Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline and with us today from Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, we have Julie Douglas Paudy, So thanks
Speaker 1: so much for being here, Julie, to help us kick
Speaker 1: off our four part Women in STEM Science, Technology, Engineering
Speaker 1: and Math series. That's right, you're the all important s
Speaker 1: in STEM. That's right. I represent S. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm on sesame Street. That's right. I'm s. Well it's
Speaker 1: appropriate because you're actually holding a giant S right now.
Speaker 1: I told you you didn't have to do that. I know,
Speaker 1: but I just thought it would really ramp us up,
Speaker 1: you know. And no pressure, Julie. But you do represent
Speaker 1: all of science and more importantly, all of women and
Speaker 1: girls in science. So I hope you are ready for that.
Speaker 1: I am so ready to talk really eloquently about this
Speaker 1: subject and just to change everybody's minds and just to
Speaker 1: revisit your childhood memories. Perhaps everybody gets fetal at some
Speaker 1: point and then you emerge in the field of lilies
Speaker 1: with with with an absolute new concept of life in
Speaker 1: the universe. I've got goose bumps. How do you too?
Speaker 1: Is that on your resume? That's pretty impressive that empyrotechnics. Well, Julie,
Speaker 1: you host the science podcast Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: So could you just to kick things off, tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what piques your interest with science.
Speaker 1: Have you always been kind of a science nerd or
Speaker 1: or what? Um. I think that I've just always been
Speaker 1: curious about everything. I mean, I remember being thirteen years
Speaker 1: old in um buying a book on hypnosis and trying
Speaker 1: to hypnotize myself, like that was what I was doing
Speaker 1: on a Saturday night. UM. So that I think just
Speaker 1: naturally led to me, UM really getting more into some
Speaker 1: aspects of what Richard Dawkins calls the magic of reality,
Speaker 1: this idea that our reality can be far more interesting
Speaker 1: and weird than you know, the these fictionalized accounts that
Speaker 1: we turned to. And so when I think about scientists
Speaker 1: think about that a lot, because I think, wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are aspects of the our physical role that just
Speaker 1: completely changed our perspective. Like, for instance, UM, there's something
Speaker 1: called green leaf volatiles in a tobacco plant. So if
Speaker 1: you actually cut that leaf, it releases these g lvs
Speaker 1: which is basically a scream for help. It will tell
Speaker 1: the predators of whatever just munched on it like a
Speaker 1: caterpillar and say, hey, come and get this caterpillar off me.
Speaker 1: So it's just weird and wacky the way that our
Speaker 1: physical world works. Um, And when I think about science
Speaker 1: and women, I think naturally about my daughter. She's four
Speaker 1: years old. You know, about a year ago, the onslaught
Speaker 1: of total pink pony magic, you know, castle, just that
Speaker 1: whole onslaught of the generalization just came rushing at us.
Speaker 1: So here's this daughter that I have that is so
Speaker 1: interested in every aspect of life. But now I see
Speaker 1: things getting genderized. Instead of being interested in bugs and um,
Speaker 1: you know, all the cool aspects of that, uh, the
Speaker 1: insect world, She's starting to veer more towards what I
Speaker 1: would say is magical reality instead of the magic of reality. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you bring up that difference in what
Speaker 1: might have been her just natural interests and then the
Speaker 1: onslaught of all of the pink princessy products and programming
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Because I feel like that divide
Speaker 1: between the nature and the nurture really is a bulk
Speaker 1: of this conversation surrounding women and girls and science and
Speaker 1: unfortunately the lack thereof um where there's not as many
Speaker 1: girls pursuing science, and so the whole question a lot
Speaker 1: of times is well, are we just not as good
Speaker 1: at science or are we just not being informed about
Speaker 1: science and encouraged towards science enough. Well, UM, working on
Speaker 1: the podcast on Stuff to Build Your Mind with Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: He's the co host we have. We just keep sort
Speaker 1: of getting more at this sort of invisible reality, all
Speaker 1: these sort of underpinnings of of how we define our
Speaker 1: world and we move around in it. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I was thinking about is something called
Speaker 1: enclothed cognition. Now this is a subset of something called
Speaker 1: embodied cognition. So if I'm holding a say, a warm
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, and I'm talking to you guys, there
Speaker 1: are studies that say that I feel more warmly towards you.
Speaker 1: It sounds kind of ridiculous and reductionist, but sometimes we
Speaker 1: simple humans operate on that level. And so enclothed cognition
Speaker 1: is this idea that what you wear can actually change
Speaker 1: your behavior. And they did a bunch of studies. I
Speaker 1: want go into about clipboards, which obviously make everybody feel
Speaker 1: more important, and doctor's coats, and they just found amazing
Speaker 1: results that that people could actually not just change their behavior,
Speaker 1: but the way that their brain works. Um, they become
Speaker 1: more attentive if they're wearing a doctor's coat. Um. So
Speaker 1: I think about those things, and then I think about, um,
Speaker 1: as you said that the ways that nature and nurture work,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of evidence out there are
Speaker 1: amounting evidence or the idea that, um, it's really our
Speaker 1: society and our culture that's informing the way that we
Speaker 1: behave in it in our interests that sort of bloom
Speaker 1: as a result. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned like
Speaker 1: lab coats making you feel more attentive. It sounds it
Speaker 1: seems to me like that's almost taking our stereotypes of
Speaker 1: what a doctor is or should be and applying that
Speaker 1: sort of in our brains internally making us feel a
Speaker 1: certain way. And all of that to say, some people
Speaker 1: have some interesting stereotypes and ideas about who should be
Speaker 1: involved where in the sciences, who should be wearing that
Speaker 1: lab coat, who should be who should be wearing that
Speaker 1: lab coat? Back in January two thousand five, then Harvard
Speaker 1: President Larry Summers set off on a public apology tour
Speaker 1: after the Boston Global word it on his remarks given
Speaker 1: at a small seminar that January in which he said
Speaker 1: that the women in science gender gap maybe partially explained
Speaker 1: by issues of intrinsic aptitude. And I'm thinking, does he
Speaker 1: actually believe that or is he just harping on some
Speaker 1: old stereotypes about women in science. What's going on? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And during this public apology tour, he explained himself more fully,
Speaker 1: saying that well, actually they are all these socialization issues
Speaker 1: and maybe women not being afforded enough time because usually
Speaker 1: things like the child care tends to fall on our shoulders.
