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<P><SPAN class=380121316-19062008><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've culled a few
interesting tidbits from another listserv on women in science....seems like
there are endless artcles and reports these days about how to increase the
retention of women in science and medicine- I thought the last article in this
list was the most provocative. Ora</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=380121316-19062008> </SPAN></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject: Call for Nominations: 7th Annual Janet L
Norwood Award</FONT>
<P><A
href="http://ebiz1.exfoundry.com/members/response.asp?ID=9110618439100784"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial></FONT></U></FONT></A></P><FONT face=Arial
size=2>For Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Statistical
Sciences</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Section on Statistical Genetics and the
Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, University of
Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) are pleased to request nominations for the Seventh
Annual Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the
Statistical Sciences. The award will be conferred on Wed 9/17/2008. The award
recipient will be invited to deliver a lecture at the UAB award ceremony, and
will receive all expenses paid to deliver this lecture, a plaque, and a $5,000
prize.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eligible individuals are women who have completed
their terminal degree, have made outstanding contributions to the statistical
sciences, and, if selected, are willing to deliver a lecture at the award
ceremony. For additional details about the award, please feel invited to visit
our website at </FONT><A
href="http://www.soph.uab.edu/ssg/norwoodaward/aboutaward"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://www.soph.uab.edu/ssg/norwoodaward/aboutaward</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial size=2>.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>To nominate a candidate, send a full curriculum vitae
accompanied by a letter of not more than two pages in length describing the
nature of the candidate's contributions. Contributions may be in the area of
development and evaluation of statistical methods, teaching of statistics,
application of statistics, or any other activity that can arguably be said to
have advanced the field of statistical science. Self-nominations are
acceptable.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Please send nominations to:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>David B. Allison, Ph.D.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Professor & Head Section on Statistical Genetics
Department of Biostatistics, RPHB 327 University of Alabama at
Birmingham</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>1665 University Boulevard</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0022</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Phone: (205) 975-9169</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fax: (205) 975-2541</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Email: dallison@uab.edu</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Deadline for receipt of nominations is Mon 6/30/2008.
Electronic submissions of nominations are accepted and encouraged. The winner
will be announced by Fri 7/4/2008. </FONT><A
href="http://ebiz1.exfoundry.com/members/response.asp?ID=9110618439100785"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://ebiz1.exfoundry.com/members/response.asp?ID=9110618439100785</FONT></U></FONT></A></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial
size=2>-----------------------------------------------------</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject: Girls' math scores</FONT></P>
<P><A href="http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/05/3043n.htm"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/05/3043n.htm</FONT></U></FONT></A></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Today's News</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Friday, May 30, 2008</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cultural Attitudes Affect Girls' Math Performance,
Analysis Finds By LILA GUTERMAN</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The debate over why girls do worse than boys on math
tests is it their nature or their nurture?" has continued in the three years
since Lawrence H. Summers, then president of Harvard University, provoked an
uproar by coming down on the side of nature. He suggested that the under
representation of women in science and engineering might reflect innate
differences in mathematics ability. Now a new analysis finds that national
culture, not innate ability, can account for some test differences.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Four scholars found that on math tests, the gap
between girls and boys shrinks to nil in countries with greater parity between
sexes, measured by factors such as economic activity. Their study appears in the
new issue of Science.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The researchers, who hail from three universities in
Illinois and one in Italy, compared the results of more than 276,000
15-year-olds in 40 countries who took a test in 2003 run by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, called the Programme for International
Student Assessment. On average, girls scored 2 percent lower than boys in
mathematics.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>But looking beyond the averages, the researchers
found that the results varied by country. And when they compared the gaps in
mathematics scores to various measures of gender inequality, they found a
possible reason for those national variations. In the countries that had the
greatest gender inequality, such as Turkey and Korea, girls tended to fare worse
compared to boys. In countries with more equality, such as Norway, Sweden, and
Iceland, the gender gap in mathematics test scores disappears. The United States
ranked in the middle of the pack on both gender inequality and the
mathematics-test-score gap.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>In addition to economic activity, the gender-equality
measures included women's education, female political participation, and
responses to several survey questions, such as one asking whether respondents
agree with the following statement: "When jobs are scarce, men should have more
right to a job than women."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Paola Sapienza, one of the authors, who is an
associate professor of finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of
Management, said her team did not know whether gender inequality caused the gap
in mathematics test scores" perhaps by undermining girls' self-confidence or by
depriving them of female role models in science" or if the two were simply
correlated. What is clear, Ms. Sapienza says, is that girls are not simply worse
than boys in math. "The main lesson I take from this analysis is that the gender
gap in mathematics in favor of boys is not a universal feature," she
says.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard,
called the analysis a "particularly compelling" demonstration of that lesson.
