Most of us can count the number of female professors we’ve had on the fingers of one hand. This seems to be well known and even accepted; you probably don’t need another long, propaganda-like article promoting “awareness” and “diversity” and “inclusivity.” Though of course these things are important (and are not as trivial as they sound), I’m not going to discuss them here as I think we all agree that it serves little, arguably no, purpose. What I want to do with this article is take a look at data from a recent study and some other related data, and come full circle with what has caused this problem and how we can work towards a solution.
Following the release of Google’s diversity report, which (unsurprisingly) found a severe lack of female representation among its ranks, Michael Kuzmin, Arik Motskin and Zack Gallinger, founders of the 10 and 3 blog and analytics fans, thought it would be interesting to conduct a similar study regarding female faculty members in Mathematics, Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments at Canada’s leading research universities. They published their findings on the 10 and 3 blog on January 29, 2015.
Though the findings would hardly be shocking for students in these faculties, they are still alarming. For math and computer science, all but 2 universities in the study had less than 25% female representation with a few hovering around the 10% mark. In Electrical and Computer Engineering departments, the average looks to be in the 11.5%-12% range.
UW’s ECE department fared well compared to others with a whopping 12.0%, ranking 6th overall. This may be “good” compared to other schools, but allow me to put this in perspective for you: If you Google “number of faculty, uwaterloo ece department,” it will tell you that there are 86 full-time faculty members. The 10 and 3 study cited above includes only “full-time” faculty members in their numbers, excluding Visiting professors, Adjunct, Retired/Emeritus Instructors, Lecturers, and Professors of Teaching. I should also note that the study excludes cross-appointed faculty, who work primarily out of another department. Basically, it only covers faculty members who research and teach for a living primarily in the department of interest. Assuming the 86 full-time faculty members on UW ECE’s website figure coincides with the studies’ criteria, that means we have exactly 10.32 female faculty members in our ECE department. Yikes.
As a (Loyal? Devoted?) student in UW’s ECE department (I’m fairly sure nano is technically part of ECE in some way, shape or form), I’m not here to drop bombs on these figures. That being said, this is still really sad. So the next question to ask is, Why?
The answer is frankly no more complicated than this: There are not very many women in engineering and mathematics/computer science related fields to begin with. Of that limited pool of people, a subset will pursue graduate studies, and out of those, it is likely that only some will try for faculty positions.
The problem starts at the bottom. Fewer women are choosing these fields and therefore inevitably, there is limited representation at higher ranks. So again, why? Because of deeply rooted societal stereotypes and biases. Now you might think, this is the 21st century, how are issues from the dark ages still around? Well, they are. These are so ingrained in our culture that often we are unconsciously unaware that they could be affecting our judgement.
For example, take the implicit association test. Many psychological studies on bias have been conducted from results of this test. In this test, there are two categories, each placed on the left and right side of your screen. A word appears in the middle of the screen and you must quickly decide in which category it belongs. A particularly famous example has the following categories: “Male and Science” and “Female and Liberal Arts.” The same participants were then put through the test with the categories flipped around, i.e.: “Female and Science” and “Male and Liberal Arts.” On the second run, respondents were significantly slower in classifying the words that appeared on the screen. They had to “think” more, as it was not “intuitive” for words like “Physics” to be associated with “Female” (and “Science”). Think you’re different? I encourage you to try the test yourself by Googling “implicit association test”—I guarantee you will be surprised at the results.
So now we know we have a problem and even where it comes from. But how do we fix it? Obviously, we need to encourage more women to go into these fields. In our “enlightened” society, one would think this would be second nature. Yet in countries around the world where women are often not as treated as nearly as well as they are here, far more pursue studies in mathematics, computer science and engineering-related fields. In fact, Canadian engineering graduate programs are known to have a significantly higher proportion of international students than domestic ones. The overlap of these dynamics does not bode well for Canada’s competitiveness in these key disciplines, which will undoubtedly be the source of future economic growth worldwide.
The same way little girls should not be forced into pink dresses complete with tutus and boys should not have to wear Buzz Lightyear or Spider Man gear (unless by choice), we should not attempt to influence academic interests based on gender. Everyone should be able to make informed decisions, particularly when choosing a career. Furthermore, young people should be encouraged to pursue their interests by their family and by their peers, and (insofar as possible) not be swayed by social and societal dynamics at play in their field of choice.
It will be a very long time (if ever) before we are able to purge biases and stereotypes from our thinking. What we can do however is be aware of these, step back, and actively justify to ourselves why we are making a particular choice. Following this way of thinking will help us fight internal biases, and over time, work towards a truly enlightened society.
Study: “Where are the women professors in Canada’s math and science departments?”
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