Speaker 1: But he couldn't erase the fact that he did say
Speaker 1: that maybe our brains aren't as cut out for science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he said intrinsic aptitude. I mean he's saying
Speaker 1: from with the depths within women, they just I mean
Speaker 1: he's not saying this, but I'm taking it that is saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know that it's just they just don't have it
Speaker 1: in them. They can't wear that lab coat even it
Speaker 1: makes them perform, you know, better on these stroop attention tests.
Speaker 1: Um So, it was unfortunate that he said it, But
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about it is it just set
Speaker 1: off this ripple effect, this realization that in academia this
Speaker 1: is some pervasive, um, you know, biased toward women, um
Speaker 1: in sexism. Yeah. The thing is he was saying what
Speaker 1: people were unfortunately thinking that maybe this this was the case.
Speaker 1: And in a way it's good because even you know,
Speaker 1: years later, we're still talking about it. Definitely sparked a
Speaker 1: huge discussion, and soon thereafter, in April two five, there
Speaker 1: was highly publicized debate between Stephen Pinker and Elizabeth Spelky
Speaker 1: about whether or not, you know, Summers was right essentially,
Speaker 1: whether it's more effect of nature or nurture. And Pinker,
Speaker 1: I mean presented this entire slide show just hammering away
Speaker 1: at it being nature that no girls are some not
Speaker 1: as inclined to want to explore scientifically, it's not there
Speaker 1: in our brains. But I mean, as you were saying, Julie,
Speaker 1: I mean you watched your daughter transform before your eyes
Speaker 1: from being all into bugs and insects and the outdoors too,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe liking my little pony a little bit more. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and you know she does, she does veer towards that now, um,
Speaker 1: inherently like she does have still she still has the interest.
Speaker 1: And I watched just this morning she was using these
Speaker 1: things called magnetiles, which I really want for myself, um,
Speaker 1: and building this incredible structure and it ended up being
Speaker 1: a counsel for a which I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: an improvement or not over a princess. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: I still see these skills in this interest. But again,
Speaker 1: there's this whole other pink avalanche that is coming at
Speaker 1: us and will come at her for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life. It is very damaging, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: Summer who carries a lot of weight and Pinker saying
Speaker 1: that this is something that is inherent in nature. And
Speaker 1: what I really love about this debate between Spelky and
Speaker 1: Pinker is that they're first of all, they're they're great friends,
Speaker 1: but they differ on this one thing. Obviously. Um. It
Speaker 1: is such a rousing debate, and Spelky cleans up, and
Speaker 1: you know, she she looks at twenty years of her research.
Speaker 1: She's a cognitive psychologist. She deals mainly with infants and children.
Speaker 1: She comes through Can you imagine going through twenty years
Speaker 1: of research, and she she looks at all the problem
Speaker 1: solving skills and number skills that children possess and she
Speaker 1: says there is no difference. She says, it is a
Speaker 1: null hypothesis. Now that is not you know, just that's
Speaker 1: the debate and it was over. It's actually, if you
Speaker 1: want to look at it online, is a very long
Speaker 1: discussion between the two. But it is fascinating, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's a bit sad to me that we actually
Speaker 1: even have to have this debate in the first place
Speaker 1: with slide shows to say that this is not a
Speaker 1: nurtured thing. Excuse me, to say that this is not
Speaker 1: a nature of thing. Well, and I think it's almost
Speaker 1: like we want to believe that it has to be nature.
Speaker 1: I mean, the year after that, in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: there was the best seller The Female Brain by Lewin Brisandine,
Speaker 1: who got so much attention but not so favorably from
Speaker 1: people who actually read the book. And we're scientifically inclined
Speaker 1: and said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait uh, you're saying
Speaker 1: that the female brain has cut out like this, and
Speaker 1: you're ignoring a lot of actual scientific truths to make
Speaker 1: this argument that, I mean, the only thing that comes
Speaker 1: to mind, is just is that we have lady brains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. It's like she she I've read the book actually,
Speaker 1: and um, she makes a very persuasive argument with with
Speaker 1: what passes f as fact or facts and um, and
Speaker 1: just sort of these overwhelming generalities about the brain to
Speaker 1: sort of say, oh, this is why we get the sad.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's hormones and every month and you never know,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be nuts, you know. So it's sort
Speaker 1: of reinforcing all these stereotypes through the lens of science,
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate. Well, they I had a review in
Speaker 1: Nature that basically highlighted three main areas where her book
Speaker 1: is sort of off base. And they refer number one
Speaker 1: to her discussion of human sex differences and brain structure
Speaker 1: and behavior that are characterized by small average differences with
Speaker 1: a lot of overlap on the individual level. They point
Speaker 1: out that she characterized it as a more of a
Speaker 1: massive golf in in those differences. Yeah, and on top
Speaker 1: of that, there was just a lot of misinterpretation and
Speaker 1: sort of fudging other study results to conveniently align with
Speaker 1: this nature heavy argument. Um, and I feel like this
Speaker 1: is still the nature versus nurture debate. It's still going on,
Speaker 1: though it's not like it was settled with Spelky and
Speaker 1: with the you know this nature, this damning nature review
Speaker 1: of the female brain. We're still talking about it. It's
Speaker 1: still posed as a debate. I mean, do you think that, Julie,
Speaker 1: there's ever going to be a winner declared in terms
Speaker 1: of nature versus nurture with women in science? Um? No,
Speaker 1: I mean not for a long time. Because the problem
Speaker 1: is the more we learn about the brain, more the
Speaker 1: more data we add to it. And that's good, right,
Speaker 1: because over time we begin to get a more accurate
Speaker 1: idea of how the brain does work, you know. But
Speaker 1: to try to to try to create a female brain
Speaker 1: and a male brain is like trying to create two
Speaker 1: different species. And so that's where the error and logic is.