She and others have done similar work looking at math scores within the United
States.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial
size=2>-----------------------------------------------------</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject: Article from the NY Times: Diversity in the
lab</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>May 15, 2008</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lifeıs Work</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Diversity Isnıt Rocket Science, Is It?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>By LISA BELKIN</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>BACK in the bad old days, the workplace was a
battleground, where sexist jokes and assumptions were the norm.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Women were shut off from promotion by an old boysı
network that favored its own. They went to meetings and were often the only
women in the room.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>All that has changed in the last three decades,
except where it has not. In the worlds of science, engineering and technology,
it seems, the past is still very much present.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>³Itıs almost a time warp,² said Sylvia Ann Hewlett,
the founder of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a nonprofit organization that
studies women and work. ³All the predatory and demeaning and discriminatory
stuff that went on in workplaces 20, 30 years ago is alive and well in these
professions.²</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>That is the conclusion of the centerıs latest study,
which will be published in the Harvard Business Review in June.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Based on data from 2,493 workers (1,493 women and
1,000 men) polled from March 2006 through October 2007 and hundreds more
interviewed in focus groups, the report paints a portrait of a macho culture
where women are very much outsiders, and where those who do enter are likely to
eventually leave.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The study was conceived in response to the highly
criticized assertion three years ago, by the then-president of Harvard, that
women were not well represented in the science because they lacked what it took
to excel there.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The purpose of the work-life centerıs survey was to
measure the size of the gender gap and to decipher why women leave the science,
engineering and technology professions in disproportionate numbers.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The problem isnıt that women arenıt making strides in
education in the hard sciences. According to a National Science Foundation
report in 2006, 46 percent of Ph.D. degrees in the biological sciences are
awarded to women (compared with 31 percent two decades ago); 31 percent of the
Ph.D. degrees in chemistry go to women, compared with 18 percent 20 years
ago.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>And, women enter science engineering and technology
(known as the SET professions) in sizable numbers. In fact, 41 percent of
workers on the earliest rungs of SET career ladder are women, the study found,
with the highest representation in scientific and medical research (66 percent)
and the lowest in engineering (21 percent).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>They also do well at the start, with 75 percent of
women age 25 to 29 being described as ³superb,² ³excellent² or ³outstanding² on
their performance reviews, words used for 61 percent of men in the same age
group.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>An exodus occurs around age 35 to 40. Fifty-two
percent drop out, the report warned, with some leaving for ³softer² jobs in the
sciences human resources rather than lab bench work, for instance, and others
for different work entirely. That is twice the rate of men in the SET
industries, and higher than the attrition rate of women in law or investment
banking.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The reasons pinpointed in the report are many, but
they all have their roots in what the authors describe as a pervasive macho
culture.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Engineers have their ³hard hat culture,² while
biological and chemical scientists find themselves in the ³lab coat² culture and
computer experts inhabit a ³geek culture.² What they all have in common is that
they are ³at best unsupportive and at worst downright hostile to women,² the
study said.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The 147-page report (which was sponsored by Alcoa,
Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer and Cisco) is filled with tales of
sexual harassment (63 percent of women say they experienced harassment on the
job); and dismissive attitudes of male colleagues (53 percent said in order to
succeed in their careers they had to ³act like a man²); and a lack of mentors
(51 percent of engineers say they lack one); and hours that suit men with wives
at home but not working mothers (41 percent of technology workers says they need
to be available ³24/7²).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Josephine, a computer programmer whose boss at a
start-up a decade ago nicknamed her Finn, stands out among the
accounts.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>³It turned out to be really useful to allow some of
my colleagues to imagine I was a man,² the worker is quoted as saying. The
e-mail messages Finn received were strikingly different than those received by
Josephine. Not only did they contain ³brutal locker room stuff, that was hard to
take,² but also important information shared by colleagues who wanted to keep
each other in the loop. Josephine got none of that, making the advantage of
being a man in a male world quite clear.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Her advice? ³Get yourself a Finn,² Josephine said.
