My take on Mr. Tierney's article.

Until recently, the impact of Title IX, the law forbidding sexual discrimination in education, has been limited mostly to sports. But now, under pressure from Congress, some federal agencies have quietly picked a new target: science.

Title IX is law. Has been since 1972. Why should equality be “limited mostly to sports?” I don’t support quotas, but investigation and elimination of unfair barriers does not necessitate them. Note Tierney's use of the word "target" in the second sentence of the article-- as if a law forbidding sexual discrimination is some sinister weapon. The sciences are not exempt from the law. If he wants to argue against Title IX in general, fine. But then he brings in some weird arguments about women not being interested in science anyway, which is what got me a little suspicious he might have some ulterior motives.

To quote from a Nature paper on sexism in peer review—“The credibility of the academic system will be undermined in the eyes of the public if it does not allow a scientific evaluation of its own scientific evaluation system.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6631/pdf/387341a0.pdf

(The journal Science quoted Amber Miller, a physicist at Columbia, as calling her interview “a complete waste of time.”)

From the same Science Magazine article http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5820/1776:

"'I'm delighted that a start has been made,' says Debra Rolison, a chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and longtime advocate for the enforcement of Title IX in academics."

There are all kinds of opinions out there, but it is interesting to note that some women feel so strongly that Title IX is useless.

The members of Congress and women’s groups who have pushed for science to be “Title Nined” say there is evidence that women face discrimination in certain sciences, but the quality of that evidence is disputed. Critics say there is far better research showing that on average, women’s interest in some fields isn’t the same as men’s.

"Members of Congress and women's groups" are not the only people who support applying Title IX (again, legislation that is already on the books) to the sciences, and making "Title Nined" a verb is juvenile, IMO. Please read the actual text of Title IX. Science is a rigorous profession— if you can’t cut it, you can’t cut it. But the women who feel they are being treated unfairly HAVE THE CRED. That’s what’s infuriating. It’s not a matter of some stupid individuals wanting special treatment.

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleIX.htm

The gender gap is a result of earlier decisions. While girls make up nearly half of high school physics students, they’re less likely than boys to take Advanced Placement courses or go on to a college degree in physics... They found that starting at age 12, the girls tended to be better rounded than the boys: they had relatively strong verbal skills in addition to math, and they showed more interest in “organic” subjects involving people and other living things. Despite their mathematical prowess, they were less likely than boys to go into physics or engineering.

Tierney has preemptively ruled out any social expectations or cultural pressures and attributed “more interest in ‘organic subjects’” to girls’ natural preferences. I’m not sure that that is going to be possible until all the data are in. For me, what is really important is making sure that everyone has the same access to the career paths of their choice, given that they exhibit adequate merit. It seems to me that Tierney is trying to say we shouldn’t even bother to investigate allegations of sexism and bias in the sciences (even complaints from women IN science?!) because girls prefer people to things. I submit that that is quite a stretch to make.

Source: Yale Daily News
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24757

Tierney mentions female medical students, which I found interesting. According to a 2004 paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine:

“Female faculty were less likely to be full professors than were men with
similar professional roles and achievement... Female medical school faculty
neither advance as rapidly nor are compensated as well as professionally
similar male colleagues. Deficits for female physicians are greater than those
for non-physician female faculty, and for physicians and non-physicians, women’s
deficits are greater for faculty with more seniority.”

http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/141/3/205.pdf

But the institute [American Institute of Physics] found that women with physics degrees go on to doctorates, teaching jobs and tenure at the same rate that men do.

From the AIP’s site (bold mine): http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/womenfaq.htm

Q: Do your conclusions mean that there are no problems for women in physics?

A: No. The situation for women in physics and astronomy still needs improvement. Although women are hired into tenured and tenure-track positions at respectable rates, they are hired into part-time faculty positions at even higher rates. Controlling for sector of employment and for time since degree, women earn significantly lower salaries than men. Very few minority women earn degrees in physics. Finally, the fact that women are represented on the faculty at expected levels does not mean that they got those positions without tremendous personal sacrifices. In many physics departments, women encounter climates that range from chilly to hostile. Nevertheless, the results of our analysis send a positive message to younger women considering a career in physics. Women can, in spite of obstacles, make it to the top faculty positions in physics and astronomy.