Speaker 1: And I think that we do a huge disservice and
Speaker 1: looking at this black and white you know, like nature
Speaker 1: or nurture and not considering the individual. And that's what
Speaker 1: it really boils down town, because we know that individually
Speaker 1: we all differ in and and there are certainly different
Speaker 1: aspects of our makeup that really tend to dominate the
Speaker 1: way that we act or our interests, and so I
Speaker 1: think that it's again a huge disservice. I think about
Speaker 1: men in this instance too. I feel badly for men
Speaker 1: because what happens is the flip side is that men
Speaker 1: are not able to say that they feel vulnerable or
Speaker 1: dwell in what we would call the world of female emotions. Well,
Speaker 1: men are just as sad and you know, feeling vulnerable
Speaker 1: or experiencing shame as women are. And I think about
Speaker 1: my dad and my brother in the way that they
Speaker 1: can't express themselves. So I think that, you know, we
Speaker 1: to to try to divvy up the world in these
Speaker 1: ways and tell people that you know, you should be uh,
Speaker 1: you know, getting into these various fields for yourself because
Speaker 1: they fit your gender is a ridiculous statement, Like can
Speaker 1: you imagine your mom or dad saying you are you
Speaker 1: know you're because you're this gender. You should really think about,
Speaker 1: you know, podcasting. Well, no, I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned Spelky going back every twenty years of research, and
Speaker 1: I have gone back over zero years of research other
Speaker 1: than my own existence. And I was thinking about my
Speaker 1: own interests and how I mean, I was interested in
Speaker 1: science and I always have been. It's just that's not
Speaker 1: the field that I necessarily pursued. And I'm wondering, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: a I was better at you know, language, arts and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so I went into a writing career.
Speaker 1: But I'm just wondering if more women had been present
Speaker 1: in my life telling me about science, explaining science. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had a couple of female math and science teachers
Speaker 1: growing up, but it I don't know. I just wonder
Speaker 1: if we need more people like that to help our
Speaker 1: daughters realize that, yes, you can still be interested in
Speaker 1: the pink avalanche that's coming at you, but you can
Speaker 1: also build castles, build blocks, be interested in plants and bugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when we move a conversation from more of you know,
Speaker 1: debating about the brain and ability into looking at the
Speaker 1: data that we have in terms of the number of
Speaker 1: girls in classrooms who were interested in science and through
Speaker 1: pursuing science. Um, then yeah, that visibility factor absolutely comes
Speaker 1: up a lot. And we're going to talk about where
Speaker 1: we are today with women in science by the numbers
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break and
Speaker 1: now back to the podcast. So when we left off,
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about women in science. How
Speaker 1: many women are studying and pursuing stem fields today, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of us in psychology. There's that well,
Speaker 1: I mean, but yeah, doesn't that seem like it makes sense?
Speaker 1: It aligns with our expectations because it may be scientific,
Speaker 1: but it's also in the in the feelings pool well,
Speaker 1: and we see a lot of women as therapists as psychologists,
Speaker 1: thinking of Dr Melfie on the Sopranos for instance. Um,
Speaker 1: I took a psychology class in college. I even considered
Speaker 1: minoring in it. Um. So yeah, I think it very
Speaker 1: much aligns with our idea. Is but when we move
Speaker 1: into things like math, the physical sciences, engineering, the numbers
Speaker 1: to start eroding very quickly. It's true. Um, But I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about this article called the End of Men,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Hannah Rosen who wrote it,
Speaker 1: and she was saying that people who are pursuing their
Speaker 1: masters and their PhD, they tend to women are dominating.
Speaker 1: So I wonder at some point in fifty years, because
Speaker 1: the amount of women pursuing higher education, Uh if maybe
Speaker 1: that'll you know, mess with the stats a little bit.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, currently this this is sort
Speaker 1: of the picture that we have. It's the picture of
Speaker 1: ourselves that we're fine with psychology, but we're not necessarily
Speaker 1: being moved into science and engineering. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: like the ranks are obviously swelling in terms of women
Speaker 1: pursuing higher education, but a lot of times the pipeline
Speaker 1: is directed more toward the and I hate to use
Speaker 1: this term, but the pink collar fields, things like nurse
Speaker 1: saying where especially because of like the aging baby boomers,
Speaker 1: it's a highly like growth kind of industry to get into. UM.
Speaker 1: But still, if you look at physics, for instance, only
Speaker 1: one fifth of the PhDs in the US, which first
Speaker 1: of all, just the thought of pursuing a physics PhD
Speaker 1: makes a mond explode a little bit, but only a
Speaker 1: fifth of them are being awarded to women. And even
Speaker 1: more tellingly, only half of the PhD is going to physics.
