The Subjection of Women in Science and Technology

Henry Etzkowitz

International Triple Helix Institutewww.triplehelix.net

Visiting ProfessorBirkbeck, University of London

Quandam Faculty Fellow,Clayman Institute of Gender Research, Stanford University

Source: San Francisco Chronicle 15 March, 2015

Subjection of Women,

1869 John Stuart Mill and Harriet

Taylor: Overt and Covert co-authors

Two Silicon Valleys

• Low participation of women in high tech and venture capital firms

• Brought to light by studies publicized in media • Some firms commit to improve

• Unequal terms of participation• Ellen Pao’s discrimination lawsuit against

iconic venture capital firm

Academic Rape• Women’s accomplishments may be poached

with impunity• Classic case: Rosalind Franklin’s DNA

crystallographic photographs secretly viewed• Contemporary: UK Dean bullying charge

against female faculty member “you haven’t learned your lesson”

• Columbia Computer Science Faculty Member/Female grad student: degree/patent choice

• Tip of Iceberg or anomalous instances? • Structured Gendered Inequality vs Scientific

Universalism• Gender damage• More widespread than predicted by

Mertonian norms• Self policing inadequate; formal damage

controls necessary

Scientific Fraud Redux?

Solutions

• Fix the Women• Fix the Men• Fix the Knowledge• Fix the System

Fix the Women

• Lean In Cheryl SandBerg

• Double Bind: Bateson

Fix the Men

• NSF Advance Workshops for Department Chairs and Faculty: typical proposal element

• Feminist Therapist turned around department chair – Athena Unbound instance

Fix the Knowledge

• Gendered Innovation Project: Londa Schiebinger Stanford/EU supported

• E.g. Framingham Heart Study

• 3 Routledge volumes

Fix the System

• US Discrimination Lawsuits• UK Funding Tied to Gender Equity• Sweden Quotas• StartX Gender Blind Accelerator Vs Stanford

Fraternity regime

30 Years Added to Lifespan

• Implications for Work/Life Balance• Life Cycle Vs Life Spiral models

a 1978 tinker-toys-and-yarn representation of the Life Spiral model of adulthood as a non-linear process