The Gendered Mind—another myth that will not die

I am much more mellow now than I used to be. Sure I'm willing to fight when I think a fight is called for. But I think I was much more of an intellectual pugilist when I was, say, age 16 to 21.

While at The University of Michigan, I found a place for that energy. In a response to the then-new Moral Majority, a statewide grass-roots response was organized: The Voice of Reason (later to become a national organization called Americans for Religious Liberty—not a name I was excited about).

Since my interests and aptitudes lay in science, my "beat" within the organization gravitated toward the creationism debate. Among my first credited by-lines was the article I wrote for the campus publication, Consider. It was a simple, single-sheet (11"x17" brochure folded to 8.5" x 11") that featured one-page essays on the inside facing pages. A topic was identified, and authors were found for pro and con pieces. But I digress.

I was heartened by the the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court decision that was argued months into my first year of teaching and handed down a few months later. It wasn't unanimous, but it was 7-2. I naïvely thought the issue was settled. But of course, it wasn't.

Years later in Pennsylvania, creationism newer iteration, "intelligent design" had to be put down by the courts in The Dover Case (Kitzmiller v. Dover). You would be naïve to imagine that that will be the end of the debate over maintaining the integrity of biology instruction in public schools. Judicial precedent doesn't seem to stick on this debate.

When I authored my master's thesis on gender equity in physics instruction, I came across the notion of the gendered mind. Boys were supposedly better with spatial geometry and mathematics while girls were better with language and communication. But the research supporting these "common sense" notions was weak. It seemed to be born from age-old gender bias, and the differences found by researchers were tenuous at best.

But they floated effortlessly in the updraft of societal and cultural gender norms. The supposed science presented a story that was "too good to be verified." And so it persists. To this day, it persists.

All of that to introduce a story I came across on Audm. The abridged title was "Of Two Minds".

The Discredited Science Behind the Rise of Single-Sex Public Schools

There are many important take-aways in this thorough investigation. One of them is that as an instructor, there's a good chance you will be subjected to these notions in a school or district-sanctioned in-service professional development session. You will be frowning in disapproval, but colleagues will be nodding in agreement. And it has to be legit, right? It was approved by administrators and district personnel.

It will fall upon you to rise up and put a stop to it. The cavalry isn't coming. You—and it may be you, alone—can shut this nonsense down before it goes any further. Arm yourself with articles like this so that you will have the strength that comes from knowing. And do the right thing.

Representation matters in Physics

Some of the hesitance that our students have about studying science is this misconception that you can only "do science" if you're "smart enough." Humanizing those that pursue science and their path to a STEM job helps more students consider doing the same.  A Twitter account called @RealScientists has a new curator each week to share their particular corner of science with the world. They have a whole week to talk about their specific job, the path they took to get there, publications, unique and funny memories, what they wish everyone knew about their field, etc. Some hashtags have gone viral to show the human side of scientists like #PregnantintheField with which female scientists share pictures of themselves with baby bumps while carrying out field research. The universal #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob hashtag gets really funny when scientists get a hold of it.

While most of us recognize that people come in all different shapes, sizes, colors and backgrounds outwardly acknowledging it is important in your classroom. In a time when many are feeling less welcome in our own spaces (work, home, country, etc) it is vital that we actively work to recognize marginalized groups in our fields and help to lift their voices.

On June 4th a new Twitter account @500QueerSci was launched with the purpose of bringing awareness of LGBTQ+ people working in STEM related jobs during the annual Pride Month. Their goal was to reach 500 personal stories and by mid July were at 630 biographies. People can submit their abbreviated biographies, pictures and social media links to be added to the catalog. The full list is found on their companion website 500QueerScientists.com.

The resource is amazing and as many have said when they first tweet their own featured biographies  they wish such a thing had been available when they were young. It serves as a reminder to young LGBTQ+ people interested in science that they are not alone and that can be life changing.

I recently went back to the website hoping to find a search bar to type "physics" into so that I could have a list of many LGBTQ+ people with backgrounds or jobs in the fields  of physics. I could not find one so I tweeted at @500QueerSci and asked:

@500QueerSci is there a plan in the works to make the stories searchable by field? I would love to be able to show my students some specific stories of 🏳️‍🌈scientists in related fields to what I teach.