Speaker 1: pH d's going to women in the US are going
Speaker 1: to American women. So it's a lot of international students
Speaker 1: also who will come into the United States. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you're looking at physics in particular, The New York
Speaker 1: Times pointed out that gender differences in enrollment rates in
Speaker 1: high school physics classes tend to be correlated with the
Speaker 1: number of women in the larger community who do or
Speaker 1: do not work in stum fields, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what we were talking about earlier about having representation and
Speaker 1: role models. Yeah. Right, if your mom is a scientist,
Speaker 1: then you probably are going to be more amenable to
Speaker 1: that idea of having that career for yourself. I mean,
Speaker 1: Marie Cree is a perfect example of this, and her
Speaker 1: daughter went on to win a Nobel Prize as well. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's what you're exposed to. I think,
Speaker 1: I know. I keep saying that society keeps dictating what
Speaker 1: we should and shouldn't do, and it seems kind of
Speaker 1: ridiculous say that because you want to feel like you're
Speaker 1: in control of your life and say no, Um, I
Speaker 1: know what society is throwing at me. But so much
Speaker 1: of this is unconscious. And that's where the unconscious bias
Speaker 1: comes in, and the sciences and the way we regard
Speaker 1: ourselves and the way that others regard us as women.
Speaker 1: And if you doubt the power of culture over the individual,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to point out that. Um. There was
Speaker 1: this really interesting study by JOJN. Kim at the University
Speaker 1: of California, and he wanted to know how South Korean
Speaker 1: men dealt with feelings of isolation and sort of reaching
Speaker 1: out to one another, particularly men who have this G
Speaker 1: variant when it comes to UH having receptors for oxytosin
Speaker 1: oxytois and being the social bonding drug that our body produces.
Speaker 1: And so in theory, the South Korean men should have
Speaker 1: been the ones who would reach out the most. But
Speaker 1: because in South Korean culture it is looked down upon
Speaker 1: to actually try to go to another friend for solace
Speaker 1: no matter what your gender is, those men were actually
Speaker 1: more likely to never reach out. So the point of
Speaker 1: that is is that here you have again society dictating
Speaker 1: behavior and thought as opposed to biology, which should have
Speaker 1: for these guys made them like just huge, like hug junkies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As I was reading up for this episode, I was
Speaker 1: reflecting on my own life, and from second through eighth grade,
Speaker 1: I was homeschooled, and I mean, obviously I had interaction
Speaker 1: with other kids. I watched TV and all of that,
Speaker 1: and so I knew about nerds stereotypes. But nevertheless, in
Speaker 1: more relative social isolation, I was kind of a math
Speaker 1: and science nerd. I still wanted always to be a writer,
Speaker 1: but I always was really good at math and science
Speaker 1: as well. But once I got to high school and
Speaker 1: was just slapped in the face by all of the
Speaker 1: importance of your image and how it comes across my interest,
Speaker 1: or at least the interest that I openly expressed toward
Speaker 1: math and science diminished. And I remember in senior year,
Speaker 1: I had the option to take AP biology and I
Speaker 1: just didn't want to because I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: one of those nerds. And I it's heartbreaking to think now,
Speaker 1: like myself now I would totally take you know, AP
Speaker 1: biology and tell myself to do that. But I really
Speaker 1: I feel like it was totally an issue of that
Speaker 1: socialization factor. And I'm just one example. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll go back to that magical reality versus the magic
Speaker 1: of reality. So you know at some point again that
Speaker 1: you know, girls have these books that they're exposed to
Speaker 1: about um, you know, magical castles and getting married and
Speaker 1: these that's sort of the terrain of girls spells. Again,
Speaker 1: these relief systems into magic in the occult all sort
Speaker 1: of line up with women, you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: being stripped of this ability to really access that magic
Speaker 1: of reality. And I wonder though, too, how much of
Speaker 1: this is more of a Western issue because there was
Speaker 1: one stat that was tossed out um in a New
Speaker 1: York Times magazine piece about how um from nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four to two thousand and eight, the US sent just
Speaker 1: three girls to the International Mathematical Olympiad, but by comparison, Bulgaria,
Speaker 1: for instance, from two thousand eight had sent twenty one
Speaker 1: and a lot of times like with that physics PhD
Speaker 1: statistic where half of the women in the United States
Speaker 1: who are received these PhDs are from other countries. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I definitely think you could argue that partially
Speaker 1: it is it is cultural because if you look at
Speaker 1: like Eastern European countries for instance, like they have a
Speaker 1: history of wanting to train their women in more technical
Speaker 1: and mathematical fields, and so it is more common to
Speaker 1: see you know, women from that region in in programming,
Speaker 1: in mathematics and science and all of this stuff, whereas
Speaker 1: in in America, I don't know, are we are we
Speaker 1: were not as actively trying to push girls and women
Speaker 1: into those fields. No, not at all, Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: the deminitiative is really huge in the United States right
Speaker 1: now because they you know, a lot of educators realized
Speaker 1: that there's a huge brain drain in that field or
Speaker 1: in those fields just for the country as a whole.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot of people paying attention to
Speaker 1: it now, but that's because you know, we're we're not
Speaker 1: ranking as high as we used to at all. It's
Speaker 1: actually pretty dire and we're more export or is really
Speaker 1: of entertainment. If you look at what the United States
Speaker 1: is known for now, we're not you know, in the
Speaker 1: space race like we were in the sixties and seventies
Speaker 1: and really driving um innovation when it comes to science, math,
Speaker 1: and engineering. Yeah, and and girls are going to be
Speaker 1: such a big part of filling that pipeline. Because I
Speaker 1: think it might have been Magiary, the astrophysicist who was
Speaker 1: making this point, but she was someone was saying how
Speaker 1: the problem with STEM being so stereotypically focused on boys
Speaker 1: is that and this is nothing against men or boys capabilities,
Speaker 1: but it's like, if that's the only pool we have
Speaker 1: to choose from, you're gonna have to start going to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the barrel rather than tapping more into
Speaker 1: the female talent that you have as well. So you're
Speaker 1: going to have more top tier applicants to choose from.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to encouragement. It's almost as though
Speaker 1: women need just so much to you know what I mean. Well,
Speaker 1: there's again, there's all that unconscious bias going on, all
Speaker 1: these things that we've absorbed over the years. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys are familiar with the UM, I hate math Barbie, right,
Speaker 1: so you know you pulled a little cord on the
Speaker 1: back room she does and I hate math. Now you know,
Speaker 1: they have since Mattel has put out other types of
Speaker 1: Barbies that have better representations of Glad Barbie's most intimate thoughts. Yes, glasses, um,
Speaker 1: but you know that still sticks with us. It's very
Speaker 1: hard to shed those ideas. And I was thinking about
Speaker 1: the New York Times article that you guys had sent me,
Speaker 1: and it's by Eileen Pollock, who was really sort of
Speaker 1: looking at this idea for herself because she was one
Speaker 1: of the first two women physics majors who graduated from
Speaker 1: Yale University in nineteen seventy. So this this article is
Speaker 1: an exploration of why she didn't pursue that herself. UM,
Speaker 1: which in it she talked about how priming is really important.
