Women in Physics Match Men in Success

The New York Times > Science: "Only about one-eighth of the physics professors at Harvard are women, a statistic that might seem to support the recent assertion by its president, Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, that fewer women than men are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He also suggested that a difference in 'intrinsic aptitude' between the sexes might help explain the disparity. A report released Friday by the American Institute of Physics offers a contradictory conclusion: after they earn a bachelor's degree in physics, American women are just as successful as men at wending their way up the academic ladder. Physics continues to be the most male-dominated field among the sciences. Men hold 90 percent of physics faculty positions, and earned 82 percent of the doctoral degrees in 2003. 'I'm not saying it was easy for women,' said Dr. Rachel Ivie, a sociologist and an author of the report. But she said her statistics showed no indication of discrimination in the hiring of female physicists - supporting one of Dr. Summers's points - or women dropping out of the field at a higher rate than men, countering what Dr. Summers had offered as the most important reason there are fewer women in science and engineering. Dr. Ivie also said that in suggesting that men and women might have different intrinsic aptitude in science, Dr. Summers did not take into account the continuing progress of women in fields like physics. While women earned only 18 percent of the Ph.D.'s in the United States in 2003, that is far higher than 1970, when the percentage was 2.4. "If it's differences in innate ability, I don't know what innate abilities would have changed so quickly," Dr. Ivie said."