Women in Science and Engineering

Up to Succeeding in Graduate School

Associations for Women in S&E

History

Reproductive Success for Working Scientists: "Long ago, I found myself pregnant while working as a postdoc at a federal institute. I was blessed with what seemed like the ideal situation for a mammal who wanted to increase her Darwinian fitness while enhancing her chances for tenure. I would be able to give birth and raise the baby past that difficult first year before I had to throw myself into the academic job market in search of a faculty position. Perfect, I thought."
Women in Math Project: This web site is host to numerous links to information about publications, people, associations, opportunities, activities, and statistics relating to women in mathematics.
Women in Biology Internet Launch Page: Links to topics around the web relevant to women in biology at all stages, but especially focused on graduate, postdoctoral, and levels beyond. Includes history, organizations, career issues, and aspects of the chilly climate.
Academic Careers & Babies: Personal accounts of UC Davis women faculty.
How Women Make Science Work: by Kristen Philipkoski , Wired News, December 27, 2000. "In the world of science and engineering, the small percentage of female scientists reflects the hurdles woman encounter in those fields. Carol Kovac is a study in breaking through the stereotypes."
The Laws of Physics: The Chronicle, 11/11/2005. "As a postdoctoral researcher, Sherry M.J. Towers thought she had all the rights of a university employee. After a careful reading of her university's handbook, she calculated that she could take three months off after the birth of her second child, in 2003. But before her daughter was three weeks old, Ms. Towers was back in her research office — making presentations at meetings, consulting with a graduate student she supervised, and finishing a paper. Her infant daughter, still too young for a day-care center, sat stashed in a car seat under Ms. Towers's desk."
CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computer Science and Engineering: Lots of links relevant to women in computer science and computer engineering. CRA also runs several programs of its own.
US Equal Employment Laws and Regulations: This page contains pointers to information about US federal equal employment laws and regulations which may be relevant to academics and researchers in computer science (or similar fields).
Stanford promises graduate student moms 12 weeks of paid maternity leave: "Stanford University on Thursday promised its women graduate students 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, a bold step aimed at attracting and retaining female intellectual talent. The policy -- believed to be the second of its kind among major U.S. universities -- also guarantees that new mothers can maintain full-time student status and eases their return to classwork, research, and teaching."
Barriers to Women in Academic Science and Engineering: In Willie Pearson Jr. and Irwin Fechter eds. Who Will Do Science? Educating the Next Generation, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Accomplished Women: HHMI Bulletin, June 2002. "The climb to the top is not easy, but a new group of women is moving into the upper ranks of science. They urge young faculty to aim high--just brace for the inevitable obstacles."
The Reluctant Feminist: New York Times, April 8, 2001. "Two years ago, Dr. Hopkins led a knot of women professors who documented pervasive bias at M.I.T., prompting the university to admit it had unintentionally discriminated against female faculty members. The admission from such a prominent institution and its moves to correct inequities have resonated widely. There had been other reports at other universities, but this one looked beyond the numbers, to how women were treated."
Achieving Gender Equity in Science Classrooms: A Guide for Faculty: A handbook "compiled by women science students and science faculty and staff at NECUSE Colleges and based upon initial work by students at Brown University."
Does Science Promote Women?: Ginther and Kahn use data from the NSF's Survey of Doctorate Recipients (the SDR) to estimate the chances of obtaining a tenure track position and of subsequent promotions as a function of sex and other explanatory variables. Their findings, in a nutshell: 1) Overall, women are less likely to obtain tenure track positions in the sciences, 2) However, the gap is entirely explained (in a statistical sense) by marriage and children, 3) Furthermore, there is little sex-related difference in the likelihood promotion to tenure or full professor.
Women in Science: "This article explores this fourth possible explanation for the dearth of women in science: They found better jobs."
Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering: Many interesting links can be found at this site.
Crashing the Top: by Ann Douglas, Salon Magazine, October 11, 1999. "Women at elite universities may have broken the ivory ceiling, but they're still battling old-fashioned discrimination."
Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics Conferences & The Math/Science Network: The first Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conference for 6th- 12th grade young women happened in 1976, since then over 550,000 young women have attended these popluar annual conferences held in over 100 sites throughout the USA. They have been encouraged to take more math classes in school and aspire to be a scientist or engineer. Our website describes the Network's history, current organization and lists all the current EYH sites.
