WOMEN, SCIENCE and EDUCATION Giulia PANCHERI Research Physicist, INFN Frascati National Laboratories INFN Equal Opportunity Committee The discussion to follow is based on, and refers mostly to, the field of science in which I have experience, that of elementary particle physics. I also start in the belief that there exists no such thing as a feminine and masculine science, at least not in the field where I have been active. It is the conjunct observation of the educational history of women and the history of modern science which may shed light on the causes of the dearth of women in science. It is evident to this writer that the main reason, albeit not the only one, for the scarce participation of women to modern science is ascribable to the fact that women were not admitted as students in those universities where modern science was formulated and taught. The admission policy of some of the most famous universities with regards to women is illustrated in the following few examples. 1. At Cambridge, in 1869 Emily Davies and others founded the first residential university-level institution of higher learning for women, Girton Colege, soon to be followed in 1872 by Newnham College. Attempts to make women full members of the University were repeatedly defeated until 1947. 2. At Oxford, an Association for the Education of Women in Oxford was formed in 1878, and was followed by the founding of four women's colleges and the Society for Home Students. From about 1884 women were allowed (duly chaperoned) to attend university lectures and to sit at the examinations, and from 1920 they were entitled to full membership of the university and allowed to receive degrees. 3. At University of Durham, the first women students entered in 1896. The first all women's college had its 100th anniversary last year. 4. At Harvard, until 1943, Radcliffe students were not permitted to attend classes with Harvard students, even though Radcliffe had been officially incorporated in 1894. Thus women were escluded precisely from some of those istitutions where modern science developed. The lack of participation of women, which still persists up to these days, has to be seen in connection with the fact that in the XVIth and XVIIth century the hub of scientific thought moved from the South to the North of Europe, from the Catholic to the Protestant countries. This happened for a variety of reasons, partly also because of the cultural shock following Galileo's abiura in 1633. Thus, the different higher education policies in Northern and Southern cultures became a major factor in deciding about women's participation to science. Most of the Northern European Universities, unlike their counterparts in the South (the most famous countercase is that of Bologna University) did not admit women either as teachers or as students and therefore women became excluded from learning science in university setting. This denial of higher education in England during the Modern Era follows in part from the dissolution of convents during the Reformation, with the rich revenues from those convents being used to found men's colleges at Cambridge and Oxford. It is important to note that the convents had been the traditional educational setting for women in the Middle Ages and their dissolution by the part of Henry VIII left women bereft of a university-like instruction. The requirement of a university setting for learning physics and the "hard" sciences stems from the observation, well known to physics students and teachers alike, that physics laws and their applications do not come easily to the student, as they require memory and leaps of faith (who has ever seen different objects, like a feather or an iron ball, fall at the same speed, except for a visionary like Galileo?). Training of the mind from practising scientists and in formal settings is a conditio-sine-qua-non of learning to use the inductive-deductive process characteristic of modern science. Since in the second half of the XXth century, all major European and American universities, including Harvard, admitted women students, one could then expect that the differences should be fading away, as new generations of young women get educated and start training in science. However, there still are major problems faced by science in relation with women and one is led to address the question as to why there are so few women in basic research now. Assuming that from the point of view of innate abilities, qualities like natural intelligence, disposition to study, capacity for hard work and intuition belong to women as well as to men in (at least) equal measure, the obstacles must be found in the lack of other necessary, albeit not sufficient, conditions which pertain respectively to : (I) the emotional sphere (II) the relationship with mentors and teachers. I leave the second point, with all its implications on the question of quotas, to the other contributors, and will discuss here only the first point. As far as the emotional sphere is concerned, stability, in the sense of fundamentally stable emotional ties, constitutes an often necessary condition for the scientist who wishes to concentrate her/his intellectual resources on internal creativity. As marriage is one of the elements which may ensure emotional stability, it must be noted that women active in science are at a disadvantage, as various studies have shown that women scientists or engineers have a lower probability of being married than their men colleagues. In addition, married women scientists have a higher probability than men of being married to a colleague, thus entering into another problem faced by women scientists and their spouses, the "dual career" problem, whereupon these couples need to find positions in the same field in nearby institutions. Finally, women who wish to follow the natural pattern of having both a family and a scientific career, encounter a set of typical drawbacks, like 1) in daily life, even with the most open minded companion, women are hardly able to dedicate all their time to research, since they are not willing to ignore the emotional needs of children, elderly parents and family in general 2) for the same reason, but also because of childbearing during the years of career building, women do not have the geographical and professional mobility of their male colleagues. These obstacles are very difficult to overcome. In many other fields, art and literature in particular, women have been able to go around these obstacles, by inventing or creating the famous "room of one's own" of Woolfian memory. But in the sciences, a room is not enough. You need a laboratory and other scientists, especially in the modern sciences. However, one needs to be ingenious and try to get out of the usual schemes, which define the modus operandi of the man scientist. One of the ways is to develop the "Life starts at forty" attitude. It is one of the recurrent myths of modern sciences that great discoveries are made by scientists before they turn 40. This fact is particularly depressing for women, whose biological clock runs in the same direction, but for producing children, not great discoveries. However, we know that women live longer than men, by almost 10 years, in fact. This can be used to our advantage, by allowing during our young years a period of "latency", between 25 and 40 years of age. During this period the requirements of family life may slow down professional endeavours. For the creative and ambitious woman, this may be difficult to accept without emotional stress, but it can become bearable if she can foresee that at the end of this period it will be possible to reenter the professional and scientific life with renewed courage and emotional steam. This is not always possible, though, especially in the extremely competitive world of fundamental reearch. In addition most programs for the training and hiring of young scientists have an age limit which makes it very difficult if not impossible to obtain scientific posts after 35 or 40 years of age. Finally, even without these restrictions, in order to come back into the mainstream of research, first of all one must never have completely abandoned doing research, and secondly one must accept being behind in salary and professional levels. In a number of cases however, this may be the only way to build one's own family and remain active in fundamental research. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS In order to increase the participant of women, young and not so young, to science, it is recommended that at the European and national level : 1. Fellowships for graduate studies in science be increased in number or made mandatory in all EU supported programs, thus fostering mobility and professional oportunities for young women who may stil be without family ties 2.The upper limit of 35 years of age for young researchers be increased to 40 3.The upper limit of 40 years for permanent research positions be abolished or increased to 45 4.Mandatory retirement age in research and educational institutions be abolished and, after the age of 65, left to individual decisions, thus allowing women to make up for the years dedicated to family. SOME SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY [A] Science and Enginnering 1998, National Science Foundation, Washington,D.C., 1998 [B] Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation , Washington D.C., 1996 [C] Women In Science 1994 in SCIENCE , Vol. 263, pag 1345, 11 Marzo 1984. [D] H.J. Mozans " Woman in Science", U. of Notre Dame Press. Originally D. Appleton 1913, New York. [E] Richard Feynman (Messenger Lectures at Cornell U., 1964) [F] George Gamow, The Great Physicists from Galileo to Einstein, Dover Publ. New York, 1961