Women and Science (selective references) Abstracts

The Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Mathematics, Science and Engineering consists of different programs to attract and retain women in the science professions. The project, which began in 1986, is under implementation at Rutgers University's Douglass College. Based on mentoring and female support, the project includes science and math camps as well as summer orientations on college life.

Interview with Ellen Mappen, director of Rutgers University's Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science and Engineering, which is a multi-pronged effort to attract and retain female students in the science fields. Mappen says she shaped the grant proposal that launched the project out of her own experiences of sexual discrimination in the academe. The program, which targets both high-school and college students, has driven enrollment of math and science majors to more than 30% between 1988 and 1993.

The difficulties encountered by young women with a budding interest in science and math are noted. Many such women are discouraged in their pursuits at an early age. Suggestions for parents who wish to encourage their daughters to pursue science and math are provided

This is a broad collection of essays on women and minorities in the STEM (science, technology, engineeering and mathematics) disciplines.

Review of the Wellesley Report entitled Pathway for Women in the Sciences

"Women Who Dare(d) Project," a yearlong celebration of women in the arts, in mathematics, English, science, and physical education, is featured. The program was begun by Amanda Wallner, a teacher at Adams Middle School in Guilford CT

Pathways Report I is the first phase of a ground-breaking study addressing why women choose to enter scientific fields and what promotes or impedes their success. This longitudinal research project investigates women's science trajectoriesfrom their undergraduate through graduate and early career years.

Women who manage to complete their studies in science, mathematics and engineering generally have a strong career motivation and develop ways to neutralize the hostility of their male peers. To overcome problems women must be independently able to deflect attacks on their feelings of self-worth. The science, mathematics and engineering undergraduate programs have to encourage and accept female students.

Do women do science differently? And how about feminists--male or female? The answers to these fraught questions, carefully set out in this provocative book, will startle and enlighten every faction in the "science wars."
Has Feminism Changed Science? is at once a history of women in science and a frank assessment of the role of gender in shaping scientific knowledge. Science is both a profession and a body of knowledge, and Londa Schiebinger looks at how women have fared and performed in both instances. She first considers the lives of women scientists, past and present. How many are there? What sciences do they choose--or have chosen for them? Is the professional culture of science gendered? And is there something uniquely feminine about the science women do? Schiebinger debunks the myth that women scientists--because they are women--are somehow more holistic and integrative, and create more cooperative scientific communities. At the same time, she details the considerable practical difficulties that beset women in science where long-term partnerships, children, and other demanding concerns can put women's (and increasingly men's) careers at risk.
But what about the content of science, the heart of Schiebinger's subject? Have feminist perspectives brought any positive changes to scientific knowledge? Schiebinger provides a subtle and nuanced gender analysis of the physical sciences, medicine, archeology, evolutionary biology, primatology, and developmental biology. She also shows how feminist scientists have developed new theories, asked new questions, and opened new fields in many of these areas.

A discussion of some programs for attracting and retaining women in science.