Speaker 1: And there's the study of the University of Michigan students
Speaker 1: who had uh students with the same abilities and the
Speaker 1: same level of performance, men and women, and they were
Speaker 1: splintered into two groups. The first was told that men
Speaker 1: perform better than women on math tests. The second was
Speaker 1: told that, no matter what Barbie might have said, there
Speaker 1: was no difference in the abilities among the two genders. Now,
Speaker 1: both were then given a math test, and in the
Speaker 1: first group, men outscored women by twenty points, in the
Speaker 1: second by only two points. That is one. I mean
Speaker 1: to me, that's amazing because that's one instance of priming.
Speaker 1: One math test, a twenty point difference right there. And
Speaker 1: that's not even saying like, well, what if you had
Speaker 1: done that, you know, five years before those students reached
Speaker 1: that age, and you had started doing that priming, then
Speaker 1: what then would their test results look like five years later? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be incredible to see what would happen if
Speaker 1: we eliminated that I think it's usually called the stereotype threat.
Speaker 1: Take that out of the classroom and see what would happen.
Speaker 1: It would incredible because you would also probably have some
Speaker 1: of the cross pollination of more girls going to science
Speaker 1: and maybe more boys heading over into things like language
Speaker 1: arts and everyone could then flourish in this wonderful garden
Speaker 1: of learning. That's amazing. But but one thing though that
Speaker 1: astrophysicists Meg Yeary did say in that New York Times
Speaker 1: magazine piece was that women need more positive reinforcement and
Speaker 1: men need more negative reinforcement. Which is funny because, and
Speaker 1: this was something that came up in one of our
Speaker 1: episodes on Cheryl Sandberg's book Lean In how in the
Speaker 1: business setting, a lot of times, if something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: a woman will assume that it's her fault, whereas men
Speaker 1: tend to look externally for the blame, which is which
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting, And that's what it reminded me
Speaker 1: of of these women in the science classroom just assuming
Speaker 1: that they're not going to be good enough. Yeah I am.
Speaker 1: My middle school actually had single gender math classes to
Speaker 1: try to combat the h I guess, you know, just
Speaker 1: to try to get more women interested in math, to
Speaker 1: to help us flourish and not feel like we had
Speaker 1: to keep our hands down. I you know, talk about
Speaker 1: priming like as an outside force, Like I think I
Speaker 1: primed myself to not do well though, because I never, like,
Speaker 1: I just never got math and it never clicked with me.
Speaker 1: The way that writing and even science did. And so,
Speaker 1: like I I think I kind of set myself back
Speaker 1: because from the moment I realized that I wasn't good
Speaker 1: at it and I didn't have the same confidence with
Speaker 1: it that I did in other subjects. I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, I'm just gonna be a bad math student.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that I just kind of accepted
Speaker 1: and internalized that, and the single gender math classes did
Speaker 1: not did not really help me. But even for the
Speaker 1: girls who are able to bypass stereo type threat, who
Speaker 1: have incredible math talent and science brains um because there
Speaker 1: is a you know, particular skill set and talent there,
Speaker 1: even for the girls who go on to college, there's
Speaker 1: still a big problem in terms of the biases against women.
Speaker 1: Even at the highest levels of science academia, there are
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a tougher road for women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's you know, they're starting to be some emerging
Speaker 1: data about this discrimination that you can really get your
Speaker 1: your eyes around some data on that. But there's also
Speaker 1: a ton of anecdotal information coming out. I was just
Speaker 1: reading something about um doctor I think Daniel Lee is
Speaker 1: her name, and she has something called the urban scientists.
