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Articles

Vol. 12, No. 1 = No. 12 (2002 Fall)

Context Factors Related to Women Attrition From a Graduate Science Program: A Case Study

  • Maria Madalena Ferreira
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21423/awlj-v12.a161
Submitted
June 19, 2017
Published
2017-06-12

Abstract

Seeing that the average brain-weight of women is about five ounces less than that of men, on merely anatomical grounds we should be prepared to expect a marked inferiority of intellectual power in the former. (Romanes, 1887, p. 383)

Arguments such as this one, seeking to bar women’s access to higher education, were still common in the popular science press by the end of the 19th century. Yet, in this unwelcoming climate, many women made important contributions to science (Rossiter, 1974). Some of them, Jane Colden (1724-1766), Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), and Mary Somerville (1780-1872), were mostly self-taught or learned science while helping their scientist fathers (Rossiter, 1974). However, many at the time dismissed these early women scientists as aberrations as illustrated by an article in an 1887 issue of The Popular Science Monthly:

The savante - the woman of science - like the female athlete, is simply an anomaly, an exceptional being, holding a position more or less intermediate between the two sexes. In the one case the brain, as in the other the muscular system has undergone an abnormal development. (p. 205)

Although women have since secured access to all scientific fields, their representation in many areas continues to lag behind their male counterparts. In 2000, American universities awarded to women only 15.8% of the PhDs. in engineering, 24.2% in the physical sciences, and 46.9% in the life sciences (National Opinion Research Center, 2001). Women’s representation was even lower in some sub-disciplines in the aforementioned areas. For example, within physical sciences women earned only 14.7% of the Ph.Ds. in physics and astronomy and 16.5% of the Ph.Ds. in computer science (National Opinion Research Center, 2001).