— Bree BarnettDreyfuss (@BarnettDreyfuss) July 13, 2018

They responded that such a feature was in the works but in the meantime offered to find such profiles for me. Below are the names and links they provided:

1. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
2. Izzy Jayasinghe
3. Giampiero Mancinelli
4. Axiel Yael Birenbaum
5. Nicole Ackerman
6. Tzula Propp
7. Shawn Cole-Woods
8. Kelsey Collier
9. Carlos Arguelles
10. Aidan Robson
11. Ana Barbara Rodriquez Cavalcante
12. Beck Strauss
13. Kerstin Nordstrom
14. Tessa Carver
15. Christopher Aubin
16. Robert Newberry
17. Jost Migenda
18. Andrew Princep
19. John Barentine
20. Mackenzie Warren
21. Katie Mack
22. Ashley Spindler
23. JJ Eldridge
24. Stephen Lawrence
25. Alysa Obertas
26. Nick Geitner
27. Andrew Welsh
28. Georgia Squyres

So I have a list, now what? I intend to use it. I've seen several lessons and activities in the last year promoting learning about diverse modern scientists, not just the "dead white guys" we find in our textbooks. Depending on your school and community's comfort level you could do a few things with such a list; and the same could be done for scientists of color and women. 

• Whenever a particular field comes up in class, say astrophysicist, feature an LGBTQ+ person or person of color instead of whoever is at the top of a Google search list. 
• "Profile a scientist" activities are already usually limited to exclude the few that everyone already knows about like Einstein or Curie or Tesla. If you're going to set restrictions for who they can't research you may find yourself just producing a list from which students have to choose. And look at that, you have a class set (or almost) of physics related names right up there! How convenient!
• You can present the list in its entirety, or the full website, for students to explore st their own pace. You can lead a discussion or offer reflection time for students to think about the featured scientists' paths through education and the hardships they may have endured for being LGBTQ+, why their visibility is important, etc. 
• Make posters of the featured physics related persona biographies to display in your classroom or school all year.
• Feature an LGBTQ+, woman and/or person of color that is in the STEM field each week in your classroom. 

There are lots more things you could do to help expose your students to a more diverse world of STEM, but that should be a start! I encourage you to read through the biographies above and more to learn more about our very diverse and large STEM community. If you have any other fabulous lessons to share please let me know!

Edit: I was able to add a few more resources I could not find the first time around thanks to recent AAPT plenary Frank Nochese:

The hashtag #ActualLivingScientists is used by all kinds of, well, actual living scientists, to share information about their work and why its cool. Several teachers print out some of these profiles to make displays in their classrooms or around

Heather Waterman @WatermanPhysics makes a daily doodle on her board about a scientists from an underrepresented group. I have a minor in art and I still don't know if I could draw a scene every day that was this good!

177:180 Marine Zoologist Mary J. Rathburn 🦐🦀#dailydatedoodle #womeninSTEM #WomeninSTEAM https://t.co/Y0WGcV4TCQ pic.twitter.com/bTcO6LWIdR

— Heather Waterman (@watermanphysics) June 13, 2018

Gender issues at West Point and beyond

Gender barriers have fallen (or are falling) in many areas of US society. But nationwide gender equity nirvana remains elusive. Physics and engineering appear to be areas in which progress is slow compared to other academic fields. And evidence shows that "scientists prefer gentlemen."

So does West Point. The Army academy admits men over women by a 6 to 1 ratio. Some insiders worry that this is intentional.

"I spoke to a number of faculty members who said that there's an explicit class composition goal at West Point that actually functions as a ceiling, and that women haven't risen above 16 percent because the academy only wants 16 percent."

Read and/or listen to the report here: West Point Women: A Natural Pattern Or A Camouflage Ceiling?

By dragging its heels on gender-blindness in admissions, West Point is placing the Army at a disadvantage in terms of attracting and preparing the best military leadership America has to offer.

There is a proud West Point graduate at my school. He authors a blog called Right on the Left Coast, and he is not bashful about expressing his opinions. Whether or not he, as a West Point grad, harbors any gender bias is not for me to say. To the best of my knowledge, he teaches his subject well and is well-regarded by students.

When a West Point classmate went public with her account of sexual harassment and rape at the academy, he quickly called her story into question.

When an obscure academic attempted to show—statistically—that males are superior to females in mathematical aptitude, he found room to promote this biased and misleading analysis on his blog. The study did not appear in learned (peer-reviewed) journals, but rather as a post on a Libertarian website.

