In a culture that continues to struggle with sex equality, our country's female scientists

find themselves constantly battling the academic world. Women in science have a harder time
establishing themselves as legitimate scientists than their male counterparts do because of the
male influenced leadership in the institutions where they work. Yale researchers published a
study proving that physicists, chemists and biologist are likely to view a young male scientist
more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with two imaginary
applicants with identical qualifications, professors at six major research institutions were much
more likely to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they offered her a salary of an
average of $4,000 less than the man's. This new study goes a long way toward providing hard
evidence of a continuing bias against women in sciences.
There are still plenty who feel that women don't belong in the lab either because they are
not as smart as the men or because they are distracting. In 2012, the Nobel prize laureate Tim
Hunt made it very clear where he stands on this issue. At a conference he said," Three things
happen when girls are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when
you criticize them, they cry." Just the face alone that he called them girls instead of women
shows how little respect he has for them as professionals. This sort of attitude is what keeps
women from receiving opportunities they deserve. But why should we even care about what one
man said? For the simple reason that he is not alone. These remarks Hunt made provided an
opportunity to highlight what if any progress has been made for women and by them in the
science arena.
So, is there any progress? "While a growing number of women are enrolling in university,
many opt out of the highest levels required for a research career," according to UNESCO
Institute for statistics. "Women researchers also tend to work in the academic and government

sectors, while men dominate the private sector which offers better salaries and opportunities. In
the United States, women fill close to half of all jobs in the economy, but only a quarter of the
positions in STEM. In US colleges and universities, female undergraduates complete a majority
of biology and chemistry degrees, but physics, engineering, and computer science remain heavily
male-dominated, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelors degrees, a study by the
American Association of University Women (AAUW) found. Math and earth sciences are fairly
evenly divided across the genders.
And it is vital for STEM to diversify, if only because improved talent allocation leads to greater
economic benefits, according to a study by the University of Chicago and Stanford. Having a
more diverse workforce also brings creativity to the fore.
While governments and institutions are investing more in attracting women and girls into STEM,
environmental factors like family attitudes continue to discourage women from pursuing science
careers, according to the AAUW report. Among them are implicit biases about male versus
female fields, a lack of encouragement to pursue science in the critical college years, and
workplaces that dont accommodate family needs.
Its not that women arent wanted, journalist and life coach Marguerite del Giudice wrote for
National Geographic. But many cultural forces, like family attitudes, continue to stand in the
way ranging from girls being steered toward other professions from an early age and gender
bias and sexual harassment in the workplace to the potentially career-stalling effects on women
of having children.
We have now delved into the numbers enough to see that there is great inequality
between the women and men in the science world. We have even looked into some of the

attitudes that fuel this gender gap, but why do more girls not continue with their schooling? Why
are they discouraged from the very beginning? in 1983 less than one-third of students studying
physics at matriculation level were girls (Robottom, 1986). Sixteen years later, in 1999, girls still
only made up 35% of students studying physics at the matriculation level (SSABSA, 1999).
Despite all the advances for women in modern society it seems that there is still an issue of
concern in that of girls participation and achievement in science. Adamson, Foster, Roark &
Reed (1998) suggests that the gender gap in science appears to widen with development so much
so that there is concern that women are being underrepresented in some science fields. It is
suggested that due to the role science and technology plays in all of our lives today it is not only
a concern that women are limiting their career options, but also that they are not getting the
opportunity to take part in the planning and decision-making processes that occur in areas which
affect all citizens (Johnston, 1984). Indeed, Andre, Whigham, Hendrickson & Chambers (1999),
have found that secondary school girls have lower persistence and enrolment in the physical
science pipeline, which of course leads to women having lower participation in physical science
careers.
Recently OBrien, Martinez-Pons & Kopala (1999) reported that gender could directly predict
students career interests in the science and engineering fields, leaving no question as to whether
gender was an issue when choosing science subject. It is thought that the critical moment for
girls arises when they have a choice as to whether to do science or not (Robottom, 1986) and it is
at this point the gender differences really become noticeable. Studies have revealed that girls
were choosing to do language, arts or biology, whereas boys were choosing to do physical
science courses (Farenga & Joyce, 1999) and it seems that there is no biological basis that can
account for this low achievement and representation of girls in physical science (Johnston,

1984).

