Report: Stereotypes, Bias Hurt Women in Math and Science

(March 23) -- It's been five years since Lawrence Summers, then the president of Harvard, infamously suggested that "innate" differences were to blame for the lack of women in top science positions at universities. But a new report suggests that social factors play a significant role in holding women back in science, technology, engineering and math -- the so-called STEM fields.

Women have made great strides in closing the gap in the past 30 years, with more entering jobs in science and engineering, says the report released Monday by AAUW, formerly known as the American Association of University Women. Three decades ago, the ratio of "mathematically gifted" boys to girls was 13-to1, based on the number of 13-year-olds who scored over 700 on the SAT. Today, that ratio is 3-to-1.

"While biological gender differences, yet to be well understood, may play a role, they clearly are not the whole story," the authors write in the report, "Why So Few?"

Though boys and girls take the same number of science and math classes through high school, fewer women declare majors in STEM subjects, and even fewer still move on to graduate-level study and professional careers in those fields.

The report, which looked at recent research on the topic, found that entrenched stereotypes and biases affect performance in both genders. The authors highlight two main stereotypes: that girls are not as good as boys at math, and that scientific careers are "masculine" in nature. Researchers found that the stereotypes can lower girls' performance in these subjects and also reduce their interest in pursuing science or engineering jobs.

And, whether they know it or not, people are conditioned to the gender-based stereotypes. Three professors from Harvard University, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia created a test in 1998 to measure people's implicit biases. They found that 70 percent of those who took the test related "science" with "male" and "arts" with "female."

One of the creators of the implicit association test, Mahzarin Banaji, professor of social ethics at Harvard, said biases can be reversed.

"Implicit biases come from the culture. I think of them as the thumbprint of the culture on our minds," she said in the report. "Human beings have the ability to learn to associate two things together very quickly -- that is innate. What we teach ourselves, what we choose to associate is up to us."

Evidence points to American culture as the culprit behind these biases. An unrelated survey released Monday by Bayer Corp. found that 40 percent of female and minority chemists and chemical engineers polled said they had been discouraged from pursuing a career in a STEM field at some point in their lives. Of the 1,226 people polled, 70 percent said it is harder for women to succeed in their profession than men.

The AAUW report was received with a collective groan online. Marsha Sutton, writing for the San Diego News Network, wrote "the latest statistics are depressing." Dr. Anna Nagurney, a professor at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, wrote on her blog that the Bayer report was "extremely painful, as a professor and a female, to read." She also pointed out that Harvard hired its first female tenured professor in the mathematics department in January.

Valerie Strauss wrote on a Washington Post blog that "ultimately, the study makes a convincing case that 'biology is not destiny.'"

But the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Washington, cast doubt on the AAUW report, writing that it "appears to be less science than political polemic" and that "the idea that women are being blocked from advancing in science, engineering and mathematics by bias and stereotypes is only one of several explanations -- and is the weakest explanation."

Regardless, the report has implications for the country as a whole. The United States lags behind several other countries in STEM fields. In 2006, American students were 21st out of 30 developed countries in science literacy and 25th out of 30 in math literacy, according to the White House.

In November, President Barack Obama announced a campaign to increase the participation and improve the performance of American students in STEM subjects. The "Educate to Innovate" campaign has garnered $260 million in support from companies, foundations and other organizations to help bolster STEM education.