³Heıs as necessary today as he was in 1997. Back then I thought that Finn would
outgrow his usefulness, that there would come a day when Josephine was in the
know. Itıs sad, but that day hasnıt happened.²</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>This portrait of a male-dominated culture comes as no
surprise to Carol B. Muller, the chief executive and founder of MentorNet, an
online network for women and minorities in engineering and science.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The reason the ³hard sciences² are ³so much worse
than other fields,² she said, is multifaceted and rooted in the societal
perception that women simply are not as good in math and science as men
are.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>This notion persists despite the dozens of studies
that show the abilities of boys and girls are equal well into high
school.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>³Most people just donıt look at a woman and see an
engineer,² Ms. Muller said.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The result, she said has been a work environment that
dismisses women. Female employees come up against ³the kind of culture that
evolves when women are in the extreme minority,² she said. (Think ³Lord of the
Flies.²) The ideal worker in this realm is ³the hacker who goes into his cubicle
and doesnıt emerge for a week, having not showered or eaten anything but pizza.
Those people exist and they are seen as heroes.²</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>THERE is a new spotlight being pointed at these
testosterone-soaked corners lately, a result of the fact that even in a
faltering economy, the technology and science industries need
workers.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that job
opportunities in these fields will grow five times faster than in other
industries. Demand for information technology workers, for instance, is
projected to increase by 25 percent over the next 30 years, while the number of
available workers is expected to shrink over the same period.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Wouldnıt it make financial sense, the study
concludes, for these employers to find a way to halt the exodus? And will that
incentive be sufficient to transform a culture that has been resistant to calls
for change?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>A handful of companies are trying. The report
highlights 14 pilot programs, many of them implemented by the reportıs sponsors,
that are designed to retain and promote women.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>At Cisco, for instance, where only 16 percent of
employees are women, the companyıs Executive Talent Insertion Program aims to
add about a dozen senior women to its management ranks within an 18-month period
ending this year.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>This would provide mentors and role models as well as
alter the gender landscape. The program at Johnson & Johnson, called
³Crossing the Finish Line,² tutors women in leadership skills.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Reducing the current attrition rate by 25 percent
would add 220,000 SET workers to the economy, Ms. Hewlett said.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>And that just might be a figure that even the
unshowered geek in the cubicle can respect. ³Cultures only change because they
have to,² she said. ³Maybe itıs finally time.²</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>E-mail: Belkin@nytimes.com</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial
size=2>----------------------------------------------------</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject: Why aren't there more women in science and
engineering? Controversial new research suggests: They just aren't
interested.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>By Elaine McArdle | May 18, 2008</FONT></P>
<P><A
href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/18/the_freedom_to_say_no/?page=1"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/18/the_freedom_to_say_no/?page=1</FONT></U></FONT></A></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>WHEN IT COMES to the huge and persistent gender gap
in science and technology jobs, the finger of blame has pointed in many
directions: sexist companies, boy-friendly science and math classes, differences
in aptitude.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Women make up almost half of today's workforce, yet
hold just a fraction of the jobs in certain high-earning, high-qualification
fields. They constitute 20 percent of the nation's engineers, fewer than
one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math
professionals.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Over the past decade and more, scores of conferences,
studies, and government hearings have been directed at understanding the gap. It
has stayed in the media spotlight thanks in part to the high-profile misstep of
then-Harvard president Larry Summers, whose loose comment at a Harvard
conference on the topic in 2005 ultimately cost him his job.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Now two new studies by economists and social
scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the
explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women
themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial
numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers
because they would simply rather do something else.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>One study of information-technology workers found
that women's own preferences are the single most important factor in that
field's dramatic gender imbalance. Another study followed 5,000 mathematically
gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to
avoid physics and the other "hard" sciences in favor of work in medicine and
biosciences.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>It's important to note that these findings involve
