
Girls sweep at Google Science Fair - gopi
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19google.html
======
emily37
Hmm. To me, the problem with "girl power", etc. is that, as a young female
scientist, you're inundated with suggestions that girls are your "team" and
boys are your rivals. If you hear enough about "girl power" growing up, you
start to feel that you have to represent your gender well: that you have to
beat boys on tests (though it doesn't matter if you beat other girls on
tests), or that knowing more than a male colleague is something to be proud
of. "Girl power" was what I said in elementary school when the girls beat the
guys at soccer or something, but when you start to use that sentiment in
relation to intellectual abilities, you foster a hostile work environment and
you encourage intellectual competition rather than collaboration across
gender.

On a related note, here's a NYT blog post that I saw recently that highlights
the science fair winners' gender and just goes up in flames:
[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/girl-power-wins-
at-...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/girl-power-wins-at-googles-
first-science-fair/) It ends by suggesting that Google hired Marissa Mayer and
Susan Wojcicki because they would help recruit more women, which made me
cringe, even though I know that the author probably didn't intend to make
exactly that point.

------
ricefield
I didn't read the article in is entirety, but one line popped out at me, where
one of the finalists says something like "Yeah! Girl power!"

Am I the only one who feels like, although men may 'dominate' the hard
sciences, one of the reasons (among many others which I won't discuss) why
girls may succeed at stages like this is because of the encouragement from a
"girl power!" (perhaps, underdog?) mentality?

If boys won and went with "guy power!" they would simply be accused of being
sexist or even misogynist rather than fair-minded, or intrinsically motivated.

~~~
nancye
In fifth grade, my science teacher asked me if I'd copied answers off the boy
who sat in front of me, even though my grade average was 20 points higher than
his. In sixth grade, my math teacher was well known to favor the boys in the
class and would only call on me if I was the only one with my hand raised. In
eighth grade, another teacher chose two boys to represent the school at a math
competition even though I had the highest average in the class. All little
things, but I still remember them.

In high school, my all-girl team won the state science league twice, and I
finished first individually. Did we take pride and inspiration in the fact
that we'd beaten all the boys in the state? Absolutely! Were we truly at an
advantage when it came to math and science education? I never felt like it,
and I knew a lot of bright girls who internalized the "girls aren't supposed
to be good at this" message in ways that affected their education and career
choices. Sometimes a little girl power is just what helps you to keep going in
the face of subtle or overt discouragement from the people around you.

~~~
Helianthus
which is all true and good, but doesn't change the fundamental unfairness that
it ranges from discouraged to taboo to say something like "Guy power!" or
"Yeah, go men!"

how many bright men are internalizing messages detrimental to their education
and career choices? maybe a little guy power would help them keep going in the
face of subtle etc.

~~~
Apocryphon
I don't really think majoritarian pride is as uplifting or fun as pride in
achieving well despite being part of a disadvantaged minority.

However, we should get rid of majoritarian _shame/guilt_ , of course.

~~~
Helianthus
I honestly don't see why we don't get rid of this sort of group pride
altogether.

~~~
Apocryphon
Well, when there is greater equality, this sort of group pride would naturally
disappear. A small price to pay for getting rid of inequality.

------
credo
_> >Dr. Cerf said. "This is just a reminder that women are fully capable of
doing same or better quality work than men can." _

I hope those those who needed a reminder about the capabilities of girls or
women see this news.

However, (and I realize this will be controversial) imo this result doesn't
contradict the general notion that girls (in mainstream American culture) are
discouraged (by societal and cultural pressures) from engaging in science and
engineering. Two of the three girls are Indian-American and these girls
presumably don't face the same pressures that most other American girls face.

For that matter, I think that women in countries like India, China, Russia
etc. are much more represented in science and engineering (in their countries)
than native-born women in the US.

~~~
Scriptor
One possible reason for this is that in those countries science/engineering is
often one of the few routes an educated women has available. I've only heard
this anecdotally and haven't been able to research it, but it could be one
factor.

~~~
pavel_lishin
She responded:

I am Pavel's mom who was born and raised in USSR. I don't think that being an
engineer was the only route for a woman to become educated - women could
become doctors or teachers as well. As a matter of fact there were more female
doctors and teachers than male. Accountant degree was also very popular and
obtainable among women. I think that credo may be right - it is societal and
cultural pressure that prevent girls from going into these fields.

~~~
Scriptor
The person who told me the above was my own mom, who is from South Asia :) In
that region at least medicine and engineering are very common for girls to go
into, not so much other fields requiring a college degree (I think). Again,
just anecdotes.

------
grannyg00se
Dr. Cerf [google's chief Internet Evangelist] said. "This is just a reminder
that women are fully capable of doing same or better quality work than men
can."

