FCIWYPSC

Look smart! (Bonus points for not being sexist.) February 23, 2011

Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineerblogs.org, engineering, feminism, grad school, physics, science.
Tags: education, engineering, impostor syndrome, perceptions, reddit, science, sexism
10 comments

Some of you are undoubtedly aware of the conversation that started with Fluxor’s post about women engineers and perception at our favorite engineering blog.  This started a huge conversation on reddit (which can be summarized as “women are incompetent and keeping men from getting the jobs they deserve”) as well as a response discussion on reddit2xc discussing how frustrating and pervasive the attitude seems to be.  Frautech weighed in with her incredibly intelligent ladybrain.

At FrauTech’s blog, Chris Gammell wrote:

Here’s all I can come up with for why in the world someone would think this way.

1. “THERE’S A GIRL IN THE ROOM!”
2. “I MUST PROVE I’M SMART. I KNOW, I’LL PUT HER DOWN.”

It’s a good theory, and while I don’t know that it’s right, I think he may actually be coming close.

When I was working on my MS, I ended up taking a class with a guy who was a superstar as an undergrad but had just started his master’s.  We were taking a class in emag, and after class, we’d sit and talk.  I would often go off on how some things frustrated me, what I didn’t understand, how confusing certain topics were, etc.

After about a month, I was asking him what he’d figured out on a homework set.  He looked around nervously, leaned over to me and shook his head.

“I have no idea what’s going on in this class.”

*poof*

Every notion I had of him being so much more intelligent and competent than me shattered like glass.  I really thought he knew this stuff…and I spent a lot of the semester helping him out on homework.

I realized at that point how much posturing goes on in engineering classrooms: guys really do feel a need to look smart, and engineering is notoriously competitive.  When I was taking classes with other female engineers, we had no problems discussing our frustrations and confusion with topics in the class.  Guys never did.  They never let on that they didn’t know something (except for the one experience).  I suspect this is part of adhering to the stereotype that men can’t let anyone know their weaknesses.

Reading the comments over at Reddit, there is a big part of me wondering if the whole “women are so much less compentent than men” issue that keeps coming up is due to the fact that women don’t feel shame in discussing their frustrations and struggles.  Most men simply would never do that, and so they take women doing so as a sign that they aren’t competent.  In reality, they’re just being honest about how their feeling, and due to things like impostor syndrome, a lot of women worry about failing and not keeping up with their colleagues.  I really wonder how many men view these admissions as signs of weakness and failure, reinforcing a view that women aren’t as competent.  In reality, the admission may be verbalizing concerns while having nothing to do with actual competence and ability.  Women perceive they are not keeping up with their colleagues, they say something to this effect, and men then assume this means they really aren’t keeping up with their colleagues.

This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that women, in some engineering programs, are so few that they are often more easily remembered than male classmates who may, in fact, really be doing far worse.  Considering most women I’ve run into have had a lot of difficulty finding study partners, I’m blown away that women do as well as they do.  There have been a number of studies showing that women tend to fare worse than men in traditional classroom environments due to reduced interaction.  One example is a study showing that women fare as well as men when the classroom is interactive (see here).  There have also been studies (although not definitive) showing that women tend to fare better in online learning because the social advantage men tend to have in such classes is removed in online learning. (Unfortunately, I’ve scoured Google scholar and can’t find the reference.  If you have it, let me know.)  This isolation has a lot of negative consequences both academically and career-wise.

I don’t think, therefore, that the real problem is that women are less competent.  I think some of the “observational data” is very perception driven and fueled by differences in communication.  Men need to understand that women who are actually very capable fear failing, even when they are doing vastly better than their male classmates and colleagues.