The Association for Women in Science and the Society for Women Engineers asked two of the presidential candidates some questions regarding issues affecting women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math.) We found the responses posted over at Sciencewomen. Here is a link to the PDF of all the responses.

When reading McCain’s responses you will notice that he repeatedly says that “Discrimination on the basis of  sex  is abhorrent, and my administration  will  vigorously enforce  federal anti-discrimination  laws.  All people should  have the opportunity to reach their potential  based on  merit and hard work.”   While this may sound good, in reality it is not.  What Senator McCain is really saying is that he opposes any affirmative action policies to help recruit, promote, and retain women in the sciences.  Senator McCain is against any efforts to help women survive and thrive in STEM.  His use of the words “merit and hard work” are especially offensive since they show a willful ignorance about the current discrimination in STEM against women.  White males love to cling to the idea that we live in a meritocracy.  However, as we feminist chemists know, merit and hard work often have nothing to do with how women do in STEM.  In fact, a feminist legal scholar at Stanford, Deborah Rhode, has written an excellent paper entitled “myths of the meritocracy,” which shatters the idea that if you are woman and just work hard, you will get what you deserve based upon your merit.  (See also previous post regarding gender bias in assessments of postdoctoral fellowships awards.)

Also, it is clear from McCain’s responses that he did not even read the report “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” compiled by the National Science Foundation.  He instead argues that we need more money and efforts put into K-12 education.  However, the main issues facing women in STEM need to be addressed at the levels of graduate school and professorship.  It is in these upper echelons where we are leaking women by the hundreds.  An even more ridiculous comment made by McCain is the concern that “ the number of computer science  majors has  fallen  by  half over the  last eight years.”  I wonder if McCain has ever set foot in a computer science department at a major research university.  The first thing he may (or may not- in his case) notice is that there are virtually NO women.  The reason there are no women is because the men have created such a hostile environment for women that no person, unless she is a masochist, wants to go into computer science. If there are no women in computer science and women make up over 50% of the population, it is obvious that we could increase our numbers in this field simply by recruiting women.

Obama’s responses, on the other hand, show a better understanding of the issues.  However, in his responses I still don’t sense the appropriate urgency for increasing the numbers of women in STEM.  He gets off topic by discussing a variety of other underrepresented groups, such as disabled people and non-native English speakers. We are in favor of making sure science is open to all people, but the questions asked by these two groups were specifically about women.  Women make up over 50% of the population and a paltry 10% of full professors in science.  Women are the underrpresented majority and are the group of people facing the largest amount of discrimination in this society, and indeed, around the globe.