Reply to comment

This reading seemed to be pretty much the same song and dance. Science is competitive, it likes to weed out the bad eggs, so on, and so forth. Maybe I'm too Darwinian or Adam Smithian in my thinking, but aren't many, many aspects of our world are built on this idea that competition is best. This is a question we are not just grapplng in science but also in the world in general. When is competition without a purpose?

I think we're running around in circles here, saying the same thing. I believe that science is not inherently going to be an uncooperative, 'masculine' environment, and I think we're all saying that. Are we arguing that it is not, to personify science, a psychological problem but a socialization problem? That we make science what is it? Then we are back to the problem. If science is what we make it, how do we make it something else? By changing how you teach science, ideally by introducing more women into the field or introducing Bryn Mawr-esk supportive techniques. Yes, good. How do you do that if women are turned off by the current teaching methods?

Either we're just trying to give ourselves a pat on the back by saying we (Bryn Mawr College's science departments) have got the answer or are moving in that directon...or this constant chicken and the egg scenario is going to make my head hurt for a while.