I’m skeptical about the value of this group

November 5, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

This post may open up a big can of worms, but what the heck. I take it readers don’t come here to be bored.

Earlier this year, Harvard University President Larry Summers created a firestorm when he suggested there may be innate reasons why women are under-represented in the sciences.

Summers put his finger on a real problem: Women are under-represented in the sciences. But his explanation for it was daft. The reason isn’t genetic; it’s cultural and social.

As a society, we don’t adequately encourage our girls and young women to explore the sciences. Pop culture certainly never sends that message. Word gets out that science is uncool and for geeks. Sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, American culture steers girls away from the sciences.

I was pleased, then, to learn of a new organization that seeks to offer support to scientifically inclined women. The website Skepchick.org wants to spark interest in real science by debunking pseudosciences.

My enthusiasm waned, however, after I visited the site and read about the group’s first project: A “sexy women of science” calendar.

Great. Wonderful. I have an 11-year-old daughter. She could use some role models. It doesn’t look like I’ll find them here. What message does this send — “Study hard and someday you too can pose in your underwear for a calendar”?

The website is a disappointment overall. “Smart is sexy” it blares, as a series of provocative images — high heels, fishnet stockings, bodices — come and go. As a responsible parent, I would not advise my daughter or any preteen or teenage girl to visit this site to learn about women in science or find mentors.

Women who enter fields traditionally dominated by men face serious hurdles – not the least of which is sexual harassment. Portraying pro-science women as little more than pliant sex kittens is counterproductive. It belittles the hard work women have done trailblazing in these fields and provides an excuse, for those who want one, to marginalize their achievements.

Skepchick had the opportunity to offer meaningful support and advice for young women interested in pursuing science careers. What a shame the organization threw it away for a “Cosmo girl” approach.

I don’t want to hear any of that junk about women empowering themselves by flaunting their sexuality. Skepchick’s antics don’t empower women. They merely reinforce an old message that has helped keep women down for hundreds of years: What’s in your bra is more important than what’s in your head.

You claim that Summer’s explanation was daft. Is it so daft to observe that there are fundamental differences in the way women and men process the world around them? Is it daft to observe that, in general, women are more vocal than men? Is it daft to observe that, in general, men think more spacially than women?
No, I don’t think so. There are differences between women and men. That doesn’t mean one gender is superior than the other.
Pointing out differences and discussing them honestly should not be the cause for a bunch of over-the-top accusations of intolerance or bigotry.

  • The guy, and you, are daft because of two items you both leave out.

    The percentage of women graduating from college with science degrees and the percentage of women actually working in those areas. If you look you will see a significant difference between the first and second number.

    If women are not interested in science (for either of your daft reasons), what are these women doing? Trolling for nerd husbands? My guess is they aren’t getting jobs because employed scientists aren’t hiring them.

    So, I applaud skepchicks, because encouraging any young people, male or female, into science is a good thing. But don’t give out the BS that women or girls just don’t want to do all that hard scientific stuff.

  • Auguste Comte is one of those philosophers whose thought underlies a lot of modern rhetoric without most of us being aware of it. Comte championed what he called “Positivism” – which held that our beliefs should be “posited” and held to as long as there was scientific (empirical, theoretical) support for them.

    He put this position forward as an advance over what he dubbed the two major previous forms of explanation: theology and metaphysics. In a theological world view, something happens because it is willed to happen. The rock falls because god wills it, or because the rock-spirit wills it, or because I chose to drop it. In the metaphysical world explanations are in terms of “essences” or “nature”: the rock falls because it’s the nature of heavy objects to do so; war happen because of human nature, etc.

    Comte describe a “hierarchy of sciences”, and ordering, in which different areas of thought became scientific at different rates. “Celestial Physics” (astronomy) was earliest, in prehistoric times (think Stonehenge). Next was “Terrestrial Physics” (or just physics), fully scientific by 400 BC, or after a dark period, by 1500 AD. Chemistry was outgrowing magic and alchemy by 1800 (Lavoissier), Biology was about to advance by Comte’s time (1840s – Darwin would publish in 1859). Subfields also showed variation: Inorganic Chem preceded Organic; Botany preceded Zoology.

    All this suggested to Comte that still another science ought to be developed, to complete his “Hierarchy”: at first he called this proposed field “Social Physics” then later changed the name to “Sociology”. He meant it to be a strictly scientific study of society, free of discussion of “human nature” and “free will”. Today he would probably have preferred what we call “Demography”.

    In promiting science and the scientific way of thinking Comte managed to infuriate theologians and metaphysicians, but scientific philosophers like John Stuart Mill raved about him. His ideas actually spread very rapidly. There were “positivist” clubs formed in places as far flung as Tokyo and Rio de Janiero (Comte’s motto, “Order and Progress”, is blazened across the flag of Brazil).

    In championing science he also urged a new role for women. Men, he argued, were behind the theological and metaphysical phases of human existence. Familes were basically “theological” units – the head of the family, usually a male, ruled by god’s will and his own). Nations were the social units of “metaphysics” – “we hold these truths to be self-evident”, some set of rules establishing the laws governing jurisidications; they were nearly all governed by men. The warfare which characterized such closed theological and metaphysical systems led naturally to rule by males.