I somehow find this quote to be rather unfortunate. I know he meant it in a
good way, but it makes it seem as though the general public needs to be
reminded that women aren't less intelligent than men. Perhaps for many that
reminder may be required, but I guess the fact that we need such a reminder
saddens me. I would have preferred something like that not be mentioned. Or
perhaps I would prefer that it need not be pointed out at all.

~~~
sp332
_"Personally I think that’s amazing, because throughout my entire life, I’ve
heard science is a field where men go into," Ms. Bose said. "It just starts to
show you that women are stepping up in science, and I’m excited that I was
able to represent maybe just a little bit of that."_

I'm not sure where or who, exactly, but there are people who think that only
men go into science. It's unfortunate, but apparently, this really is
necessary.

------
meow
The winning entry was for finding a way to overcome the resistance to a drug
by cancer cells. I'm curious, how does a 17 year old get access to labs,
chemicals, cell cultures required to conduct the study ? Is it common in US
for students of this age to have access to such things ?

~~~
Qo
I wondered the same thing about the third place contestant. The write-up said
she measured the carcinogens in grilled chicken using a high pressure liquid
chromatograph-mass spectrometer. When I was in college, they would only let us
use the analytic equipment in planned labs under supervised conditions. I can
only imagine the response if I went to the lab manager and asked if I could
put a piece of chicken in his spectrometer.

~~~
kiiski
Perhaps they just have some special arrangements for people entering (big)
contests.

------
scythe
>For the winning research Ms. Bose looked at a chemotherapy drug, cisplatin,
that is commonly taken by women with ovarian cancer. The problem is that the
cancer cells tend to grow resistant to cisplatin over time, and Ms. Bose set
out to find a way to counteract that.

Original study: <https://sites.google.com/site/ampkandcisplatinresistance/>

Doesn't seem to have been published yet, but presumably it will be.

~~~
bedris
Very nice work by a high school student! However, the hypothesis that AMPK can
protect cells from cisplatin-induced cytotoxicity has been around for about
four years:

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1582-4934.2009....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1582-4934.2009.00663.x/full)

<http://www.jbc.org/content/283/7/3731.short>

------
timdellinger
This reminds of research showing that "Over 80% of high school leadership
positions are now held by girls (Fiscus, 1997.)" ( from
<http://cfge.wm.edu/Gifted%20Educ%20Artices/GenderGenius.htm> )

It still remains to be seen how doing more of something (or being more
successful at something) in high school translates to being successful at that
endeavor later in life. Time will tell!

~~~
potatolicious
Parental and social expectations are a big one.

As an Asian immigrant, and I knew plenty of Asian women who did superbly in
high school - student council, extracurriculars, excellent academics, etc
etc... who had the rug pulled from under them as soon as they graduated.

Some of them made it into prestigious universities far from home - but weren't
allowed to go, since "girls shouldn't be too far from family"... whereas dudes
can, apparently. A few (thankfully not many) were dissuaded from going into
lucrative fields since it "wouldn't leave time for children later" or would
make it "unlikely to find a good husband" (in Asian circles this usually means
stability and a fat paycheck).

It would not surprise me if, among all the reasons why women are held back in
society, their own parents are a huge cause.

------
niels_olson
I recall when I was on staff at the Naval Academy, there was a persistent
finding in various in-house studies that the female midshipmen got more
positive attention and feedback from virtually everyone, from staff and
faculty to other midshipmen. Thus paradoxically, going from all male to mostly
male made it even less likely for any given male student to find a mentor.

------
exDM69
This is what you get when you replace boys' toys such as lego blocks and
meccanos, and to a lesser extent, hack it-yourself-computers like c64's and
dos boxes with xboxes.

I got my spark for science and engineering when I was a kid by building legos,
making electric circuits from a construction kit and learning the baby steps
of programming with qbasic.

------
FraaJad
Paging Vivek Wadhwa to write an article about Immigrants' children doing well
in STEM. (6 out of 20 finalists are Indian-American) [1]

[1] <http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/finalists.html>

~~~
meow
It's actually 5 out of 11 (considering USA). Other finalists are from
different countries (including 1 from India)

------
bm98
The top three winners were all in the health sciences. Had they been in
engineering, physical science, or computer science then it would have been
more newsworthy given the gender gap in those fields.

------
smallegan
Anyone else think this was going to be about the janitorial staff at the
Google Science Fair based on the title?

------
duggan
I definitely thought this was going to be an article about the juxtaposition
of an all female cast of cleaning professionals with an all male science fair
as a broad analogy for the "glass ceiling" effect.

Glad to see I was mistaken :)

------
gooberdlx
Go Fort Worth!

~~~
gooberdlx
-1? The first place girl was from the Fort Worth area and I was showing pride... I don't get downvotes.

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fjabre
I don't care if they won specifically because they were female. It's a sausage
fest in the bay area. Time to get the women on board guys. They need to be
part of the 'future' too.

~~~
fjabre
0 points for speaking the truth. At least we're honest with ourselves right?