Though I offered a counterpoint to that post as a comment, he elected not to publish it. And that is entirely his right as owner of that blog.

In any case, I look forward to the day when gender equity is the norm, and the incidents of sexual harassment and gender bias in the military seem as out of place as the now-unacceptable sexist behavior exhibited on AMC's Mad Men.

Physicists prefer gentlemen

Remember those exposés where identical applications are submitted to decision-makers, but one applicant is this while the other applicant is that? (The "this" and "that" might be different races: one applicant's name is "Dustin" while the other's is "DeShawn".) When the decision-makers show consistent, statistically significant preference for the "this" applicants (Caucasian) over the "that" applicants (African-American), such studies reveal bias.

Such a study was conducted among tenured scientists. And scientists prefer gentlemen.

Physicsworld.com has the skinny:

Undertaken by psychologist Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues from Yale University, the study involved 127 tenured scientists across six universities in the US being asked to provide feedback on an excerpt from a job application for a graduate-level lab-technician post at another institution. The excerpt – developed by an academic panel – was designed to be as realistic as possible and was identical, except that 64 of the scientists were told the applicant's name was Jennifer, while the other 63 were told the applicant's name was John. The scientists were told that their feedback would help the applicant's career development, unaware that both the candidate and the post were fictitious. The candidate was painted as promising but not exceptional.

The study found not only that the scientists rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant, but also that the hirers would have given the male student a higher starting salary. "Male and female science-faculty members, including physicists, said they were more likely to hire the male student," says Moss-Racusin. "They also offered to pay him about $4000 more per year on average and were more likely to offer him career mentoring, relative to the identical female student."

In fairness, the bias was seen in chemistry and biology as well as physics.

Gender bias problems continue in physics. I wrote my master's thesis about gender equity in the physics classroom. Whenever I bring up the subject, colleagues tend to treat it as an attack and fend me off as the attacker. Which frustrates me, since it looks like folks prefer a heads-in-the-sand approach.

I don't have any answers beyond acknowledging the problem exists. The solutions proposed by classroom-bias researchers were essentially, "Engage in good teaching practices and refrain from bad teaching practices." Nothing gender-specific.

The one gender-specific finding I do recall is that boys do better when there are girls in the classroom while girls do better when there are no boys in the classroom. And that doesn't help. Short of compelling holography techniques, creating girl-only classes for girls and mixed-gender classes for boys isn't physics-ly possible.

Study Debunks Myths About Gender and Math Performance

ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — A major study of recent international data on school mathematics performance casts doubt on some common assumptions about gender and math achievement -- in particular, the idea that girls and women have less ability due to a difference in biology.

Don't look for widespread coverage of this study in the mainstream media. The MSM prefers stories wherein hard-nosed science finds that there are important biological brain differences between the genders. The narrative is then, "Why look, the old adage about 'snips and snails' vs. 'sugar and spice' turns out to be true, after all. Science proves it!"

The linked article above includes sidebar links to great stories related to this ongoing debate. The widely accepted stereotypes that boys are better at math while girls are better at language have no basis in biology.

Jennifer Ouellette on "low-temperature physics"

We prefer to imagine that gender issues in the physics community are a thing of the past.

They are not.

Zombie Marie Curie is here!

and well-intentioned marginalizers gonna have some 'splainin' to do.

Dig in! (Click the first panel to get the rest of the story.)

WoPHY 09

The University of Nebraska - Lincoln is bringing together outstanding undergraduate women researchers in Physics for a three-day conference, from Friday, October 30th through Sunday, November 1st.

Seems like a good idea to me. A gender imbalance persists in physics. You can argue about the reasons for it. You can argue whether it's anyone's fault. But I don't think you can argue that it's a good thing that ought to be fortified in future years.

I've argued for a long time that we need all the sharp minds we can get working on the unsolved problems of physics. WoPHY 09 appears to be directed toward greater inclusion and support. I hope it's a good conference, is well attended, and generates energy for WoPHY 10.

Thanks to Phil at BadAstronomy.com.

UPDATE: It appears that USC has a similar conference, going into it's fifth year. Huzzah!

They're never too young to train

Target: doing what they can to encourage girls to study math and science. (This page was taken from a slick Target catalog/ad mailed out during the holiday season.) Thankfully, gender stereotypes in popular culture died out in the 1960s.

