Nerdy Science Blog

Anna Kushnir, PhD wrote a letter to wired science.

Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men?

Take my graduate school for example: My class was made up of eight people — seven women and one man, or 7 to 1. He was Snow White and we were the seven dwarves — each with a remarkably appropriate nickname. I was Grumpy, should you be curious to know.

Snow White and at least four of the dwarves have continued on to postdoctoral research jobs. That is a 4 to 3 ratio of women who went on to do a post-doc to those that chose alternate career paths.

Everything is adding up so far, right? Lots of women are around. Lots of science is being done. All is well.

The next set of numbers is slightly puzzling, however. That is the ratio of female to male professors in our department, at a well-respected academic institution, is 48 to 7 men to women.

Interesting reversal, isn’t it? We go from 7 to 1 in grad school to roughly 1 to 7 in professorships.

Perhaps the only way to solve this problem is made men pregnant.

John made a catchy comment, “Funny Anna thinks its fine for the grad program to be almost all women, but not okay for the senior professors to be mostly men.”

(link [pic])

Kean Jim showed me a letter wrote by Wyn regarding to the future of forensic science undergraduates in Malaysia (Letter was written in Chinese).

As it is a demand for forensic science in Malaysia, Malaysia Royal Police (PDRM) and Malaysia Chemistry Department (JKM) had introduced the course for Bachelor of Forensic Science degree in local university, USM. The course was designed by them to teach them all the knowledges one needed in investigating crime, handling evidences, court knowledges, and also all the related skills. Wyn mentioned that after they graduate, there was no suitable positions in either PDRM or JKM. Wyn was confused why on earth the course was designed by them if it was not to train forensic professionals to aid in crime investigating. Wyn questioned if the course was designed just for the sack of it without thinking if there was any job vacancies for all the gradutes. PDRM explained that if people graduate with the degree, they need to be a police first before they can join their lab. Becoming a police in Malaysia is not an issue, but there is a minimum requirement as a police candidate, which is that one cannot wear spectacles (vision problems). As you know, science kids are nerds and most of us wear specs. JKM also rejected these undergraduates as they thought these people did not have enough chemistry knowledge (and the course was designed by JKM). Wyn also pointed out that one of the government owned TV channel was showing “Crime Scene Investigation” programme, which attracted more people considering taking forensic science degree.

Wyn felt lost as he did not know how would he do in the future. People who chose to take forensic science degree (as well as other degree) were not dumb, instead they were qualified to study medicine. We chose to do science was simply because we were really passionate in it. The same thing does not only happen on forensic science, but also biotechnology degree as government was promoting it heavily in recent years, and the job prospective in Malaysia is really bad (#).

(letter [pic][via])