Gender and the geosciences

There have been some really good posts/responses about gender (dis)parity in the earth sciences (Eric, Kim, Chuck, etc.), stemming from discussion of an article in the new Nature Geosciences journal (Holmes et al., 2008). I haven’t read the article, but this has been an ongoing discussion on a local women-in-science-and-engineering listserv that I subscribe to. In this case, the input has come from women in all branches of science and from all levels of post-undergraduate education (i.e., M.S., Ph.D., post-doctoral, professors, etc.) It’s interesting to compare these responses with the information from the Holmes et al. (2008) article (courtesy of Eric), and I thought I’d share some of my observations, humble opinions, and a final note on my own experiences thus far.

First, the discussion on the listserv began following the publication of a similar article, in NIH news, referring to a study in the November issue of EMBO Reports (another Nature-related publication). At the NIH, 29% of tenure-track principle investigators (equivalent to an assistant professor) are women, and only 19% are tenured principle investigators (equivalent to a full professor). It appears that this decrease in women working at full professor level is not limited to the geosciences, although the percentages are significantly lower (14% = assistant prof, 8% = full professor). This article concludes that there are two primary reasons for this disparity: family responsibilities and self-confidence. In my view, these are similar to the ‘structural’ problems and ‘intrinsic female’ problems investigated in the Nature Geosciences article. [Eric over at the Dynamic Earth has renamed ‘intrinsic female attributes’ womany-ness, which is fantastic.]

Now, in general, this local list-serv has approximately 10 posts a month, usually information about recent lectures, upcoming events, etc. When the moderator posted this article, well… all hell broke loose listserv-wise. There were 32 posts over 4 days. Many of the responses were from women who had struggled with the ‘structural’ problems of balancing child-care, family responsibilities, etc., and how they had managed these tasks. Others weighed in with information about how they had found mentors and how valuable mentoring relationships were. BUT, NOT ONE replied with what could be characterized as problems with ‘intrinsic female attributes’ (e.g., lack of self-confidence, womany-ness).

If we compare the list-serv responses with the male vs. female responses in the Nature Geosciences article, things get pretty interesting. Only 1 out of 40 women in the article thought that ‘intrinsic female attributes’ may keep women from excelling in geoscience academia. In shocking agreement, none of the 32 listserv respondents suggested womany-ness was ever a problem. Now, I realize that these are two completely separate groups; on one hand we have 40 male and female academic geoscientists polled for the Nature article, and on the other we have women scientists and engineers on a local academic listserv. Still, it’s a pretty neat correlation.

As for my own experiences, I hadn’t thought about it much before, but here are some observations made in light of this discussion:

University #1 – I received an undergrad degree from a small geology department with 2 full professors (both male), and 1 part-time professor (female, working on her PhD).

University #2 – I did grad school at a larger university with 22 full-time faculty, 2 of which were female (never had a class or did research with either).

University #3 – I am working towards a doctorate at a mid-size university with 15 full-time faculty, 1 of which is female and whom I have taken a class with.

Obviously, this dataset is highly biased toward my own individual experiences, but nonetheless it illustrates the 8% problem very nicely. It is also interesting to note that none of these women have children (see Julia’s post and responses); thus, after almost 9 years spent at various universities, I have yet to see a woman balancing children and a career in geoscience academia. This has never bothered me, but it’s an interesting observation.