It has become a routine affair to celebrate International Women’s Day on the 8th of March. Several scientific magazines carried special sections highlighting the
challenges faced by hiring authorities as well as by women scientists. Proportion of women in the scientific community is moving up at snail's space. It is becoming
increasingly hard not only to attract but also retain women in science. Of course there are a few , with a Will of their own, self motivated or encouraged by teachers,parents or mentors who seem to find a way, in spite of all obstacles. But what is it that restrains women from opting for a scientific carrier ? Valian’s book aptly titled Why
so slow? makes quite an interesting
reading, in this context(1). She states that “adults
often misperceive and misevaluate each other often underrating women and overrating men,” and argues for the necessity to look beyond the XX and XY chromosomes and
associated hormones.
It was more than a 100 years ago that Marie Curie received her Nobel Prize. Since its inception , 839 individuals , across all disciplines have received the Prize, among them only 44 are women (counting Mme Curie twice), a mere 5 %. In every which way you try to take a sample, males are overrepresented. Is it because as Valian says women are underrated and men are overrated ? Or isn't this a mere reflection of the skewed gender ratio within the scientific community? (We will repeat these questions again). The brightly lit stage of honor, glory and recognition on which the scientific achievers share space has an equally intense and dark underbelly, which houses the fraudsters, cheaters and other criminally minded. What is the female representation there? Here is a partial answer “Males are overrepresented among life science researchers committing scientific misconduct. ” (2) Fang et al had come to this conclusion after pouring over two decades of data on scientific misconduct, procured from the United States Office of Research Integrity. Of the 215 cases put under the scanner Fang and his team found that 65% were committed by male. Time for us to repeat the question: Isn't this a mere reflection of the skewed gender ratio within the scientific community? Fang et al don’t discount that altogether. They do admit the sample size is too small to warrant generalizations.
Anna Kaatz is a postdoctoral research associate and is probing why so many women researchers quit biomedical research careers. She would like to understand the undercurrents, if any, of unconscious gender biases which might put female research scientists at a disadvantage. In a follow up study Kaatz et al ask the provocative question “Are men more likely to commit scientific misconduct ?”(3) How do female scientists cope with professional pressures at workplace?. Ambitious and competent, how do they respond and react to the temptations to forge, to misrepresent or to cosmetize the scientific data?, In other words, whatever be the motivations and temptations, does the tendency to engage in scientific misconduct have clear gender based divergence ? Kaatz et al too are noncommittal as they conclude “Maybe, Maybe not.”
A few very pertinent, though inconvenient questions need to be answered here. Could it be that , when it comes to scientific misconduct just as in achievement, male is overrated and female underrated? Does the overwhelmingly male scientific community brush aside female offenders as inconsequential the same way they do the female achievers? Or does the scientific community condone female scientists more easily than male scientists? Alas as of now we don't have answers, but someday someone will find the answers.
Let us move out of the narrow and restrictive confines of the scientific
community into the wider crime space; do we get a clearer picture? Freda Adler emeritus professor at The Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice noted
way back in 1977 that “as a result
of the push towards equality of the genders, more women entered the workforce
and the political arena, reducing the gap between the genders in terms of
power, pay, and social standing”. To her it has been a foregone conclusion that
gender equity can’t be confined to work space alone, it will inevitably pervade every social space including the crime
zone. This concept is popularly known as the hypothesis of convergence. Adler was
forthright when she prognosticated that “If present social trends continue women will be sharing
with men not only ulcers, coronaries, hypertension, and lung cancer (until
recently considered almost exclusively masculine diseases) but will also
compete increasing in such traditionally male criminal activities as crimes
against the person, more aggressive property offenses, and especially
white-collar crime” .
References:
1. Why so slow : Academic advancement of
Women(1998) ,by Virginia Valian, MIT Press, ISBN 9780262720311
2. . Males are overrepresented among life science researchers committing scientific misconduct
2. . Males are overrepresented among life science researchers committing scientific misconduct
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| Bosphorus, Istanbul 12th May 2013 |
