This quote, taken from an article in the New Scientist could have been a direct quote from my life. I started my career in science with the aim of deconstructing deeply helfd beliefs about myself and my place in the world. During this process, I was faced with challenges upon challenges, most of which were due to a crucial lack of support. This lack of support was both abused and heightened by the specific circumstances of academic surroundings.

Let’s start at the beginning. I am a humanities graduate. You would think that a humanities program would be shielded from the sexism and biases that are rampant in more stemy fields. You’d be wrong. Sexism isn’t only perpetuated by men. Sexism is institutional, and perpetuated by everyone. Everyone, in a sense, stands to gain from partaking in the system in place. It’s game theory 101. If the game has rules, you probably have easier gains by following the winning strategy than by breaking the game so that your group as a whole may benefit.

It follows that women, men, students, teachers will often play the game in a way that benefits them personally rather than the group to which they belong, regardless of where that group happens to fall when the strategies are applied. So you find that, even in female dominated fields, women will possibly be worse off than men because the strategy that they use is one that allows the system to be maintained.

How science is widely believed to be the field of geniuses

Now, let’s talk about science for a little bit. We see science in society as a field meant only for a select few. Most of us don’t really understand how it works, and if someone labels themself as scientist, and god forbid gives us numbers behind their assessments, we tend to take them at their words, as though a gospel from the mouth of the science God. It follows that we consider the people who call themselves scientists like we would consider wizards. Mysterious creatures with powers beyond the comprehensible. And since most people don’t really understand science (and who can blame them, since it is a heavily guarded knoweldge source: aka a gate that needs gatekeeping), they wrongly assume that the magic resides as an intrinsic quality of the scientist, or more precisely, their intelligence. This is a known bias called the fundamental attribution error. This bias makes us believe that we can judge a person’s character based on contextual data. This makes us believe that only intelligence wizards can be scientists.

But the silly truth is that science isn’t some gift a few people have. Intelligence really helps, and there’s no denying it. : The average IQ for scientists is as follows.

Social scientists: 121.8

Agricultural scientists: 121.6

Mathematicians, biochemists, and chemists: 130.0

Biologists: 126.1

Medicine: 127.0

Physicists: 127.7

Source: http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf

As you can see, The average IQ is still way beyond the average of the population. Ranging from 121 to 132, we are skirting the gifted line. So there is a fire to this smoke.

But you don’t have to be a genius either. According to Charlton (2009), creativity and intelligence are being somewhat weeded out by grueling normative processes and politics.

Source: Charlton, B. G. (2009). Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity.

And this is the crux of our article. First of all, Science is a process. A method. It requires industriousness and the capacity to care about details. A good scientist is one that can spend a long time doing the same thing over and over again to make a bsolutely certain that the results shown are representative, as well as the method is applied properly. This shapes the way you think.

This is why a GREAT scientist is one that is likely to be very high in openness and creativity, but those two are not very compatible with a rigid system. And so very creative and open scientists may be pushed aside, because they are less easy to constrain in a given normative process. The people scoring high in creativity and openness are also usually correlated with a psychotic nature, and a low agreeability. This does not help with politics.

So let’s once and for all put to rest the idea that science is for geniuses. Being a genius can help, but also hinder your path as a scientist. You’ll have a better time being an average industrious person in that type of work.

How women are consistently pushed down

Now, we’ve seen that agreeableness is valued in sciences as well as industriousness, and those traits are associated on average with women. However, we’ve also seen that higher intelligence and creativity is linked with lower agreeableness. So More intelligent women are also more likely to score low on agreeableness. However , it is expected of women that they be higher in agreeableness. That’s a sort of stereotype. Now, what happens when women break the stereotype associated to them? Women will be judged more harshly when they derrogate to the stereotype associated to them, as shown by Heilman, and Parks-Stamm, in 2007.

Source: Madeline E. Heilman, , Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm, (2007), Gender Stereotypes in the Workplace: Obstacles to Women’s Career Progress, in Shelley J. Correll (ed.) Social Psychology of Gender (Advances in Group Processes, Volume 24) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.47 – 77

Men and women will thus not be judged the same if they are being less agreeable. This defacto puts women at a disadvantage when intelligence is on the same level.

Now, how about when they are higher on the agreeableness scales?

Other factors come into play.

The system in which academics evolve is still one steeped in the myths of the genius and other sexist myths.

Women need to have higher achievements than men to access similar positions. They are often subject to sexual harrassment from their superior, or even by people who are not their superiors.They are perceived as being less capable than their male counterparts.

The general athmosphere of the scientific fields is that for the most part, women are still not welcome.

How we fail to support one another in necessary spaces

We are at the point where it is difficult to be as a woman in the scientific fields. Add to this the fact that sciences are heavily competitive. Departments and chairs fight for funding, because there is little to go around. But this way to think about the field is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we consider that the best way to assign limited resources is to fight for the said resources, we come to a system of competition. Professors find proteges, departments play cut-throat politics, students become wary of one another. This is partly why people who are high in agreeableness tend to do well in depeartments. Playing the politics will allow you to easily have an edge over the competition. This does not, however, entail that you will seek to help your colleagues. And it is often the case that we don’t. Isolation is a real problem in academics. You spend long hours working on your projects, trying to think, reading. Most of what you do is in your head, and it cannot be a constant collaboration. Adding to that the burden of learning, or teaching while you’re in school or a professor.

But we don’t seem to do much about this isolation. Sure, there are some associations, and there are some events. Some help IS there. But it’s certainly not systemic, and it clearly isn’t benefiting most people. This shows that we fail at supporting each other. In certain fields, there are less than 30% of women, who fight their way against all odds.

Among STEM graduates aged 25 to 34, women accounted for 59% of those in science and technology programs, but accounted for 23% of those who graduated from engineering and 30% of those who graduated from mathematics and computer science programs.

source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm

There are very few of us, and we could support one another. So what’s happening?

Some people take advantage of the isolation, and this isolation makes many women fall off the scientific wagon, specifically in stem fields.

How science is an intrinsically collaborative process, and by that fact an intrinsically feminine process

We mentioned it earlier, the scientific field pushes academics to be competitive. Having an edge will ensure more funding, and a better career. We are status driven animals. Having your name as first author on an article can do wonders for your resume.

But science is a method that doesn’t just build on nothing. Every piece of data that you wish to add rests on countless bricks laid by previous scientists, and even perhaps your peers.

Creativity is believed to be the domain of geniuses (as explored earlier). But not all authors agree on this topic.

Steven Johnson wrote a wonderful book about creativity. Where Good Ideas Come From.

He looked at the environmental factors that surround innovation, and he found that ideas actually stem from a large overlap of data and paradigms. When people share information, and process it in collaboration, the best work comes forward. He even found that the best ideas came from scientific lab meetings, as opposed to when working on your own.

Ideas do not materialize from thin air. They come from a long mulling process and an eventual effervescence based on collaborative knowledge building.

He also found that women tended to collaborate at these meetings in ways that allowed for more creativity, tending to see the possibles of a new idea, as opposed to shooting down any novelty to pursue known areas.

Women are socialised to be social. Science is intrinsically a social endeavour. We should be better at supporting and fostering one another to produce better innovation and science. Making those spaces and giving them importance is key to finding a better space in academia.