|
|
-
Keeping women in science
Interdisciplinary research project looks to see how women gain authority,
credibility within scientific community
-
Carla Fehr wants to know why.
Why is it that there are still disproportionate numbers of women making
careers in science compared to men? This even though since the early 1980s
as many women as men have received undergraduate degrees in the sciences.
"More women leave than men do," the assistant professor of philosophy
and religious studies said. "For instance, in the sciences women
make up 45% of the assistant professors, but at every level of advancement
more women leave than men do. NSF calls this the 'leaky pipeline.'
" Given that many people think that universities are being highly
supportive of women science faculty, the flight of women from research
positions in university labs seems rather mysterious."
A 1999 MIT report on the status of women faculty documenting subtle and
additive gender discrimination offers some insight, Fehr says. The report
found that gender discrimination was very subtle, but built up over time
to have significant effects on women’s careers.
Fehr theorizes that the scientific community is inhospitable to women
scientists.
She speaks from personal experience.
Fehr holds an undergraduate degree in biology. When she reflects back
on her own undergraduate experience, she is hard-pressed to recall any
female biology undergraduates who have gone into a scientific field.
Much like her own experience. Fehr was going to be a wildlife biologist
and worked for several summers out in the field.
During this time she observed the PI on the project - a man who was always
in the field with his students and his research.
"He was very successful, but I noticed that his wife always packed
his lunch and about the only time he saw his children was when his wife
brought them out to our project," she said. "I decided this
was a difficult job to do if you didn't have a spouse to help you out."
Philosophy soon became Fehr's academic career path. And while she still
publishes scientific articles, she says she can't call herself a scientist.
"It would be presumptuous to say I was a scientist," she says.
"Scientists study nature and I guess you can say that scientists
are the creatures that I study."
Fehr's latest study of scientists is a project she is collaborating on
with Carolyn Komar, assistant professor of animal science. The pair are
looking into "Ovarian Authority: Credibility of Women Studying Female
Reproduction." The project has been funded by the Center for Excellence
in the Arts and Humanities with an interdisciplinary research award.
The project examines the status of women studying female reproductive
biology and how that status influences research in the field. Komar is
a female scientist studying ovarian function.
"By combining our areas of research we are investigating how scientific
practice leads to challenges faced uniquely by women," Fehr says.
"We feel that findings from our work will benefit not only the scientific
community in general, but also our campus community as we work to improve
the environment for women and minority faculty members at Iowa State."
Fehr and Komar believe that female researchers face unique challenges
gaining the intellectual authority necessary to fully participate in the
scientific community. That is acutely evident in areas that relate to
female reproduction with its hot political topics such as stem cell research,
abortion and birth control.
"Although there has been extensive feminist treatment of some areas
related to female reproduction, there has been no feminist analysis of
research concerning the function of the mammalian ovary to date,"
Fehr and Komar write.
This past summer Fehr sat in on Komar's laboratory meetings for initial
research on the subject. She will deliver a paper at a November conference
and the pair are in the process of putting together a long-term interview
study.
Carolyn Komar and Carla Fehr
Around LAS
September 6-19, 2004
|
|
