The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come under scrutiny after a recent study showed significant increases in the number of female professors, causing critics to believe that the university might be favoring women.
Women teaching and researching in fields dealing with the sciences are accused of winning accolades and ascending to higher positions on part of lower standards placed for gender equality, according to The New York Times.
The assumption is that they “win important prizes or positions…because of their gender,” according to the article. This has been said to reflect the trend in university faculties for science and technology across the country.
“I don’t agree that the standards are lower,” said Joyce Wong, an associate professor in Boston University’s biomedical engineering department. “In fact, I believe that women are held to higher standards in many cases and have to prove themselves more.”
The MIT faculty members have also had female undergraduates ask them how to defend themselves against male peers who claim that “[the females] got into MIT because of affirmative action,” the article said.
“From other students, I have experienced [this], especially the disbelief that a woman could not succeed as a doctor,” said Portia Considine, a College of Arts and Sciences senior.
MIT conducted the study as a follow-up to an earlier study published by the school in 1999, which revealed that “as of 1994 there were 22 women faculty, [and] 252 male faculty.”
The committee overseeing the study also projected that the school’s numbers reflected gender inequalities in other schools, according to an MIT faculty newsletter from March 1999. While MIT has moved past its gender gap, the new assumptions raise questions about how seriously males in the field take their female counterparts.
BU’s College of Engineering’s faculty members said they believe strives have been made toward gender equality.
“I have not experienced discrimination here,” said Anna Swan, an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at BU.
Swan said, however, that she has heard of women needing more qualifications than their male counterparts for certain positions, fellowships and other opportunities in research.
“I think it’s always difficult in academia,” Wong said. “If you look at any kind of symphony orchestra audition, they do it behind a closed curtain because you have no idea who is behind that. It’s almost impossible to do that in academia, [but] as long as there’s a process that’s clear, you have to make sure that one group does not feel that they’re discriminated against.”
“That being said, I think there’s definitely been an improvement,” she said.
“The issue of gender inequality will probably come up [in my career],” said Samantha Chan, an ENG freshman. “Some people do not want to accept that females are capable of doing what males can do in this field. Although, I think that this issue is starting to disappear and everyone is becoming pretty accepting.”
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