February 10, 2000
Vol . 17, No. 3
February 10, 2000 Vol . 17, No. 3
Kimura responds
Ms. Scholefield's accusation (SF News, Jan.
27)) that I made unsubstantiated claims concerning overhiring,
fellowship awards, and productivity of women academics, is both
disingenuous and offensive. She must know that opinion pieces
(and letters) do not allow space for references. She could easily
have obtained these during our recent email correspondence, as
may anyone else. Her own commentary dismisses the need for actual
facts, in favour of subjectivity and anecdotal evidence.
That approach unfortunately exemplifies a common feminist aversion
to objective evidence, particularly in the form of hard numbers.
For example, her report that women made up only 31 per cent of
hirees at SFU in the last five years is meaningless without knowledge
of the percent of qualified women applicants. If the number of
women applicants were significantly lower than 31 per cent, the
pattern would be consistent with other evidence that women have
been over-hired in Canadian universities in the past two decades.
However, I was informed by the equity office at SFU that they
do not record number of applicants of each sex, to faculty positions;
perhaps another device for promoting diversity?
Similarly, when in the 1980s NSERC gave only 15 per cent of its
University Research Fellowship awards to women, they constituted
less than 15 per cent of the applicants. NSERC, like many other
institutions, has been bamboozled by feminist rhetoric rather
than influenced by objective evidence. MIT science dean Birgeneau
has been sharply criticized on precisely the same grounds (reference
available). Complaints of victimization not backed up by evidence
are not admissible bases for preferential treatment.
Hiring the best person for the job is of course an ideal not always
met in real life. But to reject that ideal in favour of an ill-informed
diversity principle is a recipe for mediocrity.
Doreen Kimura, president
Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship
Identifying the best
Re: Doreen Kimura's Comment piece in SF News, Nov.4.
I have always been jealous of those able to identify the best.
Is the best the easily quantifiable highest score in math or the
most publications? Or, do the best have other characteristics
such as being well rounded and sympathetic and supportive of others?
Kimura is caught in a common trap that the characteristics of
men are the best. It is my view that many women do things slightly
differently from men, and that these differences have value in
science and engineering .
After the NSERC Women's Faculty Award was terminated I was part
of a task force to review the situation for Canadian women in
science and engineering. The results showed that: the program
had increased the representation of women faculty in participating
universities, that women faculty tended to have more female graduate
students, that women were rarely involved in centres of excellence
or among the high-flier category of grant recipients, and that
female post-doctoral fellows had slightly fewer publications than
their male colleagues.
How should we interpret these findings? A paper in American
Scientist (Vol. 84, 1996) showed that although women published
less than their male colleagues, their papers had more citations
higher impact. Several analyses have shown that symposia
organized by women include more women than those organized by
men. Similarly centres of excellence initiated by men are likely
to include mostly men. And a study of how men and women evaluated
academic records showed that men distinguished between good and
slightly less good academic records if the better record were
associated with a male name rather than with a female name (Social
Psychology Quarterly, Vol 57). Grants based on academic records
may not be judged without bias and women may be less likely to
be included in collaborative projects.
I have seen too many votes of university committees split on gender
lines to not recognize a bias. With this bias in science and engineering
at universities the inclusion of women will be slow. Programs
such as the University Faculty Awards speed the rate of transition.
Finally, Kimura finds unconscionable that $1 million was spent
last year on University Faculty Awards (0.2 per cent of the NSERC
budget). If you compare this to the equal amount of money that
NSERC awards to a single individual (almost certainly a male)
in the Gerhard Herzberg prize, I think one is readily convinced
that UFAs are extremely good value per dollar.
Judith Myers
Department of zoology and faculty of agricultural sciences University
of British Columbia
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