Speaker 1: It's a blog that's on Scientific American and she was
Speaker 1: offered a guest blogging gig at I think it was
Speaker 1: Biology Online, you know, of us. I heard about this, Okay,
Speaker 1: So the editor said, hey, you know there's would you
Speaker 1: like to join us? And well it's an unpaid, you know,
Speaker 1: blogging gig for her. So she replied back very nicely, thanks,
Speaker 1: but not interested. And so he wrote back, is it
Speaker 1: because the pay? Are you the urban scientist or the
Speaker 1: urban whore? Alright? So you know, guys, again, this is
Speaker 1: aunt dontald, but this isn't This is what kind of
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of how someone decided to take
Speaker 1: not only her livelihood but her gender and just undercut
Speaker 1: all of that and accused her of prostitution. You know,
Speaker 1: of course he probably thought it was a great joke,
Speaker 1: and I bet he was in love with that because
Speaker 1: he was like, urban scientist women prostitution. Yeah, I'm going
Speaker 1: to convince her yet right, Well, and it's a similar
Speaker 1: thing that happened when not too long ago. Uh, the
Speaker 1: woman whose name is escaping me right now, who runs
Speaker 1: um I effing loves science. Uh. It started out as
Speaker 1: just a Facebook page and when she you know, came
Speaker 1: out and said, oh yeah, I'm the person who does it.
Speaker 1: There was this whole fallout of a paper trail of
Speaker 1: spoke comments of outraged men saying they know who felt
Speaker 1: like they had been duped into enjoying all of this
Speaker 1: scientific content that a woman was sharing, which is I mean,
Speaker 1: that blows my effing speaking of effing mind, because I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: just like talking about this one instance specifically, what has
Speaker 1: that taken away from you? Like you were still reading
Speaker 1: scientific content that you enjoyed and and talking about it
Speaker 1: with your peers. Um, what difference does it make that
Speaker 1: it's presented by a woman. Well, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: that's the Internet. It is the portal into the underbeledy
Speaker 1: of of humanity. And I can't even recall another situation
Speaker 1: where this is actually a brilliant un campaign, um that
Speaker 1: for women that they took this Google search results of
Speaker 1: these phrases like women shouldn't or women need to, and
Speaker 1: then they took the top results and then they showed
Speaker 1: that is what maybe is on the minds of some
Speaker 1: men and perhaps even women too, And there was tolls
Speaker 1: were just astounding. It was like women shouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to vote, Women shouldn't work, women should know their place. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are the thoughts that are actually going on and
Speaker 1: and under the surface. Well, and that's the thing when
Speaker 1: we when we look into academia with all these brilliant people,
Speaker 1: um and looking at these unconscious or sometimes maybe conscious biases,
Speaker 1: it isn't just men. It is also women who are
Speaker 1: discriminating against other women. This was highlighted in a two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve Yale study which found that physicists, chemists, and
Speaker 1: biologists were more likely to view a male applicant more
Speaker 1: favorably than a female applicant if they had the same qualifications.
Speaker 1: They wanted to hire the guy, and they were prepared
Speaker 1: to pay the woman four thousand dollars lests. So that's
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a real life, real world example
Speaker 1: of how a lot of women scientists are getting the shaft.
Speaker 1: Because this I believe they called it the Jennifer versus
Speaker 1: John because that's really I mean, they had identical resumes
Speaker 1: sent to seven participants, so I don't even think they
Speaker 1: knew that they were participants by the way, um, and
Speaker 1: identical resumes once said John, one said Jennifer. And they
Speaker 1: also were sort of okay candidates, they weren't great, but
Speaker 1: they could fulfill this job of I believe that the
Speaker 1: position was lab manager. And so Jennifer scored just saying
Speaker 1: no higher unlikability than John did. So she did, you know,
Speaker 1: trump him in that category. But I think that you know,
Speaker 1: that is like a huge what. Yeah, it's astounding and
Speaker 1: also just astounding to think that, you know, women also
Speaker 1: are exercising a similar unconscious bias. So so what what
Speaker 1: are we to do? This is kicking off the women
Speaker 1: in Stems series, so we're gonna talk about this more
Speaker 1: specifically in the areas of tech, engineering and math, but
Speaker 1: looking at this more broadly, is there a way to
Speaker 1: encourage more girls to be brave about their scientific interests
Speaker 1: or you know, stoke those kinds of you know, curiosities
Speaker 1: that can help fill this pipeline? Well, I know, personally,
Speaker 1: being like a non scientific person, UM, I had great,
Speaker 1: great teachers all through all through school, elementary through high
Speaker 1: school who it didn't matter if you were a girl
Speaker 1: or a boy, or what your inherent abilities were coming
Speaker 1: into their classroom. You know. I I just found it
Speaker 1: amazing to have great teachers who were um encouraging me
Speaker 1: and some of them were women, which I mean can't hurt, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think about this and I think, you know, on
Speaker 1: some level requires everybody to be like Exen Buddhist master
Speaker 1: of their thoughts, you know, because the educator, if they're
Speaker 1: talking to a male or female, you know, they have
Speaker 1: to ask themselves, are they communicating with this person in
Speaker 1: a different way? Are they perceiving this person in a
Speaker 1: different way? Because this is what we saw in this
Speaker 1: article by Pollock over and over again. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of misperceptions. So you know, there was a European
Speaker 1: study that said that women had to be two and
Speaker 1: a half almost half times more productive than their male
Speaker 1: colleagues to secure financial support. Okay, because it was sort
Speaker 1: of that, hey, look at me, look at me. It's
Speaker 1: the misperception of the person in the classroom that, because
Speaker 1: of this gender bias and this unconscious bias, that you
Speaker 1: might be regarding that individual differently than than how they're
Speaker 1: actually expressing themselves. Which is chilling because we all go
Speaker 1: around thinking, I think that person gets me, I think
Speaker 1: that person gets what I just said. But in fact,
Speaker 1: it requires a female to be more proactive about what
Speaker 1: she's saying and more aware of how she's being perceived, right,
Speaker 1: I think that perception is key. I mean we've talked
Speaker 1: about that a lot, that a woman and a man
Speaker 1: can say the same thing, but they will not be
Speaker 1: perceived the same way for having said it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's also bodyline which also ties into this. You sent
Speaker 1: us Julia a ted talk by psychologist Amy Cutty on
Speaker 1: how power poses, as she calls them, of stretching your
Speaker 1: arms out and just standing in like taking up a
Speaker 1: lot of space. Because she was talking about how in
Speaker 1: I think it was NBA classes specifically, how men are
Speaker 1: much more apt to throw their hands up and be
Speaker 1: much more active and participate a lot more, whereas women
Speaker 1: do tend to draw into themselves. I personally have a
Speaker 1: terrible habit of crossing my arms too much and makes
Speaker 1: me look drawn in. But she talked about how her
Speaker 1: research has found that changing your body language, making it
Speaker 1: more powerful, can actually have those behavioral changes that can
Speaker 1: help women out in the classroom to succeed more too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was really curious about why there was a gender
Speaker 1: gap in that performance, and that's what she found with
Speaker 1: those NBA UM graduates, and she wanted to sort of
Speaker 1: game that a little bit. So she found doubt that
Speaker 1: effective leader leaders have a classic hormone profile. It's high
Speaker 1: levels of testosterone, you know that sort of confidence, right,
Speaker 1: and low levels of cortisol, which is the stress associated hormones.
