The notion that natural ability or brilliance are required to excel in certain fields could explain the lack of women in those subjects, according to a survey of US academics. The survey, carried out by researchers also in the US, found that the more academics associate innate talent with success in their discipline, the more likely that women will be under-represented in that field.
Led by Sarah-Jane Leslie of Princeton University and Andrei Cimpian of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the team surveyed more than 1800 academics across 30 disciplines, including 104 physicists. Using an online, anonymous questionnaire, individuals were asked – on a scale of one to seven – to score how important they believed natural ability and hard work applied to being successful in their fields. The survey also asked participants to rate the importance they thought their colleagues attached to the same qualities. Physics scored an average of 4.41 – the fifth highest of the 30 subjects. “Disciplines that emphasized the need for a special and unteachable brilliance tended to see much larger gender gaps,” says Leslie. Indeed, the proportion of female PhD graduates in physics in the US stands at 18% compared with 49.5% in neuroscience, where researchers gave it a score of 3.83.
Stereotypical subjects?
The researchers hypothesize that the under-representation of women is down to the stereotype that women have less natural ability in subjects such as physics, and that they are more likely to succeed by hard work. How academics judge women in their field and whether women see themselves as suited to work in a particular field could then be influenced by such stereotypes. The researchers also looked at several other explanations for the effect, but found no support for them. For example, they tested whether the same fields that valued natural talent demand longer hours that women may be less willing or able to work, resulting in lower female participation. However, no link was found.
Leslie recommends that physicists seeking to improve diversity should avoid using terms like brilliance and genius when teaching and supervising students, and instead emphasize the need for hard work and dedication. “I would also strongly encourage people to consider sharing personal anecdotes of how they’ve overcome challenges and struggles to get where they are,” says Leslie. Indeed, in a follow-up study, which is currently undergoing peer review, the researchers say they have found “very promising” evidence that a field that values brilliance reduces womens’ motivation to pursue a career in that area.
Provocative hypothesis
“It’s a very promising, provocative hypothesis,” says Andrew Penner, a specialist in gender studies at the University of California, Irvine. “My hope is that it will encourage new research looking further into how people think about ability, for example, looking at when students become aware of differences in how different fields conceptualize ability.” Penner agrees that the strategy of playing down innate ability and focusing more on hard work when teaching is “promising”. “Not only does it have the promise of helping redress the issue of gender inequality, but even if it isn’t successful in creating a better gender balance, it will likely make life better for women and men, and that would be a good thing,” he adds.
The research is published in the journal Science.
