Hello all.
The other day (Wednesday) I read two different articles. And each of them pissed me off for different reasons. And both of them could be categorised under the same label. Guess what I'm talking about?
I spent a few hours posting on Facebook about it, so I thought I might as well blog about it (even though I had said I would stop).
Article no. 1: Not sure what the title is ("University Challenges"?), and can't easily find who it's by. Fantastic. Sorry, I would love to quote correctly, but finding it difficult.
Whilst I do not disagree with any of the facts about women employment I almost pathologically disbelieve in psychological studies. Mainly because I'm not convinced that things like "beliefs" can be measured. My disbelief was born (as so many) by reading Stephen J. Gould's essays on differences in IQ results between people that were used (at least partly) to support eugenics. IQ is considered a measure of intelligence by a large part of the population, yet few know that IQ questionnaires are far from standardized, that what they measure isn't necessarily agreed upon by all those who use them and that IQ can change quite dramatically through a person's life.
This is my main issue with this article. It is definitely true that in the sciences, especially in the physical sciences, there are more men than women, especially when it comes to senior positions. That this is due to the fact that people in senior positions believe that there is a "special quality beyond hard work and intelligence" needed in order to perform their jobs is a completely different story. Of course, this isn't what the study mentioned says (the study only correlates a strong belief in the need for this special quality and the lower amount of women), but the way the article has decided to interpret it (and probably the authors of the study, but I haven't had time to read the study yet so I won't pass judgement on this) is that this correlation means something. Which would imply that people who are entrenched in a field are more likely to believe that men possess special qualities than women. I don't have data to refute this conclusion. I don't have any data saying that people entrenched in a field don't think that men are more likely to possess a "special ability" than women. But in any case, I don't think this is a good way of going about things. Changing people's beliefs is difficult. Telling a group of people, especially scientists, that they believe a certain thing with no proof is tantamount to convincing them that they're right and you're wrong. And, finally, correlation doesn't imply causation. In fact, it could be very specifically the other way around: since there are more men in physical sciences it has led to the belief that men have a special quality allowing them to study physical science.
In any case, I think this type of article does very little for anyone. It might be hailed in the media a few times, and people in science will say it's not true, and then what? Seriously, will this change anything? Will this change the fact that names are included in most CVs and that most recruiting processes aren't blind? Will knowing this get more girls studying sciences?
There's a common belief that knowing the root of a problem is key to solving the problem. I don't deny that this is true in many cases. However, in this case, firstly, there is no inequivocal evidence that the root is the "belief in the special quality" and secondly, even if this is the root, what is one going to do about it? These types of beliefs are usually ingrained, not something one thinks about when hiring someone, in other words, an subconscious bias. They do not lead to solutions, and because often they are based on questionable science they only lead to disbelief amongst the community being accused. (Also: I am currently sitting in a lab where the majority of workers are female and the boss is a male. This is not an example of a place where clearly this doesn't happen, but just want to point out that I might be biased, since this is not the first time I am in a situation where women are the majority of workers and feel appreciated and not a bit inferior to the men).
Article no. 2: "Women in labs. Still unequal?" by Susan Watts.
I appreciated this article. In fact, I thought it needed to be written. And then I came across this sentence:
"The traditional academic lab culture of late-night and weekend working can hinder women who have children"
And it pissed me off. Not because it isn't (possibly) currently true, but because in what followed (something about automation making these late-nights and weekends unnecessary, which for the record, is not true in most of the cases I'm aware of) there was an implication that the way to go to resolve this issue for women was to make late nights and weekends less of a thing. There's nothing wrong with that. But there are experiments that will (at least for the predictable future) require a human to be there to look at the results or to set things up. There will always be times when things go wrong and a person needs to be there to overlook.
So the solution isn't for weekends and late nights to become less of a thing (because when they have to happen, it would still be men taking over) but for women and men to share child rearing. The above sentence presupposes that it's women with children who are hindered, which implies that it's women with children who are taking care of the children. I do agree that women just prior to giving birth and just after giving birth might need time off (in most cases, less than we would be made to believe). That's inevitable so long as women go through pregnancy. But in most cases, women can work almost until they give birth and can go back just a few days or weeks afterwards (if the birth has been normal and their job isn't too physically demanding). Most of the "juggling work and home" depends on one thing: is there anyone else to take up the slack at home? Because it's true. A child requires attention and time. But guess what? There are two parents. It's not (or it shouldn't be) just women benefiting from less late nights and weekends. Men have to start asking for time off work to take care of their kids too. Not just because it's just fair, but also because it's beneficial both for them and for their children.
And yes, this has been said before. But it was just shocking to me that in an article written by women about a subject that would fall easily into feminism the above sentence can be found without a second thought. Late nights and weekends are incompatible not with women with children, but with people who have to take care of children. There's nothing about being a woman that makes it automatically more difficult for you to turn up on weekends or stay later in the evening. Except for sexism.
So there. I'm sort of back. Now that I've spewed all of this out I feel better and maybe can give the subject a rest for another year or so.
As usual, hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading, comment in the comment section below.
H
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