cognitive vigilance"--that is, they remembered more about the video and the room in which they saw it than did the first group. More analysis here at Inside Higher Ed (scroll down).
I suppose it hardly bolsters the case for (or against) an all-women's blog--but it may have some bearing on the perennial discussions of why there are more male bloggers than female bloggers in fields like politics.
Via Inside Higher Ed.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?