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Women Hindered in Science and Engineering
By Leigh A. Neithardt
The National Academy of Sciences convened a panel last September to discuss the findings of Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, a report issued by committees of the National Academy of Sciences,the National Academy of Engineering,and the Institute of Medicine.
The report notes that discrimination toward women in science and engineering is common and that “academic organizational structures and rules contribute significantly to the underuse of women” in the academy. “For over thirty years,” the report states, “women have made up over 30 percent of the doctorates in social . . . and behavioral sciences and over 20 percent in the life sciences. Yet at the top research institutions, only 15.4 percent of the full professors in the social and behavioral sciences and 14.8 percent in the life sciences are women.” The report cites a “virtual absence” of women of minority and ethnic backgrounds in science and engineering fields.
The report’s authors acknowledge that there are no “easy fixes” to these “substantial and systemic” problems, but they urge the continuance of “many practices developed in the last decade by universities and funding agencies” to address persisting inequities. “The challenge,” they write, “is to use such strategies more widely and evaluate them more broadly to ensure we are accessing the entire talent pool to find . . . the best people for our faculties.”
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