averages and do not apply to all women or men; indeed, there is wide variety
within each gender. The researchers are not suggesting that sexism and cultural
pressures on women don't play a role, and they don't yet know why women choose
the way they do. One forthcoming paper in the Harvard Business Review, for
instance, found that women often leave technical jobs because of rampant sexism
in the workplace.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>But if these researchers are right, then a certain
amount of gender gap might be a natural artifact of a free society, where men
and women finally can forge their own vocational paths. And understanding how
individual choices shape the gender balance of some of the most important,
financially rewarding careers will be critical in fashioning effective solutions
for a problem that has vexed people for more than a generation.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>A few years ago, Joshua Rosenbloom, an economist at
the University of Kansas, became intrigued by a new campaign by the National
Science Foundation to root out what it saw as pervasive gender discrimination in
science and engineering. The agency was spending $19 million a year to encourage
mentoring programs, gender-bias workshops, and cooperative work
environments.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Rosenbloom had no quarrel with the goal of gender
equity. But as he saw it, the federal government was spending all that money
without any idea what would work, because there was no solid data on what caused
the disparity between men and women in scientific fields.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>To help answer the question, Rosenbloom surveyed
hundreds of professionals in information technology, a career in which women are
significantly underrepresented. He also surveyed hundreds in comparable careers
more evenly balanced between men and women. The study examined work and family
history, educational background, and vocational interests.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The results were striking. The lower numbers of women
in IT careers weren't explained by work-family pressures, since the study found
computer careers made no greater time demands than those in the control group.
Ability wasn't the reason, since the women in both groups had substantial math
backgrounds. There was, however, a significant difference in one area: what the
men and women valued in their work.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Rosenbloom and his colleagues used a standard
personality-inventory test to measure people's preferences for different kinds
of work. In general, Rosenbloom's study found, men and women who enjoyed the
explicit manipulation of tools or machines were more likely to choose IT careers
- and it was mostly men who scored high in this area. Meanwhile, people who
enjoyed working with others were less likely to choose IT careers. Women, on
average, were more likely to score high in this arena.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Personal preference, Rosenbloom and his group
concluded, was the single largest determinative factor in whether women went
into IT. They calculated that preference accounted for about two-thirds of the
gender imbalance in the field. The study was published in November in the
Journal of Economic Psychology.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>It may seem like a cliche - or rank sexism - to say
women like to work with people, and men prefer to work with things. Rosenbloom
acknowledges that, but says that whether due to socialization or "more basic
differences," the genders on average demonstrate different vocational
interests.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>"It sounds like stereotypes," he said in an
interview, "but these stereotypes have a germ of truth."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>In the language of the social sciences, Rosenbloom
found that the women were "self-selecting" out of IT careers. The concept of
self-selection has long interested social scientists as an explanation for how
groups sort themselves over time. Since human beings are heterogeneous,
self-selection predicts that when offered a menu of options and freedom of
choice, people will make diverse choices and sort themselves out in nonrandom
ways. In other words, even given the same opportunities, not everybody will do
the same thing - and there are measurable reasons that they will act differently
from one another.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The concept of self-selection sets off alarms for
many feminists. It seems to suggest that women themselves are responsible for
the gender gap. It can also be an excuse for minimizing the role of social
forces, including discrimination in the classroom and the workplace.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>But self-selection has also emerged as the chief
explanation in other recent studies of gender imbalance, including a long-term
survey done by two Vanderbilt researchers, Camilla Persson Benbow and David
Lubinski.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Starting more than 30 years ago, the Study of
Mathematically Precocious Youth began following nearly 2,000 mathematically
gifted adolescents, boys and girls, tracking their education and careers in
ensuing decades. (It has since been expanded to 5,000 participants, many from
more recent graduating classes.) Both men and women in the study achieved
advanced credentials in about the same numbers. But when it came to their career
paths, there was a striking divergence.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Math-precocious men were much more likely to go into
engineering or physical sciences than women. Math-precocious women, by contrast,
were more likely to go into careers in medicine, biological sciences,
humanities, and social sciences. Both sexes scored high on the math SAT, and the
data showed the women weren't discouraged from certain career paths.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The survey data showed a notable disparity on one
