Inequality quantified: Mind the gender gap
2013; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 495; Issue: 7439 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/495022a
ISSN1476-4687
Autores Tópico(s)Social Policy and Reform Studies
ResumoA s an aspiring engineer in the early 1970s, Lynne Kiorpes was easy to spot in her undergraduate classes.Among a sea of men, she and a handful of other women made easy targets for a particular professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.On the first day of class, "he looked around and said 'I see women in the classroom.I don't believe women have any business in engineering, and I'm going to personally see to it that you all fail' ."He wasn't bluffing.All but one of the women in the class ultimately left engineering; Kiorpes went on to major in psychology.Such blatant sexism is almost unthinkable today, says Kiorpes, now a neuroscientist at New York University.But Kiorpes, who runs several mentoring programmes for female students and postdoctoral fellows, says that subtle bias persists at most universities.And it drives some women out of science careers.By almost any metric, women have made great gains in closing the scientific gender gap, but female scientists around the world continue to face major challenges.According to the US National Science Foundation, women earn about half the doctorates in science and engineering in the United States but comprise only 21% of full science professors and 5% of full engineering professors.And on average, they earn just 82% of what male scientists make in the United States -even less in Europe.Scientific leaders say that they continue to struggle with ways to level the playing field and entice more women to enter and stay in science."We are not drawing from our entire intellectual capital, " says Hannah Valantine,
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