Managing Your Career Through a Pregnancy: ScienceCareers.org "Pregnancy poses challenges in a researcher's career. Terms of employment may be unclear. A laboratory environment can be treacherous. And the vocational nature of a research career means that pregnant women often feel uncomfortable about adapting their work to their pregnancy or making cover arrangements for when they are on maternity leave. Pregnant scientists may also find that the level of benefits and support they receive depends on the stage of their career and the sector they work in."
Exploring your future in math and science: The results of a class project in a women's studies course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It contains advice for high school girls on careers in math and science.
From Scarcity to Visibility: Gender Differences in the Careers of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers: National Academy Press, 2001. "Although women have made important inroads in science and engineering since the early 1970s, their progress in these fields has stalled over the past several years. This study looks at women in science and engineering careers in the 1970s and 1980s, documenting differences in career outcomes between men and women and between women of different races and ethnic backgrounds."
Women and Computer Science: Many links about women in computer science can be found here.
The Experiences of Young Women in Science: Rachael Hawkins examines the experiences in women in science.
New Rights for Pregnant Grad Students: "The last few years have seen a burst of activity by colleges to help professors balance the responsibilities of life on the tenure track with the responsibilities of being a new parent. But what about graduate students who become parents? Many do — and must largely fend for themselves, negotiating leaves with their advisers and departments. That’s why experts are hailing a move just announced by Stanford University’s chemistry department to adopt a formal policy for graduate students who are pregnant."
Asian Scientists Hit a Ceiling: by Kristen Philipkoski, Wired News, February 25, 2000. "Only six percent of all Asian Americans employed by universities hold faculty or administrative positions, a statistic far out of whack with their accomplishments."
Women and Mathematics: An informative site maintained by The Math Forum.
Gender Differences in the Careers of Academic Scientists and Engineers: "We find evidence that female scientists and engineers are less successful than their male counterparts in traveling along the academic career path. Some of this disparity appears to be related to differences between the sexes in the influence of family characteristics. Typically, married women and women with children are less successful than men who are married and have children. Our estimates of gender differences in success rates are relatively insensitive to characteristics of academic employers and to primary work activity."
Is The Gender Gap In Unemployment Disappearing?: NSF Issue Brief 97-323. "This Issue Brief contrasts trends in the gender gap in unemployment among doctoral scientists and engineers with trends in the larger labor force and examines the question of whether marriage and children have different effects on unemployment among men and women."
How Large is the Gap in Salaries of Male and Female Engineers?: A multivariate analysis of salaries of male and female engineers shows that differences are almost totally explained by the number of years of experience.
9 Universities Will Address Sex Inequities: New York Times, January 31, 2001. "Acknowledging that women face hurdles in the fields of science and engineering, the leaders of nine of the nation's top universities have vowed to work together and individually toward "equity and full participation" of their female faculty members." (Requires free registration)
Gender Equity Issues Affecting Senate Faculty at UCLA: Report of the Gender Equity Committee, October 10, 2000. Requires Adobe Acrobat.
Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science: Ceci and Williams, PNAS. "We conclude that differential gendered outcomes in the real world result from differences in resources attributable to choices, whether free or constrained, and that such choices could be inﬂuenced and better informed through education if resources were so directed. Thus, the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing, and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort: Society is engaged in the present in solving problems of the past, rather than in addressing meaningful limitations deterring women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers today. Addressing today’s causes of underrepresentation requires focusing on education and policy changes that will make institutions responsive to differing biological realities of the sexes."
Gender Differences in Major Federal External Grant Programs: An analysis by the RAND Corporation of gender differences in the federal grantmaking process. The study found no major differences for the NSF and the USDA. However, the NIH awarded smaller amounts of funding to women, particularly at the high end of the award spectrum.