point: That men, relative to women, prefer to work with inorganic materials;
women, in general, prefer to work with organic or living things. This gender
disparity was apparent very early in life, and it continued to hold steady over
the course of the participants' careers.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Benbow and Lubinski also found something else
intriguing: Women who are mathematically gifted are more likely than men to have
strong verbal abilities as well; men who excel in math, by contrast, don't do
nearly as well in verbal skills. As a result, the career choices for
math-precocious women are wider than for their male counterparts. They can
become scientists, but can succeed just as well as lawyers or teachers. With
this range of choice, their data show, highly qualified women may opt out of
certain technical or scientific jobs simply because they can.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>These studies looked at different slices of the
working world, but agree that in a world in which men and women both have
freedom of choice, they tend to choose differently.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>They have a provocative echo in the conclusions of
Susan Pinker, a psychologist and columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail. In
her controversial new book, "The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender
Gap," Pinker gathers data from the journal Science and a variety of sources that
show that in countries where women have the most freedom to choose their
careers, the gender divide is the most pronounced.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The United States, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and
the United Kingdom, which offer women the most financial stability and legal
protections in job choice, have the greatest gender split in careers. In
countries with less economic opportunity, like the Philippines, Thailand, and
Russia, she writes, the number of women in physics is as high as 30 to 35
percent, versus 5 percent in Canada, Japan, and Germany.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>"It's the opposite of what we'd expect," says Pinker.
"You'd think the more family-friendly policies, and richer the economy, the more
women should behave like men, but it's the opposite. I think with economic
opportunity comes choices, comes freedom."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>If the gender gap in many fields has its roots in
women's own preferences, that raises a new line of questions, including the most
obvious: Why do women make these choices? Why do they prefer different kinds of
work? And what does "freedom of choice" really mean in a world that is still
structured very differently for men and women?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>For example, the choice to drop out of high-paying
finance careers appears to be driven by the longer hours required in those jobs,
says University of Chicago economist Marianne Bertrand, who studied the career
tracks of the school's MBA graduates. Women who want families eventually decide
to walk away from the career, at least temporarily.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>"I've gone from the glass ceiling to thinking, if
these jobs weren't 70 hours a week, women might not need to take so much time
off," she says.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Benbow and Lubinski, at Vanderbilt, found that
high-achieving women often pick their careers based on the idea that they'll
eventually take time off, and thus avoid fields in which that absence will exact
a larger penalty. In humanities or philosophy, for instance, taking a year or
two off won't affect one's skill set very much. But in quickly evolving
technical fields, a similar sabbatical can be a huge career setback.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Beneath those structural questions, though, women
still seem to make choices throughout their lives that are different from men's,
and it is not yet clear why.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Rosenbloom, the economist behind the IT study, says
little research has been done on how interests are formed. "We don't know the
role of mentors or experience or socialization," he says.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>To some sociologists and many feminists, the focus on
self-selection is a troubling distraction from bigger questions of how society
pushes girls and boys into different roles.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Rosalind Chait Barnett, at the Women's Studies
Research Center at Brandeis, says that boys and girls are not, at root,
different enough for such clear sorting to be seen as a matter of
"choice."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>"The data is quite clear," she says. "On anything you
point to, there is so much variation within each gender that you have to get rid
of this idea that 'men are like this, women are like that.' "</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sorting through the various factors is extremely
challenging, all the researchers agree, and the issue is as complex as the
individuals making each career decision. These findings on self-selection only
open new areas of inquiry. They do suggest, however, that if the hard-fought
battle for gender equality has indeed brought America to a point where women
have the freedom to choose their career paths, then the end result may be
surprising - and an equal-opportunity workforce may look a lot less equal than
some had imagined.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Elaine McArdle is a Cambridge writer. Her first book,
"The Migraine Brain," coauthored with Harvard neurologist Dr. Carolyn Bernstein,
will be published in September by Free Press.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>İ Copyright 2008 The New York Times
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