It's been interesting watching the replies coming in to this posting -
all from men (no, I'm not calling them boys!). If there are a
significant number of women subscribed to phys-l, they certainly aren't
speaking up on this one. So here goes, ...
Before I try to make some comments on this, can I avoid as much flaming
as possible by saying that, when I say things like "women tend to ..." I
am not making claims about all women, just making totally
unsubstantiated assertions about most women!
a) The lack of a defined career path for Physics graduates is offputting
to students choosing a university major - and, I believe, particularly
offputting to young women (unsubstantiated assertion No. 1) We all know
that relatively few women major in Physics, considerably less make it a
career, and even less manage to stay in a Physics career long term,
especially once the 'publish or perish' imperative comes up against the
desire to take time out to start a family. That is certainly true in
Australia, and from what I see at international conferences, is true in
many (though not all) countries.
b) What I said in 1) is also mostly true for secondary Physics teachers,
which sets up a vicious circle of lack of female role models. Certainly
in Australia, a large number of Physics teachers have a weak background
in Physics studies themselves, and this is at least as true of women
teaching Physics as it is of men teaching Physics.
c) Physics is often taught in an esoteric "ideal inextensible ropes,
weightless springs, etc etc" fashion which has its academic advantages
but which can be interpreted by the students as meaning that it has
little to do with the real world, and this is particularly of concern to
female students (unsubstantiated assertion No. 2 - actually, I think
that there is research to back this up, but I'm too lazy to hunt it
out). Witness some of the more popular threads on this listserver such
as the recent one about the shaving ability of razors with male versus
female body hair. OK, it's freedom of expression, but really!
Sure the end of the Chapter in the text (and the end of the school
lesson) usually pays lip service to showing how the Physics taught does
connect to the real world, but in many cases we've lost the 'hearts and
minds' before we get to that point (if we don't leave those bits out due
to overcrowded curricula).
d) Phys-l is a listserver, and as such exists on the Internet, and the
Internet is still largely seen as being "boy's own" territory. That's
changing, but it is still largely the case - look at most bulletin
boards, for example.
e) Sending off a posting to a listserver or bulletin board takes
confidence of a certain type. I have seen research about the male
dominance of this form of communication - what would be fascinating
(though hard to arrange) would be to see research into the ratio of
female to male 'lurkers' on a listserver such as this, compared to the
ratio of female to male active participants.
I run an online astronomy course which features newsgroup discussions as
a central part of the course (and the assessment). Most people find the
discussion & debate on the newsgroups helpful, not to say inspiring, but
some are intimidated by the obvious depth of knowledge of some of the
participants - even though there is absolutely no flaming, or even
aggression (though lots of humour!), on my newsgroups. Our stats. are
too small yet to even make an unsubstantiated assertion, however I think
that I am seeing a trend where the women participants find the displayed
knowledge of others on the newsgroups more intimidating, on average,
than do the males. What we have done, by the way, is refer to 'black
belt' and 'white belt' participants, and that rather light-hearted
approach seems to have helped - for example, people who might not have
participated before, now tend to preface their postings with "This is a
white belt question, ..."
f) Sending off a phys-l posting into the ether takes a certain degree of
confidence about one's grasp of Physics. As women tend to be junior
faculty members at the post-secondary end, or Physics secondary teachers
who may well have weak backgrounds in Physics they will be diffident
about posting to phys-l because they don't want to make fools of
themselves in cyberspace in front of their peers (not-so-totally
unsubstantiated assertion No. 3 )
g) The way many debates are conducted on phys-l does not inspire
confidence in the diffident would-be participant - and especially in
women (not-so-totally unsubstantiated assertion No. 4) I have had
correspondence off list with at least one woman ex-participant who got
flamed because her wording of a perfectly reasonable comment about
Physics on the list was slightly loose, and was very unhappy about the
experience.
A lot of you guys have been enjoying 'full and frank' interchanges of
views about your pet debates for years, and are probably the best of
friends. However the diffident newcomer to the list is going to see the
way those debates are carried on and think twice (or 3 times) about
taking part. Certainly, even as a relative phys-l veteran, I'd rather be
interrogated by blow-torch than make a posting to phys-l about a
perennial topic like heat! I'm not suggesting that you cancel those
debates in favour of political correctness, I'm just pointing out the
impression they can make.
h) The topics of some of the debates are not exactly inclusive either -
I need only refer again to the great razor and body hair debate of '99.
Not a high point.
i) Totally unsubstantiated assertion No.5: academics and school
educators tend to interact in rather different ways. My experience, from
working with both groups here, is that university academics tend to
comfortable with conducting vigorous but impersonal debates about
Physics ideas and details, but school educators are used to working more
cooperatively where the emphasis is on getting teaching Physics programs
up and running rather than focussing (some would say nit-picking) on
academic detail. Female educators tend to particularly focus on the
cooperative aspects of education (assertion No. something - I've lost
count). The adversarial style of many phys-l debates do not fit in well
with this emphasis.
So why this diatribe from a female phys-l participant? Aren't I
destroying my own argument by taking part? Well, not really, because I
did say that my totally unsubstantiated assertions were about most
women, and in my case I've been almost totally desensitized by being the
only woman faculty member in a department with about male 45 academics -
or else I'm the sort of opinionated female who would survive in that
sort of environment, take your pick! Also, I run newsgroups in my online
teaching, so I see this from a rather different angle than I would have
20 years ago - then I probably would have run a mile before I took part
in a phys-l discussion.
And does it matter? Someone said that the "girls" are probably off doing
more important things than posting to phys-l. I think that it does
matter. Physics educators, especially school educators and those of us
in far-flung locations, can be very isolated. A resource like phys-l can
be extraordinarily helpful, which is why it is a pity to see that a
significant (though too small) section of the Physics community is not
taking part.
Cheers
Margaret
--
Dr. Margaret Mazzolini
Astronomy Course Coordinator
Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing
BSEE, Mail Box 31,
Swinburne University of Technology,
PO Box 218 Hawthorn VIC 3122
Australia
email: mmazzolini@swin.edu.au
phone: (+61) 3 9214 8084
fax: (+61) 3 9819 0856