Speaker 1: So what she found is that when people took these
Speaker 1: expansive poses like you see men doing right. Think of
Speaker 1: a classroom right now, is there a guy like sitting back,
Speaker 1: you know, with his shoulders kind of back. But just
Speaker 1: being in those poses for two minutes will give you
Speaker 1: that opimal cocktail for your body to have you feel
Speaker 1: more confident. And the really cool thing about this is
Speaker 1: that she took a bunch of participants. She had them
Speaker 1: assumed these low power poses and these high power poses,
Speaker 1: and then they had to give a talk, right, which
Speaker 1: is awful when you have to give a talk. We
Speaker 1: all know this, right, Even if this is what you
Speaker 1: do for yeah, you know, your livelihood, it still takes
Speaker 1: a lot of energy to get up there and sort
Speaker 1: of bury your soul in front of a bunch of strangers.
Speaker 1: So she had these people do this and low and
Speaker 1: behold the people who had been in those high expansive
Speaker 1: power poses. They performed a lot better. As Um dictated,
Speaker 1: by people that third party who actually watched all of
Speaker 1: these videotapes of these participants performing, so they didn't have
Speaker 1: any bias about what was going on here with this study.
Speaker 1: And on top of not just educating girls and women
Speaker 1: on how to conduct themselves empower themselves, and it sort
Speaker 1: of plow forward through these kinds of unconscious biases that
Speaker 1: might be at work. I do think it's so crucial
Speaker 1: for there to be more visibility of women in science.
Speaker 1: And I think I mean, Julie, I think it's fantastic
Speaker 1: that there is that you are a female voice talking
Speaker 1: about science, and that's great. I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think in a way that you are maybe unconsciously
Speaker 1: mentoring young female scientists out there, because it's not common
Speaker 1: to hear women talking about science. Well, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this, and I was thinking about um maps of
Speaker 1: the world, whichinance sounds weird, But if you look at
Speaker 1: maps of the world that are produced by say the
Speaker 1: United States, you're gonna see this map of the United
Speaker 1: States like central and everything else just is to the
Speaker 1: sides of it, right, So North America is Central. But
Speaker 1: if you look at a map that's produced by Australia,
Speaker 1: you'll see you know that that is Asia and it's
Speaker 1: Australia that are central on that map. And that's always
Speaker 1: a surprise for people who live outside of North America
Speaker 1: when you're like, what do you mean there's other maps
Speaker 1: that I have us at the center of of this planet.
Speaker 1: And so I was thinking about science in the same way.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about stem Um and you
Speaker 1: look at that, if there's a map of that, then
Speaker 1: you see men as like the huge land mass and
Speaker 1: women at the margins. And I think it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of awareness, because I cannot tell you how many times,
Speaker 1: and I'm really conscious of this, I come upon female
Speaker 1: name after female name after female name when I'm doing research,
Speaker 1: and I look at the studies, and they are there,
Speaker 1: there there in those fields. They're just not as as
Speaker 1: a high profile, you know we when we think about science. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you do this is a nice little challenge for
Speaker 1: everybody listening. If you go into Google right now and
Speaker 1: you type in most influential women in science today, I
Speaker 1: can tell you your page one results will be like
Speaker 1: fifties most historical women in science, most influential women ever historically,
Speaker 1: it's all about what has happened in the past and
Speaker 1: and the the sad thing about that is that we're
Speaker 1: not really that familiar with those historical figures in stem
Speaker 1: let alone the figures that that are prominent. Now it's
Speaker 1: like we're still we're catching up now to to the
Speaker 1: history and highlighting those names. Um. I mean, even if
Speaker 1: you think about the story of you know, Rosalind Franklin,
Speaker 1: who's often left out. You hear about with D N. A. O.
Speaker 1: Watson and Crick, but no, there's also Rosalind Franklin and there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with just people's inherent oh mistrust of women, women's
Speaker 1: voices in those fields of just thinking like, well, let
Speaker 1: let's hear it from a man, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think, until people until it becomes more normal, and
Speaker 1: how do we get it to be more normal quote
Speaker 1: unquote obviously in people's minds. And a lot of that
Speaker 1: is visibility. I hope to one day soon, you know,
Speaker 1: people won't be surprised that a woman is presenting scientific
Speaker 1: information on Facebook or something is stilly like that. Hopefully
Speaker 1: it will just be like, oh, yeah, whatever, there's science stuff.