ETA: The versions of this ad in order of probability that you'll see them
1. Mom vacuums with daughter
2. Dad vacuums with daughter
3. Mom vacuums with son
4. Dad vacuums with son
(I might have 2 and 3 in the wrong order.)

Science PhD gender gap narrowing?

It could be that I lack the proper optimism, but the trend didn't appear as earth-shattering to me as it did to the author of the article. Especially the most recent data points! When the top bar on the graph is at 50%, I'll breathe a little easier. Until then, there is work to be done. Click the graph to get the full story from the Sacramento Bee.

Among the best lines from the article: "[Suzanne} Barber, a fourth-year doctoral student, is one engineer who hopes the phenomenon leads teenage girls to discover the sciences and reject frivolous media portrayals of young women. 'This idea -- be like Paris Hilton or Mandy Moore. I think it's important to show a different side of what a woman can be,' said Barber, who is studying materials science engineering.


Bonus blogpoints if you can identify what's wrong with the graph. Comment away!

"Your mother and I were talking...

We see that you signed up for physics next semester. Hey, that's great; good for you!

The thing is, we've been keeping track of the latest research in gender-based differences in cognitive abilities, and it turns out physics is more of a "guy class." More males than females scored exceptionally well on a math test given in an enrichment course for high-achieving students at Johns Hopkins, and other studies show that boys often outperform girls in tests of spatial visualization.

So we were thinking you might want to drop physics and sign up for that communications class. The research says girls excel in verbal communication skills.

We only want what's best for you."

I'll give you moment to shake that off. You know, there's no prouder moment for a blog author than when he or she can ask colleagues, "So, have you been following that lively internet discussion on my blog?" I jest. It has been suggested that "lively internet discussion" is an oxymoron of sorts. But I digress.

Amidst the gender-based cognitive differences discussion going on at this blog, I've seen many calls for "let the research be done!" This sentiment follows a noted Ben Franklin quote, "Let the experiment be made." Then again, none of us would have to stretch our imagination too much to envision experiments that shouldn't be made.

What I haven't seen is anyone stepping up to tell me what the point would be. So let me start the song and invite anyone to chime in.

The research results are in. Gender-based cognitive differences have been identified. As a result of these findings, we're now going to... OK, that's where I got nothin'. Somebody go ahead and pick it up from here. (Kindly keep in mind that all such "findings" so far have been insignificant when compared to individual variations within a given gender.) I hope no one suggests parents start having the discussion at the top of this post.

Anyway, tell me the what the application of the research results might be. I am eager to learn.

Gender imbalances and horror stories

I had the good fortune of seeing Australian guitar sensation Tommy Emmanuel perform in Berkeley last night. As if that weren't enough, I was sitting next to Karen Stollznow a tireless Australian skeptic, author, and linguist (and creator of the pope-tart).

We had a chance to chat here and there, and I cringed when she recounted her high school physics horror story. Not because I hadn't hear such accounts before. I am well aware of the harsh treatment of girls and women in physics courses in high school and college. I wrote my master's thesis on the gender imbalance in physics education. So the novelty of hearing about the mistreatment, alienation, and marginalization of girls in high school physics classes is gone. OK, the stories still make me cringe because of the stupidity and shortsightedness of the teachers involved.

I cringed at this story because my Australian skeptic friend was not old enough to have been in high school physics in the 1950s or 60s when a girl in a physics class was a rarity. She was young enough to let me know this kind of damaging BS is still going on. Will these backward geezers never retire? Or at least realize that the 50s are over?

Anyway, my gender imbalance sensibilities were no-doubt heightened by the recent re-examination of the 2003 American Council of Education regarding gender imbalance on the college campus. In 2003, the council found that men were lagging behind women in terms of college enrollment. The re-examination finds the gap isn't quite what it was originally thought to be.

Women certainly don't outpace men in the physics and engineering programs. And while we would like to believe that male bias in physics education is a thing of the past, a 1998 study tells a different tale. In it, the authors concluded that males had a better sense of simple ciruits than females. The evidence? When males incorrectly wired a battery and bulb circuit, they created a short circuit. When females incorrectly wired a battery and bulb circuit, they created an open circuit. Of course, neither circuit was successful in lighting the bulb. But the males' short circuit succeeded in destroying the battery, and was deemed the superior incorrect solution.

So there you have it: the smoking gun! Larry Summers was right all along! I don't know why girls even sign up for physics...