I don’t think that AIP worded that paragraph very well, but you get the message. I must say, though, that was very happy to see the numbers on tenure-track positions. :)

Again, I can’t predict what the gender breakdown of any profession would be if we didn’t live in a rather patriarchal society. Maybe it wouldn’t be 50/50 if everything else was equal. But it’s not. I hate to use the P-word, but consider the environment our girls are being raised in. Until societal pressures can really be controlled for, I’m not sure that we can really say what people’s “natural tendencies” are. And that goes for men, too. Gender stereotypes are stupid. And Tierney’s insistence that girls just don’t like some things isn’t terribly inspiring (or new).

But whether they grew up to be biologists or sociologists or lawyers, when they were surveyed in their 30s, these women were as content with their careers as their male counterparts. They also made as much money per hour of work.

The study the author is referring to involved less than 100 female “talent-search” participants and about 300 female graduate students, IIRC. I don’t doubt the results of Benbow’s and Lubinski’s work, but their conclusions are hardly applicable to every profession:

“In a survey of 24 medical schools, Carr and colleagues15 found that female physician teachers with children had lower job satisfaction, less institutional support and slower career progress than male physician teachers with children.”

Note: This statement says less about a chilly academic climate than it does about the need for investigation into the unique issues that face women in science/medicine. All I’m saying is it couldn’t hurt to get some more insight into what women need to get more out of their jobs.

Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/162/5/637

“…our analysis of tenure-track placements indicate that women are less likely than men to be employed in tenure-track positions.”

Source: NSF
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04323/pdf/sect1.pdf

"[A] 1975 survey of faculty salaries in higher education by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) showed that women made 10% less than men, which wasn't bad, considering that the wage gap for all professions then was 41%. However, as the gap for all women shrank to 26% in 1997, faculty women fell farther behind--as of last year they make 15% less than the average man."

Source: ScienceMagazine
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/0210/women_s_salaries_why_the_wage_gap_worsens/(parent)/158

“Studies of career satisfaction in female physicians have yielded mixed results.” I’m not going to paraphrase the entire study; it’s worth a read.

Source: Journal of the American Medical Association.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/291/5/635

Ms. Pinker, a clinical psychologist and columnist for The Globe and Mail in Canada (and sister of Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist), argues that the campaign for gender parity infantilizes women by assuming they don’t know what they want.

And I would argue that it’s kind of ironic to say that we don’t need to worry about sexism in science because the girlies don’t like science anyway. What’s infantilizing to me is for someone to decide there is no such thing as bias and that we don’t need to investigate inequalities when there is a significant number of women out there who disagree (seriously, what could it hurt to apply a law that is ALREADY ON THE BOOKS). Notice the “gender parity” jab, which seems to be another conflation of Title IX with a mandated quota system.

Instead, they complained of being pushed so hard to be scientists and engineers that they ended up in jobs they didn’t enjoy. “The irony was that talent in a male-typical pursuit limited their choices,” Ms. Pinker says. “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”

I'll admit to laughing at this part. The entire paragraph is absolutely irrelevant to the plight of women who want to go into science and are pushed the other way. This is irrelevant to the plight of women who are IN science, want to stay there, and aren't being treated fairly. I can’t think of a nice way to describe Ms. Pinker’s statements, honestly. Moving on.

But the idea had strong advocates, too, and Congress quietly ordered agencies to begin the Title IX compliance reviews in 2006.

Heaven forbid Congress starts enforcing its own laws.

The American Enterprise Institute is best described as a neo-conservative thinktank composed of a large number of Bush administration officials. This organization has been the architect of much Bush foreign policy, they seem to oppose general scientific consensus about global warming, and they aided the global tobacco industry in the Social Costs/Social Values Project.

Do a Google for Christina Hoff Summers and just look at what pops up. If you're not
convinced she is making her living off of being controversial, we can talk about it.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/personprofile.php?personID=69

The agencies that have been cutting financing for Fermilab and the Spirit rover on Mars are paying for investigations of a problem that may not even exist. How is this good for scientists of either sex?

Funny he mentions Fermilab, which is coming under quite a bit of heat lately due to its handling of sexual harassment among engineers. Guess who's paying for Fermilab's defense lawyers? The gubment. And Title IX is a waste of money? Pfft. (Updated: July 26, 2008)

I think Tierney started out with his own conclusions and went from there, but I may be wrong. In case anyone is confused about my position, I don’t support quotas or forcing women into professions they don’t care for. I do think it’s worth finding out how prevalent sexism in science is, and I also believe that as long as Title IX is lawful, complaints about “applying” it aren’t really sensible.

I have more links in case anyone is interested. Also, pretty much every page in Babcock and Laschever's "Women Don't Ask" applies to this subject matter. Please read it, especially if you are female.

Update: FairerScience offers a rather brief synopsis of the article. ;)