Postdocs - equal opportunities, Naturejobs 20th June 2002: An overview of several European postdoctoral fellowships for women returning to the scientific workforce after time off to raise a family.
Study finds women scientists attracted to careers in industry over academia: Companies Can Do Better at Recruiting Women Scientists, CatalystWomen.org, June 19, 1999.
Faux Family Friendly?: "As colleges have adopted 'family friendly' tenure policies, many female academics have feared that using these benefits may not actually help them. Taking leaves or extending the tenure clock ends up being used against you by faculty members who don’t understand the need for such policies, they say, explaining their reluctance to take advantage of these benefits."
Advancing Women: International Business & Career Network, Strategy, Employment For Women
Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: National Science Foundation: "This site provides data on the participation of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering education and employment. The data are organized by topic and are presented in tables, graphics, and spreadsheets for downloading."
Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist: "Neurobiologist Ben Barres has a unique perspective on former Harvard president Lawrence Summers's assertion that innate differences between the sexes might explain why many fewer women than men reach the highest echelons of science."
Gender Bias in Academe: How pervasive is bias against female faculty members? A Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy.
Negotiation Skills for Women in Science: "Economist Linda Babcock performed a comprehensive study of the starting salaries of students graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with master's degrees (2003). She found that students who had negotiated (most of them men) were able to increase their starting salaries by an average of 7.4% or $4,053 - almost the exact difference she found between men's and women's average starting pay. Through a series of similar experiments, Babcock found that in general, women tend to be less likely to initiate negotiations, more apprehensive about negotiating, and more pessimistic about their own worth."
Examine Your Hidden Biases: An eye-opening set of tests to assess unconscious biases. The gender bias test is particularly relevant for academics. (Requires Java)
Camille Paglia on why female grad students don't need mentors: Salon Magazine, Jan 27, 1999. "Female graduate students should steer clear of cozy relations with their academic advisors -- whether they are affectionate men or bitter women."
Biased science: There's less to MIT's report on sexism in the sciences than the media would have you know: by Camille Paglia, Salon, April 7, 1999. A skeptical take on the MIT gender bias case.
The Hypatia Institute: A website for gender equity in the physical sciences including hot links, news, career links, telementoring, and a virtual maze of science herstory.
Helping Female Scientists Thrive: "The University of Maryland-Baltimore County has had a growing reputation over the last decade as one of the most successful institutions in the country at recruiting and graduating black students in the sciences. Through a combination of scholarship programs and mentoring, the university year after year places students in top Ph.D. programs at a time that many institutions struggle to identify and educate black science talent."
Webgrrls: Online and offline networking and resources for women interested in learning about the Internet and exploring job opportunities in new media.
Europe attempts to promote women scientists - Naturejobs: Europe is pushing to get more women scientists into industry and academia, but can the commission legislate for gender equality? Sally Goodman investigates.
WWWWomen: The Premier Search Directory for Women Online
Sex and science: Salon.com, April 12, 2001. "Are women discriminated against in the lab? Or are gender imbalances due to intellectual differences?"
Women in Science: The Battle Moves to the Trenches: NY Times, December 19, 2006. "Since the 1970s, women have surged into science and engineering classes in larger and larger numbers, even at top-tier institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where half the undergraduate science majors and more than a third of the engineering students are women. Half of the nation’s medical students are women, and for decades the numbers have been rising similarly in disciplines like biology and mathematics. Yet studies show that women in science still routinely receive less research support than their male colleagues, and they have not reached the top academic ranks in numbers anything like their growing presence would suggest."
Internet Resources for Women in the Sciences: A nice collection of internet resources for women, particularily those in computer science, but with connections to other information as well.
Science and the Gender Gap: Newsweek, September 25, 2006. "A generation ago, women physicists and chemists were rare in the lab, but their number is increasing every year."

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Women in Science and Engineering