    Science, Comte argued, was different. The thought system, far from being closed, was inherently open … to new ideas, new evidence, new practitioners. He believed women should escape dominance by males by entering fields of science. They were, he said, essentially nurturing rather than warlike. More importantly, they had the essential skills required for science. Unlike men, who seemed designed to smash and conquer, women had the patience needed for the daily grind of disciplined scientific work, the gradual accumulation of empirical evidence. And, since women had been particularly oppressed by men, they would make excellent “revolutionaries” as scientific thinkers, unburdened by the prejudices of those who had previously mastered them.

    All in all a pretty foreful argument for women in science. As a one-time science major (Chem for three years), I think Comte was right. I’ve never seen a woman punch her computer, and (flip side) anyone who can puzzle out knitting instructions or follow a complex recipe has lettle to fear from scientific work. Skepchick ought to read some Comte and toss the Cosmo crap. And as for sexual harrassment, get a good (woman) lawyer and sue the bastards.

  • I wrote a book on this some years ago in 1996, it’s still posted online. Here’s a link to the woefully out of date resources page:

    http://www.sdsc.edu/~woodka/resources.html

    It needs a lot of updating to remove some dead links, but a lot are still valid, and give you some idea of what’s out there for girls. One of these days I’ll get back to this project and get things cleaned up. Might even go re-write the book if I get real ambitious.

  • I am a woman who works in a male-dominated field and organizations that try to encourage women entering these types of fields by saying it’s “sexy” is infuriating. It reinforces the idea that career success is not enough. No one criticizes male scientists if they choose to put work over family, but women are supposed to shine in the lab, the kitchen, AND the bedroom. I’d like to see how many men out there can synthesize Einstein, Martha Stewart, and Jenna Jameson.

  • I’ve read the website (I’ve been following the threads since it was started up a few months ago) as well as the article you refer to; I’m afraid I think the criticisms above are valid.

    No matter how well intentioned the site is, it annoys me that any disagreement with its approach is dismissed as “uninformed.” Throughout its fora, any questioning of the organisation’s aims and validity is met with accusations of not being “skeptical” enough to understand – a pretty weak response.

    There are many women who resent the implication that to become interested in science, they must first be reassured that one can still be “sexy.” Personally, I would prefer Cosmo to this site. At least Cosmo isn’t patronising.

  • Good for you Helen. At least you know what you’re talking about before commenting. I fear you’re one of the exceptions rather than the norm.

    That said however, the primary aim of Skepchicks is not to get women interested in science, but rather to show that being interested in science and “being smart” is what makes women more interesting. I could read cosmo, or Victoria’s secret, and see women a lot more perfect, and sadly more likely than not, a lot more empty-headed too. The message Skepchicks is trying to spread is that being intelligent is what makes women sexy. That there’s more to life than being pretty. That it’s not uncool to care about your brain too. It’s playing on the same insecurities that beauty products play on, but with the exact opposite message. Perhaps this is why most people miss the message. They assume.

    Still, even if the calendar doesn’t convey that message as well as hoped, at least the rest of the site does, if people will at least bother to look that far.

    Anyway, skepticism is not the same as science. Skepticism is using the scientific method to discern truth from BS. An important first step towards good science that seems to be missing in many people’s education. Men as well as women.

    So, if people want to dismiss anything these girls have to say because of the simple fact they use nudity to sell their message, well, who’s really being biased here …

  • Exarch, thanks for responding. I wouldn’t dismiss what they have to say: I was sincere when I said the site was well intentioned.

    My primary concern is that many of the forum users seem reluctant to understand why people might be alienated by this approach. The general response seems to be “If they don’t like it, they don’t get it.” Some of us understand what the calendar is trying to do, but dispute its effectiveness.

    Using nudity to sell your message is far from simple if your intended message is that intelligence is more important than looks. And if *most* people miss your message, perhaps it isn’t being communicated as well as it could.

    I also feel that the message itself, as you’ve outlined it, is a bit dubious. Why sell being smart in terms of being “sexy” at all? Does it really make sense to dismiss prettiness, and then validate intelligence in terms of how “sexy” it makes you?

  • I suppose the biggest problem is that Skepchicks didn’t start out as – or with the intention of – becoming a non profit organisation. It’s a little, private initiative that grew out of proportion.
    As such, the audience suddenly multiplied to include people whom the original message wasn’t targeted at in the first place.

    But even so, I still think the message is a valid one, even if it does now require a bit more explaining for some of the people viewing it.

    Still, it’s interesting to see how cultural differences between Europe and the US are once again moving to the center stage here. I have to remind myself that this is the country where a president almost got kicked out for having an affair with one of his interns. Maybe not everyone is that uptight, but obviously it’s still a whole different culture than what I’m used to.

  • I agree that it’s difficult when a small community makes that transition.

    I also understand that you think the message is valid, however you haven’t addressed my questions. I realise they might have seemed rhetorical, but I genuinely want to know: why dismiss prettiness, then validate intelligence in terms of how it makes you sexy? It implies, no matter how unintentionally, that women are fundamentally concerned with whether or not they are attractive to others. I find this really condescending in a context that is supposed to promote critical thinking.

    Perhaps I should clarify I don’t actually object to the nudity per se – I like naked women as much as the next person. I have a problem with the way it’s been presented as meaningful. Nudity is a poor means of saying intelligence is important. (Purely pragmatically, I don’t think it’s a poor means of fundraising, and I suspect that if the calendar had been presented as just a fundraising project, rather than an attempt to “break down stereotypes”, reactions probably wouldn’t have been so vehement.)

    By the way, I am European… not American!

    • Comments are closed.