Speaker 1: And the exciting thing is though that you have the
Speaker 1: white House, for instance, sponsoring women in STEM girls and
Speaker 1: STEM initiatives. It's a you know, they're top down things
Speaker 1: that are happening to really encourage more girls into science,
Speaker 1: to empower more women who are studying science. Um. So
Speaker 1: I think it's a better time than ever before to
Speaker 1: be a woman who's interested in science. I think. So.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this when I went to the
Speaker 1: World of Science Festival, not this year, but last here
Speaker 1: and there was a great panel on exoplanets. This idea
Speaker 1: that within the next fifty years we might find an
Speaker 1: Earth like planet. So think about that. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that that would change our entire concept of
Speaker 1: life and how it works, and we might get more
Speaker 1: information about our place in the universe. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just really groundbreaking stuff. And two of the three participants
Speaker 1: in the panel were women in one was physicist and
Speaker 1: Italia Batalia she's an astrophysicist, and Sarah Seeger, who is
Speaker 1: a physicist, and um they were just amazing and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is nice to see. This is uh, the sort
Speaker 1: of passion, the sort of rigor that I think many
Speaker 1: women are doing in these fields is up here on
Speaker 1: this panel being represented. And we need more of that
Speaker 1: and more awareness of that, yeah, because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the focus is on the lack of women instead,
Speaker 1: but there are absolutely, as you say, plenty of women
Speaker 1: and girls who are doing incredible work that need to
Speaker 1: be highlighted as well. So so thanks to you, Julie though,
Speaker 1: for coming on and enlightening us about Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me and to honor be hanging out with you go
Speaker 1: has been fantastic, very fun. And Julie, do you want
Speaker 1: to can you give a shout out to where folks
Speaker 1: can find stuff to blow your mind? They can go
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. You can
Speaker 1: find videos, books, uh mold, podcast episodes, all sorts of
Speaker 1: stuff there. Um. So now we want to hear from
Speaker 1: our scientific listeners out there. What do you think about
Speaker 1: the stuff we just talked about? Are you in science?
Speaker 1: Are you doing research right now as you listen to
Speaker 1: us podcast? We want to hear from you. Email us
Speaker 1: at mom stuff at Discovery dot com. And we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of letters to share with you when we
Speaker 1: come right back from a quick break. And now back
Speaker 1: to our letters. So I've got one here from Helen
Speaker 1: and it's subjec line's language choice. So she writes, I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of your podcast US and look forward
Speaker 1: to seeing what topics you will be covering each week.
Speaker 1: I find your subject choices fascinating, and I'm always impressed
Speaker 1: by your respectable and measured approach to controversial our sensitive subjects.
Speaker 1: I'm writing because I was shocked to hear the words
Speaker 1: spastic used to describe an inattentive waiter in your Women
Speaker 1: and Wine episode. I'm from the UK, where this is
Speaker 1: a very offensive and outdated term to describe a person
Speaker 1: with cerebral palsy. I realized that you broadcast in the
Speaker 1: US and that there are cultural differences surrounding slang, but
Speaker 1: I felt I had to point out that to a
Speaker 1: wider audience. Hearing this term in your show is quite
Speaker 1: shocking and doesn't fit well with the image you portray otherwise.
Speaker 1: So our apologies if we have ended any sensitive ears.
Speaker 1: We certainly did not know that, and yeah, we we
Speaker 1: are hyper sensitive about our language. So thank you Helen
Speaker 1: for pointing that out to us. Yeah, no, no offense intended. Um, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but thank you for writing in and bring it to
Speaker 1: our attention. Well, I have a letter here from Laura
Speaker 1: talking about our Women and why Fine episode. She says,
Speaker 1: I just graduated from the University of California Davis with
Speaker 1: a degree in viticulture and analogy, and I absolutely love
Speaker 1: working in wine production. I'm currently listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: while working harvest in Burgundy, France. I wanted to share
Speaker 1: a few words. As a woman in wine production. Wine
Speaker 1: making is an incredible field if you love science, agriculture,
Speaker 1: working with your hands, and of course fermented beverages. She says, well,
Speaker 1: there are many women involved in all aspects of the
Speaker 1: wine industry. We are typically underrepresented in the production side
Speaker 1: because of all the reasons you mentioned. Wine making requires
Speaker 1: a lot of physical activity and strength, and yes there are,
Speaker 1: in rare cases superstitious people who believe are unique vaginal
Speaker 1: flora will affect the wine. In my experience, the gap
Speaker 1: between men and women in production is definitely shrinking, and
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to say that all of the wineries where
Speaker 1: I've worked have been fairly evenly split between men and
Speaker 1: women in production. There are still somewhat gendered tasks, however,
Speaker 1: which can be frustrating. Generally speaking, women are often see
Speaker 1: doing more laboratory analyzes, fruits sorting during harvest, and cleaning
Speaker 1: the smaller, more petite tank, while men are often the
Speaker 1: ones handling the forklift, driving, heavy lifting and vineyard management.
Speaker 1: Of course, these are generalizations. All is fair in love
Speaker 1: and wine making, and when you're working sixteen hour days
Speaker 1: during harvest, you'll do whatever task needs to be done.
Speaker 1: So thank you Laura for you two, since I am
Speaker 1: so impressed that you had time to write this this
Speaker 1: lovely email during this wine making harvest festivals. Hey, and
Speaker 1: she counts as a woman in stem. Indeed, you did
Speaker 1: a culture, a culture well thanks to everyone who's written in.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: send your letters. You can also follow us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcast and find us on Facebook and
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