This viewed in the light of the fact that it has been shown that the school plays a major role in the
performance and attitudes of girls to science (Johnston, 1984) must prompt all teachers to
examine what they may be doing to contribute to this problem and what they may be able to do
to encourage girls to become involved in science, particularly the physical sciences. But before
one can begin to make positive changes in this direction it must be understood what is causing
this gender gap in science.

Over the years there have been many studies carried out to try and explain the reasons why girls
are not choosing to do science, and they have come up with a plethora of possible reasons and
some very interesting ideas. Some of these explanations may not be able to be altered by the
school and the teacher but many of them can be. This paper will give a brief overview of the
former and then explore the later in a little more detail.

One of the most fascinating studies on this issue was one carried out by Andre, Whigham,
Hendrickson & Chambers (1999) it was done on elementary children and their parents and
explored the perceptions and attitudes toward science of both the students and the parents. This
study found that the parents perceived that boys were more competent in science than girls and
that it was more important for boys. Parents expected boys to have higher performance in science
and saw jobs related to math and science as more male dominated. This finding is important as
the parents perception of the importance of science may directly affect the amount of
encouragement and the number of opportunities in science-like activities parents provide (Andre
et al., 1999)

Obviously there is little teachers or schools can do about the perception of parents towards
science, besides trying to promote a positive image of girls in science. However there are many
other suggestions as to why girls dont choose to do science that provides opportunity to teachers
to alter the trend.

It is often suggested that the gender gap in science may be present right from when children first
start school and that the structure of the curriculum in these science subjects only facilitates the
widening of this gap (Farenga & Joyce, 1999). Studies have shown that boys and girls come to
school with very different science-related skills and experiences and that their socialization
fosters interest in different science activities (Adamson et al., 1998 and Farenga & Joyce, 1999).
Boys tend to be drawn to science activities that involve the manipulation of objects (Farenga &
Joyce, 1999) whereas girls are more socially aware than boys and place a greater importance on
interpersonal relationships than on inanimate objects (Stewart, 1991). What this means is that
girls approach practical work within the science lab with a lot less confidence and often
underdeveloped manipulative skills (Johnston, 1984). This illustrates the problem, that the
science curriculum and some teachers assume that all students come to class with some technical
or mechanical experience and while not all boys will have the case is that most girls wont have
that experience and thus are unfairly disadvantaged (Payget, 1987).

Adamson, Foster, Roark & Reed (1998) have also suggested that the way young children
segregate their peer group based on gender may also contribute to the gender gap by maintaining
the stereotypical masculine image of physical science. Whilst this may be hard to imagine in
young children, it has been found that children associate their appropriate gender role by age 3

and by ages 6 or 7 they can identify gender-role definition (Farenga & Joyce, 1999), this
combined with the findings of Andre, Whigham, Hendrickson & Chambers (1999) that children
in elementary school rate jobs relating to science as more male dominated may shed more light
on the issue.

This phenomenon only increases, as the children get older. Brooks (1995) suggests that a strong
influence on girls as they get older is girl-to-girl harassment that is thought to be related to
gender identity. Indeed Robottom (1986) suggests that girls orientation to science is shaped by
culturally determined images of what is and is not appropriate female behaviour and Johnston
(1984) also alludes to this, suggesting that adolescence is a particularly important time when
girls are wishing to be recognised as being feminine and they feel pressured by their peers to
conform. This combined with the masculine image of many science subjects may deter girls from
studying them.

The behaviour of boys has also been linked to girls veering away from science. It has been
suggested that the behaviour of men and boys has had a negative impact on girls participation in
education in general and science specifically (Brooks, 1995). Brooks (1995) states that this
occurs not only because boys harass girls in the classroom and in the schoolyard but also because
they block access to curriculum areas and take up places in classes. Brooks also draws attention
to the fact that girls receive a lot less attention from the teacher than boys do. This is supported
by many authors, Payget, (1987) suggested that boys get 80% of the teachers attention, however
this figure would certainly vary depending on the teacher. Stewart (1991) also found that
teachers consistently interact more with boys than girls, and whilst some have tried to explain
this away in that boys are more disruptive and for that reason they receive more attention, even

with this factor removed the boys still receive more attention. This may lead to girls becoming
disinterested and to lose faith in the competence in science.

This lack of attention demonstrates a need to look at teachers perceptions of girls in science. It
has been shown that science teachers think that science subjects are less important for girls than
for boys and that they rate identical work more highly for boys than for girls (Stewart, 1991).
This reflects that science teachers have different expectations for boys than they do for girls, this
may be reflected in their teaching techniques and may affect girls self-perception in science and
lead to lowered achievement and participation (Stewart, 1991).

