Other Views of Women and Hlstory To the Editor:
Roscher and Cavanaugh [J. Chem. Educ. 1987,64, 8231 present statistics concerning trends in participation for women chemists in academic institutions. For example, in 1985 women composed 6% of the faculty a t PhD-granting institutions. If current trends, which have been boosted by affirmative action policies and substantial shifts in social thought continue, by the year 2000, women may make up 8% of the faculty in PhD-granting institutions. Noting that PhD-granting institutions will replace a minimum of 21.7% of their faculiy by the year 2000, and projecting that 25% of new 1'hl)'s in chemistry will be women, Hoscher and Cavanaugh state that the percentage of women in PhD-granting institutions could reach 13.5%. While 13.5% is certainly an improvement, i t is by no means satisfactory. Does the conclusion that "by the year 2000 women will likely choose their work based on market availahilitv alone" aoolv " to women chemists selecting their workplace or to women choosing to make chemistry a career? Roscher and Cavanaugh state that for samples of men and women matched on experience, degree, rank, and type of institution, women lag k e n in bothVten&e rate and salary. Women in academics tend to feel less secure in their jobs and perceive their opportunities for professional development to be low. The percentage of women holding nontenure track is on the increase. How docs one conuniversity clude from this data that "In academe, thwe women who are hired with orofessorial rank should exoerience little discrimination with respect to salary, promotion, or tenure"? Perhaps an interestine- auestion to investigate next is whv . are there so many women in these nontenure track academic positions. We appreciate the desire to paint a rosy picture t o encourage women who may be considering careers as academic chemists. However, we still must do a great deal of work to achieve the equity we all desire. Zuckerman's progressive article in the same issue [J. Chem. Educ. 1987, 64, 8281 provides a basis for actively oromotine the ~articinationof women and minorities in science. As Zuckerman points out, chemistry courses contain an imolicit curriculum loaded with manifold unsooken biases. ~ d e s biases e will continue to influence the participation of minority groups and women in science. We must differ, however, with Zuckerman's program for improvement. Consciously hiding the humanity of science is not only deceptive, hut unlikely to solve the problem. Philosophers view science as a discipline socially constructed by members of a community and ihfluenced by the biases of the scientists who make up the community. One cannot remove the scientist from the science. One of the reasons there has been difficulty in obtaining representative numbers of females in science is that science is viewed as a masculine activity, that is, impersonal, objective. authoritarian. hard. Feminist scholars r l ) have focused on ;hanging this masculine view of science in teaching by emphasizing, not masking, the personal aspects ot'science. We would like tosuggest additionalalternatives.Teaching history ex~licitlvthrough the use of historical case studies is one way of addiessing the problem. I t is often easier to see the biases of the past than those of the present day. We can discuss cases in which the contributions of minorities and women have been overlooked (2-3). Helping our students to
d e v e l o ~an understandine of the ohiloso~hvof science and the contextural nature o r scientific concepts may help our students to develop a view of themselves as doers of science and creators of scientific ideas. Thus, instead of attempting to remove the biases in our history, we can make the biases explicit and emphasize the need f i r multiple perspectives. Nancy Brickhouse University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716
Carolyn Carter Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43214
Literature Cited
.&
-
To the Editor:
In . nrenarine our *oaoer on "Academic Women Chemists". . . our purposes were (1) Lo presenL lhe latest information on the status of women chemists in academe and (2) t o identifv historic trends affecting women's participation in the a&demic workplace. The data we used is subject t o many interpretations. For instance, some will note the increasing percentage of women among recent doctoral graduates in chemistry and be pleased by women's progress. Others will notice that the percentage increase i s a consequence of a falling number of men entering chemistry rather than a remarkable growth in the number of women and be discouraged. Thus, we are pleased that our article caught the attention of Brickhouse and Carter and that their interoretations have led them to express concern for the future status of women in PhDgranting institutions. Our conclusion was that doctoral women chemists will likely choose their workplace based on market availability alone and is drawn from the fact that new women PhD's have distributed themselves in government, industry, and academe in the same proportiins as male chemists-for about 5 years. We simply project that this will continue. Currently 3g0t of FT PhD women chemists are emnloved in academe: that percentage has been falling for s o i e time toward the 33%level observed for men. In making this point, we drew attention to the fact that there are differences in the distribution of men and women within those work sectors. This article described the situation in academe, but similar discussions could be written for chemists in government and industry. Our satisfaction in the normalized overall distribution and in the new op~ortunities afforded women by industry should not be construed to mean that we think discrimination issues for women chemVolume 66
Number 5 May 1969
447
