Women not as drawn to science
By Kelly Mason, contributing writer
Posted on September 25, 2006

According to some, the scientific world has a serious lack of estrogen.

The National Academies published a Sept. 18 article addressing the issue of women’s presence in the fields of math and science, and how gender bias has possibly affected their turnout.

The article said in 2003, women accounted for one-fifth of the nation’s scientific and technical workers.

Currently, JMU’s student body is 61 percent female, according to statistics from JMU’s Office of Admissions’ Web site. This fact greatly affects the representation of females in classes, specifically science classes.

Junior Ashley Stoute said she has more females than males in her science classes. “I attribute it to the population of JMU,” she said.

Louise Temple, head of the biology department, echoed Stoute’s observations. “There tends to be more female biology majors than male at JMU.” JMU’s College of Science and Mathematics had 487 full-time undergraduate male students and 694 undergraduate female students in fall 2005, according statistics from JMU’s Office of Institutional Research.

However, though female numbers are higher in terms of students, faculty differs. Institutional Research shows that out of faculty members in JMU’s College of Science and Mathematics, 78 were males and only 42 were females in fall 2005.

But Stoute said she thinks things are changing.

“There is more female interest in the sciences like pre-med and nursing,” she said. “It used to be male-dominated, but now it’s changing.”

The greater number of female students at JMU can account for the increased female representation in classes, but Temple, who teaches “Gender Issues in Science,” believes more needs to be done to attempt to draw women to the fields.

She believes a good way to draw women to the science field would be to recognize women for their work and accomplishments.

“Women, and men too, need to start the trend for nominations and promotions of women,” she said. “They need to speak up. Men’s names are the names recognized, but we need to point out what women are doing and get them the recognition they deserve.”

The National Academies article blames gender bias for women’s lower level of involvement in the fields on the national level.

Temple said while surveying girls in her Gender Issues class, she found that approximately nine out of 10 girls had a bad experience in school where they were told they were not good at something.

She believes this is a problem. “If you tell them they are not good at something, then they may not try,” Temple said, “but if you tell them they can do anything, then they will be encouraged and go on to try to do something.”