The masculine image of science is also attributed to lower achievement and participation in
science. Silins & Zarins (1987) suggested that it was not surprising that science was viewed as
male dominant while students use textbooks that represent scientists as male and have text that is
male-oriented. It has been suggested that this masculine image that science appears to have may
be a key contributor to the gender gap in science. It is suggested that boys and girls have
different ways of learning and that science tends to cater for the way that boys learn. Stark
(1999) found that boys showed superior performance levels in tasks which focussed on
knowledge and understanding, the type found in the physical sciences, whereas girls performed
better on tasks where the content or context was drawn from the biological sciences and on
written tasks assessing science skills. It seems that girls are attracted to topics where the content
has an aesthetic element and it set in an everyday context and they can see its social relevance
(Johnston, 1984 and Stark, 1999). However, in the physical sciences teachers are too caught up
with the teaching the concepts and processes, that they do not stress the relevance to everyday
life that these concepts have and thus may lose the interest of girls (Stewart, 1991).

While all of the above certainly seem to have a hand in generating the gender gap there is
another possible reason that has become a great issue of concern and it is that of girls selfconfidence and/or self efficacy in science. Self-efficacy is defined by OBrien, Martinez-Pons
& Kopala (1999) as an individuals belief of how well he or she can successfully enact behaviour
required to accomplish some task. Self-confidence is a trait usually reported as being lower in
females than males (Andre et al., 1999) and OBrien, Martinez-Pons & Kopala (1999) have
found that a deficit in self-efficacy in mathematics is a key contributor to their lowered career
interest in science and engineering, and they suggest that in order to overcome this it may be
necessary to rethink the way that mathematics is taught.

Stewart (1991) also discussed girls confidence in relation to science. Girls appear to show a
greater degree of learned helplessness when it comes to mathematics and science and Stewart
(1991) suggests that this is in direct response to the teachers behaviour. It was found that
although girls appeared to receive a lot less criticism from teachers, when they did receive
criticism it was in most cases directed at the intellectual aspects of their work, whereas with boys
it was mostly directed at neatness or instruction-following. It was also found that there was a
tendency for boys to be praised for the intellectual aspects of their work more frequently than
girls. Thus it is not surprising that girls tend to attribute success in science to good luck and
failure to lack of effort. (Stewart, 1991) It is perhaps for this reason that girls tend to be more
influenced than boys by the perceived difficulty of subjects (Johnston, 1984). Silins and Zarins
(1987) found that girls perceived science as being one of the hardest subjects to learn and
Johnston (1984) found that whilst boys also perceived science as being hard, they were less
likely to let this affect their subject choices.

When considering all these influences, it is not surprising that girls continue to be
underrepresented in the physical sciences. But the question is, what can schools and educators do
to try and turn this trend around and get girls into science? Stewart (1991) suggests that to
overcome the learned helplessness in girls teachers should change the type of feedback that they
give to girls so that it focuses on insufficient effort rather than on lack of ability. It is also
important that teachers be aware of the differences between boys and girls in interest, experience
and attitudes and employ constructivist strategies to make the most of those differences
(Johnston, 1984 and Farenga & Joyce, 1999). Robottom (1986) suggests that treating boys and
girls equally within the science classroom may only serve to exacerbate the problem and that
rather the solution to the problem may actually be to treat boys and girls differently.

Roach (1992) published a paper discussing the success of Marion High School in promoting
physics to girls and suggested that making the subject more language rich, communicative and
conceptual, rather than mathematical has made it more appealing to girls. Johnston (1984)
included in her paper a list of over twenty suggestion of how science teachers could make
science subjects more appealing to girls The idea is that the diverse experiences of girls be
recognized and valued in the curriculum. However this author wonders whether by making
science more appealing to girls we may also make it less appealing to boys.
At any rate it is important for teachers to examine their own feelings regarding gender
and science and be aware of any biases they may have. In the future science is only going to
become increasingly important in our daily lives and if girls continue to be underrepresented in
the science field then they may be severely disadvantaged.

By looking at all of this information on why female scientists struggle so much in their
career we have been able to see not just what happens to them but why these attitudes are present
in the first place. The takeaway from this work should be the question, what can I do?